So, here we are at the end of yet another year in our lives. Not a particularly pretty year, not a particularly prosperous one, not a particularly positive one for business.

What lessons have we learned?

To be more frugal? To not be taken in on deals that are too good to be true, such as demonstrated by the mortgage and housing crisis? To be wary of banks and investment firms? To forever be on the lookout for corporate greed in the workplace?

For the online entrepreneur, it was a tough year as well. Buying of retail goods fell off the charts, many online stores went bye-bye. Wholesale selling fell as well, as budgets tightened up because of rising fuel and delivery costs as well as less buying on the retail end. Selling on eBay slowed to a virtual crawl with the skewed search results and default Best Match search in place. Auctions just aren’t that popular anymore it seems. People want what they want and they want it now.

Website designing and SEO projects fell for many design firms as well, as clients became wary of the world situation and decided to hang onto their dollars and “wait just a bit longer” ~ kind of like waiting out a huge storm.

And yet the eternal questions about selling online and having a website linger on…………………….

Here are the questions I’ve heard this year, and here is my take on these questions.

1) How many venues should one sell on?

As many as is practical. If you sell on eBay you definitely need a website to compliment it, especially if you have an eBay store. You should also be selling on at least one more venue, just as backup. If you are smart, you will sell different items on each, spreading your stock out a bit, and this way you can direct traffic flow to each, thus making each profitable in the long run. You also benefit from not backing yourself into a corner with just one venue with an expanded search engine presence.

2) To blog or not to blog?

Amazingly I actually heard of a friend’s webmaster who sharply disagrees with me on the absolute necessity of blogging. I am 110% pro blogging, for various reasons. My friend’s webmaster told him a blog is not a necessity at all. Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinion!

However, a blog is what “get’s the word out” about your products, your services, your thoughts on business and trends and general opinons. It’s also what adds quality content to your website, through your blog posts, which can be added to your website ~ at least through linking if not through an active RSS feed ~ as articles. Articles pack considerable punch with search engines, and with the consumer. Articles (aka posts) can educate, inform, and open up new avenues of thought and traffic. Returning traffic.

Blog articles can also promote your products, and lead traffic back to your website or eBay store. Blog articles can be search engine optimized and if linked back to your website, contribute their share to your website’s SEO.

Yes, in case you haven’t figured it out, I’m staunchly in favor of blogging, blogging often, and of writing original content, not creating a blog full of pingbacks from other people’s blogs. That’s lazy, plain and simple.

3) When to use the alt attibute and when to use the title attribute?

This comes up alot. Everyone has heard that you are “supposed” to use an alt attribute for any pictures on the website or the blog or wherever. The purpose of this is NOT for keyword stuffing, as it has been made out to be. The purpose of the alt attribute for pictures is for those Internet users who are sight disabled, or, those who utilize browsers that are text only. This way they know what is there in place of the picture.

The title attribute is used as a tooltip. The major browsers still do not coordinate with each other and display things the same. Firefox does not display tooltips, and MSIE displays the alt tag also as a tooltip. Hence the title attribute is a way to evenly display tooltips across the board, whether for pictures or links.

Keyword stuffing ~ search engine robots and spiders are getting smarter and recognize keyword stuffing for what it is. If you stuff, eventually you get penalized. If you get penalized you fall off the Internet map for a while, how long depends on how much “punishment” is being doled out to you for your offense.

The wisest course of action is to only use keywords on any page, in any alt attribute and in any title attribute that relate directly to the page content at hand. And don’t sprinkle them too liberally. Only sprinkle as how it logically makes sense or you’ll ruin your SEO recipe.

4) Templated Websites vs. Custom Coded Websites ~ which to choose?

Having a hand coded website is a wonderful thing. However, so is a templated website ~ it’s not as “cookie cutter” as it sounds.

A hand coded website design is fabulous because it means you can get exactly what you want in terms of look, navigation, feel, punch. It’s not for everyone.

Templated websites can be customized to give you the exact same effect, if you hire a designer who is skilled at customization and branding. You get the added convenience of then being able to update your website / shopping cart / information site yourself usually through an easy to use administration interface.

