Ask me anything about eCommerce (2012)

[Venetian]

Dan Da Man,

What are you talking about then?

thousands of spun articles on 2.0 properties linking back to your money site kind of thing?

Do those links carry the same weight as links from guest blogging on relevant sites - or what you call 'manual backlinking' ?

 

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[Deege]

I respect all MAP prices. My prices are generally never at MAP, they are usually way higher than MAP. I don't compete on price.

Sure you can open a store and put everything at MAP, then you are the same as the other 30 stores that have everything at MAP with a different URL and template.

So rather than competing with price, you compete with? Sorry if i missed this jewel early on in the thread, I really came to the last page on this one to get your take on MAP policies.

Thanks, how've you been otherwise?

Dj

 

[Stayer]

I tried outsourcing my SEO and I wasted thousands of dollars doing it. I do it all myself which really is not that much. Everything is automated or almost automated. The only thing I outsource is the offpage content that I have created. I can get someone to create me 4,000 words of sentence, paragraph spins for 10 bucks. I use about 10 of these syntax articles for all my offpage for each site I do, which will create me about 30-50 thousands posts.. So for $100 and the cost of captchas (which is almost nothing) my SEO for the site is pretty much done. I already made the investment on the tools which are one time investments.

I see you mentioned The Tools. What are they?

My Mainstream SEO experience is limited to taking one site to page 1 under its main term that generates 14,800 hits according to SEMRush (good for 70 daily). It cost me 220 in total for services that I find at wickedfire.com/link-seo and that include -

2000 Article Links
1000 Social Bookmarks
550 Directory Submissions
300 Blog posts links
10 Yahoo Answers
plus the Content writing itself

Am I overpaying?

 

[Venetian]

Aren't those links bullsh*t ?

Do they carry ANY weight at all?

 

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[Stayer]

Aren't those links bullsh*t ?

Do they carry ANY weight at all?

well, the site was at #6 under its main keyword (Volume 14800 Com 0.10, according to SEMRush) in April with 1k traffic and 130 keywords indexed at that time. dropped to page 2 now.

this is method was recommended to me by a friend who works for local SEO company. so, apparently that's how they help their customers rank.

my previous SEO experience is limited to hard-link exchanges only (have 200+ domains of my own), but since they are Non-Mainstream I have to use other methods to try to rank my Mainstream sites.

 

[biophase]

Well, I don't know what kind of blackhat they were talking about. I am not talking about cloaking sites and refferal spam kind of stuff. And I disagree. I know many people who did exactly what google said and their sites are gone. I have sites that have lasted over 6 months to a year with spammy backlinks.

There are certain signs that google looks for. YOu have to be smart. I have friends in the insurance, attorney niches bringing in millions a year. Think they can compete doing manually white hat stuff? If you can rank and not do blackhat, sure go ahead. But for the most part, any site that is actually doing SEO is doing blackhat.

HEre is the thing. Everything that I do blackhat, is what you and other people are doing white hat. I just use an automated program which will create 10,000 times the efficiency. You wouldn't even be able to tell the difference. Google won't either. If you take projective measures to understand what signs google is looking for, you can be in the game a long time doing blackhat.

I think you said that your sites got hit in the last update? Were they all white hat? If so, then what does it matter?

I think you read my post wrong. What part are you disagreeing with?? I don't have anything against blackhat. In fact, I agree that all SEO is blackhat since Google doesn't like any SEO.

The blackhat stuff I'm talking about is nothing like you've mentioned. It's the kind of stuff where they say, ok cell phones off, no photos, videos or note taking for this part of the class. Unfortunately, I didn't retain hat was taught because I didn't have the resources to implement what they talked about in class. This wasn't manual stuff. It was super server intensive and they talked about generating 10,000 links a day and it wasn't the normal warrior/wicked fire stuff.

All I'm saying is that SEO companies that get paid the big bucks will do black hat to rank big companies for big keywords. They have massive server resources and huge private networks. Think about what a network must look like for an SEO company that has been in business for 5 years. What kind of domains have they gathered? How many servers do they have running all day? How many partnerships with other SEO companies do they have?

