iZone Group’s in-house design team came up with a series of mock-ups, and our design team went to work implementing their near perfect design into the Miva 5.5 system.

The end result is nothing short of amazing. Within the first few days of its launch, we’ve had countless “potential clients” sign on to have us build their new websites because the finished product was so clean and professional.

AarcMediaGroup.com’s Miva Merchant Design Team worked very closely with BUILT’s in-house design team to make sure the design mock-up’s they gave us were 100% reflected in the finished product.

The finished product is truly a thing of beauty and we want to throw out a special thanks to everyone at BUILT that made this project both fun and a huge success.

It includes:

• CSS-Based Drop-Down Navigation
• Ultimate Coupons Module by Sebenza
• Ultimate Gift Certificates Module by Sebenza
• Ultimate Order Status Module by Sebenza
• Inventory Manager Module by Viking Coders
• Product Review’s & Ratings Module by Sebenza
• and so on.  It uses a ton of great modules…

Most notably, the 1855wool.com site features our CSS-Based Drop Down Navigation Menu that is dynamically generated by Miva’s category admin.

STEP 1: CREATING THE TITLE TAG FIELD WITHIN THE META TAG SETTINGS AREA

1. Login to your admin (duh).

2. Click on your store name in the left column.

3. Click on the link title “Meta Tag Settings”.

4. Click the ADD button.

5. Input “title” into the field for Meta Name (without the quotes).

6. Input “Title” into the field for Prompt (without the quotes).

7. Leave the drop down box on “Text Field”.

8. Click Update.

STEP 2:  CREATE YOUR CUSTOM TITLE TAGS FOR ALL CATEGORIES & PRODUCTS

BEFORE you implement the code that draws the new title tag field into your category and product pages, you want to go through and customize your title tags for ALL OF YOUR CATEGORIES AND PRODUCTS FIRST!!! Reason being, if you skip this step and move on to step 3 or 4  (below) you won’t have title tags until you customize them.  Right now, your store is likely set up to draw your store name and category or product name into the title tag.  You need to create all of the new custom title tag content in the Meta Tag Settings title field before you change the templates to use it, otherwise your title tags will be blank.

Here’s how you do it:

1.  Click on EITHER Categories or Products in the left column of your admin.

2.  Click EDIT to the right of the Category or Product you want to create a new title tag for.

3.  Click META Tag Settings once that category or product edit screen loads.

4.  The title tag field should be the last text field listed in this area.  Enter your customized title tag, hit update, and its created!

REMEMBER, make sure you do this for every category and/or product in your store, BEFORE you move on to step 3 & 4 below.  We don’t want you to end up with products and categories that are void of title tags.  It may take you 1 day, it may take you 2 months, but make sure you create the new custom content FIRST.  There are other ways to do it more gradually, but we’re covering the basics here.  If you want a more seamless and easy-going integration, contact us through our main website www.aarcmediagroup.com.

STEP 3: ADDING THE CODE THAT DRAWS THE CUSTOM TITLE CONTENT INTO THE TITLE TAG INTO THE CATEGORY TEMPLATE

Our feeling is the best way to use this feature is to FIRST draw the category or product name into the title tag (as we did in our earlier post) and use this custom title tag feature to draw in additional terms or keyword phrases. Here’s how we did it on AarcMediaGroup.com.

1. Click Pages in the left column.

2. Find the CTGY/Category Display Template and click the EDIT button. (Note: if you’re using a Category Template Module, you’d edit it through its interface instead, and you may have to update the module to its newest version to make sure it supports the title tag feature).

3. In the template, find the following code:

<title>&mvt:store:name;: &mvt:category:name;</title>

Replace your ENTIRE title tag with a new title tag like this:

&mvt:global:metacategoryfieldcache:fields:title;</title>

STEP 4: ADDING THE CODE THAT DRAWS THE CUSTOM TITLE CONTENT INTO THE TITLE TAG INTO THE PRODUCT TEMPLATE

1. Click Pages in the left column.

2. Find the PROD/Product Display Template and click the EDIT button. (Note: if you’re using a Product Template Module, you’d edit it through its interface instead, and you may have to update the module to its newest version to make sure it supports the title tag feature).

3. In the template, find the following code:

<title>&mvt:store:name;: &mvt:product:name;</title>

Replace your ENTIRE title tag with a new title tag like this:

&mvt:global:metaproductfieldcache:fields:title;</title>

And that’s it.  If you have questions, feel free to post a comment, and we’ll reply almost immediately.

Miva Merchant SEO Tip #3

ONE-WAY LINK BUILDING TIPS & DIRECTORIES

One-way Link Building is A MUST when it comes to search engine optimizing your Miva Merchant Store.  If you don’t engage in one-way link building and are still stuck on the horrible task of “trading links”, you need to get with the times and stop doing all that extra work.

There are websites out there called SEO Friendly Link Directories, that will give a FREE Link to your website for NOTHING in return.  Sure some of these links aren’t quite as powerful as that high quality and highly relevant link trade you made last week, HOWEVER, you can submit yourself to 20 one-way link directories in the time it takes you to trade 1 link, so if you engage in this form of link building for your website, you can get some big value, very quickly.