It’s going to be a learning curve for you either way ~ if your designer who is putting together the hand coded website will be teaching you how to update it yourself, that’s excellent. If they don’t, well, you end up becoming dependent on them as your webmaster. That’s often not cost effective. The website does not always get updated in a timely manner then either as you are dependant on when they can “fit you in”.

The same thing could theoretically happen if your designer has put together a highly customized website that has a template backbone ~ if it is their intention to keep you dependent on them, they simply won’t tell you how to manage the admin area. This is not a common occurence though.

I don’t like keeping my clients dependant on me when they can easily learn the admin area and manage whatever they can themselves. Which is probably why I’m in favor of designing highly customized and branded template websites ~ be they e-commerce or information websites ~ and again, this topic came up in a discussion with another webmaster who felt differently. It all comes down to personal choice.

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I’ll be back after the New Year with a few more topics and my take on them ~ how to find your niche market, both on and off eBay; a discussion on bounce rate and when to take it seriously; and a discussion on priorities ~ page rank or search engine visibility?

Out with the old and in with the new ~ goodbye to 2008, take our hard knocks and learn from them; hopefully 2009 will be kinder and a bit gentler on all of us, and may prosperity reign!

Even in this economic climate, as unpleasant and unproductive as it is, can working from home really be done successfully?

Yes, it can, and yes, you need to make certain adjustments in your lifestyle, your attitude and how you do things.

It’s not easy, and nothing we do is ever “easy” or “easy money” ~ we all have to work, and work hard.

Working from home affords us different perks than working outside the house in corporate or retail America.

No particular clothing or fashions have to be purchased or worn to keep up with office politics or office guidelines.  No daily commute, no wear and tear on the car. Our time is our own, we can work the hours we want. We are not at anyone’s beck and call, nor do we have to endure office politics.

On the other hand, our lifestyle may have to change and we may have to economize and come down a peg or two. We are now on a tighter budget, and can’t spend money as freely as before, since when you work for yourself you have to put funds away for times when business dries up a bit.

We may indeed do without this or that, however, we become richer because we value our own very hard work and we begin to place value on less materialistic things, such as quality family time, being able to appreciate a sunset we’d never normally see, gardening in the afternoon,  etc.

Our own hard work becomes more  valuable as well, and we evolve as human beings with our expanded awakening, creativity, determination, resourcefulness and awareness.

We work hard to promote our business online, make ourselves a success and create our “online empire” as it were. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t happen without a business plan. It doesn’t happen without research, and it doesn’t happen by getting involved in get rich quick schemes or buying every e-book in site that promises us X amount of $$ in X amount of days.

Whether you offer services, retail or wholesale goods on a website or in an eBay store, or are an affiliate marketer, you get out of your business what you put in. I don’t always mean dollarwise either. I mean the effort you put in, the research you’ve done, the competitor analysis, the solidity of your business plan, the networking you do.

Many of us have all the tools we need right in front of us. Sometimes, we do not see it. Open your eyes and look around you. You’ll be surprise at what resources surround you!

In the end, just like in life, what goes around comes around. What you do comes back to you. Make the most of what you’ve got and watch your business grow.

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Maureen McCullough is a website designer, SEO and affiliate niche marketing specialist ~ Jewelry Collectibles Design ~ and found also on eBay ~ Jewelry Collectibles Design, an eBay Store. She adds an extra level of professionalism to her career as a wedding / event planner, virtual assistant and concierge services provider ~ Wedding Event Planning.

In addition, she runs an online magazine ~ Jewelry Collectibles Online Magazine ~ that features fashion, jewelry, antiques, vintage, and kitchen topics, plus much more! This promotes and supports her 14 niche market affiliate websites, in addition to which her site sponsors reap the rewards of her expert SEO and targeted niche marketing efforts.

Maureen McCullough LLC is an active New Jersey woman owned business in Northern New Jersey as well as an active member of NJAWBO, the New Jersey Association for Women Business Owners.