 

[biophase]

So rather than competing with price, you compete with? Sorry if i missed this jewel early on in the thread, I really came to the last page on this one to get your take on MAP policies.

Thanks, how've you been otherwise?

Dj

I compete by having a good looking store, customer service and being knowledgable in my field.

 

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[Venetian]

biophase,

are you into that 10.000 a day link scheme for your store or something of that sort?

 

[biophase]

biophase,

are you into that 10.000 a day link scheme for your store or something of that sort?

No, I'm not doing anything like that. But I have seen that it works for super tough keywords.

 

[Venetian]

ok, was that before or after penguin?

I'm scared to death of crappy links after penguin.

 

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[biophase]

ok, was that before or after penguin?

I'm scared to death of crappy links after penguin.

No, since I'm in niches, I never needed or wanted 10,000 links a day. That just wouldn't look natural. Top sites in big markets probably get 10,000 links a day so you could do this with them.

I admit I'm not sure what to do about SEO these days. The good thing is that it's forcing me to try other avenues. I just opened up an Amazon store this week. I need to increase my Ebay auctions. I also bumped up my PPC daily budget a little. This is the fun part of business.

 

[Venetian]

yeah... I'm really scared of getting crappy links and ruining my sites.

are you sourcing your products from Asia like Vigilante?

 

[Joehenny]

No, since I'm in niches, I never needed or wanted 10,000 links a day. That just wouldn't look natural. Top sites in big markets probably get 10,000 links a day so you could do this with them.

I admit I'm not sure what to do about SEO these days. The good thing is that it's forcing me to try other avenues. I just opened up an Amazon store this week. I need to increase my Ebay auctions. I also bumped up my PPC daily budget a little. This is the fun part of business.

Can you speak on the Ebay and Amazon thing more? What are your strategies for the two?

 

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[biophase]

yeah... I'm really scared of getting crappy links and ruining my sites.

are you sourcing your products from Asia like Vigilante?

Yes, I import some products from Asia.

 

[biophase]

Can you speak on the Ebay and Amazon thing more? What are your strategies for the two?

I am using both as a sales avenue that is outside of Google SEO. In the past I was using them to get my products out there by name recognition. I was already selling on Ebay, but now I have to focus on it some more to increase my sales. I will add more products on it and also become more price competitive.

No real strategy yet except to increase product offerings on both.

 

[andviv]

I also bumped up my PPC daily budget a little.

The speculation out there is that this is what Google wants, to force more people to pony up $$ for more ads.

Who knows if it is true?

In any case, your strategy for ebay and amazon makes a lot of sense.

Also, maybe it is time to push more videos and images using a facebook site, just to help with brand recognition.

 

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[danoodle]

When it comes to dropshippers, what do you do about packaging, especially if someone orders multiple products from different suppliers? Do you send them your own custom packaging or just have them use their own?

Also, a supplier I am talking with wants us to have a contract (which is probably a good thing) detailing every aspect, such as who takes care of lost/damaged packages, expectations of both parties, the packaging thing etc. Do you have a contract you could send me that you use or have you experienced this?

 

[biophase]

The speculation out there is that this is what Google wants, to force more people to pony up $$ for more ads.

Who knows if it is true?

In any case, your strategy for ebay and amazon makes a lot of sense.

Also, maybe it is time to push more videos and images using a facebook site, just to help with brand recognition.

Yes, definitely working on my facebook pages and increasing its likes. Also going to tweet more.

 

[biophase]

When it comes to dropshippers, what do you do about packaging, especially if someone orders multiple products from different suppliers? Do you send them your own custom packaging or just have them use their own?

Also, a supplier I am talking with wants us to have a contract (which is probably a good thing) detailing every aspect, such as who takes care of lost/damaged packages, expectations of both parties, the packaging thing etc. Do you have a contract you could send me that you use or have you experienced this?

