Cool Stuff to Make Your Day Better & Amazon Search

by Steve on June 13, 2009

Personally delivered to you by Steve Lindhorst, author of
"Selling on 'the River' and "The Niche Book"

It's been a busy month so far. FYI - I'm developing a new Facebook application, which is very exciting. I'll tell you more in a month or so, until then - you can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lindhorst. I also got a new kitten. I've named him "Tex" since his marks make him look like a little steer. (You can see pictures on Facebook.) Also, the little video I did was quite popular, you can see it at the right when you get time. Summer is almost here, my tomatoes are growing, and life is good! On to the newsletter...

In This Issue

  1. Local Business Opportunities in Your Mailbox
  2. How to Appear in Amazon Search Results
  3. Three Things I Really Like Right Now

1. Local Business Opportunities in Your Mailbox

coupon booksI've talked about the incredible opportunities that can be found using the info found at OfflineBiz.com. How do you zero in on local businesses that don't have websites? It's so easy. They actually tell you who they are. Just collect the coupon books you get in the mail each month and use them as a guide. If there's no website listed, they probably do not have one.

Imagine how it would help local businesses if they were to build an email list, and contact their existing customers when they offer a special. For a restaurant, on a slow night they could send out an email with a special that might fill tables. If a mechanic has some empty slots in the calendar, they could easily fill it by offering a special on oil changes via email. They will pay you to set them up. These coupons are basically invitations to call on them and offer your services. You can find more details at OfflineBiz.com.

2. How to Appear in Amazon Search Results

I've received a lot of emails asking how Amazon's search works, and how to get the most visibility. My friend Cathi over at Amazon wrote a great blog post detailing what you need to know to get the most visibility. Here is short quote for a taste:

  1. Utilize all the search terms you can for every product
  2. Use detailed product names
  3. Do not re-use words in the search term fields
  4. Don't use quotation marks in search terms
  5. Use only relevant search terms -
    There are also opportunities for disappointing. For example, if a buyer searches for a black backpack and you’ve included black in your search terms for the blue version, this is a poor experience when a blue backpack surfaces in their search. That isn’t what they were looking for. However, if you know that many people think of your blue version as aquamarine, but that’s not the true title, then aquamarine is a relevant search term.
  6. Use legitimate alternate spellings and synonyms -
    Legitimate spelling differences are relevant too. Is the name of your product racket but it might be searched racquet? That’s a good search term. Or a synonym might help if your product is a pair of slacks but someone might search pants and/or chinos, for example.
  7. When entering several words as a search term, put them in the most logical order
  8. Minimize use of abbreviations
  9. Do not use misspellings as search terms. Amazon.com's search engine compensates for common customer misspellings and also offers corrective suggestions
  10. When entering several words as a search term entry, you don't need to use punctuation - our system ignores commas. Just make sure to put spaces between your words if you want them treated as separate terms.
    These are typically words that they think of as related to the product they want to find. The Amazon system matches relevant products based on those words and returns a page of search results.

Cathi goes on to discuss how you can get more visibility when people browse by category rather than searching by keyword. The bottom line is, get your product in the most focused, sub-category possible. When categorizing your product, if you see a sub-category that is applicable, use it. If you see yet another sub-sub-category, put your product there. Most shoppers will use the sub-categories to filter out products they are not looking for. So use that to your advantage. It's not the number of people that look at your product, it's the number of buyers you get that matters in the end.

Visit the Amazon Seller Support blog and I recommend you subscribe the their RSS Feed. It's great info for Amazon sellers.

3. Three Things I Really Like Right Now

I know we all spend time trying to sell stuff and make money, but along the way we stumble on some pretty cool things. Over the past month or so, I've found some really great tools that just make my day better. I hope you like them too.

  1. LastPass - Have you found it difficult to remember passwords for sites you visit only occasionally? I have. But I found a great tool that remembers all of your passwords, encrypts the data, and even generates really unique passwords on the fly - and remembers them. It's called LastPass. I use it for FireFox, but when I started Internet Explorer, it worked there too. Sweet! It works for Windows or Mac, FireFox or IE.
    There are tons of features to make this free tool a must have. Try it at: www.lastpass.com
  2. Bing.com - Okay, I know it's kinda like MSN Search, but different. I like Bing.com. I know it's from big bad Microsoft, but it came out big a little over a week ago and it's a little bit smarter search engine in my humble opinion. It also has some great features Google does not have. Take a tour here: http://www.discoverbing.com/tour
  3. runpee.com - I found this thanks to Marlene Gavins posting about it on Facebook. Since I have a nine-year-old, I really need this. It is a great example of a practical, clever website idea. I am not going to explain what it is, just go visit www.runpee.com and you'll get it right away - and I'll bet you never go to the movies again without checking it.

Thanks again for reading. I hope you find something useful here. I'll let you know when I find anything good.

Steve

Related Blogs

  • Related Blogs on amazon seller support
  • Related Blogs on runpee.com

Tagged as: amazon search results, amazon seller support, bing.com review, lastpass, local business websites, runpee.com

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