Colorado Web Solutions

Cyber Monday Tip #10: Yahoo Store Shopping Feeds

Posted on November 24th, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Part 10 of our month long Cyber Monday Prep Tips Series. Every day, we have been giving you one small piece of advice to check, fix or confirm within your Yahoo! Store in preparation for Cyber Monday 2009. View Past Yahoo! Store Tips.

Cyber Monday Yahoo! Store Preparation Tip #10: Check your product feeds for shopping engines

I’m going to give you a nice simple tip today. You have no excuses with this one. Today we are going to check your product catalog feeds and make sure that you have them turned on for the shopping comparison engines. In a nutshell, these XML feeds allow other sites to pull your products into their comparison engines and then link back to your site with new customers. I would recommend that every merchant that sells items to the general public turn their product feeds on.

Here’s how to turn your Yahoo Store shopping feeds on.

• Log into your Yahoo! Store’s Manager
• Under the PROMOTE heading in the second row of options you will see “Search Engines” – click that.
• You will see three rows of radio buttons. Ensure that ALL THREE are checked as “Enabled”
• Click DONE
• By checking those three buttons you are turning on your sitemap and allowing your products to be listed in comparison engines.
• Return to your Store Manager main page. If necessary, publish your order settings.
• If your site map was not previously turned on, you will need to publish it once to build it. If your sitemap (the first radio button above) was already on, you can skip this step. You’re done.
• To publish your site map enter your store editor. Click on the VARIABLES button. Then Click UPDATE. Now Publish. You’re finished.

Would you like more control over your product datafeeds? Are you submitting your products to Google Base, Shopping.com etc? Read This!

For those merchants that want to take their product feed and overall marketing to a new level, we highly suggest using a datafeed service designed specifically for Yahoo Stores. We have tried them all and hands down, our favorite service is Go Data Feed. They can help you automatically submit your products (with the correct categories per engine!) to all of the major shopping comparison engines. Free engines, paid engines, they support just about everything! By far the best way to get your Yahoo Store products listed correctly in Google Base / Google Products / Froogle.

If you are interested, here’s some more information on our website:
http://www.coloradowebsolutions.com/yahoo-store-godatafeed.html

I hope you enjoyed this super simple Yahoo Store tip today. Don’t wait. Get it done.

Tomorrow I’ll be back with some thoughts on Holiday Shipping Deadlines.

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Cyber Monday Tip #9: Are your Product Pages Selling??

Posted on November 23rd, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Part 9 of our month long Cyber Monday Prep Tips Series. Every day, we have been giving you one small piece of advice to check, fix or confirm within your Yahoo! Store in preparation for Cyber Monday 2009. View Past Yahoo! Store Tips.

Cyber Monday Yahoo! Store Preparation Tip #9: Making Sure Your Product Pages are your Top Salesperson

Today we are going to take a close look at your Yahoo! Store’s product pages. Your product page is the ONE PAGE that you are guaranteed your customer will see on your site. They might bypass your home page, they could skip past the category and sub category pages, but they can’t avoid the product page. In most cases, it’s the only way to get a product added to their cart.

I mention this because I often times see very plain and or almost blank product pages on far too many sites.

So… let’s take a look at your number one selling product. Head there in your store right now. What do you see? Are all of your questions answered? Do you get a clear picture as to what it is you’re selling? How are the images? Has anyone called recently or emailed recently with a question about this product? Is that answer online now?

Let’s take a look at what the ultimate Product Page on a Yahoo! Store has in my opinion:

