Successful Ecommerce Businesses Start Here
Today Google unveiled what they call Google Instant. It provides you with search results as you type (no need to click the ‘search’ button.)
It’s pretty slick and if you haven’t seen it already jump on over to Google and give it a go.
To learn more about what it’s all about you can go to the Google Instant page.
Here’s a quick look at it:
Start at the home page as normal
Start typing and get dynamic results on the fly
For those of you using — or thinking of using — any form of SEO URLs mod to rewrite the links on your site you may want to be aware of this common error message many have reported getting.
I’ve run into this myself on a few servers and it made no sense to me as to why I would get it when in other cases the rewriting of URLs worked just fine.
The error more specifically states “403 Access Forbidden” and goes on to provide very little detail. There are a number of reasons this can happen some stemming from incorrect configuration of the .htaccess file itself (used to setup the rules and conditions for rewriting.)
If you are sure the .htaccess file is correct and are still getting the error, then go back and first enter ONLY the following in the .htaccess file itself:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain.(.*)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ //www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Replace “yourdomain” with the domain of your site (and don’t forget the “.com” extension. Use the extension your site has.)
Now open up the following url in your browser:
//yourdomain.com (again replacing “yourdomain” with your own personal domain.)
If the server is setup correctly (php configured with mod_rewrite and that is loaded) then you should see the home page of your website BUT in the address bar of the browser you should see the “www” form of it.
You entered “yourdomain.com” and you should see “www.yourdomain.com”.
If this works, then your server is setup correctly and the problem likely resides in either the configuration of your .htaccess file OR as I found, the root directory permissions of your website.
Make sure your root directory is set to something that allows “write” access (like 755 or something). Keeping your sever as secure as possible yet allowing it to “write”. You can change these permissions by using your FTP program to login to your server and then performing a CHMOD command on the root directory (of the site that is.)
Change the root to 755 and then reload your page going through the same steps as above.
If all is working, then your SEO URLs module should also be working now.
Hope this helps anyone banging their head around looking for an answer to why they can’t get SEO Friendly URLs to work on their server.
Everyone is looking for more traffic right? Well, I received an email this weekend about a new free tool that was just launched called BlogRush and you might want to take a look at.
I am testing it right now, and although it’s too early to determine if it really does drive more traffic to your site, it comes from a source that is known to produce quality products and services that have always done what they say. Thus, I should think this widget is no different and is worth giving it a try.
If you maintain a blog of any kind (which, if you are not already, you should consider doing), or if you have the ability to feed your products using RSS, then you should consider this free tool as another option for driving traffic to your site.
Good question. BlogRush is very simply in concept. You simply place the BlogRush widget on your blog or website (if it has an RSS feed) and immediately you begin to earn credits each time it is displayed (every time your pages loads.) For each credit you earn, you are rewarded with your content (from your RSS feed) being displayed on other sites in the network that also use the widget, and that are similar in topic to yours.
You have the ability to further target potential sites by adding keywords to your account that specifically work with your market. The system uses a combination of content matching combined with the category you choose for your site and then attempts to place your content on other sites within the network that it thinks are similar to yours.
This concept should increase the click-through rate to your site (although don’t expect miracles.) As more sites join the network and technology improves, I would imagine it would be quite possible to tightly match content; maybe not to the level of Google AdWords, but certainly better than just getting random impressions.
Having said that, BlogRush looks like it could generate some quality traffic to your site – for free. If nothing more, it is worth a try.
This tool is completely free, and is super easy to implement. It is a “set it an let it” type tool, meaning once you install it on your site, you do not need to do anything else ever again to start receiving credits and traffic as a result.
Sign up for BlogRush place the code on your site, and begin earning credits. If you don’t have a blog already, you could still implement this system if you have an RSS Feed of your site available (BlogRush automatically reads the RSS Feed you provide them with, and places the items within it on sites of similar interest.)
It means that if you feed your products using RSS (through either a blog attached to your e-commerce site, or from another method), then those products would appear with direct links to them on sites of similar interest. Yes, that’s right, by using BlogRush, you’ll have the opportunity to put your products directly in front of more potential customers, for free.
If you haven’t done so already, you might want to setup a free account with BlogRush. As mentioned, if you don’t have a blog, you should consider starting one. However, if you don’t have a blog but have the ability to feed your products using RSS, then this tool could work for you as well.
Yes, of course you will get some. However I wouldn’t expect miracles. Typically internet research on click-through rates for these sorts of traffic exchanges are not that good. Even with the ability to match using category and content, most users will place these widgets in areas of the site that are not easily seen which means that they don’t get a lot of attention in the first place. Furthermore, if you look at the widget, it contains five other links which are competing for attention. So, naturally the chances of a visitor clicking through to your site is lowered.
Now, having said that and as with all small communication channels for generating more traffic, of which BlogRush is one, the effect of compounding can make a difference and all traffic helps, so it’s worth giving it a try. If not at least for some period of time.