The doom and gloom is all around us, on the T.V. news, the newspapers and it seems like everyone is talking about recession.

In times like these, every online retailer, should be looking for ways to guard themselves against the effect of the current economic downturn. It is virtually impossible to come away totally unaffected, but there are some measures that you can use to avoid the worst of the impact during these uncertain times to your internet business. It’s in these gloomy economic times that dropshipping makes more sense than outlaying your hard earned cash on stock that may not sell.

In these hard times every online retailer should be making twice the effort to keep the sales coming in and the best tactics to employ do not necessarily cost much money, if any at all, just a bit of time.

The first recommendation we have for you is to spend more time to brush up on your search engine optimization. This means that you should keep up to date with any news about how search engines work. Basically, what happens in between the entering of search terms and the return of search results? Why are some pages placed earlier in the results list than others? Fundamentally, the results have to do with having words on your site content (especially in page, section, or picture titles) that match the searcher’s keywords, spaced fairly close together. You can perform many of the basic techniques yourself while designing your site, or if you haven’t got the time to learn for yourself, then you can hire an SEO consultant to help you raise your result rankings. Obviously this will incur a fee but may well be money well spent.

There is a certain element of unpredictability, since you cannot foresee the search terms input by absolutely every potential customer but there are plenty of free online tools that you can use and alot of hosting companies offer software that can give you the search terms used by your existing visitors.

Frequently-used search terms related to a certain topic may also change over time so regular checks to update your keyword list is a must. However, you can do research and find the latest statistical data from popular search engines, and revise your site accordingly.

Besides trying to design your site in accordance with the functioning of search engines, you can also try to ensure that customers find your site easy, or better yet, fun, to use. Try to go through your site as if you were a customer. Do you see any unnecessary distractions or difficult to navigate areas of your site on the way to the most important aspects of the shopping experience (i.e. finding, viewing and understanding products, and then making a purchase easily)? If so, give your site a good pruning, and then watch your profits blossom.

If you would like a deeper, more thorough overhaul, you might try hiring an analyst, again at some cost. A specialist will make a holistic examination of how your site appears and functions in a way that you may not see. Is it safe? Is it user-friendly? How might the overall site design be improved for better simplicity, attractiveness and accessibility? It is true that many online store owners can do some of the more basic aspects of this analysis themselves but in many instances site owners who hire analysts end up doubling their profits. In other words, expert advice can be a great investment.

Investing in help from search engine or general consultancy experts can provide a huge boost for your business, and in these time give you that cushion you from the recession. Making your site more user-friendly is also great measure at any time, so you can draw in those customers, even in these hard times.

Is Dropshipping the Answer in These Hard Times is a post from: Dropship Resource

Gossip or Controversy: There’s something appealing about a bit of celebrity gossip or a contraversial story that can stir the interest of a lot of people. If done correctly without being libelous, the results could be quite beneficial to your site.

Surveys or Polls: Offer one of these options on the right subject and the results could be amazing, it’s crucial that you set it up in a way that others can post it on their sites.

Freebies: Just about everybody loves something for free, you can never go wrong with a good freebie. It’s almost guaranteed that people will share and pass along to others the information of a decent freebie that they have found on the internet.

Lists: People like lists. Bulleted lists, numbered lists, any kind of list. Research has proven that posts or articles posted on the internet that have a number in the title will attract more readers.

A community: Consider setting up a ’shout box’ or even a forum on your site to deveop and promote a community feel. It’s a well known fact that people like a sense of belonging and being part of a community. Think of it as a pyramid scheme, get some initial contributors and they will then encourage others to join in and then those new one will also bring along some new contibutors and so on. Before you know it you have your community.

So if you aren’t already, give it some thought and try link baiting and see your e-commerce business grow.

Done Any Link Baiting Lately? is a post from: Dropship Resource

Here is one of the articles that we came across http://www.marketersboard.com/google-sidewiki-controversy/ 

Google’s New Sidewiki Good or Bad? is a post from: Dropship Resource

The idea has been around for a while now and it seems like the marketing tactic is taking the online business world by storm: social networking websites.