• Nice Layout: Product Image, Price, Options, availability and order button should be above the fold (top part of the page that you can see before scrolling down)
• Clear Imagery: At least one product image that can be enlarged for better viewing. If you have multiple images available (either alternative views or colors) be sure to add them. If you do not have the ability to display more than two images in your Yahoo! Store, you may want to consider adding a Multiple Images enhancement.
• Complete Description: This should be in paragraph form and should describe the product. Many manufacturers provide their own product descriptions, and we would suggest using those, but we would also suggest writing your own additional description for your top selling products. What else can you mention about this product that is not already included in the manufacturers description? Remember those Keywords you created in Tip #1? Make sure some of those are included in your own description. This will help both your customers and the search engines.
• Additional Information: Either as a bullet list or sentences, the Additional Information would include things like warranty info, dimensions, weight, specifications, etc. Things that your customers may want to know, but details that do not typically belong in the main description.
• Product Reviews: Product Reviews are a fantastic way to reinforce your products. We highly suggest using them if you can. For all of your Top Products, have your staff add a few initial reviews to get the ball rolling.
• Promotional Information: Remember, your customers may not have visited any other page on your site, so be sure to include any promotional items related to each item on the product page. For example, if you offer free shipping on any order over $100, every one of your products that cost more than $100 should have an icon or sentence about how “This Item Ships Free!”. We offer an enhancement that will do this automatically for you! If the product is on sale, consider adding a “% saved” or “$ saved” line so they see the value of what they’re looking at.
• Clear Call to Action: As silly as it sounds, double check your “Add to Cart” button and make sure it’s easy to see and encourages your customers to buy. Be sure there is nothing confusing about it. Does it stand out? What does it say? Add to Cart? Buy Now? Get One? Make sure it’s asking the customer to DO something.
• “You might also Consider” Items: Not every product is gong to interest every one of your customers, so when your customers do arrive at a product that wasn’t quite right, how about suggesting alternative items right there on the product page? Yahoo! Stores can do this in a variety of ways. You can use the Yahoo! Store Cross Sell Version 2.0 and automatically have your store suggest products, or your store can be coded so that you can also manually specify the exact related items for each product.
• Product FAQ’s: If you receive a lot of email or calls about particular products, consider adding a Product FAQ section on those products. This can be a part of your caption or coded as a separate field in your store. List the general questions and your answers right there on the page. This will be great for SEO as well as instant customer service. In the future as repeat questions continue to come in about products, continue to add those replies directly to the product page on your site. Your customers and sales reps will thank you.
• Recently Viewed Items: Again, in an effort to make your customers shopping experience as easy as possible, I suggest letting your customers leave “bread crumbs” of their travels so they can easily get back to previous products and compare and contrast with their current selection. This is easily accomplished with Recently Viewed items.

There are a number of additional things that can be adjusted on your product pages in order to help you sell, but I think these basic ideas will be a great start for you between now and Cyber Monday.

I’ll be back tomorrow with some thoughts on Shopping Feeds and Search Engines and your Yahoo! Store.

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Cyber Monday Tip #8: Your Top Selling Category Page

Posted on November 20th, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Part 8 of our month long Cyber Monday Prep Tips Series. Every day, we have been giving you one small piece of advice to check, fix or confirm within your Yahoo! Store in preparation for Cyber Monday 2009. View Past Yahoo! Store Tips.

Cyber Monday Yahoo! Store Preparation Tip #8: Tweak your Yahoo! Store Main Category Pages

Today I want you to look at your number one selling category online. Figure out whatever it is and go to that main category page. What do you see? Is it just a listing of additional sub categories and or products? Or is there actual content on that page? Do you get a feel for what you are selling and a desire to buy? Or just another “Yahoo Store List”. If you are only seeing listings further into the site, you are missing out on HUGE SEO benefits as well as great benefits for your customers.

Today’s task is to create content for your number one selling category page. Write a paragraph or two about the category. Be sure to include some of your keywords from Tip #1. If your site allows for images on your category pages, I’d suggest considering adding a lifestyle or good photo that fits specifically with the category you’ve selected. If you need good economical stock photos, I always check istockphoto.com first.

Once you’ve written your paragraph or two and found a good photo to use, get them loaded on your site asap. These inner pages with content will be critical to your long term SEO success.

If you’ve still got time, I’d suggest doing the same thing to your next few top selling categories. I promise, it’s worth the extra work. If you really want your store to succeed in the search engines, this is a “must do” step.

OK, get our there and start writing. I’ll expect to see more content online by this time tomorrow :)

Next week we’ll go over your product pages!

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Cyber Monday Tip #7: Twitter and Yahoo! Stores

Posted on November 19th, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Part 7 of our month long Cyber Monday Prep Tips Series. Every day, we have been giving you one small piece of advice to check, fix or confirm within your Yahoo! Store in preparation for Cyber Monday 2009. View Past Yahoo! Store Tips.

Cyber Monday Yahoo! Store Preparation Tip #7: You should be using Twitter with your Yahoo! Store

Twitter is one of those anomalies that amazes me. It’s a cool idea, but the fact that not seeing a twitter link on a major site these days is now considered strange amazes me. I can’t tell you if the twitter craze is going to be around even a year from now, but as I type, if you’re not on-board, you’re behind. If you’re not tweeting for your business yet, it’s not too late, start today!

The good news is that it’s really easy to get started. Just go to twitter.com and click JOIN. Takes a few seconds and you’re in. You can start tweeting right away. If you’re feeling creative, you can go into your settings and change your backgrounds, your icons and some of your “status” information.

Also, be sure to add a link to your twitter page from your Yahoo! Store. Typically the footer is the easiest place to add that. If you are not HTML savvy, here’s simple code you can add:

<a href=”http://www.twitter.com/YOURTWITTERID”>Follow us on Twitter</a>

So what should you be tweeting? What do people want to hear? It really depends on your customers, but one of the big trends I’ve seen starting to pop up are twitter exclusive deals. Usually in the form of a coupon. It’s a great way to track the use of your twitter posts as well! TIP: be sure to include an expiration date or time frame. Tweets don’t go away, they are there for all time in theory, so be sure to add stipulations.

