There is nothing new about mobile devices. Hundreds of millions of people have their Iphone, Droid, or Nexus glued to their palm. But as wireless networks mature in the US in the next 12-24 months and the competition of the top platforms builds drives more sophisticated application development, we have the all the pieces in place for the wireless ecommerce revolution to begin.

Smartphones and mobile devices are rapidly transforming from being utilized as website browsing devices to website shopping devices.

If you are an Ecommerce site owner it is time to make sure that you have a mobile strategy in place that will give you maximum exposure across all platforms where your customers are living their online lives.

Check out some of my thoughts on this top in a 2/16/10 Mobile Commerce Strategy Post over at Practical Ecommerce. Do you need a mobile site? Your own Iphone app? Those are important questions to consider.

Here at MightyMerchant, we are putting the finishing touches on our Mobile MightyMerchant product. We are excited to be a part of the mobile extravaganza. Come join us for the show!

Hey, it’s good to be back! Time to kick it into gear. For today, I have an interesting SEO-related question: how important is an ip address change to your SEO fortunes?

To expand on the question: if a site needs to be relocated to a different physical machine – whether with the same hosting company or a new provider – it is often necessary to change the numerical internet address associated with that website. Will Google look down on such a change?

As with most questions SEO, there is no absolute answer. Given the evidence we see with migrating many sites from other providers and between our own servers, we have yet to seen any penalty or search ranking change due to an IP address shift.

But, given the fact that many of our customers live or die by their search placement, we like to err on the side of caution.  Every change we make on a website needs to be given due consideration.

Let us know if you have seen downward slides after an IP switch. Moving your site into a “bad neighborhood” could be problematic. But, beyond that, is an ip change penalty a real issue or an urban legend? Let us know your thoughts?

I just read an article over at http://www.problogger.com from Darren Rowse about what to do when your Google traffic disappears. Darren made some good points, as he always does, but I thought there were some more details to add to the discussion. Here is my view on the actions you should take when you wake up one morning to discover you traffic is gone.

1. Review Google Webmaster Guidelines. Google is great. They tell you in no uncertain terms what their recommendations are. Take a few minutes to review the latest version of Google Webmaster Guidelines. Google sets the rules. You need to play by them.

2. Install Necessary Tools. In order to fully analyze/diagnose what is going on with your site, you NEED to be using Google Webmaster Tools. Installation is free and easy. Just do it. I will mention in a moment what to do with Webmaster Tools. You also need an industrial strength web traffic analysis package. Google Analytics is the obvious choice, but there are many others out there to do the job. The main point, is to move beyond gut feelings about what is gong on with your site and wild theories about what might have caused your demise. You need to be working with some hard, cold numbers.

3. Do Competitive Analysis. Create a list of your top ten phrases and look closely at the other sites that are coming up ahead of you. It is important to determine whether you have completely disappeared from Google or if you have just dropped off your previously stellar listings. If you have completely disappeared you need to start looking at whether you have been penalized or banned. Maybe Google has been unable to reach your site. But, the other, more likely situation is that your competitors have gotten better at SEO and you have done nothing in the five years since you gained #1 status for your coveted terms. You might need to do some work to regain your mojo!

4. Analyze Traffic and Indexing Patterns. Now it is time to jump into Google Webmaster Tools. Under the Diagnostics area you can see how often GoogleBot (Google’s indexing spider) is visiting your site. Ideally, it should be every few days. You can also see what errors Google is reporting and how many pages are being indexed. These valuable statistics give you a baseline for taking action.

If you have been banned, it will be clear that Google is not indexing any of your pages. Time to jump back to the Webmaster Guidelines and learn about the steps you need to take.

5. Evaluate your Incoming Links. More so than ever, Google rankings are about the link authority that your site has. In other words, who is linking to you, how they are linking, and the trust that Google puts in those sites are all important factors. If you have done nothing over time to fortify your incoming links you will start to  suffer (because you have competitors out there who are working hard). It is possible that Google has done a recent update that devalued your site because your incoming links are on the decline.

6. Look at a Broad Range of Keywords. Is your conclusion that Google has dumped you in the dog house due to a drop-off on one term or is there an across-the-board decline? Before you panic, take a look at a range of phrases. If you are suffering with just a few terms, some focused work on your home page could get you back in the game. If your whole site is suffering, it is back to Webmaster Guidelines to do a point-by-point review of where you falling short of Google’s expectations, or, where your competitors are trumping you.