We’ve been BUSY!!! We’ve launched yet another website, Jewelry Collectibles Beads and Jewels! A super cool bead and jewelry store featuring fine jewelry, fashion and artisan jewelry, antique and vintage jewelry, plus all the loose beads, loose gemstones, and findings that any artisan jewelry designer could possibly need or want to create his or her newest and most fabulous designs!

You’ll soon find after browsing what we offer that this store is an absolute bonanza for beaded jewelry artisan designers and for those of you who are shopping for beautiful and unique jewelry!

We offer a huge selection of loose beads, loose diamonds and gemstones, findings, tools, and wholesale lots for the artisan jewelry maker. If you design your jewelry, you’ll find virtually everything you need in one place to make those creations of yours POP!

If you are looking for fine, artisan or children’s or wedding jewelry, we’ve got you covered with that as well!

You’ll find body jewelry, bracelets, ankle bracelets, charm bracelets, children’s jewelry, designer ~ ethnic ~ fine ~ handcrafted artisan jewelry. Also earrings in all styles, hair jewelry, jewelry sets, men’s jewelry, and wedding and engagement jewelry.

We have jewelry design and repair parts and tools, jewelry boxes, displays, and cases.

Dress yourself up with lovely necklaces and pendants, brooches and pins, rings and watches.

And of course, no store of ours would be complete without stunning vintage and antique jewelry, full of charm, grace and timeless appeal.

We are very pleased to announce the official launch of our newest website, Discount Fragrances and Cosmetics.

Discount Fragrances Cosmetics is one of 14 niche market (think “specialty shop”) stores you will find featured in the Jewelry Collectibles Online Magazine.

The Jewelry Collectibles Online Magazine is owned by Maureen McCullough, a New Jersey based website designer and SEO / marketing expert. Her website and blog, Jewelry Collectibles Design, offers a wealth of information on website design, SEO, niche and affiliate marketing.

She also designs bridal and formal occasion jewelry, and is a wedding and event planning consultant who prefers to think out of the box and march to the beat of her own drum.

Each of our specialty shops has been very carefully designed to bring you a unique shopping experience. In it’s own genre, or “niche” each shop is a virtual one-stop shop for it’s particular theme.

This work on our part not only makes a pleasant and easy shopping experience for you, it also puts virtually all of the results at your fingertips.

I love fine fragrances, quality cosmetics and most of all, quality hair care and skin care products, which prompted me to create this store ………

Looking your absolute best is so important, way beyond the “first impression” stage. How you look, and how you KNOW you look can make or break your day. None of us are physically perfect, yet, if we can make the effort to look as good as possible, we give ourselves the opportunity to also feel as good as possible.

Caring for your hair, skin, nails, smelling nice, it all gives us a more positive persona that we carry around with us. If we know we have done our part of good care, and we look as good as we can that day, well then quite frankly, the day can be crappy and rub off on us, yet when we look in the mirror, we know we look far better than the day!! And this reflects on the image we send to other people, as well as to the message we send to ourselves.

Let’s face it, there are so many different body types, shapes, sizes, plus various health issues we all are subject to. Why not make the most of each day and of the gift God gave us ~ our life ~ and let our own positive image reflect in the sun and maybe bounce off of others, brightening their day as well?!

We’ve worked hard to bring you an enjoyable shopping experience ~ browse our store categories to your left or if you are searching for something specific, just use our search feature!

You’ll also find that we feature a separate RSS Feed for each “parent” store category ~ you can subscribe to one, several or all ~ whatever interests you, and keep up with the latest and greatest offerings as well as what items are going, going, gone (hint… hint…. don’t let that favorite item get away!)

Enjoy shopping with us at Discount Fragrances and Cosmetics!

Niche marketing is a rather loosely knit term that has become sort of a latent buzzword. It’s starting to turn into one of those train’s that quite a few opportunistic yet unknowledgeable individuals jump on in order to improve, at least at first glance, their imminent appeal to new clients. Let’s take niche marketing down a peg or two to it’s roots first.

