SEO Quick Start for Miva Merchant 5.5

Everyone with an ecommerce website wants to rank better in the search engines since this usually increases traffic and sales. If you have done any research into SEO at all you find articles about changing page titles, Meta descriptions, Meta keywords, h1 tags and several other items. One of the most time consuming aspects of SEO for a website is unique Meta tags (title, description and keywords).

Just to be clear, yes the title of your page is considered a Meta tag.

Going through and writing unique Meta tags may be feasible for a small site however once you start approaching 50 products the tasks can be very time consuming. This begs the question, is it worth spending hours and hours writing unique Meta tags?

If you have been around the search marketing block for more than a few days you hear how very little weight is given to Meta descriptions and keywords while the title tag does still carry a fair amount of influence in Google which holds approximately 80% of the U.S. market share including their partners. I admit I have been one to spend hours optimizing titles, descriptions and keywords for websites but I’ve adopted a new approach that gets the same results, takes a fraction of the time and gets you ready to do more important SEO activities including participating in forums, connecting with people on LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, creating videos and writing blog posts for your customers to name just a few.

In Miva Merchant 5.5 you can give the majority of your pages unique titles, descriptions and keywords by editing three page templates: Storefront (SFNT), Category Display (CTGY) and Product Display (PROD). Note if you have a category or product template manager module and use multiple templates then you will need to edit each template in use.

Now before you login to your admin to change your page templates there is a little footwork to be done. First you need to write some dynamic titles, descriptions and keyword tags. I recommend creating 3 title tags, 3 descriptions and 3 keyword tags.

Start by writing a title tag and Meta description for your home page. Put your top 2 -3 general product keywords and website name as the title. It is best to put your website name last since you will rank for that anyways almost all the time. I recommend clearly articulating why someone should buy from your site as the Meta description. This is classic WiiFM (What’s in it for me) also called a USP (unique selling proposal – why I should buy from you and no one else).

A great example of this is Zappos.com:

The title lists the general products they sell (Shoes, Clothing, Handbags, Sunglasses), the website name and part of the value proposition, Free Shipping.

The description really hammers home their commitment to customer satisfaction by highlighting three parts of Zappos’ value proposition:

• Free shipping both ways
• 365 day return policy
• 24/7 customer service

Notice how Zappos pounds on the free shipping proposition both in the title and description. A quick note on offering free shipping, only do this if you truly are eating the cost of shipping. Your customers will know if you build it into the price or hide it as some other fee.

Quite a few of the merchants I talk to actually have a good value proposition however this is not apparent on the site and you would never know unless you spoke to the business owner. How many prospective customers talk to you before making a purchase? Probably not very many. Putting the information in your Meta description gives this vital information to a prospect at the most crucial time, after a search has been completed but before they have ever visited your site and potentially before they visit your competitor’s site.

Take five minutes RIGHT NOW and write a few titles and descriptions for your home page. You can pick the one you want to use later; just get something down for brainstorming purposes at the moment.

So now you should have a title and Meta description written for your home page (storefront). Next is the keywords tag; I recommend taking your top 5-6 most general keywords and use them in the Meta description.

Let’s look at usedlaptops.com as an example. For this site a good meta keyword tag would look like this:

<meta name="keywords" content="laptops,computers,used laptop,refurbished computer,dell laptops">

Don’t worry about the correct syntax just get some good keywords. If you haven’t done keyword research try Google’s keyword suggestion tool.

Now you should have your title, description and keywords tags for your storefront page. It get’s quite a bit easier to do the rest since you are going to reuse what you came up with for the home page. Let’s get right into optimizing all your category pages.

