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SOS. Google has booted my store out of its top 10.

S

stranger

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1) "Look naturally"? What does that mean? I'd rather get 20% from SEO, 40% from paid and 40% from referral than get 100% from SEO.

2) Google doesn't like the idea of new Web sites getting to the first page because it means they are not paying for PPC.

It's all about the money.

I can't make a recommendation for you because I'm currently trying to figure out how to get traffic to my site. But 100% organic is bad. You have zero control and you're likely to get the boot in another six months.

"Look naturally" = FREE QUALITY TRAFFIC. I think 20% from SEO is not enough.

2. Sorry, my another website was in google's 10 within 2 months i started it. I don't know how it runs now because i sold months ago. Ok, i'll write here when my store will take back its best positions in google.
 
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biophase

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Yes, I sell collectibles. And it's why my products' urls change often. For example, right now the store is selling over 1500 different items. And every week i delete old/sold items and add new ones. On the other hand many our reapet customers came from ebay. We keep only 100-200 items on ebay.

You probably shouldn't be deleting the products. You should leave them on with a out of stock or sold sign on them.
 
S

stranger

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You probably shouldn't be deleting the products. You should leave them on with a out of stock or sold sign on them.
There're two reasons why i've not done it yet.
1. When i visit some online stores and see many products which are marked as "SOLD", i always think: "what the hell they are listed in the store if they already out". I don't care of that store's owner and his business, i just disappoint spending my time looking on sold items. Sometimes sold items are better than items that are available yet. I believe many people have the same feel browzing among sold and aren't sold items.
2. My host disk's space must be huge to keep all my sold items online.
 

LightHouse

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You probably shouldn't be deleting the products. You should leave them on with a out of stock or sold sign on them.

ISC will keep the page online for indexing sake, but hide it from showing in the store if it is marked in active. useful sometimes, others i just mark it out of stock and leave it up since itll be back in soon.
 
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biophase

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There're two reasons why i've not done it yet.
1. When i visit some online stores and see many products which are marked as "SOLD", i always think: "what the hell they are listed in the store if they already out". I don't care of that store's owner and his business, i just disappoint spending my time looking on sold items. Sometimes sold items are better than items that are available yet. I believe many people have the same feel browzing among sold and aren't sold items.
2. My host disk's space must be huge to keep all my sold items online.

The issue with deleting the product page is that if it is non-existant, it will not show up on a search result, hence you miss the entire opportunity to capture that visitor. When they come to your site and see SOLD, you at least get a chance of them clicking on something else.

When you delete the product, you are 100% guaranteed to miss that visitor.

And as Lighthouse says, it can not show up in a store search, but still be online.

With the disk space, I guess you have to juggle its value on that.
 

theBiz

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i always think: "what the hell they are listed in the store if they already out". I don't care of that store's owner and his business, i just disappoint spending my time looking on sold items.

The market doesnt care what you "think", ive bought stuff many many times off of sites that has said sold out just like many many others.... as long as the site says here are some other relevant items...and lists them properly..... ebay even does that, what are you talking about?

I believe many people have the same feel browzing among sold and aren't sold ite
Thats an expensive opinion at your expensive most likely.
 
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stranger

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I've found many problems with the site. Now i'm waiting for a webmaster i worked with before. Really, it's better to pay 20-30 bucks than jump at this stuff myself.
 
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nzerinto

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Our online store was in google's frontpage with many great phrases during 4 years. But we've lost all our best possitions during last 2 months. I don't know what's happening. Please any ideas how we can back our best positions?
Please I'll be glad for any good advice. Sales are dropping very fast.

A lot of guys have offered some great ideas, although perhaps not answering your question directly, so let me try:

1. Run a SEO audit on your site. If you don't know how to do this, find an expert who does from ODesk or Elance. You (or they) need to look at:

- The terms you WERE ranking for, and where are you ranking now
- Compare with the sites that are now ranking on the first page for those terms

2. For the sites that are ranking on the first page, run a full analysis on their links, and compare them with the links pointing to your site. Sign up to the free trial with Cognitive SEO (http://cognitiveseo.com/) to do this. Don't get overwhelmed by the information you'll get - just compare all the data, and try to note the patterns of difference between your site and the ones that are now ranking.

3. Pay close attention to differences in the links - types of links, anchor text being used, and ratios of anchor text.

4. Emulate the link profiles of the sites currently ranking. This might mean getting your own toxic links removed, but more importantly, build new ones that are high quality and relevant.

After all of that, it may never work to bring it back, and this hits on the points the other guys have been saying - the business is based on a parasitic model that essentially completely relies on Google.

My recommendation - build out other sources of traffic while you are at it. Good luck man.
 
