As a StoresOnline merchant looking to boost your site’s search ranking, you’ll see a lot of advice out there about how to build links and optimize your Web site for search engines. Some of it is skewed by people who want your money. We all know that SEO and link-building are important because they increase our search engine rankings, but not if we do it the wrong way. Here are three paths you should definitely avoid.

1. Slack Off. Whether out of frustration, laziness, or poor follow-through, the surest way to fail at link-building is to not do it. You need to think of link-building like gardening. A garden has to be tended and cared for on an ongoing basis in order for it to yield its crop. The same is true of link-building. You can’t just do a bunch of it and forget about it. Spend a set amount of time each week just link-building.

2. Write For Search Engines. Search engines are getting smarter and smarter. Every day they’re getting better at detecting when they’re being played. That means if you clutter your web pages with repetitive terms designed to snag the attention of search engines, the likelihood that it will ring the bells of those search engines is decreasing rapidly.

Even if that weren’t true, consider what happens when visitors come to your StoresOnline Web site. It’s easy to see when a page has been written for search engines and not people. The result is a page that turns people off and gives you a huge bounce rate; i.e. people take one look at your page and leave within seconds.

Your StoresOnline Web site has to appeal to the people who visit it. A high traffic rate does little good if your bounce rate is sky high. Write your Web copy with the goal of appealing to your customers. Then, go back and see where you can add in your chosen search terms without hurting the effectiveness of your copy.

3. Pay For Linkbacks. You’ll see companies that offer to give you bunches—even hundreds—of linkbacks for a fee. Stay away. Because search engines are getting smarter, they can tell when a site has had this done. It sees a load of irrelevant linkbacks and the result is a lower search ranking. So not only does it not work, but you will have paid to hurt your search ranking.

That said, there are also companies who can provide relevant back-links. These companies have real live people who do their link-building, not automated software “bots”. A live person can make sure the links he builds are relevant to the site they link to. Those are the kinds of links that boost search rank.

StoresOnline Merchants are alwayas looking for ways to further and more effectively market their StoresOnline businesses. One way that StoresOnline Merchants can learn what to do or even what not to do in marketing and advertising is to watch what big firms and companies do to creatively market their own products or services.

For example, recently Burger King incorporated a marketing strategy that used Facebook. Here is the article:

Burger King hawking Whoppers on Facebook

As 2008 wraps up, StoresOnline would like to thank the many StoresOnline Employees and StoresOnline Merchants who have contributed their time, talents, and positive energy to the cause of online entrepreneurship. 

The New 2009 Year is before us.  If you haven't made any New Year's Resolutions, there is still time.  But for those of you StoresOnline Merchants who are busy thinking of what you can do to further boost traffic to your online business with a blog, here are some questions and guidance from ProBlogger.com:

With the end of 2008 hurtling towards us many bloggers are beginning to cast our minds forward into the new year ahead to set goals, make resolutions and come up with strategies and plans to grow their blogs in 2009.

While looking forward and planning to improve your blog is something well worth putting time aside for - I’ve found that you can drastically enhance the forward thinking that you do by doing another step first - reflecting upon the past.

The mistake that many bloggers make in only looking forward is that they often fail to capitalize upon and build upon lessons that they’ve already learned.

I’ve begun to develop a list of questions that a blogger wanting to do some reflection upon their blog might use to undertake such an exercise. By no means is this list exhaustive and by no means am I suggesting that bloggers ask each one - some will be more relevant than others depending upon the blog, its stage in the life cycle and the goals of the blogger.

1.       What goals (formal or informal) did you have for your blog in 2008?

2.       What goals did you meet?

3.       What successes did you have that you didn’t set goals for?

4.       Which goals didn’t you meet for your blog in 2008?

5.       What failed on your blog in 2008? What mistakes did you make?

6.       How have you innovated in 2008?

7.       How have you invested in your own learning as a blogger in 2008?

8.      What do you want readers of your blog to ‘DO’ after reading your blog?

9.       Do Your Readers actually Do what you want them to do?

10.   Would YOU read your blog?

Be sure to visit our blog every day in January 2009 for more blog tips and other helpful information for your StoresOnline business.  StoresOnline wishes you a Happy New Year!

StoresOnlineSite.com has excellent information for StoresOnline Merchants and other online entrepreneurs.  If you are interested in learning why the StoresOnline Pro or StoresOnline Express software is so unique, you’ll definitely want to check StoresOnlineSite.com out.  Here is a tidbit of information from StoresOnlineSite.com:

Why Choose StoresOnline Pro As Your E-Commerce Solution?
There are several complaints that many Website Builders will charge you a fee for several different features or functions, such as transaction surcharges, bandwidth usage, email usage, newsletter subscriptions, Customer Support, SSL, etc. At the time of a Storesonline purchase, a Storesonline Merchant has everything that he or she needs to create, maintain, and successfully achieve their Internet Marketing goals...read more>>>

Benefits and Features of the StoresOnlinePro Software
There are several significant benefits of using a Storesonline Ecommerce Business Solution for your website building and management suite. One of the most significant benefits of using the Storesonline platform is the ease of maintenance. Maintenance is one of the biggest complaints of E-business owners, who simply cannot afford to hire a web-developer...read more>>> or watch the StoresOnline Pro Software demo video shown below.

In observance of Christmas and New Years, starting at 12:01am Mountain Time on Tuesday 12/24/2008 until Friday 12/26/2008 at 6:00am Mountin Time and starting at 12:01am Mountain Time on Wedneday 12/31/2008 until Thursday 1/1/2009 at 6:00am Mountain Time we will not offer chat support.

Telephone Customer support will be closed on Wednesday 12/24/2008 through Thurday 12/26/2008. Telephone Customer Support will be available again on Friday 12/26/2008. Telephone Customer support will also be closed on Thursday 1/1/2009. Telephone Customer Support will be available again on Friday 1/2/2009.

We will, however, be checking an emergency email system every few hours during this time. Any email that is emergency related, should be directed to 911help@myquickresponse.com. Please note that any "non-emergency" email will be responded to within 72 hours of returning back to the office.

Thanks for your understanding as we allow our support staff to spend the Holidays with their families.