Building eCommerce

Just as a brief update to my prior post about turning the eCommerce success factors into articles, I just went and submitted the first two to a couple of article sites. Richard kind of ran out of time and hasn’t been able to finish the series rewrite yet. However, we can test the theory by seeing what happens as a result of posting the articles on article sites.

When - and if - he gets around to finally finishing off the series, those will be posted to article directories too. Tomorrow or over the weekend, I should have some time to post the first two articles on a few more article sites.

We’ll keep track of the site stats over the next 3 to 4 weeks (it can take up to 2 weeks for articles to actually get posted and be available on some sites). So figure that around the middle of May we should have some idea of whether we got any significant results from the effort.

I imagine we will see some results, but the nature of the articles may limit the strength of the response. Articles on this subject (eCommerce web site success factors), are not exactly real hot stuff. Nor do they offer easy quick fixes, simple concepts or instant results. Their popularity may be less than excessive.

Maybe an article on “The top ten steps to make 100,000 in 12 hours or less” would do better traffic wise. There’s an air of unreality that sometimes becomes nearly all-encompassing out here in cyber-space. It wouldn’t even be all that hard an article to write. The problem is, there are probably only 4 or 5 people who could actually implement the steps and do it. Popular but useless for nearly everyone (the 4 or 5 already know how to do it).

Well, I guess I’ll just stick to a more mundane level of reality and see how it works out. Stayed tuned for results.

Since I’ve just finished reworking and uploading the first two articles based on the eCommerce success factors posts, I thought I’d finally go ahead and post here rather than leave all the work to Dan.

It looks like the somewhat expanded and rewritten version of the series may go a full four articles. Originally, I was anticipating only two articles, but by the time I’d done the first it was pretty clear that I’d need three. And maybe four.

Now I know some of you are wondering why I’d go to the trouble to rewrite posts and turn them into articles and put them up in the article directory. First, they are not the same as the posts, not any more, so there is new information. Second, posts are really not in an article format and some people never look at old posts and instead just head off to the article directory. However, the major reasons are things you should keep in mind for your own eCommerce sites.

Traffic, to a significant extent, depends on content. New, expanded content tends to bring new traffic because the SEs like it. Since the posts are not the same as the articles, but were only used as a basis for them, the content is new. So that’s number three and a damn good reason all by itself.

Four may be the big one. Now that the articles (all right, the first two) are written, I can submit them to article directories. This creates incoming links to this site. When people post the articles on their sites, which normally will have related relevant content, more incoming links are created.

These are “organic” links in the sense that they are not purchased, they are not reciprocal or reciprocal directory links and they are (or should be) coming from sites with related content. Are they high PR? Probably not, but I’m not in a real big hurry here. The entire article-based process is about development over time. Having goals that reach beyond next week or next month or next year is a critical aspect of meaningful success.

Links like this can do several important things. First they provide another avenue for the SE bots to find the site. Second, relevant backlinks count with the SEs. Third, article sites are usually high traffic so the links there may bring in traffic. Finally, articles posted on other sites may also bring in traffic through those links.

This is both an advertising and a traffic generation method. Articles, as well as providing your own content (no outbound links), are also one of the best branding and traffic generation tools you can use.

Try it out