Christmas Sales make up the bulk of every e-commerce player’s income. Last year, millions of shoppers preferred the Internet to the High Street, and experts predict this year’s number of internet shoppers to be even higher.

One of the many advantages of owning a Zlio Shop is that it comes with the capability of price comparison. Your shop will automatically list and compare several identical products, allowing the customer to choose the cheapest option.

In preparation for the Christmas Sales Season, the savvy Zlionaut will perform an overall checkup on his Zlio Shop, in order to verify that everything is in good working order for this crucial time of the year:

Validate the availability of all products in your shop

Access the administration area of your shop and click on “store products”. Now make sure that there are no products that are marked “out of stock”. If there are, simply delete them.

Make sure your Shop is not closed due to inactivity

In case you have not been active on your Zlio Shop for an extended period of time, chances are that our system has shut your Shop down. If this has happened, you simply need to add some new products and republish your Shop. Do this in time, so you catch a slice of the Holiday Season business.

Validate the correct functioning of your product links

Sometimes merchants change or delete some of their products. Ideally, they are supposed to supply us with that information via a Data Feed, but occasionally it happens that the Data Feed doesn’t reach Zlio on time. Thus, you should make sure that your products are all up to date, and that they link up correctly with the merchant’s website.

Add new products to your Shop

Make sure to scan the Zlio Product Directory for new and exciting merchandise. Are there any new models available for those products that you successfully sell on your shop? Are there any new products that compliment the ones you already sell in your Shop? Make sure to be imaginative when searching for new and related products, so that you can fill your Shop to the brim with salable merchandise.

Install the Statistics Tag module

Adding the Statistics Tag module from within the Administration Area of your Shop at this crucial time of the year will allow you to figure out where exactly the bulk of your customers come from, who they are, which products they look at and how long they stay on your site. You can use this information to streamline your Shop and make it much more efficient. To install the Statistics tag module, access the Shop Administration Area, click on “modules” and look for the Statistics tag module.

Referrals are a simple, yet effective, way to increase your income on Zlio. Recruiting any number of referrals will help you to easily multiply your income. The reason for this is that you can earn 10% of your referrals’ commission forever, as well as 5% of their referrals’ commission.

Here are some hints on how you can successfully recruit referrals and turn them into Zlionauts:

Recruit those that are close to you: friends, family and colleagues.

When you first created your Zlio store, you certainly talked about it with all of your friends and family, thus creating some instant word-of-mouth advertisement for your new internet business.

One big advantage of inviting friends and family to visit your Zlio Shop is to gain some insight from their comments, which will sometimes be brutally honest. People that are close to you will want you to succeed and will therefore tell you exactly what they liked and what they didn’t like about your shop. They will also make suggestions on what changes you should make. They will have your best interest at heart.

Once these friends, family members and colleagues become the first visitors to your Zlio Shop, you should make an effort to try and convince them to open up a Zlio Shop of their own. As we mentioned above, you will receive 10% of your referrals’ commissions, and another 5% of their referrals’ commissions.

Use the tools provided to you by Zlio

1. Your referral link

The referral link is vital for recruiting referrals on Zlio. It is a hypertext link that directs the user to the Zlio portal containing your Zlio ID. Every person that becomes a member after clicking on your link will be your referral. To find your referral link click the ‘my network’ tab inside your Shop’s Administration Area and scroll to the bottom of the page. When people use your referral link, your referrer-ID will be automatically displayed on the sign-in page.

2. Sending Invitation emails

Under the “my network” tab in your Shop’s Administration Area you can find tools with which to invite your contacts to create their own Zlio Shops. Use these tools to easily and quickly send email messages containing referral links to the people on your contact list. It’s easy as one-two-three and all you have to do is choose which contacts you want to invite.

Please note that sending too many invitations to the same contact will have a negative effect; your email invitations will probably end up in the SPAM-folder.

