Blog: Video
New Video Training Center
February 12, 2018Just a quick note: We’ve upgraded our Video Training Center and it’s pretty nifty! All our videos are now hosted through YouTube so you can view them on any device. We’ve also added new searching and filtering features so you can find the topic you want quickly. 
The new video center also includes an index if you prefer to view your videos in a big list. Check it out the next time you need to brush up on your company store skills!
Why SEO is Hard for Promotional Products, Part II
July 20, 2011In a previous post, we tackled the problem of SEO for promotional products and why it’s so difficult. Today, Google’s Matt Cutts released another video that addresses this problem directly. A webmaster asks if they will be penalized for offering the same product on three different domains, and it’s worth watching Cutts’ response in its entirety here.
The problem here, as it relates directly to promotional products, is that the vast majority of web sites selling promotional products contain identical products. There are two reasons for this: First, there are hundreds of thousands of products in the industry and it’s nearly impossible for anyone operating a website to customize and manage all those products, so most sites simply take a “product data feed” from suppliers or data aggregators (like ASI, SAGE, or Distributor Central) and display that product data. Therefore, most promotional products websites display the exact same data, product numbers and pricing information.
Second, even a fraction of that massive selection of products is difficult to manage. We recommend very strongly that our clients only showcase 3000-5000 products on their sites from the top suppliers, but even a selection that small is tough for most small businesses to customize and maintain.
So what should you do? If you use a platform like storeBlox, we offer automated tools for making every product unique, using a variety of techniques such as URL customization and custom SKU creation. These tools are not silver bullets, but they help solve the primary problem of a product on your site looking exactly like a product on your competitor’s. To find out more about the storeBlox e-commerce platform and how it can ease the burden of SEO, please visit eBlox.com.
From the storeBlox Newsletter: Embedded Multimedia
February 28, 2008Last month, we added embedded media support to Banner Management. You can now embed multimedia files in any banner location on your site and manage them like you would any other banner.
To switch a banner to embedded media on a current storeBlox 2 site, just click the “Embedded” radio button and paste the code into the embedded box.
(If you’re creating your own Flash files, just use the Publish function and it will create the embed code for you. If you use a service like YouTube, the embed code can be copied from there.)
If the media file exists on a server somewhere (such as a YouTube video), you’re done. If you produced the media yourself, you’ll need to upload it to your FTP space. Make sure the links in your embed code refer to the correct URL for the file. That’s it!