7. Assess All Changes. This recommendation is huge! Make sure you review whether you, your web designer, or your CMS (if you have a hosted CMS) have made any recent changes. It is possible that significant changes have happened on your site that you are unaware of. As an example: we worked with someone who unwittingly turned off their SEO-friendly urls in WordPress, which completely changed their internal linking on the their website. Or, it is possible your Ecommerce provider has done a major update that has changed all your page titles. Talk to the people you are working with and see if they can give you any insights. You can also look at Google’s cache to compare your current page with a recent version, or, possibly use a service like http://www.archive.org to do some comparison of the current version of your site with past versions to see if the html has changed.

8. See If You Are Alone. Here is another pre-panic step: do some Googling to find out if your case is an isolated issue or if many others are reporting issues. Your change in rankings could be a result of a sea-change on Google’s end. This doesn’t mean you need to sit idly by and fret, but your approach will be significantly different than if your ranking drop-off is isolated.

9. Set up Google Analytics Intelligence. Google Analytics has a brand new feature (as of 11/09) that is awesome. Analytics Intelligence lets you set up custom alarms so you can receive an email notification if there are anomalies in your traffic. Although this tool won’t help you go back in time and address past problems, it will be a great aid as you move forward with a more scientific approach to controlling your rankings and traffic.

10. Be Systematic. Our overarching recommendation is to be systematic in tackling your SEO decline. You need to identify the list of factors and then analyze and address them one-by-one.

There are no shortcuts to working with Google, but if you play by their rules and pay attention to every detail, you can likely be successful in regaining your Google rankings and traffic.

I love @chrisbrogan’s approach because he has the ability – on a daily basis – to ask simple, focused questions that always seem to be appropriate to what I am grappling with at the time. Of course, I realize I am one of hundreds who is simultaneously going through the same experience, but it feels like Chris is talking directly to me. Ahh, the genius of a great communicator.

Today’s question from Chris: What are the results of all your hard work?

Simple enough. And, on a day like Thanksgiving, after a wonderful afternoon of sharing with family, it is a good time for me to “go deep” and think about why it is I’m pushing so hard each day.

The results Staci and I have created:

1. A “family” of awesome customers – many of whom are able to live their dream of having a successful ecommerce business.

2. A workplace that provides an engaging, challenging atmosphere for our dedicated team.

3. An opportunity for Staci and I to work together to build our vision and exercise our creativity on a daily basis.

4. A model for my kids about what it looks like to put your heart into an endeavor, to live each day with determination and conviction.

We are lucky, indeed. Every day presents new challenges – some which seem overwhelming – but all having an elegant solution waiting to be discovered.

I am logging off for now, but I will see you on the Internet in the morning, ready to go for it, once again.

Tomorrow, Thanksgiving, is a day for family, friends, and appreciation of the gifts in life. And, hopefully, you have the luxury to take the weekend to relax and spend time with those you love. But next week… I encourage you to set aside a chunk of time to start formulating your Ecommerce strategy for 2010.

Not that you need to nail it right away, but see if you can set the process in motion. Review your ‘09 numbers, look at the opportunities and threats before you, and begin to formulate a plan for how to best use your time and resources.

I will have more to say on strategic Ecommerce planning over the next week.

We have put together an article on the HEROweb website called “What’s Your Web Strategy for 2010?” to help get you going. Have a look when the time is right and see if it helps get the creative juices flowing. And, in the meantime, all the best for a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.

Next year we will be celebrating two decades since Tim Berners-Lee and his team at CERN implemented the first HTTP system and gave birth to the World Wide Web.

All of THIS has happened in 20 years.

Although the sophistication of the Social-2.0-Ecommerce-Flash-2Way-mediaRich-databaseDriven-AJAXenhanced web scarcely resembles the text based clients of the early days, the  foundation has not shifted. It is all about the LINK.

That’s right. The hypertext link is what online empires depend on. From the success of the Ecommerce giants, to the buzz of the social media superstars, to the corporate jousting of Murd0ch v. Google, the link remains center stage.

We crave those links and scrutinize their quality. Our revenue depends on them. And we are beholden to almighty possessor of link authority: Google.

Is this the web of humanity that TBL envisioned? I cannot say. But the web is a fascinating, ever-expanding Escher-like puzzle. As it evolves – complex and wondrous, the hypertext link remains the connective tissue that defines the web and gives it form. I pay tribute to the link: so simple and elegant an invention on which our new universe has been built.

Every major Internet ecommerce property has their holiday messaging in gear. Whether it is http://www.petco.com talking about your pet’s wish list or http://www.bodyshop.com with their body butter-adorned Christmas wreath, the virtual gloves are off. It is time to seize those holiday sales.

What is going on with your home page? Have you gotten into the holiday spirit, or does your messaging scream “Grinch”?

