Sales originate through traffic. Google is the number one source of traffic, accounting for up to 80 percent of total traffic on e-commerce sites (organic, paid, and shopping). Does Google like your site? And, most importantly, does Google like and deliver traffic to your product page, on which the “add to cart” button is located? We analyzed the top 20 e-commerce sites (Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide 2010) and here’s what we found. While most sites do a good job optimizing their pages/URLs, many sites have ignored their user-generated content (UGC), which is unfortunate, because that content is often the most valuable in Google’s eyes.

25 to 35 percent of traffic for large e-commerce sites is organic search (SEO).

The highest converting SEO traffic is traffic that lands directly on your product page.

Google favors fresh UGC (user/customer-generated content) in its search results.

The UGC on the product page is customer reviews - ubiquitous on the Web, proven to drive conversion, and consumers’ number one social tool in the buying process.

Google indexing customer reviews directly on your product page is absolutely required to optimize your product page for SEO.

65 percent of the top e-commerce sites do not have customer reviews indexed on their product pages.

Amazon’s reviews on its product pages are indexed by Google. Staples, Apple, Sears, SonyStyle, NewEgg, and Grainger also have reviews indexed by Google, rounding out those in the top 20.

Below is what an Amazon and Staples product page looks like to Google. In gray, under the retailer logo, you’ll see the Amazon/Staples product page as consumers see it. Under the Google icon next to each consumer view, you’ll see the same page as Google sees it, highlighting indexed UGC in green.

See more at www.clickz.com

Link building is rarely a favorite task for a webmaster to perform but it is certainly one of the most important. There are many ways to obtain backlinks, some of which take a lot of time and patience before seeing any benefits of all your hard work. The good news is that some link building techniques help you grow your network and gain traffic too.

Given that almost all link building tasks take a lot of your valuable time, it makes sense to try and get the most out of any effort you do put in. One excellent way of getting much more than a link is to create Squidoo lenses. Not only does a Squidoo lens get you followed links back to your site, they are a potential revenue stream and could also send traffic to your website.

Another common way to get backlinks is by commenting on relevant blogs and in forums that offer followed links. This is a good way of obtaining links as it can also increase your chances of gaining traffic. By offering your opinion and advice in relevant online communities, people will want to get to know more about you and will start visiting your site.

Writing guest posts for other webmasters in exchange for a link or two in your author bio not only means you gain a link but you also build your network and bring traffic to your site. If you offer quality articles there’s a good chance you’ll be invited back as a guest author again. Many sites actively recruit for guest authors but each will have their own set of guidelines so read them carefully before you submit your article. Read more at www.searchenginejournal.com

@TweetSmarter currently has over 225,000 followers.  Within the 1st hour of @TweetSmarter RTing the link to my post on Five Reasons Why No One Likes You on Twitter, I got 363 visitors here and 36 RTs.  In 60 minutes. Read more at mackcollier.com