As part of this series, we’re going to periodically post some easy places for you to get these one way links, and from SEO Friendly Directories at that.  Many lists you’ll find aren’t edited and you can’t always get that QUICK & DIRTY link without having to sign up for a free account, or provide a link back, or whatever.  The link directories we’ll post here, are always FREE, NEVER require a recipricol link & are as easy to obtain as filling out a one page form.

AND WE’RE OFF…

10 PLACES TO GET QUICK & DIRTY LINKS

Jayde.com

Chiff.com

Evalu8.org

TurnPike.net

Info-Listings.com

Arakne-Links.com

SearchSight.com

OneMission.com

NetInsert.com

PegasusDirectory.com

So this should help you understand what you’re looking for in a FREE SEO Friendly Link Directory.  Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be glad you did.  We’ll post more of these little gems in another edition of our Miva Merchant SEO Tips

Many business owners that start out small or on Ebay started their business using emails like businessname@aol.com, businessname@yahoo.com or something similar.  Reasons they started out like this range from not having a budget for a domain and hosting to just not knowing any better.

HOWEVER, I still see business owners that have websites, and in some cases nice websites, that for some reason, stay attached to their old hotmail, yahoo or aol email accounts.  Why they would do this is beyond me, but here are the problems.

1. Professionalism
   If you were your customer, would you want your sales or customer service questions answered by happytimehats@yahoo.com?  Think about it.  You place an order on Target’s online store, and you get emails from order@target.com.  People shop with big online retailers all the time, so if you want to hang with the big boys, you should present yourself like one.  Using CoolDude98@hotmail.com as your email address in a business setting isn’t going to accomplish that.
   
   
2. Delivery Problems
   We see it all the time, where we try to send an email to one of our clients (or vice verse) and our servers will not communicate with Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail or so on, because they block other email providers at the wholesale level.  Meaning these “free” email providers are forced to do STUPID things to their email servers to prevent abuse, making you, their account holder look like a tool.  Think about it, your customer places an order and their email address is TomJones@hotmail.com.  Your using your AwsomeBusiness@Yahoo.com email address to send their shipment tracking number, but unknown by you, your customers ISP, Hotmail, dumps it into their SPAM box, and they never receive it.  Your customer then gets cold feet because they haven’t heard back, and tries to cancel their order, or even worse does a chargeback.  Awsome scenario eh?  The same thing goes the other way around as well.  You’d be surprised how many leads or follow up emails you’re missing because Yahoo dumps EVERYTHING into the SPAM folder.

I could go on, but won’t waste my breath.  DON’T use personal or free email services to send business emails, especially if you run an online store.  Get over the fact that you’ve had that Gmail account for 5 years now, and you’ve used it on Ebay for the last 4.  Get yourself a domain name, hosting account and use a true business-like email address.

Thanks to Bruce @ Phosphor Media for bringing up this topic.

Miva Merchant SEO Tip #2

DITCH THE STORENAME FROM THE TITLE TAG OF YOUR CTGY & PROD TEMPLATES

Miva Merchant out-of-the-box includes the Store Name in the Title Tag of all pages within it’s system. This isn’t a horrible idea, especially for non-catalog pages, but when it comes to your Category and Product pages, IT SHOULDN’T BE THERE.

The problem is that one thing the search engines look for is “unique meta content” and YES, the title tag is considered meta content, and in some cases is the most important piece of meta content on a given page. On most Miva Merchant stores, the category and product pages make up the largest percentage of content, so why would you want the same string to appear in all of those pages title tags? Understand, I’m not saying it’s going to bury you from a rankings standpoint if its there, but it certainly isn’t going to help each of your category and product pages from being looked at as “more unique” in the search engines eyes.

What we’re going to do below, is remove the store name from the title tags of the Category and Product Templates. By removing the store name, we leave that pages title tag with only the Category Name or Product Name associated with that page, therefore that page is now shouting to the search engines “THIS PAGE IS ABOUT…” whatever the category or product name states. This is a much better strategy for trying to help the search engines figure out the topic of a given page.

So here’s the easiest fix.

(1) Click on Pages in the left column of your admin.

(2) To edit the Category Template, Click on the CTGY/Category Display Template’s EDIT button on the right of the page.

(3) Once the template loads, in the top few lines of code, you should see something that looks like this:

<title>&mvt:store:name;: &mvt:category:name;</title>

Replace the above code, with this:

<title>&mvt:category:name;</title>

Notice that all we did was remove the snippet of code that draws the store name into the title, leaving only the Category Name.

(4) Once you replace the code, click the Update button at the bottom of the page, and you’re now good to go.

(5) Now, click on Pages in the left column of your admin again.

(6) To edit the Product Template, Click on the PROD/Product Display Template’s EDIT button on the right of the page.

(7) Once the template loads, in the top few lines of code, you should see something that looks like this:

<title>&mvt:store:name;: &mvt:product:name;</title>

Replace the above code, with this:

<title>&mvt:product:name;</title>

Notice that all we did was remove the snippet of code that draws the store name into the title, leaving only the Product Name.

