Search Engine Optimization: For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Chapter 17. Using Shopping Directories and Retailers

In This Chapter

• Finding the shopping directories

• Selling directly from third-party merchant sites

• Creating your datafeed files

If your Web site is an e-commerce site, you have more places at which you can register. There's a whole 'nother category of search engines — shopping directories. These are giant catalogs of products. Search for digital camera, for instance, and you see a page with pictures of cameras, their prices, links to the appropriate Web sites, and so on. (A few of these services, such as NexTag, list services as well as products.)

Most of these directories expect you to pay, though not all do. Google Product Search is completely free, for example. In general, the ones that do expect you to pay charge only when someone clicks a link to visit your site, so these directories may be worth experimenting with.

I begin this chapter by talking about the different systems that are available and end by providing you with a little help on preparing your data for the directories.

Finding the Shopping Directories

Tip

The following directories are probably the most important shopping directories to research. Go to each one and try to find information about signing up and uploading your data. In some cases, that process is simple — the directory wants you to join, so you find a link that reads something like Sell on Our Site or Merchant Info. Sometimes, you have to dig a little deeper because the information is not clearly visible; you ...