Niche marketing, to the affiliate marketer, is the process of finding a “niche” ~ something they love, like, adore, are very comfortable with or very knowledgeable about ~ be it shoes, handbags, cell phones,  video equipment,  cars, jewelry ~ and creating a strong online presence (some of us like to call it an “empire” LOL) with said “niche”. Whether they decide to blog about it, run a Build A Niche store, find a reputable drop shipper, or use another source for said affiliate marketing, the affiliate marketer carves out a niche for themselves in the chosen field or fields of their interest or expertise.

That being said, that was the fun part of niche marketing. Now for the more advanced concept.

Let’s say you’ve started a business, whether brick and mortar, online, or both. Let’s assume the business is a few years old, has done well, or sort of well, or at least you are still in business (even with this NASTY economic climate). You’ve achieved somewhat of a milestone. However, you are finding that your efforts are basically all over the map ~ you’ve got some marketing ideas, some on paper, some cruising around in your head, some just an occasional fleeting thought here and there.

You’ve got a website, not entirely happy with it. Perhaps it’s not bringing you the traffic it should, the return on investment (ROI) you feel you deserve, perhaps it doesn’t even look the way you had hoped it would ~ or, maybe it does, yet the aesthetics which are the “lights, camera” are not quite hitting a satisfactory note on the “action” part of this familiar phrase.

Anyhow, you know in your gut that your business has the potential to take off, to grow, to be more than it is but how to get there? How to tie it all together?

Sure you could spend more on yet another designer, on yet another marketing agent, but where is that really going to go? You could blame the economy, but even that is getting old.

Niche marketing, in your case, is relational to several other facets of website development and growth. Niche marketing, branding, search engine optimization, design, and a business plan all go together, all depend on each other, like eggs, bread, and milk are the basic staples of what’s in the fridge.

In your case, niche marketing relies on and at the same time is the integral ingredient of several mission critical factors. Excellent website design ~ not just a pretty face, it must be easy to navigate, easy for the customer to use; effective branding ~ a logo or banner that defines your business to a “T” and makes a memorable lasting impression on people ~ in other words “grabs” them.

The search engine optimization done on the website must be top quality, organic SEO, and make maximum use of your website’s quality content, which should be and need’s to be on every page. Your business plan should allow for an be flexible enough for changes whenver needed. When you see something is not working, it’s time to seriously evaluate it and either tweak or abandon. However that is fodder for yet another article from me, so we’ll get back to the business plan end of things in another post.

What really needs to be done first, and can’t always be done first, is the niche market research. If you are just starting out, yes, of course, you do the niche market research first. However, if you already have the less than fabulously performing website, it’s never too late to do the niche market research.

You need to do this objectively and without sentiment towards your own business or partiality. What needs to be evaluated is what you are selling. Doesn’t matter if it is tangible goods or services. You need to research who out there sells similar or same, how they are marketing it, how they are presenting it, and what part of the lion’s share of the market they have.

Their page rank is not nearly so important as their search engine ranking. People do not purchase goods or services based upon page rank. People purchase goods and / or services based upon search engine ranking, which is another way of saying search engine visibility. If you are not in the top 10 or 20, or even giving it a stretch in the top 30 for your chosen keywords, you’ve got some serious work ahead of you.

You also, if you are selling tangible goods, then need to research your competition’s prices, because their prices reflect their wholesale buying ability. Doesn’t matter if they make their products themselves or not, their prices reflect their wholesale buying ability. Once you get a clean picture of their prices, you need to source out wholesale sources for the same materials for yourself. You may, as a result, have to adjust your business plan to allocate funds to be able to buy in a more competitive wholesale environment.

If you sell services, your task is a bit easier. If your competition sells the same services as you, read far and wide beyond the title of the service. Read what they offer with each service. This gives you a very good idea of what value they place on their time, which is, after all, money. Some service providers will practically give some services away in an effort to rope clients in, and some will charge their normal hourly or package fees yet offer repeat or steady customers a significant reward or price break.

