Although I’ve never used this particular solution myself it has come highly recommended by a couple of friends and has received kudos at the Warrior Forum as well.  If you are opening a new online store, require a shopping cart and can’t quite yet afford a hosted and supported model then this was made just for you.

osCommerce has quite a few features that allow stores to be set up quickly and easily – even for techno-newbs like myself.  You can check out the software at osCommerce.com – participate in the forums, read through the information and check it out for yourself.

Be sure to come back and let me know what you think.

Anyway, I used to specific ways of doing keyword research, checking my site statistics and recording information.  Last week my sister, who has her ear to the ground at More In Store Marketing, gave me a tip about the Webmaster tools at Google.  Apparently she’s been using these tools for some time and thought I was also.

I’m in LOVE.  Now I can add my site, get indexed, submit my sitemap, find out how many links, what keywords Google is reading, what the saturation is, learn the errors the Google bot is reading so they can be fixed, find out when the bot was there (as in how many HOURS ago), BLOCK the Google bot to decrease the likelihood a page or site is indexed and found, how many people subscribe to the feed (blog) using Google reader . . . and on and on.  Combined with Google Analytics I have reduced my surfing for information to two sites and they both belong to Google.

I literally cut my evaluation time in half!

So… I’ve been living under a rock.  Just because something has worked before and is working now doesn’t mean it’s the BEST way of doing things.  Keep an eye out for what’s changing.

Sign into your Google account now and click on the “Webmaster”  link.  You’ll have access to a plethora of support mechanisms that work seamlessly with Analytics.

However, tooling around the Net once in a while can still be fun.  If you want to do it more quickly (and call it research!) try out Addict-o-matic.  On one page you’ll get a snap shot of search results from several different engines.

A right click of the mouse and you can open new tabs or windows.  It all seems so easy!

This visual word tool is a handy way of using a thesaurus, dictionary and expanding your vocabulary all at the same time.  Type in a word – any word – and you’ll be regaled with multiple different words that mean the same, different, are verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, is a part of or member of, is an instance or kind of and on and on.

If you need a word, want to develop a concept, can’t figure out how or where to start writing check this out.

One Caveat – Don’t get caught playing.  It can suck the time right out of your day

HexaTrack has a free and paid version of their keyword research tool.  Check it out – you might find a great new niche!

This makes the life of your reader just a little bit easier – so much so in fact that you’ll probably get more traffic to  your site.