Do you mean packing slips or packaging? I don't know why you'd worry about packaging. For packing slips some generate them on their own. For others I send them a packing slip in PDF form.

I have never signed a contract with any. They should take care of lost and damaged packages because they shipped them. You never touched them so how can you be responsible for them? Packaging should be a regular brown box. Expectations should be that you send them an order and they ship it in a timely manner. Sounds like this could be a difficult partner.

 

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[andviv]

Yes, definitely working on my facebook pages and increasing its likes. Also going to tweet more.

Share the links. I will Like it/them.
Same with tweeter... Will follow.

 

[danoodle]

Do you mean packing slips or packaging? I don't know why you'd worry about packaging. For packing slips some generate them on their own. For others I send them a packing slip in PDF form.

I have never signed a contract with any. They should take care of lost and damaged packages because they shipped them. You never touched them so how can you be responsible for them? Packaging should be a regular brown box. Expectations should be that you send them an order and they ship it in a timely manner. Sounds like this could be a difficult partner.

I mean the actual packaging but I guess the issue is branding. I know you do the whole process yourself now, but say you were still dropshipping suits with the xxxxxxxx brand. Does the package say "suit warehouse" or "xxxxxxxx"? If xxxxxxxx shipped it, I would think they would use their packing slips or whatever identifies the product unless you provided them with custom labels. Also it might be a little confusing for the customer if the return label says "xxxxxxxx" when they bought it from your store. I would think you would want to promote your site instead of theirs to increase repeat sales, even though you are selling their product....

 

[Dan Da Man]

Dan Da Man,

What are you talking about then?

thousands of spun articles on 2.0 properties linking back to your money site kind of thing?
Do those links carry the same weight as links from guest blogging on relevant sites - or what you call 'manual backlinking' ?

Actually yes. They do. I have been ranking for the worse garbage of content for 2 of my sites. They made it through the penguin. I now use good content but google cannot read. However, I look into the future and forsee google getting better at detecting this.

Until you are testing thousands and thousands of links, you have no idea what you are talking about. SEO is all about testing. Nothing else. You can read and read all day but until you test across different platforms, on different niches and with different strategies, you dont know shit! Again I am just saying that in a respectful manner.

I just laugh when people try and tell me these things like "google doesnt like this" or "google will detect if you build tons of links". How? I blast blog comments to some of my sites (in the hundreds of thousands a day) just to see what happens. Want to know what happens? Nothing. I actually go up. Will that work in the future I dont know. But this is a myth that people say not to do, however I have been doing it for 2 years and it has been working great.

Guest blogging is cool and all and so is getting links on relevant sites. Want to know something cool? I can get all the related links in the world from any related blogs in my niche, with a click of a button. Almost anything that can be done manual that requires a human, I can do with a bot. Guest posting however I cant but if I can the same benefit out of something without having to spend a fortune guest posting, then why not do it?

The only non blackhat stuff that I still do is high PR manual blog comments and I can see guest posting beneficial as well. Until google uses people instead of an algorithm, I don't see automated tools going anywhere.

 

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[Dan Da Man]

ok, was that before or after penguin?

I'm scared to death of crappy links after penguin.

Well, looks like google won. You are scared of building links. You don't know what to do. Hence you will be giving in to buying ads. Wahoo! Google wins.

Google wants you to not know what to do next. Each update I can guarantee you more and more people are giving up which means more and more people going to PPC which means more and more opportunity for me

 

[Venetian]

Dan Da Man,

The real question is, can the crappy links hurt your website rankings? Or they just don't weight as much as relevant links?

This seems to be the question of the moment.

Many people say that you can't be negatively influenced by links because that would open a whole 'negative seo' school.

Others say it hurts and that 'negative seo' is infact a reality.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Dan Da Man]

Dan Da Man,

The real question is, can the crappy links hurt your website rankings? Or they just don't weight as much as relevant links?

This seems to be the question of the moment.

Many people say that you can't be negatively influenced by links because that would open a whole 'negative seo' school.

