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How to Fix: ProStores slow page speed, and large image downloads - Monday, January 10, 2011

ProStores needs to fix this, since they are including the ridicuosly big (non-optimized) image.

I was analyzing the page speed, because in webmaster tools the site has gotten really slow since the last upgrade. I see the developers are including a Prostores css image that is not optimized, it is included for every store. I am not sure how long this has been going but since it is about 1/3 the total size of my page, it is definitely a main contributor to the slowness. This spike also coincides with the last crash just before Christmas 2010 :(

Optimizing the following images could reduce their size by 46.8KiB (99% reduction).

Losslessly compressing http://www.your-prostores-domain.com/shared/style/images/white_gradient.png could save 46.8KiB (99% reduction). See optimized version or Save as.

This file is called on multiple times in the legacycss/Asset injected code file. It doesn’t matter if you use this or not, they are making the user download it.

Example 1 of many:

http://www.your-prostores-domain.com/servlet/0-0-30d-8313-legacycss/Asset

/******* BEGIN FIREFOX HOVER FOR ACTION BUTTON *******/

.actn_button_color.actn_button:hover {

border:3px double #54A2EB;

color:#444444;

background: #B3D8F4 url("/shared/style/images/white_gradient.png") repeat-x top

Prostores injects this code, it is not something we can change. ProStores will need to update the file with the optimized version, which is virtually no size at all. The non-optimized version included by ProStores system is causing slowness for page speed test using the Firefox plugin. Download the latest page speed Firefox plugin for best results.

From Webmaster Tools -> Labs -> Site performance

Site performance

This page shows you performance statistics of your site. You can use this information to improve the speed of your site and create a faster experience for your users. Learn more

Performance overview

On average, pages in your site take 2.1 seconds to load (updated on Jan 8, 2011). This is faster than 66% of sites. These estimates are of low accuracy (fewer than 100 data points). The chart below shows how your site's average page load time has changed over the last few months. For your reference, it also shows the 20th percentile value across all sites, separating slow and fast load times.

Tags: prostores, slow page speed, slow load times

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Case Study: Justin Morris and Lead Apparel Grows its Business Online - Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Problem: Lead Apparel, a retailer of men’s, women’s, children's and even baby clothing, as well as accessories, totes and luggage, wanted to launch an e-commerce website.

Solution: Hired an e-commerce solutions provider to build its website.

Results: Lead Apparel has launched a successful web store to complement its sole brick-and-mortar store at its headquarters in Chicago.

Five-plus years ago, Lead Apparel, a retailer of men’s, women’s, children's and even baby clothing, as well as accessories, totes and luggage, wanted to get in on the action and make e-commerce a part of its business. Projecting a marketplace for the type of apparel the brand offers at low prices, Lead Apparel believed it made sense for it to move forward with a website.

Helping it to accomplish this was ProStores, an e-commerce solutions provider. With ProStores guidance, Lead Apparel began selling apparel from leading brands such as Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, Reebok and Timberland, just to name a few, online in 2006.

“We've been with ProStores for over five years because it offers a PCI-compliant environment, which helps to protect our customers’ information along with our reputation and security,” said Justin Morris , co-founder of Lead Apparel, in a ProStores press release. “And the updates and new features help us stay competitive in the fast changing environment of e-commerce.”

Relying on ProStores for administration support, Lead Apparel is able to train employees quickly and easily on how to work with the platform, helping them perform their daily tasks without hassles. Lead Apparel's ability to integrate with third-party applications and/or custom-built applications helps it maximize selling opportunities and provide high-quality customer service. By listening to customers and prospects, Lead Apparel has been able to make adjustments and upgrades to the ProStores platform.

“Learning to customize the store is the most important feature because it allows us to use our tech background to provide an e-commerce website that's above and beyond the normal ProStores site,” said Morris.

This flexibility is important, as Lead Apparel offers 150,000-plus SKUs on its site. This allows shoppers to use a filter/drill-down search to help them find what they're looking for. Plans are also in the works for Lead Apparel to have more promotional functions on the platform to help it merchandise its extensive product lines.

