Starting a yahoo business for DUMmIES

Starting a
Yahoo!
®
Business
FOR
DUMmIES
‰
by Rob Snell
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Starting a Yahoo!
®
Business For Dummies
®
Published by
Wiley Publishing, Inc.
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Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774
www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2006 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
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About the Author
Rob Snell loves e-commerce and all things Yahoo! Store. He is totally
obsessed with search marketing and increasing his stores’ conversion rates.
He is a small-business owner, online retailer, search marketing/e-commerce
consultant, Yahoo! Store developer, sometime bass player, and Steve Snell’s
brother and business partner. This is his first book!
Rob has been in retail literally longer than he can remember. Growing up in
the family mail-order catalog and retail business meant summers and week-
ends of unloading truckloads of 50-lb. bags of dog food, waiting on customers,
designing catalogs and magazine ads, and even programming the point-of-sale
systems. He was shocked when his sister-in-law informed him that most other
families didn’t talk about search marketing or conversion rates over
Thanksgiving dinner.
Rob has been into computers since 1981 when his mom bought him a Timex
Sinclair ZX81. He’s been online since 1990 and opened his first online store in
1997 when his brother stumbled across Viaweb (now Yahoo! Store). Since
then, Rob has designed, developed, owned, and/or marketed hundreds and
hundreds of Yahoo! Stores that have sold millions and millions of dollars
worth of stuff. Rob has sold Superman comics, art supplies, Pokémon cards,
refurbished Sun workstations, pewter dragons, dog supplies, car-top carriers,
softball equipment, and even janitorial supplies.
Rob has a lot of experience as a small-business owner in many different
fields. He started freelancing as a graphic design student and was booking
and playing bass in several bands in college when he and his brother started
a small chain of five comic book stores (which they sold in 2001). Rob spends
his workdays helping his clients sell more stuff on the Internet and working
with his family.
Rob now consults with retailers on improving their e-commerce sites and
maximizing their search-marketing campaigns and is a guest speaker and lec-

turer on search marketing and e-commerce for small businesses. He posts
somewhat regularly in his Yahoo! Store blog at www.ystore.blogs.com and
can be contacted via e-mail at For more information,
visit www.Ystore.com or www.robsnell.com.
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Dedication
This book is dedicated to the memory of my father, W.C. Snell, who always
believed in me even though he almost never agreed with me.
Author’s Acknowledgments
Thanks to all the people who kept things going so I could write this book.
Thanks to my family for your endless support, especially Mom and Steve. To
Kathy for taking care of all her boys (and stocking the fridge). To my six
nephews: Drew, Corey, Sam, Luke, Austin, and Cooper who always make me
smile! Always do your best! Thanks to Uncle Paul for the good MSU tickets
(and that 1979 boat ride). Thanks to Aunt Margaret and Uncle Mick for 1999
and for still holding my reservations.
To Rachel and Katie for your patience and understanding. To Nikki “I really
think you need some more coffee” Ballard for all your help with the book and
for keeping me sane. To Deb “WTFB” Wells. To Alesha “You really should
write that book now” Calvert. (Hey, Innes!)
Thanks to all my friends for getting me out of the office, especially Devon,
John and Kay, Todd and Melissa, Brian, Andy, and Victor. To Copy Cow and
Gun Dog staff, especially Allen Giglio, Mike Yeager, and Selena for typing all
my notes. Special thanks to Annie Dancer. Meals provided by Jay & Co. at the
Veranda and Shipley Do-Nuts. Special thanks to all my wonderful clients who
kept paying me and who put up with me being out of pocket for almost a
year, especially Roy, Scott, Greg, John and Joe, Kevin, Leigh, John, Bobby,
Larry and Jerry, Joey T., Mark, and Doug. Thanks to Craig Paddock, Joe
Morin, Troy Matthews, and Mr. David Burke for keeping me in the loop and
out of trouble. Or is it out of the loop and in trouble? See y’all this search