You are going to dynamically insert your category name into the title, description and keywords using the Miva Merchant variable for the category name. This will give you unique Meta tags without having to write hundreds of unique titles and descriptions. For the title I recommend putting the category name and website or business name. Assuming you have a category named, Dell Laptops, then your category page title would look like this in a browser or search engine:

Dell Laptops – UsedLaptops.com

Or

Dell Laptops | UsedLaptops.com

Either way will work; just pick the one you like better. Here is the code to make this happen:

<title>&mvt:category:name; – UsedLaptops.com</title>

Or

<title>&mvt:category:name; | UsedLaptops.com</title>

Next the meta description for your categories is going to be the category name along with your unique selling proposal. Here is another example using UsedLaptops.com:

<meta name="description" content="&mvt:category:name; at UsedLaptops.com. 3-month warranty and U.S. technical support by phone on all purchases.">

Or

<meta name="description" content="Buy &mvt:category:name; at UsedLaptops.com. 3-month warranty and U.S. technical support by phone on all purchases.">

If Zappos.com were run on Miva Merchant 5.5 then you could make their category meta descriptions this way:

<meta name="description" content="&mvt:category:name; at Zappos.com. Free shipping BOTH ways, 365-day return policy, 24/7 customer service.">

Next you want to dynamically insert the category into the meta keywords. There are a couple different strategies you can use: category name and website or business name, category name and a few general keywords. Here is an example of each:

Category name & website name:

<meta name="keywords" content="&mvt:category:name;,usedlaptops.com">

Category name & general keyword terms:

<meta name="keywords" content="&mvt:category:name;,used laptops,refurbished computers">

Now that the home page storefront tags have been written along with the category meta tags it is time to move on to the products. Most of the time you can just switch out the category name with the product name for your titles, descriptions and keywords.

Here is an example of a dynamic product title:

<title>&mvt:product:name; | UsedLaptops.com</title>

Here is an example of a dynamic product description:

<meta name="description" content="Buy &mvt:product:name; at UsedLaptops.com. 3-month warranty and U.S. technical support by phone on all purchases.">

Here is an example of a dynamic keyword tag:

<meta name="keyword" content="&mvt:product:name;,laptops,computers,used computer,refurbished laptop">

I usually use slightly different keywords for the meta keywords on the storefront, category and product page. This is optional and does not really have an affect on your rankings long term. Also, you might put part of your value proposition in the title if it is short & sweet. Remember that the fewer keywords in the title the better for SEO.

Now that all your tags are written let’s go into the Miva Merchant admin to make the necessary changes.

Storefront Page – SFNT

To edit the storefront / home page go to Pages and click edit next to SFNT, do a search for SFNT if you have any trouble. The storefront page template should load by default and you want to paste your meta tag code immediately after the head tag:

<mvt:item name="html_profile" />
<head>

Here is working HTML code to paste in, just change the text to be appropriate for your site:

<title>Used Laptops & Refurbished Computers for Under $500 | UsedLaptops.com</title>
<meta name="description" content="Get a used laptop or refurbished computer for less than $500. 3-month warranty and U.S. technical support by phone on all purchases.">
<meta name="keywords" content="laptops,computers,used laptop,refurbished computer,dell laptops,hp laptops,ibm laptops">

Click the update button at the bottom of your admin to make the changes.

Category page – CTGY

To edit the category page template click on Pages and click edit next to CTGY (search if needed). Paste the HTML code in the page template after the head tag the same as you did for the storefront, then click update.

<title>&mvt:category:name; | UsedLaptops.com</title>
<meta name="description" content="&mvt:category:name; at UsedLaptops.com. 3-month warranty and U.S. technical support by phone on all purchases.">
<meta name="keywords" content="&mvt:category:name;,usedlaptops.com">

Product page – PROD

To edit the product page template click on Pages and click edit next to PROD (search if needed). Paste the HTML code in the page template after the head tag the same as you did for the storefront & category pages, then click update. Here is some more example code that you just need to change the text:

<title>&mvt:product:name; | UsedLaptops.com</title>
<meta name="description" content="Buy &mvt:product:name; at UsedLaptops.com. 3-month warranty and U.S. technical support by phone on all purchases.">
<meta name="keywords" content="&mvt:product:name;,laptops,computers,used computer,refurbished laptop">

You will still need to write titles & descriptions for your non product and category pages such as about us, contact us, FAQ and any other more general pages.

I always find it helps to have a real world example to refer back to. Here are three big time e-commerce retailers that have taken the SEO approach covered and you can look at their results in Google for inspiration:

• amazon.com
• zappos.com
• bestbuy.com

Follow the example of the major league players, save yourself some time and write some dynamic meta tags today. Use the time you save to build links and extend your web presence through forums, industry blogs, social sites and local community events.

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