In the end you need to determine your value on your time, the value of your service, and whether your are a service provider with the experience and satisfied client base who can afford to charge middle of the road fees, or higher, more expert fees. Or, whether you are starting out or haven’t got much in the way of a client base will determine whether you’d be better off with your fees at the lower end. As you gain expertise and experience your fees can always go up commensurate with the quality of your work.

Now, if you are in the field of affililate marketing, the same rules apply, with a twist here and there. However, basically, it’s the same. You are not selling your own products, you are selling someone else’s, and you get a percentage in commission. That’s about as plain as any writing on the wall can get.

What isn’t plain is how you should go about the entire venture. You need to do the exact same research on your competition as anyone else needs to, taking the whole picture into consideration ~ what they are selling, for what price (in this case, their markup), how they are presenting the products, their website design, their search engine optimization, their keywords and keyphrases.

This all needs to be taken into consideration while you sit and make your game plan, as you have your website designed accordingly, your quality content written, your blog and your articles, your search engine optimization, your branding.

If you are heavily into affiliate marketing, do this one website at a time. You’ll be better off in the long run and benefit better in the long run by putting up one quality website at a time.

In the end, niche marketing research is what determines the life line of your online business. All other factors, in the end, depend on the niche market research you have done.

Is it all a little too much for you or a bit too much to understand? Contact us here at Jewelry Collectibles Design and we will create a package for you that we can implement, and in turn, teach you to implement yourself. Your success is our success, and we wouldn’t have it any other way!

Continuing our discussion on the incredible, ever-growing invisible eBay store phenomena, here are a few more tips and ideas to boost YOUR eBay store’s visibility ~ in addition to the ones we gave in our last post.

These are a few more things you can do for your eBay store that you actually have control over.

First, blog your listings. Besides Twittering your listings, use your blog to get the word out.

Be creative!

Tell your blog audience a little bit about the item. Be descriptive, add factoids or whatever is appropriate to the item, add a little humor ~ whatever works. Just don’t hard sell because that’s not only a boring read, it really doesn’t establish the fact to your readers that you are either an expert in your field or at least quite knowledgeable about your item.

Your blog post should contain no less than 3 links ~ one directly to your eBay store, one to the item category, one to the item itself. ALWAYS add your referral code to the end of every link ~ ?refid=store ~ so that if someone does follow the link and does buy that item or another item from your eBay store you will get your 75% credit on your final value fees.

This is a very important part of your online marketing strategy. In every post give your eBay store full exposure with what I like to call the 3 Link Rule ~ store, category, item; and give yourself the opportunity to save some money on those final value fees.

Second, if you run any affiliate websites, an online magazine, or have any online venue where you are able to add advertisements, again, get creative.

Create an online ad for one or more of your eBay store categories and make sure that each link that goes back to your eBay store category of course has your referral code ~ ?refid=store ~ on the end so that if someone click the ad link and buys you save 75% on the final value fees.

Your own ads on any of your online venues are every bit as important as any Google or Amazon ads. In fact, depending on how you look at it, even more important as they are marketing YOUR eBay store and YOUR products that you want to sell. Eventually, depending on your level of determination and persistence, these links will bring your traffic and sales.

Third, you may consider giving your eBay store a real shot in the arm with some eBay Store SEO.

This is an innovative and aggressive SEO package we offer ~ here are some details:

We’ve been receiving requests from quite a few eBay store owners who already have a store design that they either like or can live with, yet need SEO done for their eBay store (hence do not need our all-in-one design, SEO and template package).

Since eBay stores receive very little visibility on eBay iteself, eBay store owners need all the help they can get to get ranked well on the search engines and bring in that much-needed traffic to their eBay store.

In consideration of this very valid and necessary request, we’ve come up with the perfect SEO package just for your eBay store. This package is designed to be a one time kick-in-the-pants BOOST for your eBay store.

What You Get:

1 ~ A customized appraisal of your eBay store as it stands in the search engines for your desired keywords (words that you would expect people to be able to find you by) along with our recommendations.