Others say it hurts and that 'negative seo' is infact a reality.

What are your thoughts on this?

Yes and no. Yes in that negative SEO exists and it exists more now than ever. But again you need to know how to do negative SEO. As with my prior post I blast 100,000 blog comments in a 12 hour period for testing purposes. I dont have any negative effect but that does not mean that I couldnt.

I use over 300 different keywords when I do the blast. I was testing if googles penalties are anchor text related (which I had thought they were). Now, my next test is to do a 100,000 blast on a site using ONE anchor text. I think the results will be very different. I however wont do this on my site and I will do it on a competitor. Google opened the door for this, now as SEOs we need to look at the possibilities.

So it isn't the link in general. Merely exact anchors are my opinion and every site that made it through the updates all have HUGE HUGE keyword diversification.

You see, blog comments are shitty links. But how could google give a negative evaluation of that link when there are sites on the web that have tons and tons of blog comments but are decent sites that are all legitimate. This never made sense to me when people said not to blast your site with blog comments. Yes, google will devalue these links but if there is no way for google to tell the difference between a legitimately spammed blog (tons of outbound links and comments that are legitimately posted) and a automated spammed blog, then google wouldnt give a negative evaluation of that link.

Same goes with massive web 2.0s, wikis, etc... However, google looks for footprints and signs that people are manipulating. As for keyword anchor text. It is obvious that a site trying to manipulate rankings will use the same keyword over and over again. Same with spun content.

Anytime you hear someone saying garbage that contradicts what I have said, ask them their anchor text portofolio. My sites have over 2,000 to 3,000 different anchor texts and if you were google, you could never tell that my site was trying to target any specific keyword. It looks like random people were just linking to my site saying whatever they thought came to their mind lol.

Hope that makes sense

 

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[Iqen]

Guest blogging is cool and all and so is getting links on relevant sites. Want to know something cool? I can get all the related links in the world from any related blogs in my niche, with a click of a button. Almost anything that can be done manual that requires a human, I can do with a bot. Guest posting however I cant but if I can the same benefit out of something without having to spend a fortune guest posting, then why not do it?

How do you get links from related blogs with just a mouse-click? Are you just talking about blog comment links, or higher quality links?

 

[biophase]

I mean the actual packaging but I guess the issue is branding. I know you do the whole process yourself now, but say you were still dropshipping suits with the xxxxxxxx brand. Does the package say "suit warehouse" or "xxxxxxxxx"? If xxxxxxxx shipped it, I would think they would use their packing slips or whatever identifies the product unless you provided them with custom labels. Also it might be a little confusing for the customer if the return label says "xxxxxxxx" when they bought it from your store. I would think you would want to promote your site instead of theirs to increase repeat sales, even though you are selling their product....

It depends on your dropshipper. Some will put your packing slip inside the package. Some will generate their own but it should say something generic. Some will stick their own store catalog in there and f**k you.

If they use your Fedex or UPS account the return address on the label will have your name and address. If they use their account, it will have their address.

I doubt many people even look at the shipping label. Did you look at the last thing bought? Or did you just look at see your name on the box and open it to figure out what was in it?

 

[NJRealEstate]

What are your thoughts on drop ship suppliers or networks that have membership fees like world wide brands or drop ship access? Is it worth paying? Do they actually offer products with enough margin to make any money?
What are some other good sources of potential drop shipperl, or ways to try and find suppliers that will agree to dropship terms?

 

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[biophase]

What are your thoughts on drop ship suppliers or networks that have membership fees like world wide brands or drop ship access? Is it worth paying? Do they actually offer products with enough margin to make any money?
What are some other good sources of potential drop shipper, or ways to try and find suppliers that will agree to dropship terms?

I wouldn't pay any membership fees for access to any dropship lists. You just have to do the leg work and make calls.

 

[Suhaib Alam]

What software are you using for your analytics, i heard that your should stay away from googles analytics if you run more than one site and do SEO as they can catch you out.