S

stranger

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A lot of guys have offered some great ideas, although perhaps not answering your question directly, so let me try:

1. Run a SEO audit on your site. If you don't know how to do this, find an expert who does from ODesk or Elance. You (or they) need to look at:

- The terms you WERE ranking for, and where are you ranking now
- Compare with the sites that are now ranking on the first page for those terms

2. For the sites that are ranking on the first page, run a full analysis on their links, and compare them with the links pointing to your site. Sign up to the free trial with Cognitive SEO (Cutting-Edge SEO Tools - cognitiveSEO) to do this. Don't get overwhelmed by the information you'll get - just compare all the data, and try to note the patterns of difference between your site and the ones that are now ranking.

3. Pay close attention to differences in the links - types of links, anchor text being used, and ratios of anchor text.

4. Emulate the link profiles of the sites currently ranking. This might mean getting your own toxic links removed, but more importantly, build new ones that are high quality and relevant.

After all of that, it may never work to bring it back, and this hits on the points the other guys have been saying - the business is based on a parasitic model that essentially completely relies on Google.

My recommendation - build out other sources of traffic while you are at it. Good luck man.
Many thanks. Your suggestions are really good.
 

jpeirce978

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Sounds like u were hit with one of the Penguin updates. My e comm site went thru the same situation. I got hit and dropped from #1 to a few pages back.

The good news is u can recover from Penguin. All Penguin does is look for sites with more than 50% links with same anchor text. Well somewhere around 50% anyway. And then penalizes them by knocking down in ranks and happens immediatley unlike Panda.

There was an isolated test done on this where a site was hit and sat for a couple months. Then they built 10k diversified links overnight with thousands of different anchors and within 48 hours the site was back.

I hope this helps get u back in business cuz my site is 100% organic traffic like yours. I know how u feel to lose that jingle in your pocket.

Jon
 
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S

stranger

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Stranger

Sounds like u were hit with one of the Penguin updates. My e comm site went thru the same situation. I got hit and dropped from #1 to a few pages back.

The good news is u can recover from Penguin. All Penguin does is look for sites with more than 50% links with same anchor text. Well somewhere around 50% anyway. And then penalizes them by knocking down in ranks and happens immediatley unlike Panda.

There was an isolated test done on this where a site was hit and sat for a couple months. Then they built 10k diversified links overnight with thousands of different anchors and within 48 hours the site was back.

I hope this helps get u back in business cuz my site is 100% organic traffic like yours. I know how u feel to lose that jingle in your pocket.

Jon

Thank you Jon. Hope things will go better soon. It's sad this Xmas shoping season is going away for my store. Just our repeat shoppers bring some income.
 

kwerner

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Thank you Jon. Hope things will go better soon. It's sad this Xmas shoping season is going away for my store. Just our repeat shoppers bring some income.

Entrepreneurs don't just "hope things go better soon". Jon gave you the answer (as did I, several posts ago), build some friggin links and diversify your anchor text. If you don't want to do it yourself, outsource it to someone who knows what the heck they're doing.
 
S

stranger

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Entrepreneurs don't just "hope things go better soon". Jon gave you the answer (as did I, several posts ago), build some friggin links and diversify your anchor text. If you don't want to do it yourself, outsource it to someone who knows what the heck they're doing.
I understood Jon's post ok. And i'm not waiting for google's zoo.
Thanks for your post also.
 
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S

stranger

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I just wanted to say our store has returned its best positions on google. It happened 3 weeks ago. I don't what helped but i'm glad.
Bye.
 

JamesS88

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Do any of you subscribe to SEO Moz or use a paid spinner or anything of that nature? I just opened my first store but still have a lot of work to do, SEO wise, not to mention finishing adding products and improving the site. I haven't even submitted the site map to google, yet. I don't know much, but I'm learning as I go.
 

Anthony_44

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I'm no SEO guru. But I can tell you one thing: the fact that ALL your traffic is organic is really detrimental to your business.

I am 100% new to developing my website and am learning as I go, but what exactly do you mean by this? I guess I had always assumed traffic was traffic. Is organic traffic not as good as traffic generated other ways, or is it just one of those things you need want to be diverse in?
 
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S

stranger

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Do any of you subscribe to SEO Moz or use a paid spinner or anything of that nature? I just opened my first store but still have a lot of work to do, SEO wise, not to mention finishing adding products and improving the site. I haven't even submitted the site map to google, yet. I don't know much, but I'm learning as I go.
I did nothing especial.
1. create a fb page.
2. put a few videos on youtube.
3. blocked some pages with a robots.txt.
4. added new items at the store every week. However, i deleted sold items as well.
5. changed my anchor text on some back links.
6. got some new back links.
In other words, I spent no one buck on this stuff.
 

Big Daddyhoo

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I am 100% new to developing my website and am learning as I go, but what exactly do you mean by this? I guess I had always assumed traffic was traffic. Is organic traffic not as good as traffic generated other ways, or is it just one of those things you need want to be diverse in?
Search engines compete for customers (who might click on advertisements, resulting in money) with search results. If your site is considered a good search result, you are rewarded with a better position in the results. When you are no longer considered good, you get less traffic. Means less income.
Some problems with all your traffic being organic:
1) You won't know when the free traffic stops so you won't be prepared to replace it.
2) Your business model doesn't allow for paid traffic? No more business. Got overhead? HAHA
3) If Google wants you out, you're out. Commandment of Control.

