Miva Merchant store owners recently had their search engine rankings and traffic obliterated by changes in Google's method of ranking websites. During the first month of this change, we saw the highest rankings for 2003 both in our search engine traffic and in that of our largest client. The common bond between the two sites was content and lots of it. Most sites that we observed with a huge reduction in traffic had little or no content. This is the biggest problem that we usually see with new search engine optimization and marketing clients who use Miva Merchant.
The three main areas where Miva Merchant store owners can increase content right away are:
Welcome message - This is the main area below the global header on the storefront screen (SFNT). Most store owners put a few sentences welcoming customers to their store and feature popular products. Many times there is no text at all other than product names and prices. Adding one to two paragraphs of optimized text can do wonders. Read an article on the welcome message of Miva Merchant (also known as the storefront screen - SFNT).
Category headers - For most Miva Merchant stores, the category screen (CTGY) contains one to three columns of products with no text other than the category name, product names, and prices. Use the category header to describe the products you offer within each category.
Product descriptions - We have seen some stores with no product descriptions at all. No matter how descriptive or self-explanatory your product images are, you still need to describe them as much as possible.
Here are some tips on other ways to create content to not only bring traffic to your store but help your customers and increase sales.
Frequently Asked Questions/How to Page - Adding frequently asked questions and how to information about your products can sometimes be your highest ranked pages. Helping your customers know how to choose which size, product, accessory, etc. can work well if done properly.
Helpful Related Information - Writing articles with information on topics related to what you sell is always a great thing to do. If you sell running-related equipment, write some helpful tips on running. If you sell dog accessories, write some articles on dog care.
Start a Newsletter - This goes along with helpful related information. An archive of articles can be search engine gold and provide a great resource to which other sites will want to link. Subscribe 2 and its Miva Merchant integration module are an available newsletter program for Miva Merchant.
Start a Resource Page - Providing content yourself is great, but you can also become a valuable resource by pointing to quality content from other related sites. When this happens, you will find people linking to you without having to ask or exchange links.
General Miva Merchant Tips for Generating Content
When writing, try and be specific and use key phrases. A title of frequently asked questions is not specific at all. It is answers to frequently asked questions about what? A title of frequently asked questions about using our running products would be much better.
Link to helpful articles in prominent locations using normal text links rather than javascript dropdown menus or popup windows. Search engines can't follow javascript. Feel free to open them in a new window (target="_blank").
Feel free to keep additional content within Miva Merchant using categories. Some posts on the Miva Merchant list would have you believe that this content would be best in static pages. Various seo experts who don't specialize in Miva Merchant might tell you the same thing. However, we have found that content is just as effective on dynamic pages within Miva Merchant. But to get the most benefit, a module like search friendly links for Miva Merchant can help you cover all the bases.
Make sure you are targeting the most popular key phrases in your target market. It won't do much good if nobody is searching for your content.
Additional Resources on Creating Content for Search Engines