conference season!
A very special thanks to Michael Whitaker, my good friend and this book’s
technical reviewer, for taking it easy on my redneck prose and making me
look good by catching my mistakes. Thanks to Yahoo!’s Paul Boisvert for
reviewing chapters and providing valuable input. This book is much better
thanks to their comments, criticisms, and suggestions. I take complete
responsibility for any and all errors and omissions. See Ystorebooks.com for
errata. Thanks to the folks at Yahoo! Small Business who keep things running
smoothly and make it almost too easy to sell stuff online (especially Jimmy
01_588737 ffirs.qxp 2/27/06 11:16 PM Page vi
D, Rich, Mike, Maria, Vince, and Randy). Thanks to Paul Graham and the
Viaweb folks for creating Yahoo! Store, but especially for getting me into this
way back in 1997.
“How y’all doing?” to all my search conference folks, especially fellow author
Andrew Goodman, Jill Whelan, Scottie Claiborn, Debra Mastaler, Bruce Clay,
Mike Grehan, Tor Crockatt, Christine Churchill, Dan Boberg, Misty Locke,
John Marshall, Tim Mayer, David (baaa!) Warmuz, Leslie Drechsler, Mike Reedy,
and Danny Sullivan. Thanks to Brett Tabke and all of WebmasterWorld. Howdy
to Champagne Jimmy, Shak, Oilman, Stuntdubl, DigitalGhost, WebGuerrilla,
Mr. Bindl, Neuron, Calum, BakedJake, and SEOMike. Howdy to Istvan “RTML
101” Siposs, HarvestSEO, Chris Sims, David “FindStuff.com” Karandish, Steph
and Ryan, and the MonsterCommerce volleyball team, Matt “Inigo Montoya”
Cutts, Dr. Ralph Wilson, Sara Hicks, Roebuck, Carl, Kelly, Leigh Ann, Megan,
and Jennifer Knight. Thanks to Lamkin, Mrs. Edon, Mrs. Werkheiser, David
Allen, Harry Friedman, Jakob Nielsen, Seth Godin, Joe Field, Roy Wilson, and
all the other folks who have taught me along the way! Apologies to the other
17 people I know I’ve forgotten.
Tonight’s show is brought to you by the fine folks at Wiley Press. Extra spe-
cial thanks to my infinitely patient project editor, Kelly Ewing. To acquisitions
editor (and fellow bassist) Steve Hayes: Thanks for the gig! (to the Waffle

House . . .)
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Publisher’s Acknowledgments
We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form
located at www.dummies.com/register/.
Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:
Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media
Development
Project Editor: Kelly Ewing
Acquisitions Editor: Steve Hayes
Technical Editor: Michael Whitaker
(www.monitus.com)
Editorial Manager: Jodi Jensen
Media Development Specialists: Angela Denny,
Kate Jenkins, Steven Kudirka, Kit Malone,
Travis Silvers
Media Development Coordinator:
Laura Atkinson
Media Project Supervisor: Laura Moss
Media Development Manager:
Laura VanWinkle
Media Development Associate Producer:
Richard Graves
Editorial Assistant: Amanda Foxworth
Cartoons: Rich Tennant
(www.the5thwave.com)
Composition Services
Project Coordinator: Jennifer Theriot
Layout and Graphics: Carl Byers,
Joyce Haughey, Lynsey Osborn,

Erin Zeltner
Proofreaders: Laura Albert, John Edwards,
Jessica Kramer
Indexer: TECHBOOKS Production Services
Special Help: Paul Boisvert
Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies
Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher
Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher
Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director
Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director
Publishing for Consumer Dummies
Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher
Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director
Composition Services
Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services
Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services
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Contents at a Glance
Introduction 1
Part I: Finding Out about Yahoo! Store 7
Chapter 1: The Nickel Tour of Yahoo! Store 9
Chapter 2: Planning Your Online Small Business 17
Chapter 3: Jump-Starting Your Store 35
Chapter 4: Anatomy of a Yahoo! Store Order 63
Part II: Planning What’s in Store 75
Chapter 5: Preparing to Build Your Yahoo! Store 77
Chapter 6: Designing Your Store to Turn Shoppers into Buyers 89
Chapter 7: Exploring Store Navigation 97
Chapter 8: Selling with Pictures 109
Part III: Building and Managing Your Store 121