When he looks back at how Lead Apparel developed its e-commerce website, Morris said “execution is usually much more important than a good idea. Get with a certified designer or developer to help make your e-commerce dream a reality. There are so many features, a new store owner may get overwhelmed and not use the platform to its highest potential.”

By Joe Keenan - original article: http://www.retailonlineintegration.com/article/lead-apparel-grows-its-business-online

Tags: Justin Morris, Lead Apparel, ProStores

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Google Instant - Implications For SEO & Internet Marketing - Wednesday, December 22, 2010

While reading Harry McCracken's rather insightful article on Google Instant in PCWorld, I was reminded once again, how narrowly focused my own thinking has become in regards to Google. I keep forgetting, not everyone is into SEO or Internet Marketing (lucky dogs), and that Google search has a function outside of SEO.

I keep forgetting that the general public actually uses Google for online search, there are millions of web users out there who have been using Google Instant to find out the weather, the latest Lady Gaga outfit or which flat-screen HDTV to buy? Of course, I know this to be the real function of Google, but if you're a full-time search engine marketer, your perspective is solidly aligned to all the SEO elements - keyword rankings, link building and content placement in the most dominant search engine in the world.

Basically, you will be more concerned with how Google Instant will impact those top keyword rankings, your click through rates and most importantly, what effect will it have on your conversion rates and sales? More specifically, how does this instant search impact the display of your listings in Google and what are the long-term ramifications this instant "real time" display will have on your online marketing?

There are even some so-called experts which say Google Instant will be the end of SEO. This is a rather foolish notion since the underlying structure of using optimized strategies to obtain top rankings in Google or any other search engine for that matter, has not changed. We still have the emphasis on quality content, high quality backlinks and on-page ranking factors.

In the background nothing has changed, in the foreground everything has changed. Well, somewhat.

Google Instant is a game changer for online marketers simply because it changes "How" your listings are displayed. Not only is the faster speed a factor but Google is guessing or rather dictating what the web surfer is searching for so Google's influence on what's displayed has increased 10-fold. They are displaying results not only based on rankings BUT on what their data tells them you're looking for? How big a role this other compiled data and web users' histories play in these suggestions only Google knows, but to the online marketer all this is somewhat worrisome.

Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google has been quoted as saying, "Never underestimate the power of fast. Quick, quick, quick - we want to help you right now... we can understand things like what you really meant."

Only time will tell what effect this "jumping the gun" or "making up your mind for you" will have on Internet marketing. The long-lasting effect of Google imposing its results on the web searcher will no doubt have some strong impacts on web marketing. Getting those first suggestions when a surfer types in just one or two letters... will become the real money-makers in terms of online traffic and sales.

Those companies and products which pop-up first will gain in market share and importance, but hasn't this always been the case with getting those first place keyword rankings in Google? Yes, but now Google is giving the searcher options and planting seeds/suggestions, which Google has done in the past but not at this speed and to this extent. The implications for online marketing could be enormous, assuming of course, web surfers actually use this function because Google does give users the option of turning off Instant search. In our hurried fast-paced world, one would reason, web searchers would not turn off this function, although if your Internet connection is too slow, Google will automatically turn off Instant search for you.

From a marketing angle, webmasters must now note Google's keyword suggestions which quickly pop-up and target them in their SEO efforts. Analyzing and targeting which keyword phrases Google are displaying in your niche market will be vital to capturing the majority of the traffic. Surfers will click on Google's suggestions to find what they're looking for on the web. Getting top rankings for those 4 or 5 suggestions will become important if an online marketer or webmaster wants to cover/corner all the search territory in their niche. Whether you actually target these keywords would really be determined by their commercial intent probability which can be discovered by using Microsoft's Adcenter Laps (http://adlab.msn.com/Online-Commercial-Intention/) and of course, the amount of traffic each keyword gets each month. (Try here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal).

Another area of concern has to do with the ever decreasing space for organic listings on the new Google Instant interface. With the drop-down menu and depending upon how many paid listings are shown, there may only be room for 3 listings instead of five or more above the fold. Keep in mind, we are mainly talking about lucrative keyword phrases which will also usually have three paid Adwords listings in the spots where organic search results were formerly displayed. Searchers are lazy, they will probably not scroll down, especially if they see different listings popping up as they narrow down their search. So your SEO has probably gotten much harder since you will now have to aim for the top 3 spots - thanks Google.