3. Your personal Zlio referral kit

Zlio has created banner ads and ready made sample texts for your use. These marketing tools are available for free and can be found within the “my network” tab inside your Shop’s Administration Area. Use these marketing devices on your Blog or on your own website. Make sure to put an affiliation link on these banners.

Use your e-mail signature to recruit affiliates.

Every email that you send out should be seen as yet another opportunity to advertise your Zlio Shop(s). The signature-function of your email is both practical and non-intrusive when it comes to recruiting new referrals.

Why not create a signature like this:

—-

Arthur Macadam
www.backpacks.zlio.net
Create your own shop in 5 minutes on Zlio.com

How should you present Zlio to future referrals?

First of all introduce your Shop to your friends, family and colleagues, in case you haven’t done so, yet. Share the Zlio concept with them and explain to them that a Zlio Shop will give them the opportunity to manage their own online Shop within a matter of minutes.

Don’t forget to tell your future referrals that it is possible to earn money with their own purchases on Zlio! The Holiday Sales Season is fast approaching and “cash back” is an excellent way to save money!
If you can’t think of the words to describe Zlio, use Zlio’s presentation page.

Are you ready for some referral business?

Where does Britain spend its Saturday nights? In front of the telly, watching Strictly Come Dancing on BBC One. We all love to see entertainment legend Bruce Forsyth and the marvellous Tess Daly host the programme, which returned for a sensational sixth series.

This week we were all taken by surprise to see actress Cherie Lunghi become the ninth celebrity to leave the programme, despite the fact that the judges praised her “breaktrough” performance.

Journalist and broadcaster John Sargeant, on the other hand, survived yet another week on the programme. We loved how Lunghi’s dance partner James Jordan begged viewers to change their votes after Sergeant was saved. Now that’s what we call “Interactive Television”, isn’t it?

What does this all have to do with you, the Zlionaut? Very simple: you should take advantage of the popularity of Strictly Come Dancing and the ballroom dancing hysteria it has created across our nation.

Go ahead and create a Zlio Shop that offers your customers products related to ballroom dancing. Fill your Zlio Shop with books, CDs, DVDs, clothing and accessories that will be of interest to dancers. After you created an amazing Shop, we suggest you market it accordingly such as inserting smart keywords into your Shop, thus making it easier for search engines to pick up on your Zlio Shop. Take part discussions about the programme by entering internet forums such as this one, and invite readers to visit your Shop. Use your imagination to find other ways to attract visitors to your store.

Search Engine rankings are a serious topic on Zlio!

Finding ways to attract more visitors to your Shops is the basis for your success as a Shopkeeper. Let us therefore talk to you about ways to make your Zlio Shop’s product pages (or any other webpage, for that matter) more attractive for search engines.

The following ideas come from the French Website Plume Interactive, which we highly recommend you read in case you speak French.

1. An optimised page should contain at least 100 words. Don’t hesitate to let your imagination run wild when it comes to the description of your products, thus creating quality content. Keep in mind that the first 30 to 50 words of a page are essential for that page’s rankings.

2. Strategic keywords should be placed at the beginning of the page, preferably within the first paragraph. For even better results, it is also recommended to use the feminine and plural versions of these keywords.

3. Keywords are more effective when they are emphasized in the following ways :

- put the keywords in bold script

- create a hyperlink on important keywords

- create a bold hyperlink, in order to achieve maximum efficiency

4. Repeat the most strategic keyword three times in the product description page. The perfect keyword density index score (that’s the number of occurrences of the keyword divided by the number of words in the page) is about 3 %. Try to reach a density of 2 % to 5 % with your important keywords.

5. Use the right words for your links. The word used for your link must be highly relevant to the content of the website it links to. It is totally ineffective to use words such as “read more” or “click here” for your links. Furthermore, you should always choose words (i.e. text) for your links, instead of an image.

6. Aim at quality of content instead of quantity. The more interesting and original the content of your product pages on your Zlio Shop, the more people will point “naturally” to your website, without you having to create partnerships or link exchanges with those other sites. The more quality links point towards your shop, the better your shop’s ranking in the Search Engines. If you want to participate in link exchanges, you should choose content-oriented partnerships that will offer real added value for your visitors.

