The Ecomcrew Ecommerce Podcast

Welcome to Episode 337! Today, I'm joined by returning guest and fellow friend in the industry who recently became a dad, Jeff Oxford!

Jeff is the founder of 180 Marketing, a site dedicated to helping ecommerce brands with their SEO needs and challenges. Jeff's an expert in ecommerce SEO, and we can't think of anyone else better suited to tell us about link building than him.

In this episode, we talk about how important link building is when it comes to increasing your site's authority and how to avoid penalties from Google by sticking to the white hat tactics.

Specifically, we talk about the following:

• How backlinks affect your site's ranking - 4:00
• What backlinks are - 5:00
• Some statistics for Mike's sites - 6:40
• Sites that tell you how authoritative your website is - 7:20
• The wrong ways to get backlinks - 7:50
• The disadvantages of using black hat tactics to get backlinks - 9:40
• Private Blog Networks and why you shouldn't use them - 10:40
• Strategy #1: The Power of Content Marketing - 14:39
• Strategy #2: Collaborative Posts
• Strategy #3: Building Links through Books
• Strategy #4: The Hidden Value of Resource Pages - 25:55
• Creating a recycling page about your products - 27:48
• Strategy #5: The HARO Method — 28:57
• Strategy #6: Product Reviews - 31:40
• Strategy #7: Awarding Scholarships — 33:30
• Strategy #8: Being a Podcast Guest - 36:35
• Strategy #9: Guest Posting - 38:38
• When guest posting is not a good idea - 39:15
• Sites for prospecting - 42:10
• What 180 Marketing does - 46:45

Want to hear more from Jeff? You can listen to our first episode with Jeff, where he does an SEO teardown for one of our sites. If you're interested in getting an SEO teardown for your own website, or just working with Jeff in general, you can reach him at [email protected].

Link building is such an important aspect of improving your Google ranking, which is why our next Secret Sauce episode will be about it. To join, become a Premium member so you can get to ask Jeff your questions and to get access to the replays of all our past Secret Sauce episodes.

Not ready to be a member yet?

Join us on October 14 at 10 AM (PST) for a FREE Public Q&A webinar. We'll be sharing some general tips and strategies from one of the things we know best: Importing from China.

We've been doing in the import game for several years now, and we've built up a lot of nifty tips for you. From finding the right suppliers and maintaining a good relationship with them, to making sure your products are up to spec even when you're not physically in China.

We hope to see you there, and if you like this episode, please leave us a review over on iTunes.

Happy selling!

Welcome to E336 of the EcomCrew podcast! After a long time, Dave and I are finally doing a podcast together, and we're talking about something juicy.

Some big players in Amazon recently had charges filed against them, which exposed some of the illegal practices sellers do to get their listings to rank higher. In a saturated market such as Amazon, some people are bound to resort to black hat tactics.

If there's any lesson from this indictment, it's that illegal acts will eventually get exposed, so it's best to stick to white hat tactics to save you the trouble.

We're not lawyers and we won't even attempt to give any legal opinions about this. We're looking at this news from an Amazon seller's point of view. In this episode, you're going to hear us express our frustrations and concerns regarding these practices because any Amazon seller knows that these have been around for quite some time.

Specifically, we talk about

• What sellers should be concerned about regarding the indictment - 4:08
• How they got Amazon accounts suspended - 5:48
• Breakdown of the indictment - 7:28
• Techniques they use to unsuspend their accounts - 8:08
• Using firms to help Amazon sellers get their accounts unsuspended - 11:15
• Suspension problems of some of our EcomCrew Premium members - 13:20
• Ramifications of having your account suspended - 17:30
• Competitor sabotage and how they managed to do it for years - 20:42
• How they hacked pages of competitors to get ahead - 22:18
• Mike's concern regarding the morality of these practices 23:30
• The difficulty of pressing charges against international sabotagers - 26:24
• Why more people from third-world countries take the risk in these illegal acts - 27:43
• Deleting tracking information to reflect that the inventory was lost - 31:00
• Bribing employees to increase their storage limits - 31:57
• Making a plan of action that is not intended to be followed through to get an account unsuspended - 34:00
• Getting another seller's supplier invoice and selling it to competitors - 36:58
• Should sellers be worried? - 40:24
• The difficulty of choosing only white hat tactics - 43:25

For more information regarding this topic, check out the article Dave wrote about the indictment.

We'd also love for you to join us on our free webinar on October 14, 2020, at 10 AM (PST). We're going to be talking about how we successfully imported high-quality products from China and we're going to share our secrets when it comes to negotiating with suppliers and making sure that our products meet our specifications and quality standards.

If you liked this episode, please leave us a review over on iTunes.

