Blogging to Attract Customers

Drive traffic to your listings with your Auctiva Store blog.

About the Author

Auctiva staff writers constantly monitor trends and best practices of those selling on eBay and elsewhere online. They attend relevant training seminars and trade shows and regularly discuss the market with power sellers and other market experts.Other Entries by this Author

Want an easy way to promote your products and generate more clicks on your eBay listings without spending a dime or lots of time studying search engine optimization? Try blogging.
It's easier than you might think. If you have an account with Auctiva, then you already have a blog page. When buyers open your Auctiva Store, the Blog tab will display on the upper right corner of the page. To view and manage your Auctiva Store and its blog page, simply log in to your account and click on the Store tab. A link to your store (e.g.,


http://store.auctiva.com/auctivausername)


will be shown.
Blogs are one of the most valuable, yet underused features of Auctiva—likely because users feel they either don't have the time, the technical know-how or anything interesting to say. But that perception is beginning to change. According to Kevin Kinell, Auctiva's vice president of engineering, Auctiva users create more than 100 blog posts every day and nearly 18,000 have posted at least one blog entry.
"I was kind of shy about blogging at first," says Michelle Coulter, owner of Michelle's Merchandise and an avid Auctiva blogger. "I didn't know how to promote my stuff."
Coulter now blogs every listing to boost exposure to her items. Each time she creates an eBay listing, she copies the item description into a new blog entry, spices it up with additional comments, adds a title and some keywords, and enters the item number to associate the blog to the item she has just listed. Just a few extra keystrokes later and she's created an entirely new, and free, advertisement.





http://www.auctiva.com/?how=aff_maggiesart

“Every night, Auctiva submits new blog entries to Google Directory to drive natural traffic to your site”
Here are some tips to ensure your blog gets read by search engines:

Mind your META tags. META tags are the words and phrases that search engines use to decide how to place your site in their indexes. Your META Title is probably the biggest factor in determining which keywords will find your listing on major search engines such as Yahoo! and MSN. META Keywords are additional relevant terms that people might use to search for an item like the one you're selling. Sprinkle those same keywords throughout your blog. Auctiva's technical support team recommends repeating keywords three to four times on the page.

Link to your blog and store. The more links you have pointing to your blog, the higher search engines will rank the page. So if you have other Web sites or blogs, or you participate in discussion forums, paste in a link to your Auctiva Store and/or blog. Include the URL in all your correspondence with buyers, on your business card, on your shipping invoice and so on, to help drive additional traffic to your store.

Use a custom domain. This will get you a higher ranking on Google—and it looks more professional to your customers. Customers can e-mail you at that domain and messages will go directly to you. Instead of "http://www.auctiva.com/stores/viewstore.aspx?id=awesomedude," wouldn't you rather customers see "http://www.awesomedude.com/blog.aspx?" Plus, it's a great way to promote your brand and encourage repeat buyers.

Custom domains are available for Auctiva Stores for an annual fee of less than $10. The sign-up can be found under the Stores tab on the Auctiva site. If you purchase a domain through Auctiva, Auctiva will automatically link it to your store.

Update often. Updating your blog helps keep your keywords and items current for people searching the Web. Adding new information encourages search engines to crawl your pages more often. Whatever form your blog takes, keep entries relevant to what you are selling. This way, the Googles of the world will start to see you as an "expert," and rank you higher in searches.

So, why not give blogging a try? You have nothing to lose—but potentially much to gain.

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