“How do I make more money with my Zlio Shop” is a big question on every Zlionaut’s mind. In an effort to help you all achieve greater financial success with your Zlio Shop, we have decided to explain all the necessary steps to you, and to do it in great detail, so that even the technophobes among you can join the ranks of the successful internet entrepreneurs.

In the last Blog Post of this series we told you how to find the right products for your store, and how to approach the issue of the “niche market”.

In this and the coming Blog Posts we will explain to you how to market and advertise your Shop in a way that will attract more customers.

It is clear to all of us that more visitors mean more clicks, which means more potential sales. But … how on earth do you get those visitors to visit your store? How do you turn them into excited buyers? How do you get them to visit your store again … and again? The answers can be loosely divided into three categories:

1. Using the marketing tools offered by Zlio
2. Making use of general Marketing techniques
3. Making use of Search Engine optimization (SEO) techniques

Let’s get started ….

Using the marketing tools offered by Zlio

Here are some steps you can take to improve your Shop’s visibility:

Writing product reviews: Click on the “Store Products” tab, choose a product and click on the “Edit” button. Now you can click on “Review Product” where you can write your own, unique review for that specific product. What should you write? Whatever you want … as long as it is unique and catchy. Describe the product to the best of your ability and try to “sell” the product to your customers. Distinguish yourself from other Shops who sell the same product by being as creative and unique as possible in your approach. Now go to the “Tag Product” tab and add a tag for your specific product. The search engines will pick up your product tags and will therefore give your Shop a higher listing in their results. But what does “add a tag” mean? It means that when you tag a black 30GB iPod with Video, for example, you would add such tags as “iPod, black, video, 30GB, MP3, music”, etc. Tags are nothing but keywords that help the search engines to index the specific product.

Invite others to join or visit Zlio: Click on the “My Network” tab, then on “Invite to open a store” in order to invite your friends, family and colleagues to open a Zlio Shop. You make money off each referral, because whenever a referral makes a sale, you get 10% of their commission, and another 5% of their referral’s commission. Sweet, isn’t it? Now click on the “Invite to visit my store” tab. Here you will find ready-made invitations, which you can send out to everybody on your contact list. Let the world know that you have become a virtual shopkeeper, and convince them to visit your store. In order to save time, you can skip entering each email individually by clicking the “import” button on the right side. Let this import tool access you email account and automatically extract your contacts. We make life easy, don’t we?

Put up banners and ready made texts: Click on the “My Network” tab, scroll down and click on the “show me my referral kit” link on the right side of the screen. Here you will find an array of marketing texts and banners which you can use on your Blog and Website. You do have a Blog, don’t you … ?

Install all of Zlio’s modules: Click on the “Store Modules” tab and install each and every one of the modules! Using these modules is a quick and easy way to achieve more with your Shop. What follows is an explanation for each and every one of our modules:

• “My very own domain” - This module allows you to buy a domain name (e.g. www.mydomain.com) directly from the Zlio website (the service is brought to you via register.com). The advantage is that we automatically link the new domain name to your Zlio Shop. No need to mess around with complicated DNS names and IP addresses! We believe that getting your own domain name is the smart thing to do!
• “ZlioZone widget” - This module allows you to show a selection of your Zlio Shop products on your Blog or Website. By creating a direct link to your Shop, you increase the chances of people accessing your Shop and buying products on it. Did we mention already that it is worthwhile having a Blog of your own… ? Simply take the code generated inside the module, and paste it onto your Blog or website.
• “Header Meta Tags” - This module allows you to easily add Meta Keywords to your Shop. Meta Keywords are Keywords that describe your Shop or your website. These descriptive keywords will help the Search Engines index your Shop, and might eventually get you a higher ranking in the Search Engine results. The second thing you can add from within this module is the Meta Description. Here you should add a few sentences that describe your website. Whatever you write, it should be short and concise, because the Meta Description might appear on the Search Engine results-page. When it does, it will be that one sentence that appears underneath your Website’s name.
• “Sitemap” - This module allows Yahoo! or Google Search Engines to index your entire Shop more easily. A Sitemap is actually nothing else than a list of pages of your website. If your Shop is new and has few other sites linking to it, the Sitemap will allow the Search Engine’s robot to crawl and discover your Shop more easily. Under “Your store sitemap URL” you will have to enter your Shop’s URL (e.g. http://myshop.zlio.net). Under “Google verification META tag” you will have to enter the Verification tag generated by Google. Under “Yahoo verification META tag” you will have to enter the Verification tag generated by Yahoo. How do you get a verification tag from Google or Yahoo? Read about it on this Blog Post.
• “Google AdSense” - This module allows you to install Google Ads onto your Shop in a fast and easy way. In order to use Google AdSense, you first have to create an account. Access the module and log into your Google account through the Zlio module. After you logged in, make sure that it says “Module successfully added“, after which you simply pick the kind of Ads you want to appear on your Shop. Make sure to click the “save” button after you’re finished. Note that the Ads will first appear in French. The system needs up to 48 hours to calibrate itself to the right language.
• “Shoproll” - This module allows you to put a link to other Zlio Shops at the bottom of the page of your Shop. You can choose to allow or forbid other Shop owners to link to your Shop. By linking to other Zlio Shops you get more visitors to come to your Shop, which will hopefully end up in more sales for you. Any Zlio Shop who doesn’t want to link up with you, will not approve your request.
• “Statistics Tag” - This module allows you to install Google Analytics onto your Shop, in order to track traffic on your site. Access the Google Analytics Website and sign up for an account or log into your existing account. On the Google Analytics page scroll down and click on “Add Website Profile“. On the next page, enter your Zlio Shop’s URL and click on the “Finish” button. On the next page, scroll down and copy the entire Tracking Code that has been generated for you. Go back to your Zlio Shop, and paste this Tracking Code into the box that says “please insert your statistics tags” in the Statistics tag module. After you inserted the code, click the “Finish” button. Now go back to the Google Analytics page and click on the “Finish” button there, as well.

The Sitemap module helps search engines to index your store more quickly. By installing this module, your sitemap will be automatically generated and sent to search engines.

For the Google verification META tag:

1. In order to use this, you will first need to have an account with Google.

Go to www.gmail.com and open an account.

2. (In Google) While signed in to your account, use the Google search engine and type in “webmaster tools“. When you get to the Google Webmaster Tools page, click the button” get started with Google Webmaster Tools“.

3. (In Zlio) Sign in to your Zlio account. In your Zlio administration page, in the top menu bar, click on “store module” and select “sitemap module“. Then, click “Installation”.

4. (In Google) Copy your store’s URL, and paste it in the required field next to “Add Site“. Click “Verify your site“.

5. (In Google) In the pull-down menu titled “choose verification method“, select “Add a meta tag“.

6. Copy the generated meta tag, and paste it in your Zlio “sitemap” module in the field titled “Google verification META tag“. This field should contain a marker like:
‹meta name=”verify-v1″ content=”unique-string”›
This field must not contain keywords! The keywords can be added with the meta tags module. Click “Finish“.

7. (In Google) Click “verify“.
You should receive a message that “You’ve successfully…“, etc.

8. (In Google) In the menu on the left side, select “Sitemaps“. Click “Add a Sitemap“. Use the pull-down menu and click “Add General Web Sitemap“.

9. (In Google) Under #3, you will see your store’s URL. Add the words “sitemap.xml” in the field. Click “Add General Web Sitemap“. You should receive a message verifying you’ve successfully completed installing the sitemap.

For the Yahoo verification META tag:

1. In order to use this, you will first need to have an account with Yahoo. Go to www.yahoo.com and sign up for a Yahoo e-mail account. Then, go to http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com.

