Vantage Point

Strategic marketing concepts and business observations. Small business start-up experiences.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Technorati Profile

Here I go again trying to figure out Technorati and learn about internet traffic and linking. You'd think I was dumb, or slow, but I'd call it 'distracted'. It's tough talking to myself. Is anyone out there?

Carol

.: posted by Carol Gamel - Carol@GoldenStarFruit.com 11:32 AM

Friday, May 02, 2008

I've signed up for Yahoo's Product Search Marketing and have gotten a bit confused and frustrated. First of all they have a $50 minimum to open the account. And you have to commit to the $50 before you even know how it works! Hey, Yahoo, what about being more customer friendly? I know I'd like to test your services out before I fork out my hard-earned bucks.

It took 2 days and one error to get my test product uploaded to Yahoo but it looks very good. But then I started wondering how the mechanics of the listing function since, right now, most of my products are one-of-a-kind and once I get a sale, that's it, nada mas. Since I couldn't find anyway to remove my product I sent Yahoo an email from their help url. Two days later I got an answer - "the listing would remain online until you either turn the account off, or upload a new product feed replacing the previous one." Great. In a real world, not a test world, I wouldn't want to turn off my account since I may have other products listed. So off I go to see if I can upload a second product to replace the first.

Oh, by the way, since I tested the ad and clicked through to my website, I used 30 cents of my $50 deposit. Their computer immediately notified me to add more funds "to keep your account active and maintain your listings live on Yahoo".

Labels: product, SEO, Yahoo

.: posted by Carol Gamel - Carol@GoldenStarFruit.com 9:45 AM

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

It's official - I'm a merchant now. I've started a new business and opened a new shopping website -http://www.GoldenStarFruit.com. I've just finished getting my merchant accounts so I'm into a soft launch and working on search engines and generating traffic.

It's been an interesting process getting started. I tried very hard not to get the cart before the horse and that kept causing delays. I think the most challenging aspect was coming up with a website name. Everything I tried was taken and I didn't want to go out and buy anything. I had decided to launch this business in phases and Phase I calls for everything to be done 'on the cheap'. Once I reach predetermined benchmarks, then I move to Phase II followed by, guess what! Phase III.

Labels: GoldenStarFruit