Chapter 9: Store Building with the Store Editor 123
Chapter 10: Pushing All the Right Buttons 143
Chapter 11: Designing All Kinds of Pages 161
Chapter 12: Creating Product Pages with the Store Editor 177
Chapter 13: Merchandising to Sell More 197
Chapter 14: Checking Out the New Shopping Cart 215
Chapter 15: Mastering the Store Manager 227
Part IV: Profiting from Internet Marketing 251
Chapter 16: Searching for the Right Words 253
Chapter 17: Driving Traffic That Converts 271
Chapter 18: Buying Your Way to the Top 285
Chapter 19: Discovering Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 301
Part V: Making More Money with Your Yahoo! Store 317
Chapter 20: Running Your Business by the Numbers 319
Chapter 21: Converting Browsers into Buyers 331
Chapter 22: E-Mailing Your Customers for Fun and Profit 347
Chapter 23: Getting Down with Product Uploads 359
Chapter 24: Mastering Domains 371
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Part VI: The Part of Tens 379
Chapter 25: Ten or So Tools of the Trade 381
Chapter 26: Ten or So RTML Resources and Recommendations 385
Index 389
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Table of Contents
Introduction 1
About This Book 2
What You’re Not to Read 2
Foolish Assumptions 3
How This Book Is Organized 3

Part I: Finding Out about Yahoo! Store 3
Part II: Planning What’s in Store 3
Part III: Building and Managing Your Store 4
Part IV: Profiting from Internet Marketing 4
Part V: Making More Money with Your Yahoo! Store 4
Part VI: The Part of Tens 4
Icons Used in This book 5
Where to Go from Here 5
“Talk to Me, Johnny . . .” 6
Part I: Finding Out about Yahoo! Store 7
Chapter 1: The Nickel Tour of Yahoo! Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
Exploring Small Business 9
Introducing Yahoo! Small Business 10
Figuring Out Who Uses Yahoo! Store 12
Deciphering All the Parts 13
Examining Merchant Solutions 14
Chapter 2: Planning Your Online Small Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
Choosing a Business Model That Works on the Web 17
Picking Products That Sell on the Web 19
Finding popular and profitable niches 19
Promoting products with limited distribution 22
Retailing quality products and adding value 24
Selling products that encourage repeat orders 25
Maximizing your margins and price points 25
Leveraging your knowledge and passion 26
Building a New Business from Scratch 27
Planning your business model on a napkin 27
Using drop-shippers for fun, profit, and market research 28
Looking before you leap 30
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Taking an Existing Business Online 30
Creaming your most profitable products 31
Leveraging existing inventory to the Web 31
Maximizing supplier relationships 31
Selling locally while shipping globally 32
Migrating to Yahoo! Store from Another Storefront System 33
Making the transition 33
Copying your old site’s look and feel 34
Chapter 3: Jump-Starting Your Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
Registering with Yahoo! 35
Creating your Yahoo! ID 36
Creating a Yahoo! security key 37
Opening Your Yahoo! Merchant Solutions Account 38
Jumping into Store Building 41
1. Sign in with your Yahoo! ID and log in to Store Editor 41
2. Configure the Store Editor for store building 44
3. Create sample pages 45
4. Publish your site, and you’re live on the Web 53
Configuring Your Store Manager 54
Accessing the Store Manager 54
Setting your sales tax rate 55
Configuring shipping methods and rates 55
Setting up your shipping methods 55
Setting your shipping rates 56
Setting your payment methods 57
Working with order confirmations and merchant notifications 58
Publishing store settings changes and placing a test order 60
Opening for Business 60
Chapter 4: Anatomy of a Yahoo! Store Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63
Examining the Timeline of a Real Yahoo! Store Order 63