2. (In Zlio) Copy your Zlio store’s URL (without the ” http://”).
(In Yahoo) Paste your store’s URL in the field under “My Sites“. Then, click “Add My Site“.

3. (In Yahoo) Click “Authenticate“. Follow the instructions under “To add a META tag to your home page,“

4. (In Zlio) In your admin page, paste the code into the field under “Yahoo verification META tag“. Click “Finish“.

5. (In Yahoo) Click “ready to Authenticate“.

6. (In Yahoo) Click “Feeds“. In the field, after your store’s URL, add the word “sitemap.xml“. In the drop-down menu, select “Web Site Feed“. Click “Add Feed“. Keep in mind that it takes Yahoo up to 24 hours to authenticate!

With internet sales growing steadily and culminating in the Holiday Sales Season, E-Tailers big and small are gearing up for the internet bargain seekers’ onslaught, which will begin by the end of this month.

Recent surveys, however, show that for E-commerce merchants this profitable time of the year actually starts earlier than for their brick-and-mortar colleagues.

Zlio therefore urges you to get an early start on this all-important time of the year, and to stock up on holiday products and gifts right now in order to catch the beginning of the wave.

Let all your friends, family members and colleagues know that you have a Zlio Shop that is stocked for the Holiday Season, and we promise you they will prefer to spend their time in your Shop, rather than standing in line in the department store.

Get started with specialised Christmas Shops or Shops selling niche products in every imaginable category. Create your own gift-wishlist in form of a Zlio Shop, and convince others to do the same.  Let this Holiday Sales Season be the time where you actually make money, instead of just spending it.

Search Engine rankings are a serious topic on Zlio!

Finding ways to attract more visitors to your Shops is the basis for your success as a Shopkeeper. Let us therefore talk to you about ways to make your Zlio Shop’s product pages (or any other webpage, for that matter) more attractive for search engines.

The following ideas come from the French Website Plume Interactive, which we highly recommend you read in case you speak French.

1. An optimised page should contain at least 100 words. Don’t hesitate to let your imagination run wild when it comes to the description of your products, thus creating quality content. Keep in mind that the first 30 to 50 words of a page are essential for that page’s rankings.

2. Strategic keywords should be placed at the beginning of the page, preferably within the first paragraph. For even better results, it is also recommended to use the feminine and plural versions of these keywords.

3. Keywords are more effective when they are emphasised in the following ways :
- put the keywords in bold script
- create a hyperlink on important keyword
- create a bold hyperlink, in order to achieve maximal efficiency

4. Repeat the most strategic keyword three times in the product description page. The perfect keyword density index score (that’s the number of occurrences of the keyword divided by the number of words in the page) is about 3 %. Try to reach a density of 2 % to 5 % with your important keywords.

5. Use the right words for your links. The word used for your link must be highly relevant to the content of the website it links to. It is totally ineffective to use words such as “read more” or “click here” for your links. Furthermore, you should always choose words (i.e. text) for your links, instead of an image.

6. Aim at quality of content instead of quantity. The more interesting and original the content of your product pages on your Zlio Shop, the more people will point “naturally” to your website, without you having to create partnerships or link exchanges with those other sites. The more quality links point towards your shop, the better your shop’s ranking in the Search Engines. If you want to participate in link exchanges, you should choose content-oriented partnerships that will offer real added value for your visitors.

On Friday, October 31st we celebrate Halloween in Great Britain.

Tracing its roots to an ancient Celtic festival, Halloween originated as an “end of harvest season” celebration. These days, Halloween activities include such things as trick-or-treating, creating pumpkin lanterns, lighting fires and playing the game of “apple bobbing”.

So … take the initiative and create that perfect Halloween themed Zlio Shop for your customers! Fill your Shop with candies, masks, costumes and all sorts of decorations that befit this spooky holiday.

But don’t just stop with the products! Why not customise your brand-new Shop with the traditional Halloween colours? Using the “customisable template” in your Shop’s Administration Area is as easy as one-two-three, and the effects will amaze your customers. Don’t forget: they want to see something special, so make sure to appeal to all of their senses in order to make an impact.