Other things we’ve seen success with are new product or product line announcements, big sales on popular lines or categories, free shipping deals, overstock deals, product news releases and more.

Like I said, I can’t say that twitter is here to stay, but for now, use it. It’s a great tool. It’s been widely adopted and for the time being, it’s working.

Tomorrow I’ll be back with yet another tip for your Yahoo! Store. I think we’ll tackle your main category pages!

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Cyber Monday Tip #6: Your Return Policies

Posted on November 18th, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Part 6 of our month long Cyber Monday Prep Tips Series. Every day, we have been giving you one small piece of advice to check, fix or confirm within your Yahoo! Store in preparation for Cyber Monday 2009. View Past Yahoo! Store Tips.

Cyber Monday Yahoo! Store Preparation Tip #6: Your Return Policy

Returns were the least favorite part of my 8 years of experience in retail ecommerce. And on the flip side, returns are my least favorite part about online ordering as a customer as well. I’m not alone in these feelings, so you should take extra care to keep your customers as informed as possible about your return policy.

First of all, if you don’t have a return policy online yet, create one asap. You’ll be glad you did. And every time you run into another “strange issue”, you’ll want to update your return policy to cover that as well.

So what should your return policy cover? At the very minimum it should explain; how long your return period is, how to send back an item, do they need to get an RA number? Where do they ship it? Do you suggest that they insure their packages and ship with a service that can guarantee delivery like UPS or FedEx? (HINT: you should!) Do you specify how long it will be before they see the actual credit on their account? Do you need them to include anything in their package other than the product? (Probably so!) Do you allow for exchanges with your returns? Or would you prefer that they re-order online? What happens (what’s the penalty) if they do return an item after the specified return policy window? Who pays for the shipping on returns?

These are all questions that should be answered clearly and firmly in your return policy online. There are a number of other elements that you could include as well, but in order to keep this short, we’ll stop at the basics.

So get onto your site and READ your entire return policy. Do you answer all the questions above? If so, congratulations! If not, get to work today.

Tomorrow I’ll be writing a little bit about twitter and how you can get started immediately using it for your Yahoo! Store.

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Cyber Monday Tip #5: Shipping Rates & Policy Check

Posted on November 17th, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Part 5 of our month long Cyber Monday Prep Tips Series. Every day, we have been giving you one small piece of advice to check, fix or confirm within your Yahoo! Store in preparation for Cyber Monday 2009. View Past Yahoo! Store Tips.

Cyber Monday Yahoo! Store Preparation Tip #5: Double Check your Shipping Rates and Rules

Today we are going to be examining your Shipping Rates and Policies. Should be simple, but it’s always good to look at everything at least once a year to re-evaluate.

First things first. Your shipping rates. Are they the right price based on your expenses? Can you lower them? Do you need to raise them? If you offer free shipping, is your threshold still at the right level to qualify? Can it be lowered? Should it be raised? Start with those questions and then move on.

Once you’ve answered those questions, head to the shipping policy section of your website and look at it from a customers point of view. Are your prices correct as they are listed? Is it easy to understand the options and rates? If not, how can you make it easier? Do you let customers know where you ship from so they can check delivery times? Are you clear about rules for oversize items, extra delivery charges, shipping delays, etc? If you ship internationally do you clearly lay out who is responsible for customs fees? If you drop ship, do you let your customers know that their items could be coming from multiple locations? Have you received any phone calls with shipping questions recently that could be answered on your website and create less questions?

Take a look at all of those things, re-read your shipping pages and make sure to update anything that wasn’t quite up to par.

These are all important things to think about, examine and keep up to date!

Now that your shipping is up to date, tomorrow we’ll take a look at your Return Policies. See you then.

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Cyber Monday Tip #4: Your ‘About Us’ Page

Posted on November 16th, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Part 4 of our month long Cyber Monday Prep Tips Series. Every day, we have been giving you one small piece of advice to check, fix or confirm within your Yahoo! Store in preparation for Cyber Monday 2009. View Past Yahoo! Store Tips.

Cyber Monday Yahoo! Store Preparation Tip #4: Your ‘About Us or FAQ’ Pages

Happy Monday Everyone! It’s time for the next Yahoo! Store Cyber Monday Tip and this one is all about YOU. Let’s take a look at your “About Us” Page. This can also be an FAQ page, but we are going to call it “About Us” for this tip.

First of all, if you do not have an ‘About us’ page, ask yourself why. Is the information already somewhere else? Do I not want to share too much? If you don’t have a good reason, do yourself a favor and create an “About Us” page. Most of your customers will never visit the page, but the customers that are a little more timid to purchase either from you, or online in general, are known to be frequent visitors of the “about us” page and often make their decisions based on what they read solely on that page.