Finding the store in a search engine 64
Landing on a section page 65
Selling with a product page 65
Pushing the Shopping Cart 67
Checking out the Secure Order form 69
Confirming orders and shipping ’em out 70
Taking care of details 73
Part II: Planning What’s in Store 75
Chapter 5: Preparing to Build Your Yahoo! Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77
Choosing a Store-Building Tool 77
Store Editor 78
Store Tags 79
Starting a Yahoo! Business For Dummies
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Building a Store Yourself or Outsourcing It 80
Doing it yourself 80
Outsourcing it 81
Gathering Elements and Assets 83
Product data 83
Design elements 84
Copywriting 86
Chapter 6: Designing Your Store to Turn Shoppers into Buyers . . . . .89
Designing Your Store to Sell 89
Looking through the Eyes of a Customer 91
Choosing Logos, Colors, and Fonts 91
Looking at logos 92
Compelling use of color 93
Finding fantastic fonts 95
Chapter 7: Exploring Store Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97

Introducing Store Navigation 97
Seeing how customers shop 98
You are here: Store Editor navigational elements 99
Linking to optimize navigation 103
Shopping by Searching Your Store 105
Chapter 8: Selling with Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .109
Looking to Images to Sell More Stuff 110
Deciphering Image Formats 111
Working with Product Images in the Store Editor 113
Uploading Images to the Store Editor 115
Finding Product Images 117
Tweaking Your Images 118
Working with Text Inside Graphics 120
Part III: Building and Managing Your Store 121
Chapter 9: Store Building with the Store Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .123
Getting Started in Store Editor 123
Editing your store 124
Publishing your edits to the Store 125
Customizing Your Editor for Editing 127
Switching to Advanced mode 128
Moving the Edit Nav-bar 128
Meeting the Edit Nav-bar buttons 129
Navigating the Store Editor 132
Finding pages by knowing the ID 133
Bookmarking Editor pages with consistent URLs 133
Setting properties on the Config page 134
Setting the Controls for the Editor 134
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Controlling Look and Feel with Variables 135
Colors and typefaces 137
Image dimensions 137
Page layout 138
Button properties 139
Page properties 140
Store properties 140
Custom variables 142
Chapter 10: Pushing All the Right Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143
Navigating Yahoo! Store Buttons 143
Exploring the Different Types of Buttons 145
Function buttons 145
Contents buttons 148
Choosing Page-Format: Top Buttons or Side Buttons 149
Side buttons 150
Top buttons 150
Editing Your Navigation Buttons 152
Working with Function buttons 152
Fiddling with Contents buttons 153
Editing the text on the buttons 154
Editing the Appearance of Navigation Buttons 155
Button-Styles 155
Home button variables 156
Button spacing variables 156
Creating a Custom Look with Icon Buttons 157
Custom Function buttons 158
Custom Contents buttons 158
Making custom icons 159
Navigation Bar Resources 159
Chapter 11: Designing All Kinds of Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .161

Introducing the Home Page 161
Optimizing begins at home 162
Designing your home page 163
Maximizing home-page Page-elements 165
Selling with Super Section Pages 168
Top-level section pages usually contain subsection pages 168
Subsections contain products 170
Use empty section pages for content 171
Contents, Contents, Contents, and Contents 171
Exploring Other Function Pages 173
Editing your info page 174
Creating your privacy policy page 175
Editing your Shopping Cart 175
Editing your store’s Search page 176
Looking at your alphabetical index or site map 176
Starting a Yahoo! Business For Dummies
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Chapter 12: Creating Product Pages with the Store Editor . . . . . . . .177
Exploring Store Editor Concepts 177
Let me see some ID 178
Getting positive ID on products and sections 179
Exploring Parent-Child Relationships 180
Producing Profits with Product Pages 181
Looking at Product Elements 186
Maintaining Your Pages in the Store Editor 190
Creating new pages inside the Store Editor 190
Editing product and section pages 193
Moving pages by cutting to the Clipboard 193
Copying pages into more than one section 195