Welcome to E335 of the EcomCrew podcast! This is a special episode because it's the first time that we have a returning guest from our Under the Hood segment.

We started doing Under the Hood back in 2018 to give free hour-long advice to other ecommerce sellers and feature them on our podcast. This year, we're touching base with our past guests to see how they're doing and how our advice impacted their business.

When our guest, Richard Phillips, was here 2 years ago, he had recently made the transition from affiliate marketing to actually selling physical products. If you missed that, check out E155.

In this episode, Richard and I talk about

• Richard's ecommerce journey - 2:28
• Not being discouraged about business mistakes and failures - 6:28
• Why Richard went into the glassware industry - 7:40
• The importance of packaging for giftable items - 10:05
• Is Amazon the right place for Richard's products? - 15:15
• Buyer behavior during holidays - 15:45
• Using Amazon customization to make products more special - 18:15
• Who should be using Facebook ads - 24:00
• Using Google AdWords - 30:40
• Using influencer marketing to promote your products - 34:15
• Influencer tiers and what factors to consider- 35:24
• How many products you should give away to influencers - 37:54
• The advantage of having a catalogue of products - 40:35
• Increase in traffic at tactical.com - 44:15
• How Mike's writers make good content - 48:55

If you would like to get more reviews for your Amazon listing, we have a great deal for you! We are partnering with Captain AMZ to give EcomCrew podcast listeners 10% off on their paid plans. We know how useful they are to sellers because we use them personally.

Want to be a guest in our Under the Hood episodes? Sign up now and get the chance to be featured on our podcast and get an hour of coaching.

If you liked this episode, please leave us a review over at iTunes.

Hello and welcome to E334 of the EcomCrew podcast!

Today, I am joined by Judson Morgan, who is an actor, entrepreneur, and more importantly, the founder of Butter, a video ad agency that helps ecommerce businesses tell their brand and product stories through high-quality videos.

In this episode, Judson and I talk about

• What a video is worth - 4:18
• How other platforms adapted to the rise of video marketing - 5:50
• How Judson started with Butter - 7:15
• The challenges of making video content - 9:43
• How much videos increase conversion rate - 11:37
• How to make good video content with little budget - 13:33
• The importance of brand storytelling - 18:00
• Butter's case studies - 20:34
• Versatility of videos - 23:24
• Using keyword strategy along with video content - 25:33
• Mike's strategy when using video content - 28:27
• Where you can find Judson - 30:34
• Mike spending time with his employees in the Philippines - 32:00

You can find Judson and check out his company's work over at butter.la.

And if you haven't signed up yet, we are closing our EcomCrew Premium registration tonight at 11:59 p.m. and wouldn't be opening again until next quarter.

Sign up now to get one-on-one support from Dave and I as well as access to our exclusive Facebook group, monthly webinars, and Premium courses.

Finally, if you like this episode, please leave us a review over at iTunes.

Until the next episode! Happy selling!

When we first heard of the existence of COVID-19 earlier this year, most of us didn't think that we would still need to be at home past the middle of 2020.

Aside from our ability to be outside and be with people, the pandemic has also impacted the economy significantly. Many businesses had to declare bankruptcy, and millions of people around the world were laid off.

In this episode, Mike sits down with Brian Miller, the CEO of Easy China Warehouse, to discuss the effects of COVID to ecommerce businesses and where he thinks ecommerce is headed post-pandemic.

Brian talks about:

• Where the virus started - 3:45
• How the US and China differed in how they handled the pandemic - 4:45
• How honest China is regarding the number of cases - 9:05
• Brian's quarantine story - 12:49
• How factories in China are doing - 16:20
• Consumer sentiment and how it is affected by the pandemic - 17:35
• Mike's advice for ecommerce business owners - 26:30
• The importance of taking into account the adjustment period for the economy - 28:25
• The ripple effect caused if small business owners do not make it - 32:10
• Services that Easy China Warehouse offers - 34:20

If you want to know more about Easy China Warehouse, visit their site or shoot Brian an email at [email protected].

For those of you who aren't members yet, we are opening EcomCrew Premium again! This will only be for a limited time, so sign up while you still can.

We also have a public webinar coming about increasing external traffic to your listing so you won't have to spend too much on PPC ads. This will be held on Sept 17 at 10 AM (PST).

As always, we only have limited slots, so you better reserve yours now.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review over on iTunes.

Happy Selling!

Because of how important Amazon is to ecommerce sellers, it's important to keep up-to-date with the latest changes that affect how we should behave in order to remain compliant with Amazon's policies.

There's only a few people out there who would be a better fit for giving us these updates than Seller Labs' Jeff Cohen.

