Google and Duplicate Content

Dear Google,

I know that we have this love/hate relationship that depends on where you put my stuff but your insistence that I try to trick you by describing the same type of items in dozens of different ways is ruining our relationship. You go along on your merry way sticking my stuff wherever it is that suits you without even the least bit of explanation or consideration for the toil and brain bleeding that I go through trying to please you. You won't even tell me where you put my things after you hide them! The worst part is that when I'm finally successful at tricking you then I start to think that you're just an idiot. You act like you're the only man on earth.

Umm, wait - I guess you are the only man on earth. Never mind...

Love (sort of),

Karen


Please come see my handmade designer plus size sweaters, sweater coats, capes and shrugs at MirabilisFashions.com



_________

Yeah, I know - go rewrite the stupid descriptions again.

SEO - I'm doing the happy dance

When I first started it back in August with a bit of work I had most of my plus size sweater coats showing up on the first two pages of google. Once all of the major department stores started their fall and winter advertising I was bumped back but a few could still be found on the first 3 pages. Then I made one change to my shop-level SEO in both shops and all but one of my sweaters disappeared. I started to panic and then realized that my shop itself was now on page 1 when I searched on "plus size designer sweaters" "plus size handmade designer sweaters", "plus size sweater coats", "plus size handmade sweaters", "handmade designer sweaters" and my Zibbet and FB fan page are all over the first few pages too. On a straight "plus size sweaters" I don't turn up until page 4 but that's not bad considering that there are huge numbers of them out there and it's a very general search. I have to keep pinching myself to believe that my shop name is all over the place right before the start of the holiday shopping season. Buying Mary's guide was the best thing that I've done for my shop so far.

Please come see my handmade designer plus size sweaters, sweater coats, capes and shrugs at MirabilisFashions.com

Getting Started With Search Engine Optimization

Well, it's August 1st and the kickoff date for my monthly promotion task. This month I'm going to focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so that my items have a chance of being found in a google search instead of being buried far beyond where any normal person has the patience to go.

There are all sorts of links and tools out there to learn from but I'm going to start slowly and build on what I figure out along the way. You can use your shop announcement, section names, item titles, item descriptions and tags to put in keywords that will help the search engines find your stuff. Some of it is obvious but from what I understand the order of the words that you use can have a big effect on things. I'm going to be digging deeply into this for the next few weeks until I feel confident that mine is the best that it can be.

My tasks for this morning are to read this article about SEO Mistakes and to go look at some of the successful sweater shops and see how they're using the available areas for their keywords.

Have you focused on this yet and what have your experiences been?


Please come see my handmade designer plus size sweaters, sweater coats, capes and shrugs at MirabilisFashions.com