(8) Once you replace the code, click the Update button at the bottom of the page, and you’re now good to go.

Why do this?

The concept is simple. By removing a snippet of code that is over redundent from the title tags of all of these category and product pages, we now make these pages “more unique” in the eyes of the search engines.

Is it going to be the trick you needed to sore into the rankings for the terms you’re targeting? ABSOLUTELY NOT. But in a world where you have to scrape and claw for every bit of traffic out there, it isn’t going to hurt either.

ALWAYS REMEMBER, that in the world of SEO, every little bit helps. Just make sure that the things you do make sense, and aren’t geared towards “fooling” the search engines.

This is the first post in a series we’ll run called Miva Merchant SEO Tips. The goal is to provide the “everyday” Miva Merchant store owner with practical ways to improve the on-page optimization of the stores.

Miva Merchant SEO Tip #1

USE MIVA MERCHANT’S BUILT IN META CONTENT SYSTEM

I know that sounds incredibly stupid and many of you are saying, “no duh”. Despite that, I’m amazed on a daily basis with how many Miva admin’s I go into where the store owner hasn’t customized the <meta description> or <meta keywords> for any categories or products.

Here’s how you do it.

(1) Click either Categories or Products in the left column of your admin.

(2) Click the Edit button to the right of the Category or Product you would like to customize meta content for.

(3) Once on the main edit screen, click the tab titled “META Tag Settings”.

(4) Once on this screen, you’ll see there are two areas to enter data. One is titled Keywords, the other is titled Description.

(5) For the Keywords tag, only input a handful (5-10) keywords or keyword phrases that are relevant to that page. NOTE that the <meta keywords> tag is ignored by Google, Yahoo and MSN, so don’t spend a lot of time here. In many cases its enough to simply copy the product name and a couple additional terms that you think are relevant. Also separate each entry by a comma and a space. You also don’t need to repeat terms, once they’re listed once. Example below:

Terms I’m Targeting: Miva Merchant Design, Miva Merchant Hosting, Miva Merchant SEO

What I would enter into the Keywrds text field:
Miva Merchant, Design, Hosting, SEO

(6) For the Description tag, you want to include a relevant text description of the page, up to 180 characters. It can be shorter or longer than 180 characters, but most SEO’s perfer that number because it seems to fit well with what Google, Yahoo & MSN look for in a description. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT OF THE TWO META TAGS, SO THIS SHOULD BE CRAFTED CAREFULLY. Once again, use keywords in the description, but your goal should make it sound readable. Don’t just stuff it full of keywords and junk because it very well could end up in your search engine listing, and you want it to make sense. Example below:

Terms I’m Targeting: Miva Merchant Design, Miva Merchant Hosting, Miva Merchant SEO

What I would enter into the Description text area:
This blog will help Miva Merchant store owners learn more about Miva Merchant Design, Miva Merchant 5.5 Hosting and Miva Merchant SEO.

Notice in that example I DID fully list out each keyword term I was targeting. I did that because I felt like it, but also because it was RELEVANT, meaning that if someone searched for Miva Merchant 5.5 Hosting, this description if included with my search result, would catch the readers eye and would increase the chance they click on my listing. Once again, that’s an example of doing what you should do to help your visitor, and not fool the search engine.

So if you have questions, or want some FREE advice, post a comment with a question and I will respond accordingly. Note that only QUESTIONS or ADDITIONAL TIPS will be allowed as comments on these posts, as they are meant to be “slightly educational”.

Through some survey’s we conducted it was determined that many of our Miva Merchant hosting clients that had switched to us from other hosts had actually preferred the more “icon-based” and user friendly look and feel that cPanel uses. They felt that it was easier to get a sense for the lay of the land, create email addresses, forwards and best of all, install blogs, live chat and other softwares that come free with cPanel.

So last night the switch was made, with absolutely no downtime to any of our Miva Merchant hosting clients. These clients are on brand new, fully upgraded servers now operating in a cPanel environment.

The biggest benefit is the Fantastico suite of software that features one click install for software’s like:

• FREE WordPress Blogs
• FREE Web Forums
• FREE Customer Suport & Ticket Software
• FREE Photo Sharing Software & Galleries
• & much, much more.

We added a handfull of Miva Merchant Modules “Bonita Bucks” program that uses the Points Redemption Manager Module. This module allowed us to set this Miva store up so that customers earn points that earn them huge discounts on future purchases. This same system will also be used to provide a system for managing online jewelry parties.

This time around, we re-worked the global header to add more color to it, and to fit some new navigational elements, including the launch into Twitter. This area is going to be re-worked and simplified as many customers have provided us feedback that it should be a little less busy up there. The customers are always right so within the week, it will be toned down a great deal.

This site will be undergoing a massive redesign in the upcoming months, as this first round was just to improve its usability a bit for its customers. This next redesign will be massive and will improve the site greatly. We’ll make sure to post it here once its completed with before and after shots.