Don’t be intimidated by the competition. Even if you don’t have the budget or ability to create fancy graphics, do SOMETHING to greet your customers for the holiday shopping season. Holiday graphics are preferable. But a simple text message will suffice. If you need an extra something, there are a range of holiday clip-art sources out there.

In this year of price-conscious shopping, a holiday special would be an excellent idea. If you are not prepared to do any product discounting, you can at least suggest some holiday gift ideas or put together a category of stocking stuffers.

Of course, better to encourage larger purchases. Maybe you can throw in a free stocking stuffer with a purchase over $50.

Be creative and have fun with the holidays. And if you haven’t gotten in gear, don’t wait any longer. Only 31 days ’til Christmas!

If you are a student of SEO, you know the importance of building incoming links from high-trust sites.

In addition to obtaining links you also want your incoming links to reinforce the relevance of your site. Two key ways to improve the quality of your incoming links are to be specific about the link text relevancy and target page selection.

1. Link Text Relevancy. The actual link text used to link to your site is an important factor in the value of a link. If you are selling Chlorine-Free Pool Chemicals, it would be much better for a link from another site to read:

Check out the huge selection of Chlorine-Free Pool Chemicals

than something like this:

Check out pool chemicals from JoeysHiQualityPools.com

The ideal scenario is for the link text to include your keyword phrase. If all of your incoming links simply include your domain name, the search engines will not reward you for your relevancy for specific keywords (unless, of course, those keywords are in your domain name).

2. Target Page Selection. It is hard to be too picky about incoming links, but the optimal situation is if incoming links go directly to the interior pages of your site. Ths is called deep linking. If you have a page on your site about chlorine-free pool chemicals you will want incoming links with with that link text to go directly to a page on your site about chlorine free-chemicals.

If every link into your site goes to the home page, the search engines will likely not value your site as highly as if you have a range of links going to content-specific pages on your site.

So how do you obtain links that are structured the way you want? You ask! Use every opportunity to make it easy for others to link to you.

Here is an example of a link request page you can put on your site:

Sample Link Request Page

You can similarly email the link text to others that you would want them to use when they link to your site. Let the recipient know they can just copy and paste the snippet you have provided for them.

Whenever you create an inbound link to your site from another website, be sure you are using best practices, such as those described in this post.

If you are curious what your current incoming link text looks like in Google’s eyes, Google Webmaster Tools has such a report for doing a quick scan of incoming link text at:

Your site on the web -> Links to your site -> Anchor Text

Don’t sell yourself short by settling for generic incoming links. At every opportunity, request for those links to be built in a way that will give you the greatest SEO boost.

We hear from quite a few Ecommerce site owners who are captivated by the lure of social media.

Part one of the conversation is about the potential of social media. Wow. Part two of the conversation is about the time commitment involved. Gulp. Most small business owners wonder how they can possibly have time to develop a social media presence.

A valid question, as you are contemplating how to make social media work for your business,  is whether it is possible to outsource your social media efforts. The short answer is … probably not.

A successful social media campaign usually involves:

1. Timely engagement with your customers.
2. Honest communication.
3. Forging a close connection with your audience.
4. Responding appropriately to customer feedback.

Outsourcing these functions to another firm can be tricky business. It will be challenging to find that rare person who can communicate as your proxy. They will need to be the voice of your business and communicate from the heart without having the experience or personal knowledge of your business culture.

Of course, it is possible your social media strategy is more focused on posting announcements, specials, photos, or scouring the web for relevant info and sharing it. These are the type of tasks you will have more success in outsourcing. Then again, if your entire social media strategy is about posting factoids and sterile information, the odds that your users will respond in a meaningful way goes down dramatically.

A good solution/compromise can be to assign someone in your organization who already has an inclination toward participating in social media to lead up your company’s efforts. You, as the business owner, can supplement those efforts by contributing as your schedule allows.

As the social media industry matures, businesses will sprout up that specialize in handling social media communication for other businesses. But, be careful about entrusting your communication to another firm that might not fully understand your core message and be able to communicate in your voice.

In the Internet business, with rapidly evolving technologies and platforms, many ideas have a short half-life.

I was pleasantly surprised to revisit an article we wrote in 2005: Thirteen Ways to Evaluate an Ecommerce Provide, and to see the article was still relevant.

Ok, maybe the Google Page Rank reference is a little dated. But in hunting through the hundreds of Ecommerce providers, you really need to be able to seek out a company that is going to be able to grow with your business.

Back in ‘05 you could get away with selling generic products on a generic website. But those days are coming to an end as the web shopping audience matures and the competition continues to increase. Your Ecommerce vendor needs to be as much a service provider and strategist as a technology agent.

What factors do you see as the most important for choosing an Ecommerce vendor to work with?