Want to go that extra mile? Customise your Shop’s CSS and create an amazing background with a Halloween theme that will put all those Ghouls and Gobblers out there in the right mood. Surprise us with special effects, such as sound and video.

Think you have created a noteworthy Halloween Shop? Send us its URL and if we are duly impressed by it, we promise to display it on the Zlio homepage. Happy trick-or-treating to all!

Reading through emails we receive from Zlionauts, we noticed that the most common question concerns the ways in which Zlio Shop owners can improve their earnings.

There is a two-part answer to this question:

First: find interesting products and create a visually appealing Shop

Second: get people to visit your Shop and turn them into customers

In this First Part, we discuss the actions that need to be taken in order to design a shop which will be interesting to your visitors, as well as pleasing to their eyes.

Find your niche market

We at Zlio believe that the best way to make an impact on the scene is to specialize in one product area. Don’t know which product area to pick from? Choose whatever interests you! What are your hobbies? What really gets you going? What are you passionate about? We believe that you will spend that extra amount of time on your Shop only if you really believe in and enjoy the product you are selling.

Do you like children’s books? Are you addicted to your Nintendo Wii? Do you like fashion clothing? Turn all and any of your interests into a Zlio Shop! Try to be as specific as possible when you choose your products. Choose not just books … but children’s books. Choose not just games or video games… but the Nintendo Wii game console. Choose clothes, but categorise them by colors. The bottom line is this:  be as specific as possible, and try to become the biggest and the best in your specific niche market.

Still not sure how to find your niche product? Use the Google Keyword Tool. This easy-to-use tool will help you find the most sought-after keywords on the internet … which in turn may give you ideas on which products to sell.

Customise your Template

There are Zlionauts who choose one of the ready-made templates that Zlio provides its customers with … and that’s perfectly fine, of course. But then there are those Zlionauts who go the extra mile, and learn how to customise their template, in order to give their shop a more personalised atmosphere … and believe us: your customers will see and feel the difference, which in turn will entice them to spend more time in your shop.

What are the ways to customise your Shop?

1. Choose the customisable template

When in your Store Administration Area, choose “display”, then “manage my template”, and then “customizable template”. Once you have entered the “customisable template”, you can easily and quickly customise the colors of every single part of your shop … simply follow the instructions. It ’s literally as easy as one-two-three. If you should run into difficulties at any stage of the customisation process, you can always contact Zlio’s Customer Service Team, who will gladly guide you through the process.

With regards to the customisable template, two things should be noted:

• When using the “customisable template” you can only change the colours of your shop … and nothing else.

• Once you choose the “customisable template” you will not be able to customise your CSS anymore.

2. Customise your Shop’s CSS

A more sophisticated way to change your Shop’s appearance is to customise its CSS (”Cascading Style Sheets”). Changing a website’s CSS allows you to define the specific colours, fonts and layouts for your website. When you see a Shop that is using a certain image as its background (e.g. “Garden Shop“), it means that this specific Zlionaut has put up the background by changing the code within the Shop’s CSS. Learn more about how to work on your CSS by reading about it on Wikipedia or by studying such tutorials as “Your HTML Source“.

3. Customise your Shop’s Header and Footer

The top part of your Zlio Shop is called the Header, which can be customised to look like this Zlio Shop. In order to customise your Header, you must first create a suitable image (with a program like Adobe Photoshop), which you then cut into the right size. You then upload the image onto a Picture Hosting Service (e.g. Photobucket) and copy the Picture’s produced URL. This copied URL must then be pasted into the “Header” section within your Zlio Shop’s Administration Area.

The bottom part of your Zlio Shop is called the Footer, which can also be customized. Simply proceed in the same manner as described above. Instead of pasting the URL into the Header you simply paste it into the Footer.

The second part of this article will concentrate how to market your shop. if you have any comments or questions, we will be glad to answer them right here on this blog. Simply use the submit comment button below.