In this episode, Jeff talks about:

• Restrictions in sending messages to customers
• What makes inserts Amazon-compliant
• White hat ways to drive traffic to your Amazon listings
• What not to include in your emails and logos
• HTML restrictions in Amazon
• The importance of understanding the relationship between Amazon and third-party sellers
• Language restrictions in rebates and purchases
• The risk of employing black hat tactics

Seller Labs has been working closely with Amazon for years and is one of the first tools that has been integrated into the Amazon app. It continues to help ecommerce business owners grow and thrive on the platform using a well-established system.

And we have great news!

Seller Labs is giving EcomCrew podcast listeners a sweet deal! You can now get 30% off for 3 months to use their services. This is on top of the one month free subscription when you choose Pro.

Spending too much on PPC ads and not seeing much growth in your sales?

Join us on our webinar this September 17, and we will talk about how you can increase external traffic to your Amazon listing the white hat way.

Happy Selling!

Welcome to E331 of the EcomCrew Podcast! In this episode, we have a husband-and-wife duo who share their ecommerce journey with us.

Deeanne and Garret Akerson had full-time jobs and two small kids when they first recognized the need to make high-quality and comfortable clothing for pregnant and lactating mothers. Born out of the desire to make motherhood easier, they made it their business' mission to provide moms with a great selection of clothes that are both functional and stylish.

In this episode, we talk about:

• How Deeanne and Garret started Kindred Bravely
• How they dealt with existing brands who offered the same products
• How they got their first reviews
• Turning customer suggestions into best selling products
• Braving the challenges of being new in ecommerce
• Quitting their jobs to do the business full-time
• Their secret sauce
• Hurdling the winters of the business
• Vanity metrics
• Employing a team to focus on what they do best

Check out Deeanne and Garret's business, Kindred Bravely.

If you liked this episode, please leave us a review over at iTunes.

Welcome to E330 of the EcomCrew podcast! Today I'm joined by Aaron Rubin, the founder and CEO of ShipHero.

Aaron has years of experience in ecommerce and has mastered the art of fulfillment. His business is all about making it easier for other ecommerce entrepreneurs to manage their own inventories and make fulfillment a breeze.

Business owners may not be thinking much about how to ship their products as much as what products to launch or increasing sales, but it does make a big difference when it comes to profits. A few dollars saved on thousands of shipments every month really does add up.

In this episode, we talk about

• How Aaron started with ShipHero
• The difference between fulfilling through Amazon and doing it on your own
• How reconsidering your shipping methods can increase your profits
• The importance of your product's physical dimensions
• Ikea's strategy for logistics
• Reasons why an Amazon-only seller should use a 3PL
• Questions you should be asking 3PLs before engaging with them
• Where 3PLs make their money
• What small, medium, and large mean to 3PLs
• Some helpful tips about logistics

If you want to learn more about ShipHero, you can visit fulfillment.shiphero.com or reach Aaron at [email protected].

Do you think we can do better?

Tell us what you think about the podcast and get a chance to win our 6 full-length ecommerce courses.

If you learned something from this episode, please leave us a review on iTunes.

Happy selling!

Hello, everyone! Welcome to E329 of the Ecomcrew Podcast, and part 2 of our content-development topic.

Dave and I delve deeper into the hows of creating great content that bring in the much-needed organic traffic for your ecommerce site.

Relying solely on paid advertisements isn't a good tactic for any business. A collection of helpful content in your site not only brings leads in but also helps you develop a more meaningful relationship with them.

In this episode, we talk about

• How to get started - 5:30
• How much you should spend on content - 9:35
• The importance of a pillar article 14:50
• Internal linking- 15:50
• How Mike started with Tactical - 16:20
• What makes great content - 19:30
• Structuring your articles to answer multiple questions - 23:37
• How to train writers - 25: 30
• Images in content - 26:20
• Tools we use to write - 29:00
• Dealing with bounce rates - 33:50
• Stats for some of Mike's sites - 37:40
• Hiring internally vs. hiring freelancers - 39:50
• Countries where you can hire freelance writers - 41:33

Check out Kristiana's awesome article to learn more about how she manages our sites and brings in the traffic we need to increase our sales.

This episode is a great companion to an old one with Katrina McKinnon. Get to know the SEO techniques she used to drive traffic to her ecommerce site.

Join us on our EcomCrew Live Open Office Hours this August 26 at 10 am Pacific / 1 pm Eastern.

If you haven't already, tell us your thoughts about the podcast and get a chance to win all our courses.

This survey runs until the end of the month, and with only a few people joining in, you have more chances of winning the course bundle.

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on iTunes. We'd love to hear how this podcast helps you.

You can also leave us a comment below so we can start a conversation.

Happy selling!