2 ~ A consultation with us where you can express your issues about your store, store traffic, performance or lack of therof, which will help us to optimize your eBay store to it’s maximum potential for increased traffic

3 ~ Our expert SEO (search engine optimization) for all of your store categories, one by one

4 ~ Our expert SEO (search engine optimization) for any and all of your eBay store custom pages

5 ~ A post-project consultation where we will tell you more ways you can drive traffic to your store and other helpful tips now that the store is optimized to it’s max

This eBay store SEO project will be completed within 2 to 4 weeks after purchase of this package, dependent on the number of categories and store pages you have.

Whatever you choose to do, just remember eBay isn’t going to promote your eBay store for you, however, this is not a requirement that they do, and, you can turn this into something positive by being creative, following all or some of our tips, being innovative, NEVER forgetting your store referral code in your links, and, if your budget allows, consider our eBay Store SEO package.

No matter what you do, your eBay store will thrive and prosper only thanks to how much effort you put into this………….. so don’t let yourself down. Everything that is “worth it” requires nothing short of your best effots!

One, or maybe the biggest in and of itself, obstacles facing eBay store owners is the “invisible store” phenomena.

It has always been a problem, for years in fact. eBay has always focused on auctions first, second and last with stores visibility hardly ever registering on the radar.

The problem is much worse now with eBay’s rather complex and always auction tilted search changes, some say even due to Best Match.

Add to this the fact that items with free shipping are not accepted by the Google Base Uploader because the shipping field requires that it contain an actual value, not zero, not null. This works against the eBay incentive to offer free shipping in return for more visibility on the eBay site. More visibility there yet no visibility on Google.

Personally I think it’s Google that needs to re-think this one and change it. Many people blame eBay however I do not feel it’s any of their fault. Their incentive for the seller to offer free shipping in return for more positive placement in search results is a good one. Google’s requirement that the shipping field have a value other than zero or null is hurting the thousands of tangible items with free shipping as well as services, since services do not require shipping either. I suspect that I will get a decent bit of support on this one………….

Back to zero visibility for eBay stores. eBay has THE market for sales, so what on earth is one to do?

With each challenge eBay tosses out into the playing field to it’s store owners, I have found these challenges to be comparable to the glass half full / glass half empty theory.

I consider these challenges to be falling into my half full glass.

Why?

Each challenge and especially this one, the incredible ever invisible store scenario, forces me to come up with creative solutions to drive traffic to my eBay store.

Today and tomorrow I’m going to share some of these solutions with you. I’ve found them to be extremely helpful and effective in driving said traffic to my eBay store, and perhaps you will too. Some are old, tried and true techniques, others I’ve literally stumbled upon in the course of doing other marketing work online.

For today, here’s 3:

1) Run a few auctions every week and always include a link back to your eBay store in the auction listing ~ let people know they can find good deals there as well, and they don’t have to wait. They can have whatever it is NOW.

2) Have a website and an eBay store? Sell different items in each. Never the same items in both!

However the trick is to put a link to an eBay store category on a complimentary web store category page.

Let’s say you sell jewelry. Sell lanyards in your web store and sell eyeglass chains in your eBay store. On the lanyards category page in your web store, underneath the quality content that you have on that category page, include a link that says something like “Looking for eyeglass chains? View our selection here!” Embed the link to your eBay store eyeglass chains category in the word “here”, and be sure to include ?refid=store at the end of that link.

Why?

Should a shopper click on that link and buy something from your eBay store, you’ll get your 75% final value fee credit and save a bundle! Unless, of course, you do not care about saving on eBay fees………………

Also make sure you have the link open in a new tab or new window. This ensures that your customer will never be cut off from your web store even though they’ve gone to your eBay store. Who knows what they will buy next???? Never say never.

3) Whenever you list new items in your eBay store, Twitter that. You’ll gain Twitter followers, traffic, and some sales, eventually.

That’s all for now. Tomorrow I’ll give you some more tips on how to avoid the “invisible eBay store” phenomena ~ utilizing your blog, your affiliate websites and eBay store SEO.