This is not without reason, or a vain attempt at appearing trendy. Research has shown strong evidence that this marketing ploy can boost your stores online visibility and therefore increase your sales. For example, the most rapidly-increasing group of new members on Facebook made up of people 35 years old, or older. This is an interesting piece of knowledge as it is these people that tend to have more money to spend than their younger counterparts. Twitter is a great business hot spot as well. Its 40 million users may seem a bit underwhelming next to Facebook’s quarter of a billion members, but an interesting fact to bare in mind is that the average Twitter user spends significantly more (about two-thirds!) money shopping online than the average Facebook user.

Recent studies also indicate that social networking does have a significant impact on what products people choose to buy. Yes, many buyers do start out having a specific product in mind, and then proceeding to make purchases via search engines. However, not everybody buys this way. Some people prefer browsing. They have a vague idea about what they want to buy, and can easily be influenced by the word of trusted friends and acquaintances on their social networks.

Larger corporations are now using social networking to sell everything from cars to pizza. As an example, Ford motors gave away a hundred Fiestas to some bloggers, in exchange for which the bloggers would have to make and display videos-not necessarily positive ones-about what it was like to use a Fiesta. In a similar manner, you can actually get your customers to do your advertising for you. Quite a sweet deal for you, since many buyers are more likely to trust the word of fellow customers than that of the person trying to make a sale.

The very nature of social networking websites-whether they be Facebook, Bebo, MySpace or any of the others can be very beneficial to you if you give it some thought. You can post store announcements like seasonal sales information or your entire online store inventory on some or all of the social networking sites, attracting many more visitors which will hopefully become loyal customers. This is because the very nature of these social networking sites is to link people who are friends, or friends-of-friends, or share some kind of common interest, even if they have never met. Or to put it another way, think of it like a pyramid, you can reach just a view people directly, but then the people in their networks will find out about you, and then the marketing just spreads like wildfire. You can even offer better perks and services for your customers, as social networking sites are constructed specifically to facilitate fast, easy contact. Its definately something to look into and experiment with. Find out how much it can do for you!

Social Networking Online: Promote your Online Store is a post from: Dropship Resource

Without wanting to state the obvious but……

competition is fierce in the world of online retailing. It doesn’t matter what you’re selling, unless you have designed and made it yourself the chances are that you aren’t the only online store selling the same item.

Why Should Online Shoppers Buy From You? is a post from: Dropship Resource

Owners of online businesses looking to attract more traffic usually turn to one of two solutions. The first is to buy a pay-per-click advertising services. However, some potential customers interpret this to mean that your site has not really “earned” its place near the top of the search results page. After all, if a “sponsored” search result (i.e. a site that has bought pay-per-click advertising) has the same standing as a site that was not sponsored, why are sponsored results often distinctly labeled, or marked with a different color? Whatever the reason, this differentiation often functions as a sort of “danger sign” for potential customers, who are more likely to look at the next search result on the list. Factor in the price you have to pay for the privilege, and this does not look like the best option.

Another possibility is to devote attention to what is known as “organic ranking.” This refers to your website’s place on the search engine results, attained purely through your site’s relevance to the customer’s search. Of course, “pure” doesn’t mean simple. Understanding the complex workings of search engines can help you tailor your site content so that your store is an easy target. This is very valuable information on dropshipping marketing.

Firstly, determine the type of keywords your customers are likely to input. Then make sure that these keywords are found in both the introductory and end parts of your pages. If these keywords are present in your titles or sub-headings, even better: search engines are designed to “notice” when certain words are larger, or in some other way designated as “special,” as in titles. A usual text-length for many pages ranges from three to six hundred words. Search engines tent to target pages with these lengths that have the keyword(s) repeated three to five times for every hundred words. Do the math, and write accordingly.

Even better, try to predict not only individual words but entire phrases that your potential clients are likely to search for, then include such phrases in your text. Remember, the more precisely your contents match the search query, the more likely the searcher is to see a link to your page near the top of the pile.

Then again, be careful not to go overboard. Some site owners pack their content with so many keywords that it ceases to be interesting, or even coherent. Designers of search engines tailored their products to spot sites that include strings of keywords just for the sake of attracting traffic. This practice is definitely frowned upon by the people who run search engines.

