Google makes it really easy to see if your products or store is getting talked about on the web.  Go to Google Alerts and type in your search term.

Let’s go through two examples:

1. Thugsta Clothing wants to see if his Compton Hat was being talked about.  Just create an alert for “Compton Hat”.

2. Anne of Kitsch Klothing, may want to find out if her website is getting talked about.  All she would need to do is create an alert for “Kitsch Klothing” and “http://kitschklothing.com” (you may want to create 2 alerts for the URL one with the “www” and one without it).

Google Alerts is a great way to keep up with your industry.  Find out who else is selling similar products, see what blogs/news/media publications are mentioning your competitors.

This is the easiest way to make sure Google knows you exist:

1. Go to Google Webmasters Tool website

2. Click on “Sign Up Now” and either sign in with your existing Google account or create a new account

3. Type in your store url and click on “Add Site”

4. Click on “Verify Your Site”

5. In the drop down chose “Add a Meta Tag” as your verification method

6. Copy the entire line of code they give you. SPECIAL NOTE: Copy the end brackets “<” “>” as well or your store will be seriously messed up

7. Login to your store Headquarters

8. Click on the “Marketing” tab

9. Click on the “Meta Tag” sub tab

10. Scroll down to the “Google Verification Code” Section and paste in the entire line of code you obtained in step #6

11. Click “Update Meta Tags” in your store headquarters

12. Click “Verify” in your Google Tools account

We just added a feature for all you bloggers out there (something we highly recommend to do).  Easily add your blog to your store navigation menu.

Here is how you can do it:

1. Login to your store Headquarters

2. Click on the “Store” tab

3. Click on the “Homepage sub tab

4. Enter in the link text (i.e. Blog, MySpace Page, Main Site, More Info, etc.)

5. And your link.  Make sure you include the “http://:” in the URL

Here are some sites you can use for this new feature

Blogging Sites:

1. Wordpress (What we use)

2. Google’s Blogger

Social Network sites:

1. MySpace

2. Create a Facebook Page for your store

3. Ning

Check out Colour Lovers, especially their patterns section. You can easily take what you see and apply it to your store with our new design tool.

Some of my favorite patterns (in the first hour of browsing around) are Vintage Sitting Room, Carved Snow, Blue Fans, and twilight blues.

“Hi Margo, Once again I want to thank you and your team for going above and beyond. I know I have been a pain, but I really appreciate your support and effort. Everyone should know about the great support service Flyingcart has. You ROCK!” - Ruben from Tag It

We wanted to add a little culture to Flying Cart.  Now, every time you login to your store headquarters you will see a greeting in another language in the upper right hand corner.  Scroll over it to see what that greeting means and where it is from.

We will be down for a few hours for a security update this Sunday.  Sorry for the inconvenience, but trust me you want this update.

Check out your store. We just changed the way we make thumbnail images. Less pixelated and sharper. Enjoy!

A friend of mine just sent me a link to ecommwire.com. Its a pretty cool site to publish a press release and get your word out there a little more. So if you are announcing a sale, have a really cool product coming out, doing something innovative with your site, or just have something to say submit your press release to them.

I will be in Milwaukee, Wi tomorrow on an “Emerging Entrepreneurs” panel at the Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’ Conference sponsored by the Wisconsin Technology Council.  If you are in the area you should join me.

PS: I know what you are thinking… and I totally agree.  Their website needs a lot of work especially since they are a technology council.