Deleting pages 195
Chapter 13: Merchandising to Sell More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .197
Specializing in Bestsellers 197
Featuring specials 198
Making something special 199
Editing the look and feel of specials 200
Troubleshooting specials 202
Picking What Products to Push 203
Merchandising Top Sellers with Navigation 204
Figuring out what to feature when you have no track record 205
Featuring products across the site 206
Finding $30,000 in Sales by Using Cross-Sell 209
Merchandising Products in Other Ways 212
Chapter 14: Checking Out the New Shopping Cart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .215
Introducing the New Checkout Manager 216
Exploring the Checkout Manager 216
Testing your settings 217
Publishing your new cart 218
Controlling Checkout Flow with Global Settings 218
Flow settings 219
Checkout Wrapper 220
Checkout settings 221
Configuring Elements with Page Configuration 221
Page Settings 221
Page Sections 222
Fields 222
Advanced Settings 224
Customizing Your Visual Design 224
Global styles 224
Progress indicator 225

Checkout buttons 225
Tinkering with Advanced Settings 226
Jumping to the New Cart 226
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Chapter 15: Mastering the Store Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .227
Getting (Store) Help When You Need It 228
Getting Anywhere from Here 229
Shipping and Managing Orders 230
Low-tech order-management solutions 230
High-tech order-management solutions 231
Power-user solutions 232
Third-party order-management software 232
Processing Orders — Show Me the Money! 234
Taking orders all the way to the bank 234
Searching for that one special order 236
Handling catalog requests 236
Changing order numbers 237
Working with Credit Cards 237
Setting up credit-card processing 238
Processing online orders 238
Handling manual transactions 239
Processing cards offline 240
Configuring Order Settings 240
Customize Order Form (Checkout) 241
Fax/e-mail order notification 243
Configuring inventory 244
Payment methods 244
Setting tax rates 245

Setting Up Your Sites for Success 245
Setting Up Shipping Settings 247
Shipment and order-status e-mails 247
Shipping Manager 248
UPS shipping tools 248
Shipping foreign orders 249
Part IV: Profiting from Internet Marketing 251
Chapter 16: Searching for the Right Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .253
Introducing Keywords 254
Considering Where Keywords Come From 254
Conquering Converting Keywords 257
Collecting converting keywords 258
Digging keywords out of your orders 258
Prying keywords out of product reports 260
Working with Your Top Converting Keywords 262
Seeing How Your Shoppers Search 265
Starting a Yahoo! Business For Dummies
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Researching Keywords 265
Overture’s free keyword selector tool 266
Google AdWords free keyword tool 266
Wordtracker keyword research tool 268
Tracking Converting Keywords 269
Chapter 17: Driving Traffic That Converts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .271
Fishing the Right Way 271
Cranking Up Search-Engine Marketing 273
Driving free traffic from search engines 274
Introducing search engine optimization 274
Buying search-engine traffic with PPC ads 275

Marketing with E-Mail Newsletters 276
Directing Traffic from Directories 276
Heeding the Call of the Mall 278
Getting listed in Yahoo! Shopping 278
Buying Text-Link Ads for Traffic and Link Popularity 279
Sponsoring Forums, Directories, Nonprofits, and Clubs 280
Commissioning Sales through Affiliate Marketing 280
Exploring eBay Auctions for Yahoo! Store Owners 281
Blogging for Retailers 282
Exploring Other Ways to Get Traffic 283
Peeling One Potato at a Time . . . 283
Chapter 18: Buying Your Way to the Top . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .285
Introducing Paid-Search Advertising 285
Deciding between Paid and Free Searches 287
Combining the one-two punch of SEO and PPC 288
Planning Your PPC Ad Campaign 289
Buying Traffic with Paid-Search Ads 289
Picking keywords 290
Creating clickable ads 291
Coming in for a landing 292
Determining bid amounts 292
Choosing syndication and distribution options 295
Content ads: PPC by any other name 295
Setting different distribution options 295
Measuring Search-Advertising Results 296
Using free conversion tracking 296
Buying third-party tracking tools 297
Working with trackable links 297
Improving Your Campaigns 298
Nonperforming keywords 298