By making the most of search engines, you are likely to attract attention without being labeled as a “sponsored result” or spending a lot of money.

Information on Dropshipping Marketing Tips is a post from: Dropship Resource

Some online entrepreneurs build great websites and offer wonderful products and services at highly competitive prices-only to find that hardly anyone visits them. Such people have not made the important realization that just having a good site is not enough. You need to get people’s attention, in an environment wherein there are hundreds or thousands of other stores that-at least, at first glance-look just like yours. In order to accomplish this goal, it is best that you learn what is called search engine optimization, or SEO.

Do not underestimate the importance of search engines. Engines like Yahoo, Google and Bing are an integral part of anyone’s Internet use, no matter what they happen to be searching for, since the Internet is too big and complex for people to find new things without using a search engine. More often than not, buyers find sellers and products through search engines. Some online businesspeople try to take advantage of this by buying a pay per click advertising strategy. Unfortunately, not only is this very expensive, it is also not very effective. Many net-surfers may assume (correctly or not) that the site owner has to use this tactic because the site is not good enough to attract visitors on its own merit and relevance. SEO, being cheaper and generally more effective, is a superior option.

Yes, it’s great to always have your consumers in mind when you write up your site content. However, those consumers are unlikely to reach your site unless it shows up high on the list of results from their search engine. Dropshipping successfully becomes much easier when you also keep in mind the way search engines work. SEO is also one of the cheapest marketing tactics out there, since you can do it yourself by simply updating some of your online text, and because the potential returns are so large. SEO works even better when you use it in conjunction with advertising arrangements with other websites. What sites are people from your target demographic likely to visit? Contact the owners of those sites, and try to get them to put up links to your business.

For the especially busy online entrepreneur, paying somebody else to take care of the search engine optimization aspects of your site can be a very attractive option. This is not without reason. However, it is possible that the expert you have hired will end up using strategies (such as excessive keywords) that will actually get into trouble with the people whom you rent your web-space from. In other words, it might actually be better to jus do SEO yourself. Do not be put off by people who say that SEO can only be done by experts. There are many levels of SEO tactics, some of which are very complex, and some very simple. True, you will have more options available to you if you are a computer genius. However, the simplest-and often the most effective-tactics can be employed by even the least experienced online businesspeople. Give SEO a try, and watch your sales increase!

Target a Search Engine, Increase Dropshipping Sales is a post from: Dropship Resource

If you own an eBay shop or plan to get one, there are certain principles you can use to sell more products.

The first is to pleasantly surprise your customers. Give them more than what they feel they are entitled to. Of course, the most important thing to know is exactly where the bar is. What do customers insist on, and how can you top that? The best approach is to recall some of the times when you were surprised, too. What did store staff do that went beyond the call of duty? Did they give you bonuses, or extra service? Answer these questions, and apply the answers on your site.

The second is to be trustworthy. You might choose to be a customer on eBay before you open your own shop, so you can become a practical eBay expert that your customers can rely on. Try to get happy customers to give you good reviews, so that new visitors have some evidence that you are a good seller and that your products are all they are cracked up to be-and more!

Return policies are an important part of a trustworthy image. Returning products should be a free dropshipping service in the sense of being a total-not partial-refund. Customers have come to expect this because the absence of a money-back policy means that you expect people to be dissatisfied with your products, and are guarding yourself against the results of your incompetence. A return policy makes you seem more believable.

In addition, don’t be afraid to really sell your product. Many sellers make the mistake of laying out the important product details, and just leaving it at that. In fact, you should make it a point not just to talk about the product, but about how great the customer’s relationship with the product will be, and how the product will improve his/her life-whether for practical reasons or for pleasure.

Also, pay attention to your schedule. No, there is no need for you to glue yourself to your computer, but do check your Inbox frequently so that you can answer inquiries as soon as possible.

You should begin to use this information to improve your sales right away!  Good Luck!!

Free Return Service and other Dropshipping Tactics to Net More Customers is a post from: Dropship Resource

Learning From the Past: Holiday Sales Then & Now is a post from: Dropship Resource