EcommerceBytes-Update, Number 189 - April 15, 2007 - ISSN 1528-6703 
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AuctionBytes Critique My Site: The Dumb Dog
By Ina Steiner
Keith Yockey of South Carolina sells on eBay and says he was inspired to start his own website after the 2006 fee increase. He uses Front Page, hosts his site with FreeYellow.com, and uses PayPal checkout. "The nice thing about using PayPal on my website is that customers do not have to be a member of PayPal to make a purchase, and PayPal offers one of the lowest fee schedules around."
Keith specializes in dog toys and training aids. He did a lot of research on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and tweaked and edited his titles, meta tags and descriptions for the search engine bots to find.
Keith tried Yahoo Search Marketing for 90 days, but "with conversion rates hitting around $70/item, in spite of Yahoo's staff telling me I was doing all the right things, I found the results very disappointing," he said. With a budget of $450, he said he had 6 sales after 120 days from the pay-per-click campaign.
"Paid search is an easy way to throw away advertising money. I would like to know who the "smart" paid advertising sellers do it and what kind of conversion they get for their advertising dollar."
Keith is looking for feedback from readers for a general review of the site, and advice on search engine rankings.
As for the name of his site, Keith said, "I wanted to name a site with catchy words that folks would remember, so The Dumb Dog (as in there is no such thing as a Dumb Dog) was born."
Keith's eBay store:
http://stores.ebay.com/KEY-Products
Visit Keith's website:
http://www.TheDumbDog.com
Discuss TheDumbDog.com website here:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=22208
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View last week's Critique My Site here:
http://digbig.com/4sdcb
If you would like to be considered for an AuctionBytes "Critique My Site" feature, let me know by emailing me at ina@auctionbytes.com.
About the author:
Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com.
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