Making it happen (Small Business E-Commerce Link Digest – 2/27/2009)

Are you scared about the economy yet? Yeah, well, so are lots of folks. The real question is what are you going to do about it? Bryan Eisenberg opens up with a smackdown, challenging businesses to build an optimization culture, one that takes no prisoners and works to get better every day. That’s how the strong, the smart, and the serious will survive this mess. What else can you do? Read on, Big Thinker. Read on.

• Improve your keywords. You want better traffic? Of course you do. Ivan Strouchliak at SEO Chat offers excellent keyword research strategies to drive conversion.
• Test the right pages. Google’s new Conversion Room blog shows you how to identify high value pages to test (though I like our version of knowing what to test first in A/B tests better. Admittedly, there might be some bias there. But, c’mon. Every little bit helps, right?).
• Capture your customers’ interest. Ginger Makela in Google’s Conversion University gives five tips for writing effective web headlines.
• Offer your customers useful information. Michael S (seriously, that’s how his name is listed) over at VKI Studios makes the case for online reviews, even when they’re negative. (Hat tip: Linda Bustos at Get Elastic)
• Use the right tools. Yes, we all hate Google. So what? This is no time for philosophical debates. Use their tools that work (Analytics, AdWords, etc.) and supplement those where you’ve got a better option.

Oh. And get some rest this weekend. It’s going to be a marathon and a sprint for most of the year. Make sure you’re ready for it.

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