Underperforming keywords 299
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Chapter 19: Discovering Search Engine Optimization (SEO) . . . . . . .301
Discovering How Search Engines Work 302
Order, please! 302
Enter Google 302
Along came a spider 303
Uh, is this spam? 304
Appreciating Yahoo! Stores for Ease of SEO 304
Optimizing Yahoo! Stores without Programming 305
Optimizing Your Store for Search Engines 305
Custom RTML programming 305
Keyword research 306
SEO copywriting 307
Linked development 311
Measured results 313
Doing Your SEO Homework 314
Part V: Making More Money with Your Yahoo! Store 317
Chapter 20: Running Your Business by the Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . .319
Discovering What You Need to Know 319
Introducing Yahoo! Store Statistics 321
Page Views 322
Sales 323
References 324
Store Searches 327
Shopping Searches 327
Graphs 327
Reports 328

Click Trails 329
Chapter 21: Converting Browsers into Buyers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .331
Getting Shoppers to Buy 331
Increasing your site’s traffic is not enough 332
Increasing sales by creating quality content 332
Building Customer Confidence 333
Employ trust symbols 335
Offer better customer service 335
Improve product pages to increase sales 336
Convert more Shopping Carts 337
Improving Your Store’s Usability to Increase Conversions 339
Understanding how little time you have 340
Revving up your site’s load speed 341
Starting a Yahoo! Business For Dummies
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Looking at Who’s Looking at You 343
Operating system and browser software 344
Screen resolution in pixels 344
So, how big can your pages be? 345
Focus on what makes money 345
Conversion and usability resources 346
Chapter 22: E-Mailing Your Customers for Fun and Profit . . . . . . . . .347
Discovering E-Mail Marketing Tools 348
Thanking customers with e-mails 348
Sending Order e-mails 349
Taking advantage of personalized replies 350
Responding to e-mail addresses on your Web site 351
Referral e-mail marketing 351
Advertising in e-mail newsletters 351

Marketing products and services with autoresponders 352
Marketing in a Spam-Filled World 352
The CAN-SPAM Act and you 352
Yahoo’s take on spam 355
Managing Your E-Mail Lists 355
Sign ’em up! 355
Weeding your list 356
Crafting Effective E-Commerce Newsletters 357
Chapter 23: Getting Down with Product Uploads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .359
A Word of Warning 360
Introducing Database Uploads 361
Creating Products with Uploads 361
Formatting Your Upload Files 362
Uploading Data in the Right Fields 363
Doing Uploads 363
Uploading Data with the New Upload button 364
Reviewing your data 365
Updating product data 366
Troubleshooting Database Uploads 368
Chapter 24: Mastering Domains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .371
Exploring Your Domain 371
Registering Your Domain Name 372
Registering domains with Yahoo! 373
Registering domains with other companies 373
Non-Yahoo! registered domains and DNSs 374
Mastering Your Domains 374
Determining your site entry point 375
Redirecting store URLs to your domain 377
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Part VI: The Part of Tens 379
Chapter 25: Ten or So Tools of the Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .381
Searching for All the Right Words 381
Searching Engine Queries/Filters 382
Using the Right YstoreTool for the Job 382
Exporting Your Yahoo! Store 383
Checking Your Web Position 383
Tracking Trends with Analytics Software 383
Checking Out Other Cool Tools 384
Chapter 26: Ten or So RTML Resources and Recommendations . . . .385
Know HTML before Playing with RTML 386
Experiment with RTML 386
Read Mike’s Books on RTML 386
Read Istvan’s Books on RTML 387
Use Don Cole’s Template Transfer Utility 387
Read the YstoreForums.com RTML forum 387
Look at Lots of Custom RTML Stores 388
Add Missing SEO Elements 388
Add RTML Navigational Elements 388
Index 389
Starting a Yahoo! Business For Dummies
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Introduction
T
hanks for taking a look at Starting a Yahoo! Business For Dummies. When
the folks from Wiley Press approached me about writing this book, I think
I may have come off as more than just a little cocky. I boldly asserted, “I am
the guy to write this book.” Why? I’ve lived Yahoo! Store since April 1997. I’m

