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People who run e-commerce sites - sites that are focused on making sales of a product - have a history of great difficulty when it comes to search engine optimization. We are told to build links to improve search engine rankings, yet why would a person link to a site that is essentially a glorified shopping cart?

One of the most common ways that e-commerce store owners have gone about an SEO campaign is to add a content component to their site, hoping to attract links for the content, which in turn will raise the overall ranking of the entire domain. Unfortunately this tactic tends to impact the ability of the e-commerce site to do what it is meant to do - make sales - because the addition of content creates a “mixed message”, confusing visitors and reducing conversion.

Search engine traffic can be the difference between success and failure for many e-commerce sites, and since it’s free traffic, there isn’t a single store owner out there who wouldn’t want to capture top rankings. Many millionaires are created because of their ability to optimize for product related search terms in Google, Yahoo and MSN, so what is the secret to their success?

In this article I’m going to demonstrate one technique, a fairly extensive technique - a secret weapon - that search engine optimizers use to help one main site dominate rankings for both top level keywords and long tail phrases. This is powerful stuff, so if you own an e-commerce store or any website that you want to rank number one for a specific term, it’s time to pay attention!

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Michael Kwan is fast becoming a review king and he’s offered to help me out here at Entrepreneurs-Journey too. In this review, Michael investigates an e-book by Eric Brown called “SEO Essentials For a Top 10 Search Engine Ranking”. Read on to see if Michael thinks this book will help you improve your search engine rankings…

SEO Essentials e-Book by Eric Brown

Name: SEO Essentials For a Top 10 Search Engine Ranking
Creator: Eric Brown
URL: www.seotips4u.com
Purpose: Learn how to optimize your website for a top ten search engine ranking
Reviewed by: Michael Kwan

Search engine optimization. It’s a term that every website owner should know and it’s a concept that many of us obsess over for our dot com endeavors. We want to rank as high as possible on as many search engines as possible, driving targeted traffic toward our websites so that we can hopefully make some money from these visitors. The money part of the equation can come from advertising, product sales, affiliate commissions… that part of the picture has limitless opportunities. But before you can even attempt to make money, you need visitors, and SEO plays a huge part in getting you those visitors.

On page 79 of his e-book, SEO Essentials For a Top 10 Search Engine Ranking, Eric Brown writes:

As I’ve said many times, “SEO is simple. People make it complicated.”

Like everything else, the SEO industry is powered by money, so its secrets are closely guarded — at least they have been until now.

It’s arguable whether SEO is really as simple as Brown makes it out to be, but when his e-book boasts a hefty 191 pages of text, diagrams, and hints, you start to wonder just how simple it really is. Is this e-book really going to launch your site onto the first page of Google search results for “iPhone”? How about “Viagra” or “Search Engine Marketing”? Let’s find out.

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If you are on the StomperNet mailing list (you can sign up by filling out the form on this page you have no doubt already received news and links to more great free videos for the re-launch of the program.

As an affiliate for StomperNet I received a neat little PDF that explains what has been going on behind the scenes at the company. If you don’t remember, Brad Fallon and Andy Jenkins released StomperNet about six months ago after conducting an extensive launch process that included releasing lots of great free videos about search engine and website optimization.

The program sold out and they grossed over ten million in sales, but even if you didn’t join the free stuff was very helpful, which you can check it out right now at the free public version of StomperNet.

StomperNet was by far the largest Internet marketing product launch ever completed, however what made that launch a little different was what happened after.

Normally you don’t hear much about what is going on behind the scenes and I often get the feeling many of the big product launches are meant to be one-hit-wonders - a huge lead-up process to sell a package, make millions and then walk away. The StomperNet team didn’t do that, instead they used the launch to form a business and based on what I learnt from the PDF, they have done a great job creating one of the largest companies focused on search engine marketing.

Here’s what StomperNet is today:

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A quick welcome and thank you to the latest sponsor of Entrepreneurs -Journey.com, Search Engine Guide.

You should already see there banners floating around here and if search engine news and education is your cup of tea, or you want to learn how to optimize your small business for search engines, spend some time at SearchEngineGuide.com.

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If you read Rich Schefren’s latest free e-book - The Final Chapter (aff) - you will have come across a link he provided to a great tool called Search Status for the Firefox browser.

You can download Search Status here

It’s a neat little Firefox extension that provides you with some handy shortcuts for things like PageRank, AlexaRank, backlinks, keyword density, link reports, whois and a bunch of other search engine marketing related tools.

Rich mentions this tool in his section of the Final Chapter as a resource for conducting competitive intelligence. You can use it to find which sites are linking to competitor sites so you can find out their likely JV partners, affiliates and traffic sources, which is valuable information. Rich had discussed some great points in the e-book about performing research on your competitors and I have to admit he takes it to a new level, I never thought to do some of things he suggests.

Personally I very often use backlink checks and the various tools provided by Search Status when I am evaluating a site I am thinking of buying or monitoring my own sites. Having all the tools available from my browser window makes these jobs just that little bit more efficient.

If you are obsessed with backlinks, PageRank, AlexaRank, and all the other search engine metrics, this tool is a must. Thanks to Rich for bringing it to me attention.

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