What can LL do to help small business owners?

Correct Phil, as far as I've seen that's how it works but if you search for "Black Leather Jacket" you will find a Black Leather Jacket. You need to weigh up the pros and cons of using phrases.

How the Hell does LL expect to take SL to the masses when you need a degree from MIT just to use the search feature. Jesus.

If you have to go to that much trouble to find your own stuff for which you already know the keywords used to advertise it, then search is a massive fail.

I tried searching for "bedroom furniture", knowing that you sell it and advertise it using those terms, and failed to find you in the first *15* pages of results. At least five of your competitors appear multiple times in those 15 pages.

And FWIW it makes no difference if I use quotes or not on these common terms. I get the same results in the first couple pages. It only seems to matter if the terms return far fewer results, anyway.

Plusses? Minusses? Nobody but computer nerds even know to try this. And FWIW, plusses don't do anything. It seems to be the default behavior.

Nothing I try using the terms "furniture" and "bedroom" finds you, Mickey. You *only* seem to be visible using the far less common combinations that you know to try.

My own classifieds get me only a couple (and I mean a couple) hits per week, yet I have dozens of visitors, sometimes every day. It's not search results or classified ads that are getting me visitors. You may be experiencing the same and crediting it to your classifieds.

Comes in at position 3 for me, with or without plusses. In reverse order it appears on the top of page 2, with or without plusses. In quotes, I get only your entry.

But Anya....I know they won't find me if I use bedroom furniture as a keyword. I prefer to use more descriptive combinations. I only have a few bedroom sets listed, so trying to compete in the "bedroom furniture" category is a no go. I don't think that "bedroom furniture" is even a phrase in my ads.

If you look on that page where the retro bedroom is....I've used very descriptive titles on each of the products that are included in the package.....and that's where the draw is. People do find those items, by using keywords other than "bedroom", and they come in to the store to buy those separately.

I've asked shoppers what kind of keywords they use. And they do use obscure words to find specifically what they want. Same applies to running the classified ads.

I can't compete in any furniture category as it is, and probably never will.....I rely on the more descriptive or obscure phrases. If someone wants a retro bedroom, they will come across it.

I have the Xstreet landing points different from the Classified Ad landing points....so I can watch on the map. They seem to come equally from both.

Inworld they are default behaviour, on Xstreet they are not. The plus is only really useful on Xstreet.

Are you sure about that? I haven't checked, but it seems likely to me that you're not quite right. What I think would happen is that the search will only return pages that contain all the + words, and no pages that contain less than all of them. Without the +s, the results would return all the pages that contain all the + words and, if the results set isn't big enough, it would also return pages that contain some of the + words but not all of them. In Google, it doesn't matter, because almost all searches return a big enough results set, but in SL, there often isn't enough matching pages for a big enough results set.

It's just academic because the best way is to leave the +s out in SL.

The + is automatically added after you hit space inworld, try it out with Phil Deakins, I only get two results.

The level of confusion around this subject even for people who think they understand it really does suggest that the best way for LL to help small (or not so small) business owners *and* consumers would be to simplify this.

They have the google appliance and know-how, why not use that in XSL?

They want to add social networking tools? How about starting in XSL, let businesspeople set up their own portals for their products, the way Yahoo Shopping does?

Having different search functionality for XStreet and inworld certainly doesn't help with consistency, the fact that neither have easy to find tips for advanced search functionality is a tad sloppy in my opinion.



Not wanting to give them ideas but they could probably charge extra for giving people portals or ebay style store fronts.

No need for me to check - I believe you

mickey i completely agree....trying to compete in the larger catagories is futile unless you are willing to pay for your own island and name it something like "furniture" or you are willing to pay huge amounts of money for a classified. i also use specific words and people find me just fine. for example...i sell blankets but also call them comforters, quilts and bedcovers since those are words someone might use when searching. when i do a search for blankets, what i generally get in the results are a TON of listings for the paradise blankets, beach blankets and picnic blankets, but only my store has actual blankets in all the pages i review. the same thing works for me for curtains, blinds, drapes, etc.

as for helping small biz owners...i dont feel this is a responsibility of LL. they provide this platform and i believe those of us who have successful biz's in sl should help each other. i dont look at sl as something with an exhaustive manual to be referred to for answers. I look as SL as tools to be used to create. part of that creation on the part of residents is creating the marketing channels and methods that we all use. there is no end to the possibilities as we have all seen with things like camping, then lucky chairs, then midnight mania all coming into being. the same is true for other forms of marketing...we have gone from top rated places to all search to enhanced access to xlstreet. i expect things to change and develop and for all of us in world to keep brainstorming and then creating new ways to market.

for me its the journey and not the destination...so to speak

XStreet Storefronts will be coming, I remember something about that. Will take time though, and since no time-frame was given yet, it could take much time

As a relatively small business owner, I am not asking LL for any help. Why would I? If I want to be more successful, I have to work for it. The only help I might ask for, is more consumers. More people to sell my stuff to. For the rest, LL should not do anything more then providing the platform.

Of course it is hard to start up, harder then 5 years ago. Then again, I am the proof it still can be done.
When I started my first business, the market for low prim furniture was well served. Yet I managed to succeed, to a level I made profits. One of my biggest competitors (hi Phil!) even helped me a lot regarding search visibility.
When I started my second business, the market for plants was well served. And again I succeeded. Now I run 3 businesses, at this moment I rent a homestead plus I own half a mainland sim, and still can cash out. Even though I started in a market where the big guys already were there. And I am sure that if I want to, I can make a living from SL.

Running a business in SL is not about making good products. Compare it with owning a mall or a club: slapping down the building and a few rent boxes doesn't do the job.
Even when you make the best stuff in the whole of SL, if no one knows, you won't sell a thing. Running a business is a trade on its own.
Of course you DO need to make good products, but that does not make you a good business owner.

well said marcel...and i agree about phil...he has been gracious enough to help me make a thriving low prim biz as well.