Of course, savvy online marketers know the real gold is in the long-tail keyword phrases which surfers use to find what they're looking for on the web. Google Instant could possibly play havoc on this whole process because before the searcher finishes typing in the long 4 or even 5 word phrases, they would be exposed to maybe 4 or 5 pages of Google listings... chances are great that searchers will click on one of these listings before they finish typing, especially if the listing contains a part of the searched for phrase.

Marketers will have to closely analyze their own web stats and conversion rates in regards to Google Instant. I am seeing little change in my own online marketing... traffic has dropped on some sites and risen on others, subscription rates are up and sales are steady. What really concerns me is the fact that Google may not only be pre-judging their rankings but also your mind. They are playing a much bigger role in how you decide which listing you click. Granted, this is probably drawn from unbiased data but will the influence of top-brand companies be more dominant in Google's Instant results?

Another general concern, will the display of so many listings make it harder for your site or page to be clicked? Will giving the searcher so many options so quickly, lower your chances of getting that click-thru, even if you have the top spot in Google? The laws of probability and human nature says your chances have diminished somewhat in this new instant search environment. Not good news if your livelihood depends upon getting that click.

However, many of these changes and no matter how fast Google gives you their search results, will not change the fundamental principles of good SEO practices. Keyword positioning will still get you to the number one spot in Google for your chosen phrase if you have the time and resources to create quality content, build quality one-way backlinks and use good on-page optimization. Besides the smaller emphasis on organic traffic, the only other real concern is the degree to which Google will use their suggestions and how much those suggestions are based not on SEO ranking factors but on users' histories and compiled data. Even with this concern, Google Instant, even at warp speed, does not negate the importance of getting those top rankings. For many search engine marketers, like myself, it's business as usual. Full speed ahead.

Author: Titus Hoskins

Tags: Google Instant, End of SEO

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Six Easy Ways to Build Backlinks - Wednesday, December 22, 2010

A good off page SEO strategy is essential to your success in optimizing your site for the search engine results. As more people attempt to “fool” the search engines with black hat SEO strategies, the search engines are putting a stronger emphasis on site popularity and the amount of sites which are linking back to yours. The problem for many business owners is that back link building takes time and you must be consistent if you want to beat out your competitors. In this article, we’ll be covering ten solid strategies which you can use to build quality back links for your site.

Backlink Strategy #1: Forum Discussions
Participating in forum discussions is a great way to build your online reputation, attract targeted visitors to your site and to build quality backlinks. Forums are usually buzzing with traffic and have a lot of fresh content going up every day, which means that they are usually well optimized. By participating in forum discussions, you can build a lot of credibility with the search engines by linking to sites which already have a good reputation. When participating in these discussions however, it’s important that you make a worthwhile contribution to the forum.

Backlink Strategy #2: Blog Discussions
Blogs are another great place to build quality backlinks by participating in discussions on subjects which are related to the content of your site. Blogs also usually have a lot of discussion going on and well targeted traffic going to them which means lots of fresh content going up on a consistent basis. When it comes to commenting on blogs, it’s best to follow the same guidelines as when you are making posts on forums. Blog owners are constantly bombarded by comments from spammers and will disapprove anything which is not making a worthwhile contribution to the discussion, so make sure you leave comments which are interesting to read and which move the discussion along.

Backlink Strategy #3: Facebook
In spite of the fact that the links from Facebook are no follow, they still count for something and the sheer popularity of Facebook will bring you lots of qualified traffic. The key with Facebook is to make sure that your links are being seen by the right people. You can start by creating a fan page and inviting people to your friends list who have similar interests, then inviting them to “like” your fan page. You can then make multiple posts on your fan page to generate qualified traffic to your site and build quality back links from one of the most popular sites on the internet.

Backlink Strategy #4: Directory Submissions
Directory sites are another great place to build links back to your site and to generate qualified traffic from people who are searching for your content. Directory sites provide web users with listings of sites which pertain to a specific topic, and by submitting your site to the proper category you can get it in front of a lot of interested visitors and build a quality back link from a reputable site. Of course, it’s essential that you submit your site to directories which have a good reputation (page rank of 1-5 is best) with the search engines. Some directory sites are nothing more than link farms which will add little or no value to your site when it comes to building back links.