not saying I know more about Yahoo! Store than anyone else, but I do have as
broad an experience with the platform as anyone I’ve ever met.
Around these parts, our Yahoo! Stores make the mortgage payments and then
some, so we pay pretty close attention to what increases sales. Working with
300-plus retailers has opened my eyes to the myriad ways we all sell online
using the same exact platform. I learn something new from every retailer I
work with.
Also, I think I’ve worn almost every hat you can wear in the Yahoo! Store uni-
verse as both a retailer and an online store developer and marketer. I’ve been
a new store owner, neophyte online store builder, entry-level HTML coder,
graphic designer, product photographer, box packer, telephone order taker,
shipping manager, e-mail marketer, customer service phone rep, RTML
hacker, search engine optimizer, and sales copywriter.
I’ve also tried tons of different ways to sell online. Some have worked. Others
haven’t. Look, I’m not embarrassed to say I’ve made lots and lots of mistakes
trying to stay on top of Internet marketing. Learn from them! If I’m still doing
something today, it’s because it works! I’ve had some home runs with sites
that have made some of my clients rich (and me fat and happy), generating
millions and millions of dollars in sales.
After nine years, I’ve found that it just takes a good idea, a little bit of luck,
and lots and lots of good ol’ hard work to be successful online. The better
your idea and the better your luck, the more successful you’ll be, but it really
just comes down to who wants it bad enough. Opportunity shows up in work
clothes. In this book, I give you the tools and show you the path that worked
for me, but you have to do the heavy lifting.
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About This Book
This book is filled with more than nine years of proven Internet marketing
strategies and tactics sprinkled with online success stories and hard-learned
lessons from Yahoo! Store owners who have successfully competed with the

big online players. This book is paying a debt to all the retailers and other folks
who shared information that helped me stay alive long enough to figure out
what I was doing. I expect you to pass this knowledge on to future retailers.
This book is what I wish I knew in April 1997. Anybody got a time machine?
In this book, you find answers to questions about:
ߜ Creating an online store that sells
ߜ Driving more traffic that converts into sales
ߜ Profiting from keywords
ߜ Processing credit cards online and offline
ߜ Finding out what’s really selling online
ߜ Maximizing sales on an existing store
What You’re Not to Read
This book is about store building with the Yahoo! Store Editor, which has
been around in some form or another for more than ten years. I don’t tell you
how to build stores with Store Tags, the other way to build Yahoo! Stores,
which I loathe. If you must build a store with Store Tags because your prod-
uct catalog never changes, or if you want to use SiteBuilder, take this book
back to the store and get your money back because about half of this book
doesn’t apply to you. On second thought, I get paid in royalties based upon
sales, so, uh, keep this book and profit from all the marketing stuff in here.
Store Tags users probably need Site Builder For Dummies (Wiley Publishing,
Inc.) by Richard Wagner (or the specific For Dummies book for whatever soft-
ware title you’re using for store building). Every store owner can benefit from
Yahoo!’s free Merchant Solutions Getting Started Guide, which is available on
the Web at />html for you to download and print.
This book is also not revealing any of my trade secrets or those of my clients.
I’m not giving away the store here (pun intended). All the examples and
screen shots have had specific store information removed, or I’ve been vague
enough to protect client info. This book is also not about how to get rich
quick; it’s about how to get rich slowly. It’s also not how to game the search

engines for free traffic (which would make you a spammer).
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Foolish Assumptions
When writing this book, I’ve made a few assumptions about you:
ߜ You have a computer (a Mac or PC) and have basic computer skills.
ߜ You’re connected to the Internet with a high-speed connection.
ߜ You either are a retailer or want to be a retailer.
ߜ You want to know how to sell (more) stuff online.
ߜ You’re tired of working for The Man.
ߜ You’re not a communist, and you want to make some money.
This book is written for the independent business owner who feels pretty
comfortable with computers. You can handle sending and receiving e-mail
with attachments and are comfortable with software like Microsoft Excel,
Microsoft Word, and QuickBooks. Some knowledge of graphics software (like
Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro) is extremely helpful for editing product
photos and creating store graphics, but it’s not required.
How This Book Is Organized
This book is organized into six parts. I describe these parts in the following
sections.
Part I: Finding Out about Yahoo! Store
Discover the basic geography of Yahoo! Store: the Store Editor, the Store
Manager, and the published site. Find out about the different ways folks make
money online. You also see how to find out what products are really selling
and how you can save some time with a few simple tweaks to your Editor.
Finally, it’s almost like an episode of CSI where I dissect a real Yahoo! Store
order from start to finish, examining every gory detail to determine the real
cause of conversion.
Part II: Planning What’s in Store