How good is organic traffic compared to other kinds?
It's not free. You pay for it in time. Your time spent on SEO is time away from other things. Others' time spent on SEO costs money. You should consider the same things you would consider in paid traffic.

Bottom line:
Never have a single point of failure. No single marketing channel, no too-big-too-few customers, no unreplaceable employees, contractors, whatever.
(Single point of failure - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
 

Big Daddyhoo

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I also knew the people who wasted their money out with paid traffic.
Me too. Irrelevant.

If you were referring to my post above, I wasn't denouncing organic traffic or your business, just educating a (self-described) newbie.
 

JamesS88

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Big Daddyhoo, any tips on spinning product descriptions? I keep googling about it but I just keep finding expensive options that will spin an article a thousand times. That's overkill, for me, I just need to spin a manufacturer's product description once. Should I just do it by hand?
 

Big Daddyhoo

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Big Daddyhoo, any tips on spinning product descriptions? I keep googling about it but I just keep finding expensive options that will spin an article a thousand times. That's overkill, for me, I just need to spin a manufacturer's product description once. Should I just do it by hand?
Just once? By hand sounds like a no-brainer.
Or is it multiple articles spinned once? You might try asking around if their software has such capabilities.

That being said, I'm not an expert on this and don't know what I'm talking about. Sorry, no real answers! :)
 
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Anthony_44

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Search engines compete for customers (who might click on advertisements, resulting in money) with search results. If your site is considered a good search result, you are rewarded with a better position in the results. When you are no longer considered good, you get less traffic. Means less income.
Some problems with all your traffic being organic:
1) You won't know when the free traffic stops so you won't be prepared to replace it.
2) Your business model doesn't allow for paid traffic? No more business. Got overhead? HAHA
3) If Google wants you out, you're out. Commandment of Control.

How good is organic traffic compared to other kinds?
It's not free. You pay for it in time. Your time spent on SEO is time away from other things. Others' time spent on SEO costs money. You should consider the same things you would consider in paid traffic.

Bottom line:
Never have a single point of failure. No single marketing channel, no too-big-too-few customers, no unreplaceable employees, contractors, whatever.
(Single point of failure - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Thank you very much for going into such detail on my question!! Really appreciate it
 
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jpeirce978

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To the newbies on this thread...

I started out just like you with an e-com store. I did all the on & off page SEO work myself from creating the site, articles, spinning them, plastering them all over the web, building web 2.0 properties, blog posts, videos, etc etc etc. I jumped up in the serps and was making money. Everything was great and I started outsourcing all my back linking and off page SEO work. I made great money from this one site and took over positions #1, 2 & 3 of Google. It was set it and forget it free money coming in for over a year.

I then was hit with the Google updates which totally shut everything down with the flick of a switch. All traffic stopped which meant no money.

I spent hundreds of hours doing SEO work myself and spent thousands of dollars on outsourcing SEO work. And for what? It was over just like that. To help you understand what some of these veteran marketers are trying to tell you here is this....

Relying on Google, Bing or Yahoo (organic SEO traffic) can and will end you overnight. It's not a matter of "if" it's "when"

Also...the thousands I spent on outsourcing SEO is money thrown out the window now. What if I had used those thousands to buy traffic? I would have made sales (profit) and had them as a future repeat customer (more sales). Not to mention the backend sales by having them on your store mailing list.

I've learned my lesson and could care less about organic traffic anymore. I will take it, but I won't put any effort into getting it.

I understand you are just starting out like we all did. You don't have a bank roll to fund paid traffic. Take whatever you can afford and do PPC. This will give you instant traffic with quick sales. You can keep tweaking the campaign to make it more profitable. Take that money and keep rolling that profit back into paid traffic. Heck you can even get $100 free adwords coupons and it won't cost you anything but 10 minutes to set up a new account. When it runs out...get another coupon and set up another account. Gmail and adwords accounts are free. It's instant gratification with money in yo pocket.

Once your rollin' with PPC traffic, scale your paid traffic efforts. Depending on your vertical, the sky is the limit. You can't fathom the amount of traffic that the web can send to your site. There are people making 100k to 400k per day in sales. Yes per day! On one single product! There websites have less than 5 pages. (This does not include the income they make from the same product offline)

I'm not blowing smoke up your a$$ either. One kid that was doing it was 18 and he was even on the news. "multi-millionaire at 18"

Take our advice on this thread or not. It's your business and your life. Either way, I wish you the best and you will win if you want to win. It won't be an easy road and don't let obstacles slow you down, cuz you will hit many.

Jon
 

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