The 216digital team recently traveled to San Diego, California for MIVACON 2015! There were high expectations for the longest running ecommerce event of its kind and it absolutely delivered. We met with ecommerce experts, sat in on keynote presentations, and above all networked. With the abundance of information being shared, it can be hard to decipher the important information from the blah blah. Lucky for you we’ve taken the time to highlight 5 key takeaways, and spell out how they are going to affect your business.
1. The Death of Sebenza
We’re very sorry for your loss, but if your Miva Store uses any Sebenza modules then you need to take immediate action. Sebenza will no longer support or update their modules including:
- Gift Certificates
- Coupons Reviews & Ratings Module
- Points
- Category Template Manager
- Product Template Manager
Many older third party modules are now being replaced with built in Miva functionality. A great example of this is the new Miva 9.0003 update that including gift certificates!
2. Responsive Website Design is no longer a suggestion, it’s a must have
Effective April, 21st the Google Algorithm Update will include responsive (mobile friendly) design into their ranking system. Read up about the mobile-friendly label and responsive design standards. Future-Proofing: Why You Should Go to a Responsive Design
If Google’s strong hand wasn’t enough to convince you that responsive design is for you, consider that more than 50% of all internet traffic comes from smart phones.
3. Upcoming Miva Functionalities
There are so many new pieces of functionality that are coming soon to your Miva store! For example, take a look inside the Miva 9.0003 update, where there was over 40 upgrades to Miva!
Miva 9.0003 Upgrade
- Gift Certificates: With the option to create one time offers or bulk gift certificates. Even have gift certificates emailed directly to your client.
- Multi- Add to Cart: Customers now have the ability to add multiple items to their cart all at once!
- Developer Seats: Gives the developer the option to access and work on multiple online stores at once.
- Marketplaces Modules – Amazon: Sell your products on ecommerce marketplaces like Amazon. Orders and inventory are synched and managed from within your Miva Merchant store.
Future Updates
- Abandoned Basket Tools
- Wish List
- Faceted Navigation
- Tell a Friend
- Address Validation
- Rich Text Editor
- Customer Management Tool
- And Much More
4. Content Marketing
Content marketing was definitely the buzzword amongst presentations at MIVACON15 but Ross Hudgens took content marketing beyond just talk. Here is the slide deck from his presentation
Main points include
- Just because you’ve created great content doesn’t mean you’ve succeeded, and neither does just hitting publish
- If you want your content to drive SEO, there needs to be a tie-in to links
- Every piece of content you put out should include secondary KPIs
- Infographics are great from engagement!
5. Conversion Optimization
Getting the most out of the traffic that is already coming to your website, there are a lot of small things that can make the difference.
- Define yourself quickly and clearly
- Then get them off your homepage
- Cater to your visitors with account creation
- Only display relevant information, no distractions
- Clear call to action
- Keep forms at the top of the page
- Consolidate form fields at check-out
Now you don’t have the sun kissed – just back from California – look that we have, but you do have some of the knowledge. And that is arguably more valuable.