Search engine optimization on Ecommerce related web sites can be a little different than static web sites. However, other opportunities exist for shopping cart web sites.

Search engine optimization companies often see e-commerce (shopping cart) web sites as an obstacle to their search engine optimization platform.

Shopping carts are generally template based and most content is pulled from the database.

Its not the typical static HTML web site that is seen in the SEO training text book, but is it really possible to optimize a shopping cart? Well, maybe.

Not all shopping carts are created equal. Most shopping carts written in ASP, PHP, or related languages, can be optimized within the limitations set forth by the program.

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Speed is everything when it comes to trade and commerce. You might have the best ice cream sundae in the world, but if it takes you an hour to make it and another hour to deliver it, you’ve lost a lot of potential customers.

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Pay-per-click advertising doesn’t always smile upon budget-minded businesses; even “clean” PPC campaigns (i.e., ones that aren’t plagued by click fraud) can be costly.

Why not dump the whole thing, then? Some users of Mountain Media’s software have been able to do just that - without hurting their rankings.

Mountain Media recently released Mountain Commerce 6.0, an updated version of its “search engine friendly software.”

The company also put out one of the best press releases I’ve ever seen (those things can get pretty dry at times).

Don’t think that Mountain Media is hiding behind its words, though - the company unveiled its newest product at PubCon, in the midst of a bunch SEO pros. O

Our own Chris Richardson attended that event, and he was impressed by Mountain Commerce’s effects.

“The resulting web pages have their dynamic links mod rewritten,” Chris noted, “making them easier for search engine bots to navigate while avoiding duplicate content issues.”

The latest update from Mountain Media represents a substantiation of Chris’s observation and the company’s own claims.

Two users of Mountain Commerce - FireplaceEssentials.com and Ejazzlines.com - reported on how they were able to “ditch” their PPC campaigns (which cost them $40,000 and $20,000 per year, respectively).

Ejazzlines co-founder Doug DuBoff gave an official statement of support.

“There’s no question that the Mountain Commerce software has helped our search results,” he said. “Since moving into the Commerce 6 platform and using the tools provided, our page
rankings have been pushed up so much higher that we’ve been able to turn off our costly pay-per-click campaigns.”

That’s obviously the ideal result of using Mountain Commerce, and Scott Fultz, Mountain Media’s CTO, was undoubtedly pleased to hear about it.

“Letting people focus more on the user and shopper experience and less on how Google sees things was our goal,” he wrote. “We believe the Internet experience as a whole can move forward once site owners and SEO specialists return to creating web sites for people and concentrate less on trying to please search engines.”

As the number of consumers shopping online continues to grow, more marketers are becoming interested in transactional emails.

Some companies are able to take advantage of transactional emails but there are still a good number that are not fully utilizing the medium.

According to a new report from Silverpop titled “How Top Retailers Use Transactional Emails” 40 percent of online retailers using transactional email respond within a minute.

“Because transactional emails reach customers at a time when they are most likely thinking about the company in a positive light, savvy marketers recognize the power of transactional emails to enhance customer relationships, solidify branding and cross-sell and up-sell additional products,” said Silverpop Vice President of Strategy Elaine O’Gorman.

To analyze the use of transactional emails Silverpop purchased items from the top online retailers as defined by Internet Retailer magazine.

Each email was evaluated for subject branding, personalization, layout elements and promotional content.
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Google once more might have crossed the fine line between delivering the most neutral search results, and doing self-promotion in disfavor of such neutrality.

The latest incident, brought to light in an analysis by Danny Sullivan, is the display of a Google Checkout-specific link within the shopping onebox.

The shopping information in question is shown on top of some web results when you search for products like sd cards 128mb, and in itself, it’s delivering just another neutral result with more links to neutral Froogle, which is nothing to worry about.* The worrying part however may be the link with the catchy shopping cart icon reading “See sd cards 128mb results available through Google Checkout”… because it will restrict the originally 11,000+ Froogle results for the SD card to the much smaller scope of 281 from vendors which support Google’s Checkout service, a payment system which can earn Google a commission on sales.**

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The year 2006 was a record breaker for e-commerce as online retail spending passed the $100 billion mark, according comScore.

In all, the year was up 24 percent over 2005, raking in a total of $102.1 billion, nearly $20 billion more than in 2005. The holiday season was an exclamation point to the year as online shoppers increased their spend by $5 billion (26%) to $24.6 billion.

During that blistering holiday season, 12 days saw spending over $600 million, with Cyber Monday at the bottom of the list at $607 million.
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Of all the humbug things to do at Christmas. A seller on eBay taught his kids a lesson last year (one they’ll be describing to a therapist one day) by putting an empty Nintendo GameCube box under the tree, wrapped up in sadism, and is encouraging others to do the same to fix their spoiled kids. This year, he’s selling a Wii box. The starting bid is $1.29, plus $20 for shipping the rocks that come with.

A fifth (yes, only a fifth, Mr. Cratchett, no more) of the proceeds will be donated to the Child Abuse Prevention Foundation.
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Although most people think of long lines of shoppers outside stores awaiting 5 a.m. openings and deeply discounted merchandise, the lines were just as impressive on the Internet.

Christmas Shopping Online Absolutely Booms

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Cyber Monday is rapidly approaching and the online retailers are preparing themselves for what they hope will be lucrative holiday season.

The term Cyber Monday refers to the first Monday after Thanksgiving. The term will be only a year old this holiday season.

The term cyber Monday originates from the National Retail Federation’s Shop.org division.

The analogy would be a comparison to Black Friday the first Friday after Thanksgiving. A big shopping day for the brick and mortar stores.

The concept for the term comes from research in 2004 from Shop.org They found that 77% of online retailers reported an increase in sales following Black Friday.

Take a guess where most of this online shopping is done? The workplace according to a Shop.org/BizRate Research 2005 eHoliday survey.

Sounds like a manager’s nightmare.

According to last years survey more than half of young adults the ages 18 to 24 and almost half of those aged 25 to 34 planned to shop online during work hours.

The most popular items last year were jewelry, consumer electronics, gourmet food, furniture and home décor.

The peak days for online shopping are from December 5 to the 15. The 2005 busiest day for ecommerce was December 12. Cyber Monday seems to mark the beginning of the busy online shopping season.

While the term Cyber Monday was conceived by the folks at Shop.org including Scott Silverman Executive Director it is not in fact the busiest online shopping day of the year.

The term was created to generate excitement for online retailers.

So what will you be doing on this year Cyber Monday? Scouring online sites to look for holiday bargains while on company time or actually performing your job duties?

In 2005 the largest ecommerce sites were for the following top five products or services:

• Travel
• Computer /peripherals/PDA
• Apparel & accessories
• Office supplies
• Consumer packaged goods

The strongest advertiser in 2005 was Vonage Holdings Corp. who specializes in providing Internet phone options.
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