Search engine results placement?

[VisHorizons]

One of the many things we sell are plastic school folders, and my boss is getting nervous because sales of that item have declined in the past few years.

Examples:
https://www.storesmart.com/executive...-obsolete.html
https://www.storesmart.com/school-ho...s-english.html
https://www.storesmart.com/6-pack-lx...ry-colors.html

Is there anything built into Miva to help me with search engine result placement?

I'm currently running through the items in this article:
https://www.miva.com/blog/seo-best-p...mmerce-stores/

We're still stuck in the mindset of "keywords" and "search terms," but I understand Meta Keywords isn't really a thing anymore.
I know that "good content" is key, but it's easy to say, hard to execute. We have Easy Review set up and there is a trickle of positive reviews coming in. We had a great copy writer in a few years ago and rewrote the product descriptions. I just implemented SEO Short Links/URI Management a month ago.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[GDesigns]

Doug,
just did a quick search in Google - you still have things like this on your site: https://www.storesmart.com/Graphics/...eo/page13.html
Suggest some house-keeping is in order to help with those old outdated 'seo' pages.

Also - are you generating an xml sitemap and submitting to GSC (we don't have access to that, so couldn't check). I am not seeing anything In Miva for an xml sitemap. Just want to make sure that you submitted the new link structure to Google when you switched to URI management and slugified links. Can you explain the process you went through when you made the switch, please?

Next thing I suggest (besides copy creation and social backlinks) is to work through GSC results, generally Google gives you a lot of info on what needs to be cleaned up.

And yes, we agree, content creation and link building is hard work :)

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

First, I am not a SEO specialist, but I play one on the Miva Forum. You are correct that Content is still king, but of course, it's gotten more complicated. A number of our clients are seeing good results by including Video content in important sections. For example, your school folders top level category. The trick is to actually put these videos on You Tube and then EMBED them (basically, right click on the video and Select Embed Code, then paste that code in a template on your site). Now, the important thing is you need a "related" video...I dunno, maybe a fun test of binder strength, or a test to see if turtles prefer one color over another...

[VisHorizons]

Thanks for the replies.

Sabine,
Re: obsolete files: Yeah, I should certainly clean up my directories.
Re. Sitemap: I had not created a sitemap. I looked it up just now and followed this tutorial:
https://docs.miva.com/how-to-guides/...google-sitemap
(What's the difference between the sitemap feed and the SMAP Site Map page? SMAP is a disaster to look at on my site. It seems like it's trying to load a link to every product and category, and it nearly crashes my browser.)
Re: GCS: I don't have any experience with it, but I'll certainly look into it.

We just did a huge overhaul of our site, including MMUI to CSSUI, http to https, and enabling URI management. There are important things (like sitemap) that are outside of my knowledge, and those things fell to the wayside. I'm trying to get back to that stuff now and I really appreciate the guidance.

Bruce,
Video is an idea that we've been toying with for years. We just got our full Adobe CC license, so I've got some video editing software staring me in the face. What's this about related videos, though? What's the principal there? Connecting more of my own videos, or is it more like social media networking, connecting to other people's videos?

Thanks for the help!

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Bruce,
Video is an idea that we've been toying with for years. We just got our full Adobe CC license, so I've got some video editing software staring me in the face. What's this about related videos, though? What's the principal there? Connecting more of my own videos, or is it more like social media networking, connecting to other people's videos?

Thanks for the help!

To be honest, I'm not 100% sure of the 'reasons', just the results. What I understand is, that

#1) people love videos
#2) google loves pushing its own agenda so publishing on youtube (owned by google) is publishing where google is looking.(its also a real cheap way of offloading bandwidth)
#3) your videos are also located in 'two' places (your site and youtube) and are also easy for folks to repost on facebook and other social sharing sites.

Now, the real trick is to make those videos engaging, hence doing videos that don't necessarily 'sell' your product or are humorous in nature. For example, I'd think a video of comparing folder durability by throwing water balloons at them might make for a popular clip.

[VisHorizons]

Now, the real trick is to make those videos engaging, hence doing videos that don't necessarily 'sell' your product or are humorous in nature. For example, I'd think a video of comparing folder durability by throwing water balloons at them might make for a popular clip.

This is the big challenge in the "time is money, sell the product" company atmosphere. I've run into this wall before with our social media. But, I am definitely going to push forward on this video thing.

Thanks!

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Yea, there is a hurdle for sure in that. However, when i can order everything on Amazon, standalone sites need to do something different to get attention/sales...so there's that.

[GDesigns]

RE.: We just did a huge overhaul of our site, including MMUI to CSSUI, http to https, and enabling URI management. There are important things (like sitemap) that are outside of my knowledge, and those things fell to the wayside

That's what I was afraid of...think at this point it's too late to 'fix' the original launch issues, but by the looks of it, Google has at least re-indexed your new URI's for the most part. Make sure to interlink all your Google accounts correctly. (Analytics, Search Console, Adwords)

You don't really need the SMAP's page anymore in my opinion, you need great intuitive navigation with facets/filters :)
I happen to like Yoast, so I will let him explain the difference and the benefits: https://yoast.com/what-is-an-xml-sit...-you-have-one/

In essence the SMAP is for site visitors to help them 'find' things on your site and the xml sitemap is for search engines to 'find; and hopefully index all your pages.

Bruce's suggestion on video is great! You should totally do this. Can pretty easily be implemented via custom fields. Example https://www.lazerdesigns.com/stainle...-bottle-opener - they have a video overlay where the main product image is (scroll through the additional images as well as in a tab (same video in this case). Of course you can add more than one video if needed. And yes - do create a YouTube channel for your business and also share those videos on your social channels (provided they provide some sort of value, be it educational or entertaining/humor)

[bonnie1525]

I noticed that Glendale Design did LazerDesigns.com and am curious about a couple of things:
- Did you use one of the Miva Templates as the basis for the website?
- Is the drop down category list a customization?
- How did you add the personalization component?

Nice work.

[GDesigns]

Hello there, ladybug :)
Thank you - much appreciated!

- Templates - yes, we always start with a theme as a base, why re-invent the wheel? Then customize based on needs from there.
- Everything is customized based on client/functionality needs

However, we like to set things up (whenever possible) so the client can maintain the site in-house post launch.
Let me know if there is anything we can help you with!