Backlink Strategy #5: Article Marketing
Article marketing is still a good way to attract qualified traffic to your site while positioning yourself as an expert in your niche. When building back links with article marketing, be sure that you use your primary keywords within the links at the end or your article (usually in the “resource box”). The following are seven top article submission sites:

EzineArticles.com

Buzzle.com

ArticleCity.com

IdeaMarketers.com

ArticleAlley.com

GoArticles.com

ArticleDashboard.com

Backlink Strategy #6: Twitter
Tweeting is a super quick way to build backlinks to your site from one of a site which already has a good reputation with the search engines. You Even if you never get any traffic to your site from Twitter, the ease with which you can build backlinks makes it a worthwhile off page SEO tool.

Conclusion: A Simple Daily Plan to Follow
To make the most of these simple backlink building strategies, you need a consistent plan that you can follow every day. The following is a simple plan that you can repeat every day to build nearly 5,000 backlinks in just six months.

Make 10 Comments in 3 to 5 Relevant Forums (10 links-20 minutes)

Make 10 comments on 5 Relevant Blogs (10 links-20 minutes)

Submit Your site to Three Directories (3 links-20 minutes)

Write One Article and Submit it to 5 Article Marketing Sites (5 links-60 minutes)

Keep to this simple plan and be consistent and in time you’ll build enough quality backlinks to gain a good page rank and a favorable position within the search engine results.

Tags: Link Building, Backlinks, Backlink Strategy

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Google Instant Considerations for Search Marketing - Wednesday, December 22, 2010

A reporter (I believe she was from AdAge) attending Google's Q&A about Google Instant pointed out that the new search feature tends to favor big brands. This isn'treally surprising, as it is these brands that are more likely to be searchedfor most often. After all, they're big because people know them.

Do you thinkGoogle Instant is a threat to SEO? Share your thoughts below.

iCrossing has a list of brands that come up when you enter each letter of the alphabet(not all are brands, but many are). A is for Amazon (not Apple), B is for Bankof America, M is for Mapquest (not Microsoft), N is for Netflix, P is forPandora, V is for Verizon, and Y is for Yahoo.

You must keep in mind, however, that the instant results are personalized.Google takes into account things like your location and your surfing habitswhen providing you results.

Google Instant doesn't necessarily make things any easier on small businesses,but it's showing big brands in cases where Google probably would've suggestedbig brands anyway. If users do a lot of local searches, it's possible thatGoogle could show more local results (including small businesses) for thoseusers, I'm speculating.

Steve Rubel says that Google Instant makes SEO irrelevant. "Here's what this means,"he says. "No two people will see the same web. Once a single search woulddo the trick - and everyone saw the same results. That's what made searchengine optimization work. Now, with this, everyone is going to start tweakingtheir searches in real-time. The reason this is a game changer is feedback.When you get feedback, you change your behaviors."

He's not wrong about that, but I'm not sure that makes SEO irrelevant. Googlehas been showing different results to different users for quite a while now.This is really just an extension of that.

Businesses might want to try (and have other people try) doing searches forkeywords that they would expect people to use to find their site. See whatcomes up (keep in mind the personalization) and work from there. Easier saidthan done no doubt, but it's something to consider. Think about what kinds ofpeople will be interested in your products and what other kind of searches theymight be doing. It's not a science, but again, perhaps something worthconsidering. It might mean getting to know your customers better, which can' tbe a bad thing anyway. Maybe it means asking them to take surveys. Maybe itdoesn't.

The whole thing doesn't help organic SEO's case in the old SEO vs PPC debate. I'll give Rubel that.

Speaking of PPC, Google says Google Instant changes the way it countsimpressions. "It's possible that this feature may increase or decreaseyour overall impression levels," says Google'sDan Friedman. "However, Google Instant may ultimately improve the qualityof your clicks since it helps users type queries that more directly connectthem with the answers they need."

Trevor Claiborne of the Google Analytics Team says thatAnalytics users might notice some fluctuations in AdWords impression volume andtraffic for organic keywords. "For example, you may find that certainkeywords receive significantly more or fewer impressions moving forward,"he says.