Preparing to build and design your online store is almost half the battle. In
this part, you find out about doing the work yourself or outsourcing it to
designers. I explore assembling the different elements before you start to
build your store, designing your store to turn shoppers into buyers, creating
effective internal store navigation, and using images to sell more product.
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Introduction
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Part III: Building and
Managing Your Store
This part tells you how the Editor works and shows you how to format your
store with navigation buttons. You also discover how to create different types
of pages: sections, items, the home page, search pages, and shipping info and
contact information pages. You can read about how to sell more of the prod-
ucts you have by merchandising your store more effectively. I also check out
the Shopping Cart and the new Checkout Manager. Finally, I cover the Store
Manager, where you set all your tax and shipping calculations and process
orders.
Part IV: Profiting from Internet Marketing
This part is my favorite. You need to be found when folks are looking to buy
what you are selling. I cover keywords and introduce the basics of Internet
marketing. You also find out about the specifics of paid search (Google
AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing) as well as how to drive free traffic from
search engines by optimizing your Yahoo! Store for Google, Yahoo! and MSN.
Part V: Making More Money
with Your Yahoo! Store
This is my other favorite part of the book. After you have a store up and run-
ning, you’ve done the hard part: getting started. Improving an existing store
is so much easier than launching a new store. In this part, you discover how
to improve your store (based upon your stats), convert more of your existing

traffic into buyers, e-mail your customer list to sell more stuff, and save time
and energy by uploading products by the dozens.
Part VI: The Part of Tens
I love The Part of Tens. These chapters cover Yahoo! Store tools, add-ons,
and upgrades. You also find out a little about RTML, the proprietary custom
scripting language of Yahoo! Store.
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Icons Used in This book
Look for these helpful icons to highlight specific points I think you should
know about:
I’m all about giving folks action items or takeaways. When you see the Tip
icon, you know that I’m sharing with you a way to improve your store or save
time.
When you see the Remember icon, I’m reminding you that you need to know
this bit of Yahoo! Store trivia for something to work.
I’m pretty careful to not be an alarmist, so when you see the Warning icon,
don’t think CNN scroll hype, think, “Danger, Will Robinson” because you’re
very close to something that could do you real harm — like a man-eating
carrot (remember that episode?).
This icon highlights all the technical details that you don’t really have to
know to operate a Yahoo! Store, but you may want to know if you’re a guru. If
you’re not interested, skip the text marked with this icon.
Where to Go from Here
Unlike a novel, you can read this book in any order. You can even skip parts,
chapters, or entire sections within chapters, and you’ll be okay. Skip to the
end of the book and read about conversion rate, and then back to the part
where I introduce the Store Editor, and then over to the design chapter, and
you’ll be fine. You don’t even have to read the whole book. Use the Index and

the Table of Contents to find what you want to read about and read only that
information.
Running a Yahoo! Store isn’t that difficult, but there are so many things you
need to always be working on. The good news is that you don’t have to mem-
orize all of this stuff. Refer back to this book as often as you like.
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“Talk to Me, Johnny . . .”
I need your feedback. Please e-mail me at It’s really help-
ful for me to know what works and what doesn’t. If you catch a mistake, let
me know, and I’ll correct it. Visit www.YstoreBooks.com, which will have
additional information I wanted to include in the book, but couldn’t because
Editor Kelly wouldn’t let me have 600+ pages.
I also have a book-based newsletter, which you can subscribe to by e-mailing
I don’t promise a weekly newsletter, but I’ll e-mail
you as often as I have something worth writing about. Visit my company’s
Yahoo! Store Marketing and Development Web site at www.ystore.com. I also
have 100-plus posts about Yahoo! Store and search marketing at my blog at
www.ystore.blogs.com.
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Part I
Finding Out about
Yahoo! Store
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