So what should your About Us page contain? It’s really up to you, but we’ve seen sites that range from a “Company History” all the way up to very personal stories as to why the business was started. Both are extremely effective and I highly suggest creating one. Whether you go the historical route, the personal route or a path in-between, be sure to include information that would be relevant especially to a more timid or first time shopper. Tell them why they should shop from you. Make them believe in you. That’s what will get you the sale in the end.

Ok, that’s all for today! I’ll be back tomorrow with some Shipping Tips!

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Cyber Monday Tip #3: Your ‘Contact Us’ Page

Posted on November 13th, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Part 3 of our month long Cyber Monday Prep Tips Series. Every day, we have been giving you one small piece of advice to check, fix or confirm within your Yahoo! Store in preparation for Cyber Monday 2009. View Past Yahoo! Store Tips.

Cyber Monday Yahoo! Store Preparation Tip #3: Let’s Examine Your ‘Contact Us’ page

Today we’re going to focus on your Yahoo! Store’s “Contact us” page. Head to your stores “contact us” page now. Look at it for the first time. Put yourself in the shoes of your customer. Why have they arrived on this page? Are they trying to call you? Do they want to email you? Are they trying to locate your physical location to shop in person? Are they trying to make a return? You know your customers better than we do, so you’ll have to answer those questions before you do anything.

Once you’ve answered those questions, take a look at your Contact Us page and check to see if the most common needs of your customers are being met in an easy manner. Keep in mind that “customer service” and “contact us” pages are very different. Your Contact Us page should be very easy to use and not cluttered with too much unnecessary text. Always be sure to include every way to contact you. Phone, Email, Website, Mailing Address, etc. If you prefer to receive emails then make your email address the most prominent item on the page. If you prefer to talk to your customers on the phone, make your phone number the first thing they see.

The most important thing is that you make it easy for your customers to contact you in the best possible manner. And don’t forget to write them back.

That’s your tip for the day in our Cyber Monday Yahoo! Store Tip Series!

Check back tomorrow for some advice on your ‘About Us and FAQ’ pages!

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Cyber Monday Tip #2: Credit Card Processing

Posted on November 12th, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Part 2 of our month long Cyber Monday Prep Tips Series. Every day for the next month, we will be giving you one small piece of advice to check, fix or confirm within your Yahoo! Store in preparation for Cyber Monday 2009. View Past Yahoo! Store Tips.

Cyber Monday Yahoo! Store Preparation Tip #2: Credit Card Fee Quick Check

I know it sounds silly, but think about the money you can save this holiday season with lower payment processing fee’s during your busiest rush! So go ahead, real quick, grab your credit card statement from last month and find out what your processing % fee is. If it’s higher than 2.19%, I’d highly suggest switching processors and right now. If you need a respected credit card processor suggestion for Yahoo! Stores, click here.

That’s your Yahoo! Store Cyber Monday Prep tip for the day. Nice and easy.

Be sure to check back in tomorrow for a look at your “Contact Us” page!

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Cyber Monday Tip #1: Your Home Page Text

Posted on November 11th, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Welcome to our month long Cyber Monday Prep Tips Series! Every day for the next month, we will be giving you one small piece of advice to check, fix or confirm within your Yahoo! Store in preparation for Cyber Monday 2009.

Cyber Monday Preparation Tip #1: Examine your Home Page Text

Your Yahoo! Store’s home page is the front door for most of your customers and certainly for the search engines. There are numerous elements on your home page that require constant attention, but today we’re going to look only at the text based content.

First things first. Read your home page. From top to bottom. Don’t skip the footer! Ask yourself these questions: Does it make sense? Is everything I read up to date? Is there anything I’m missing? What would I want to read if I were a customer?

Next, make a list of 20 keywords or phrases that are critical to your sites success. Once you’ve created that list, take at least 10 of those keywords or phrases and add them to the home page of your site. Use them in sentences, with correct grammar and punctuation. We’re not trying to trick anyone here with keyword spamming, we’re just ensuring that your site has relevant information, so write with the consumer in mind, but use your keyword list when you can.

Finally, are you offering any specials or promotions this holiday season in your Yahoo! Store? Free Shipping? Free Returns? Gifts with Purchases? Discounts on certain items? Be sure to let your customers know about promotions on the home page if you can. Don’t wait for them to stumble on your promotions and offers, let them know right away. This builds trust and puts your customers at ease.

OK, I’m keeping these short so that you can actually implement these changes quickly and efficiently, so I’ll leave it at that. Get to work. Make the move. Don’t read this and “do it later”. Just get it done now, you’ll thank me later.

Be sure to check back tomorrow for a Yahoo! Store money saving tip regarding credit cards!

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