You should read this post on the Google Webamster Central blog. It says that impressionsare measured in three ways: the traditional way, when a user clicks on a linkthat appears as they begin to type, and when a user stops typing, and theresults are displayedfor a minimum of 3 seconds.

Sidenote: Google's Matt Cutts weighed in onthe whole will Google Instant kill SEO thing. "Almost every new change atGoogle generates the question 'Will X kill SEO?' Here's an video I did lastyear, but it still applies," he says.

He says, however that overtime, it could change SEO."The search results will remain the same for a query, but it’s possiblethat people will learn to search differently over time," says Cutts."For example, I was recently researching a congressperson. With GoogleInstant, it was more visible to me that this congressperson had proposed anenergy plan, so I refined my search to learn more, and quickly found myselfreading a post on the congressperson’s blog that had been on page 2 of thesearch results."

Google Instant will likely become increasingly important to search marketing,because not only will it roll out to more countries (it's starting in the U.S.and a select few others), but it will soon come to mobile and browser searchboxes. Each of these factors will greatly increase how often Instant results aredisplayed.

The mobile factor actually has implications for Google retaining a substantialamount of mobile searches in general. The better (and quicker) Google can giveresults on any kind of query, the less reason users have to go to differentapps to acquire certain information.

Google clearly said that rankingstays the same with Google Instant, but it will change the way peoplesearch. It will affect their search behavior, and that is what search marketers are going to have to think about more than ever. You shouldalso consider that some people will simply deactivate the feature, leaving themopen to Google's standard results.

Original Post by Chris Crum

Tags: Google Instant, Matt Cutts, Search Marketing

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"This is Not an Email Killer": Zuckerberg - Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Facebook made its big "email" announcement, and yes, you will be able to get an @facebook.com email address." It's not all about email, however, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained. It's about "seamless" integration across email, IM, SMS, and all these ways of communication.

It's also about "conversation history", meaning you can keep a running dialogue with everybody you communicate with in a continuous thread for each person or each group of people.

"Five years from now, you're just going to have this full, rich history," Zuckerberg says of the conversation history feature. Facebook's Andrew Bosworth compared it to having a box full of letters between boyfriend and girlfriend from the beginning of the relationship to the present.

Users do have the ability to delete conversations.

Finally, it's also about a "social inbox", which is where message prioritization comes in. Facebook will use the information it knows about who your friends are (based on the user's friends list and their friends' friends list) to prioritize the messages it thinks you'll be really interested in.

The concept is not so much about spam filtering, but actually filtering for the messages from the people who you really care about. "There are a lot of different classes of junk," says Zuckerberg, suggesting that there are a lot of legitimate messages that you don't actually care what they are saying.

It will place priority on friends and friends’ friends. There will then be another folder that will have stuff like bills, pages liked, etc. It's not spam, but not stuff you care about as much as the friends' messages (although, I'd suggest bills might deserve higher priority than some of the stuff your friends [or especially friends of friends] are saying). Then there's the junk folder for spam.

Is Facebook's New System a Danger to Email?

"This is not an email killer. This is a messaging system that includes email as one part of it."

"We don't expect anyone to wake up tomorrow and say, 'Ok, I'm going to shut down my Yahoo Mail account or my Gmail account," Zuckerberg said. He later added that maybe one day people will start to say that email isn't as important as it was before, thought it "will always be a part."

"I think Gmail's a really good product," he also noted during a Q&A session, responding to a lot of the press painting the announcement as a "Gmail killer."

"Relatively soon, we'll probably all stop using arbitrary ten digit numbers and bizarre sequences of characters to contact each other," adds Joel Seligstein on the Facebook blog. "We will just select friends by name and be able to share with them instantly. We aren't there yet, but the changes today are a small first step."

Admittedly, there is something attractive about that concept, and lots of users are bound to agree. Still, the system faces an enormous hurdle - trust. Facebook doesn't exactly have the best reputation when it comes to privacy and user data, but that hasn't stopped users from continuing to share massive amounts of information with the service, so that may not be as big a hurdle as it would seem.

by: Chris Crum

Tags: Facebook, email, Mark Zuckerberg

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