You're Welcome

> You came in after I explained all this...

Oh.

> Lots of my exotic animals have top ranking in Google, lots more are in the
> top 3, lots more are in the top 5 -- and that's where ALL my traffic comes
> from.

Very savvy to focus on the top "money-makers" you might say.

> The common critters -- the ones that get the most searches -- are nowhere
> to be found, and that's why I'm fixated on moving Mr. Giraffe up. 
> Once I get the formula right, I'll move on to lions and tigers and bears,
> oh my!

since it is a "zoo", I wouldn't worry about "common critters" the focus would rightly be exotic animals.

> Yup -- each animal does have its own room, and each room has a link to the
> main Zoo Gift Shop -- but Sunil Tanna suggested splitting the critters up,
> and I worship the ground that man walks on, so that's what I'm doing,
> starting with the "Giraffe Exhibit," which now has many rooms,
> only one of which is "The Giraffe Store."

I was thinking of the gift store having rooms for each animal. Kind of a gift store like TheBigZoo.

What you really need is to copy and past the whole TheBigZoo gift store. Maybe you could be an affiliate for TheBigZoo? :-)
That might seem funny, but they do seem to have one. It's under construction right now though.

> I really appreciate your ideas because they're coming from the point of
> view of a visitor, and so far you're suggesting exactly what I'm doing and
> making me feel I'm on the right track.

Actually, it's really great that I get to see how ideas I read in web design and internet marketing books might be put into practice, and to interact with a real person about it. It gets tiring reading books by yourself and none of your in-person friends knows anything about it.

> I wish I could change the whole design, but I can't.  Number one, I
> don't have the skill, and number two, the things I absolutely MUST do are
> going to take me the rest of my natural life.

Yeah web design skills at that level would be killer.
What MUST you do? Maintanence? Don't you have like 3 websites and maybe a brick and mortar business too? Oh and kids... :-)

I have a lot of free time, it's more direction and resources (other than time) I have to worry about. Trying to sort out what I things I need to do or have, kind of plan it all out.

> From swap meets to the net, I've never done well with a "store"
> of any kind, and when I realized other stores have shopping carts and I
> have affiliate links, I panicked.

Web design and web store experience. Would be good to have.
As I know, however, if you don't have it, you don't have it.

I have to learn those things too.

> Sunil asked how many people buy more than one thing, and while I can't see
> actual items purchased, I know by the total order that lots of people are
> buying several things at a time through one of my links.

Cool. You're making money.

> Thanks again for your interest :-)

Like I said above, it helps me out some too.
Like, your animalzoo site is a prime example of what this one site talks about.

http://www.sitesell.com/

C->T->P->M

C = Content, content about animals
T = Traffic, to see your content about animals
P = Presell, since they're there they might want to buy something
M = Monetize, in your case gift shop, but can be anything that makes money

an example on sitesell.com is this one:

http://www.anguilla-beaches.com/

not only does it have a gift shop, but it refers people for boat tours, real estate, and offshore corporations, with which it gets referral fee (or whatever that's called)

So an example monetize idea for your site would be money from zoo ticket sales. It doesn't sound like it would work, but it's an example of where you could go other than gift shop.

I just thought of something -- safari vacation referrals! It sounds crazy but it's still cool. :-)

I think in your case gift shop is the easiest route to go. Zoos have gift shops and that fits well with your website. People might even appreciate that it's there.

I have some questions though. It's a beginner question I guess, but how did you check which animals got what ranking on google?