How to commit search suicide..

The ability to be found or seen in search queries is absolutely essential. Keywords, text formatting, attributes all play a part in the formula for search visibility. But there is a foundational concept that sellers often forget. and that is their user id.

I often hear Bonanzle sellers saying that no buyer ever searches for a seller by user id... Is that really what a Bonanzle seller want? To be so "forgettable" that no buyer will ever look for you by name..?? Do the Bonanzle sellers forget to type in "Bonanzle"? When was the last time that you forgot you picked up a great gadget at Bed, Bath and Beyond?. Or that you found a perfect pair of shoes from Zappos.. You know those sellers names. Why do you want to be so "forgettable" that a buyer will not remember you by name?

The first step in committing search suicide is to create a user id that is hard to remember or more effective in your suicide efforts is to use punctuation in the user id such as an apostrophe. Using punctuation such as the apostrophe means a browser will not interpret the apostrophe correctly, most buyers do not know they must use an underscore where the apostrophe is at so it renders correctly. And the seller can't be found by name.

Bonanzle sellers booths are branded quite well. Every listing page URL contains the seller's user id right in the address bar. Keep that important little tidbit tucked away for a minute. As it is extremely relevant to committing search suicide quickly and efficiently.

The sellers decides they have made a grave mistake with their user id. Let's change it. No worries, easy to do. contact support, and voila' user id changed. Life is all good. Or is it. we won't even talk about how the user id change can impact business identity, marketing and your bottom line. We will talk about what happens to all those booth items that are already published to google shopping.


So the seller hops over to Google shopping, types in their user id,, and no items are served up.. Great all items associated with the previous user id are gone from Google shopping. Or are they?

Remember the little tidbit about the Bonanzle listing page URL containing the seller's user id... Well on Google shopping the marketplace name must be displayed underneath the price. But the Bonanzle booth URL allows each seller to be branded hence someone can find a particular seller by user id. So it looks like all the sellers product is gone because the seller's user id is changed.

But use item title line search. And well I'll be. There is the item. So the seller presumes their items are in google shopping new user id and all. If the title is clicked,, an Item not found in inventory " error appears. oops, broken link which is a google product policy violation. And the seller just committed search suicide. Until the old listings that are associated with the former user id are either removed by the uploader OR expire in 30 days so a new xml file containing the seller's New user id can be uploaded, the seller can't be found.

There are definitely correct circumstances to change a seller id. But make the changes slowly. Take into consideration all aspects such as all the blogs you are connected with, twitter, facebook, squidoo and how the change impacts google shopping results. Otherwise you will be committing search suicide.

AuctionBytes Sellers Poll

This past month January 2010 AuctionBytes conducted an online survey for eCommerce sellers. What marketplaces do they use and how do they rate those marketplaces.

The results are quite interesting. So check out the article and see what the online world of sellers has to say!

The Land of Slackness

Looking at the Land of Slackness

Slackness is defined as wanting in activity, not using due diligence or care, lacking in completeness or not tight or taunt as in a slack rope.

Slackness is a mentality that attaches itself to a majority of businesses, be it large companies or individual sellers. And slackness will take a toll on your business's bottom line.

So how does slackness affect online sellers? Technically speaking everyone knows that Google (as well as other search engines) likes fresh content. So the business or seller has filled up their Bonanzle booth , their individual websites, eBay Store or other venue of their choice with all these new goodies. Google is in love with them for the first 60 days or so. Then views/hits start to slide.

What to do to stop the sliding? Introduce new content to Google and the other search engines. How do you do that if you have all your inventory online already?

Answer -- Pull older items offline for at least 24 hours.. 72 is better. Then the item can be listed again. Good til Cancelled (GTC) listings can be death of your traffic hits from outside search engines. The content becomes old. Since the item never "ends" it simply drops off to pages and pages back. Never to be seen. Pulling items down every 30 days or so and leaving them offline for a minimum of 24 hours gives you----

Fresh content.. Is it work.. yes it is. But being in business is work. Anyone selling something will tell you the merchandise must be re-faced on the shelves periodically. OR even moved to a new spot. Internet sales are absolutely no different. Sellers like to think they can simply put up product never to touch it again. That thinking is from the "Land of Slackness" Lacking in activity.

Technically speaking, if you want your items to be new and fresh, slackness won't work. Tow a tight rope in your business model. Introduce fresh content frequently!

Bonanzle Boardroom Episode 2 December 3, 2009

Tonight was Bonanzle Boardrooms' 2nd episode. Wow what a great audience. The chat room was packed full. The chat box was overrunning with incredibly insightful questions and comments. Laughter, fun and more importantly, learning. Covering everything from the Bonanzle News to the winners of the Burning Bonanzle Question.

Yes you read it right. Two Burning Bonanzle question winners

aqua_angels



And


DMedicineWoman

Here is the link to the podcast.

Bonanzle Boardroom episode 2

Have fun Bonanzling!

eBay 50% off Insertion Fee Auction Style Listings Nov 25, 2009

Hi, all

eBay announced that November 25, 2009 they are offering a 50% off insertion fees on all Auction Style listings.

eBay 50% off Insertion fee Sale

So get those listings up in preparation for the launch of the Holiday Shopping Season

Bonanzle Boardroom premier Podcast!

November 5, 2009 aired the live, premier Bonanzle Boardroom podcast. A full hour packed full of all kinds of information the Bonanzle sellers need and want.

The Burning Bonanzle question was won by Kaboodlegifts. They asked about a subject that everyone wonders about...Do paid Bonanzle subscribing members get better placement in search results on the Bonanzle site and in Google product shopping.

The special guest was our very own Mark Dorsey of Bonanzle. Mark is the Bonanzle forum monitor which is just one of his many duties. It was a true pleasure to have him as a guest. He addressed some weighty issues as well as the future expectations of Bonanzle growth.

The tips from the white board was about the new "Vacation setting" feature recently added at Bonanzle.

We had a premier sponsor for the podcast. Karen from
mommysbazaar sponsored the first ever podcast. Take a minute to visit mommysbazaar's booth for a true eclectic of goodies

To hear all the entire podcast, visit

Bonanzle Boardroom podcast

Until next month's podcast,,, happy Bonanzle selling!

Typical eBay day

TheBrewsNews had an interesting article on their website about a typical eBay day for most any eBay seller.

The hard to navigate eBay site creating an extremely difficult task to try and communicate with uneducated buyers is sometimes almost overwhelming. Checkout system is difficult seasoned buyers never mind new buyers. Contacting a buyer can be anything but easy.

Now eBay has been sending out surveys to a select group of sellers inquiring about how sellers would best like to see fees. Insertion as well as Final value fees. And we all know that anytime eBay starts polling with surveys, there are changes on the way.

Take a look at the great article TheBrewsNews wrote about their typical Monday morning dealing with buyers. Any eBay seller will be quite familiar with the scenarios

Just Another Typical Monday Morning as an eBay Seller