Auntie Kate The Resale Expert

When a stranger looks for your business in a search engine, will they find you? Or will the first results be those of your competition?

How search engines decide who goes first is complicated (not to mention, in many ways, “secret”) and involves knowing a heck of a lot more than you as a shopkeeper care to learn. But there’s a simple, 5-minute way to help search engines find your web site.

Is there an easy, non-geeky way to improve your search-engine ranking?

One of the aspects of improving your consignment, resale or thrift shop’s placement in search engines is something called “linking.”

Get quality incoming links. Search bots find new pages and websites by following links on other pages and other websites. The more links there are on other high quality sites that point to your site, the more likely it is for the search engines to index your site faster.

In addition, if you can get links from sites with quality content that is similar to yours, then your site is considered higher quality as well and this can boost your position on the search result pages.

This is a two-part, 5-minute task. The first, getting quality incoming links means getting the link to your site added to high quality, high ranking sites, like The Resale Directory & Zoomable Map that TGtbT.com maintains at HowToConsign.com.

The second task is even easier, and free, if you have a web site you yourself can edit (which is the only way to have a site that works.) Add links on your site that go to similar sites to boost your ranking. For example, if you have a common shop name, you might want to add a note on your home page directing folks to the shop they really wanted to see. Let’s say your shop is Sassy Seconds. When people search for Sassy Seconds consignment, they’re gonna get a shop in Littleton CO, one in Richmond IN, one in Lawton OK and so on.

Imagine if yours is the shop in Vicksburg MS, which is lower than those three. Simply by adding a nice little message on your front page: Looking for Sassy Seconds in Littleton? Richmond? Lawton? and linking those towns to the proper sites, you have added quality links to your site, which helps your site thrive… and of course, endears you to your same-name peers… and maybe they will be savvy and sassy enough to do the same! But even if they aren’t, or don’t, you’re improved  the possibility of your site getting off the second page of results in Google.

Adding links on your site which not only go to high-ranked sites, but also help your potential clientele, is even easier. Using links such as these:

• Read how to make more money with your consignments
• How to clean out your closets
• Why shop resale?

educate, enlighten, and motivate folks to come to your shop, at the same time they’re helping your site’s search engine status because they link to HowToConsign.com, a known traffic builder.

Now that’s five minutes worth spending on a simple marketing task!

Read the full article on Skadeedle.