You hear it everywhere - "SEO" - search engine optimization, keyword density, titles, Meta tags, links, and directory submissions. These are the things you must be doing as an e-commerce owner to gain that competitive advantage - to rank well in the search engines. But what does it all mean? You are a business owner, not a search engine marketer. How are you supposed filter through all the information that is available on the internet? Lucky for you we have done it for you and compiled the ultimate SEO guide for Miva Merchant. Outlined are seven steps that every Miva Merchant store owner should take in order to optimize their site better for the search engines.

1. Unique / descriptive / keyword rich titles for every page.

Titles are the text that is displayed in the top bar of your browser. Search engines use this text to determine what your page is about. Each page of your site should have a different title describing that page.
Here is a page that does not have a good title. All it says is “Home Page” This does not tell your visitors, and more importantly the search engines, what your page is about.

Now look at this title:

It uses three descriptive keywords Ceramic Lighting, Sconce Lighting, and Children’s Lighting. These are keywords that describe the products the site sells, and also are keywords that the site owner is trying to rank well for in the search engines.

2. Unique / descriptive / keyword rich Meta tags for every page.

Meta tags are information that the visitor to a website cannot see, but search engines can. It is descriptive text in the head tag of each webpage. It tells the search engines important keywords for each page and also a short description of what the page is about. Each of your main category pages should have unique, targeted Meta tags. This can be achieved easily with ADS Meta Master module. (79.95) It gives you Global, Page, Category and Product level control over your Meta Tags.

Here is an example of good global level Meta Tags:

<meta name="keywords" content="Bathroom Lighting, bathroom lights ,ceiling lighting, ceiling lights, ceramic ceiling lights, celing lighting,outdoor lighting, ceramic outdoor lighting, sconce lighting ,sconce lights, wall sconces, wall sconce lighting, contemporary sconce lighting, Children's lighting, childrens lighting, ceramic lighting">

<meta name="description" content="Fabby Lighting is an amazing resource for Contemporary and classic lighting solutions. We have over 400 styles of handmade lighting including sconce lighting, exterior light fixtures, and children's lighting. Applications for Fabby include bathroom light fixtures, ceiling light fixtures, outdoor light fixtures, and children’s light fixtures.">

Try to limit your keywords to 10 to 15 and keep your description to 1 to 2 sentences. Overstuffing your Meta tags does not help, and if fact can even hurt you in the search engines.

3. Clean Navigation

An easy solution to this is just to use the Miva Category tree or if you want more customization, use CSS based navigation. This is clean and the search engines love it. They can easily follow all your links and before you know it every page of your will be showing up in the Google index.

Another important thing to remember is to put all JavaScript code in external files and use an import like this:

<script type="text/javascript" src="form-validation.js"></script>

There is nothing wrong with using JavaScript on your website. But by putting it in an external file you are cleaning up your HTML code so the search engine spiders can index the stuff which really matters - your content.

4.  Search Friendly Links

 Having search friendly links for you store is a great way to help your search engine optimization efforts. It creates more easily indexed links, allowing Google and the other search engines to index your pages much easier. Another benefit of search friendly links it that you can rename you categories to include important keywords.

Here is an example:

Original Miva Link:
http://knobshingesandmore.com/merchant.mvc?
Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=KnobsHingesMore&Category_Code=APPL

SEO Friendly Link:
http://www.knobshingesandmore.com/Appliance_Handles.html

You can see that the second link is a lot cleaner and also contains great keywords for that page. In order to get search friendly links in Miva (5) you need to get the Ultimate SEO Links module from Sebenza . It is the best SEO module out there for Miva 5.

Want detailed instructions of how to install and use the Ultimate SEO Link module? Click here.

*Unless you know what you are doing, it is best to hire a professional to install this module for you. Also keep in mind that if you already have urls indexed in Google, you need to do a 301 redirect on all the old urls to all the new urls. If you don’t, Google will penalize your site for duplicate content.

5. Rename Category Codes

When most people create their category codes they give them short 3 or 4 letter abbreviations. This is fine, but it does not give you any keyword strength in you url.

Here is an example: Say you are going to create a new category for Women’s Shirt.  Most people would give this a short category code like WSHIRT or maybe even a combination or letters and the manufacture code like, “WS777”. There is nothing wrong with naming your categories like this, but if you want keyword strength in your urls you need to include full descriptive words. (separated by dashes or underscores) A better category code would be: “womens-shirts” or even more descriptive, “long-sleeved-womens-shirts” Now if you are using the Ultimate SEO Links module your url would look like this: http://www.yourstore.com/ long-sleeved-womens-shirts.html

This is the most optimized URL you can create for the search engines. It is short, simple and descriptive. You do not need to change every category code on you site. If you just do you main category landing pages you will be fine. Also be very careful before you start changing your category names. You will have to edit the parent category field for any sub categories to be sure you don’t lose your category tree structure. Also, any static links to that category will have to be changed as well.

This is a simple and easy but very effective SEO procedure for Miva Merchant.

6. Add Content / Category Header Text

Here is an example:

This is a website which sells wetsuits. This is their category landing page for SCUBA diving wetsuits. They chose to add the text below the products, but fell free to put the text above if you would like. This is great text because it not only talks about the SCUBA diving wetsuits, but is also give links to SCUBA accessories and other products it sells. All this is easily done using the built in Miva category headers / footers.

7. Create Google Sitemap using Template Data Feed

Now that your website is nicely optimized for the search engines you need to tell Google about it. This is where Google sitemap comes in. It is an XML file that you submit to Google to tell them all the pages of your site they need to index. It is simple process but a necessary one.  In order to create your Google sitemap you need to purchase the template data feed module. This is a great module which exports all your categories pages and products pages into a nicely formatted xml file ready to submit to Google.

Next, you need to create a Google account (www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/) and follow the steps outlined by Google to submit your brand new sitemap.

All the previous tips are called “On Page Optimization.” It is taking your website and making it more user friendly for the search engines. This is just one aspect of SEO, but if you implement all these steps you are off to a really good start. Wait a few months and you will start to see your website rankings rise in the search engines. However, search engine optimization is a constant ongoing process. You cannot just “set it and forget it”. You have to constantly be watching your rankings and tweaking things to see what works and what doesn’t

I highly recommend you pick up a copy of Aaron Wall’s “SEO Book” It is hands down, the best book on SEO online today. It is well worth the money and you won’t regret it.
You can get a copy here.

About the Author: Brennan Heyde is an e-commerce consultant working in San Diego, Ca. He specializes in online marketing and SEO for e-commerce.  Have a struggling e-commerce website? – Contact Brennan today for a site analysis.