On 11/19/15, Google posted an update to their search quality rating guidelines. In the post, you’ll find a link to a PDF which provides instructions to Google’s search results raters. These are human users who rate the quality of results that Google returns for search queries. Google’s PDF does not provide direct advice on best practices for SEO—that’s simply not its intent. However, by reading Google’s instructions to its human raters, we can understand SEO best practices in a new way. In this post, we’ll comb the Google document for new information that’s relevant to ecommerce store owners.
A large portion of the document deals with mobile search results. While much of this information is not new, it’s great to have it all in one place, straight from the source. However, there are a few points to be made.
User Intent Behind Queries
Google classifies search types based on user intent. This is a great way to approach the keywords you’re trying to rank for. What is the user intent behind the keyword? It should always match what users will find on the page which you’ve optimized for that keyword. It’s a fairly obvious point, but it’s worth making. For example, if you’re a paid stock photo site trying to rank for the keyword “free stock photos” so you can persuade users to buy stock photos when they searched for free photos, the intent of your landing page does not respect the user intent behind the keyword. This practice is fundamentally deceptive. Just don’t do it. As Google’s instructions to raters show, Google continues to refine its ability to match user intent to honest search results.
If you’re a brick-and-mortar business, you should pay special attention to “Visit-in-Person” search intent—that is, local searches on mobile in which the user is looking for a nearby brick-and-mortar location. For example, a music store with both a physical retail location and an ecommerce store should prepare its online presence for Visit-in-Person search intent. As well as a fully functional, mobile-responsive online store, this business should have a fully populated Google Business page with accurate location, contact information, and hours. Incomplete or inaccurate information could stop mobile users from finding the brick-and-mortar location they’re looking for. You’ll find this information in section 12.7.4 of the PDF.
Google Is Getting Better at Understanding User Intent
Image Link
In that same section, you’ll find a discussion of ambiguous queries that could be the name of a restaurant (Visit-in-Person intent) or the name of a spice (purely informational query). In writing web copy for your site, you should be precise, leaving no room for semantic ambiguity, while also writing naturally. Be informative, clear, and natural. This will allow Google’s powerful Semantic Search to match precise contextual results to keywords that display ambiguous intent when examined out of context.
Take note here: fundamentally, Google is getting better at divining user intent behind queries. That means that SEO efforts will gradually move away from technical precision (e.g., including exact-match keywords in copy at a recommended density) and towards excellent, well-written copy that matches user intent. Good content marketing is fast becoming the most effective road to good SEO. We expect that trend to continue.
Special Content Result Boxes
Special Content Result Boxes Image
In Google’s PDF, you’ll also find a discussion of “Special Content Result Blocks” (section 12.8.2). If you haven’t noticed, this feature has started appearing at the top of SERPs when the query has a definite answer for which no entity can claim copyright. As the document makes clear, SCRBs only appear when the user has asked Google a specific question—for example, “how much does a gallon of water weigh?” In our screengrab, the SCRB appeared with a URL to a landing page—but not all SCRBs have landing pages associated with them.
Content Strategy
For ecommerce stores, that means checking content strategy very carefully. If some of your content strategy involves trying to rank for questions with definite, non-negotiable answers related to your niche, you should trim those topics from your content strategy. Google is so sophisticated at this point, it’s starting to give us answers directly, without sending us to 3rd party sites for the answers. That means content strategists must narrow the focus to topics on which they can provide fresh, useful information which Google can’t get elsewhere or prepare from aggregate data.
Give Users Fresh Content When That’s What They Want
For ecommerce stores associated with a niche that evolves regularly, that means publishing fresh, accurate content on news within your niche. If users google “boston marathon” and your business is associated with the marathon, you should publish timely content about the next marathon. That’s what users are likely searching for.
The Bottom Line
Google is always tweaking things. This causes some stress in the SEO community—but it shouldn’t. Google is trying to create a better experience for users. Keeping up with Google’s constant algorithm refinement helps us all to create better experiences for our users. For ecommerce store owners, happy users mean satisfied customers. There’s really nothing to lose.
When the mobile revolution hit, everyone had to get a mobile-responsive website. That’s still critical, by the way. If you don’t have a responsive site, you’re losing mobile customers. But now mobile ecommerce is changing again. Buy buttons are coming to the major social media platforms—and to Google.
What does this mean for brands and digital marketers? There isn’t one single answer. Brands that use Pinterest will need a different strategy than brands that primarily use Twitter, for example. In this post, we’ll take a quick overview of each platform’s buy button functionality. And we’ll tell you what it means for brands that thrive on that platform.
Pinterest is unique among social platforms. Its underlying philosophy is brilliant: to capitalize on our voracious appetite for visual beauty—and to enable our love of stashing things for later use. But as users have long complained, Pinterest didn’t offer an easy tie-in to purchase the items you had pinned.
That has changed.
As Pinterest announced on their blog, buyable pins are coming to Pinterest. Initially, only big brands—Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom—will have access to buyable pin integration. However, Pinterest plans to roll out the function to many more brands, particularly those using Shopify, Demandware, Bigcommerce, or Magento as their ecommerce platform.
Initially, the Pinterest buy button will be available only on iOs mobile devices. However, it is coming to Android and desktop soon.
For small-to-midsize ecommerce retailers whose primary social market is on Pinterest, this means two things. One, waiting (unfortunately) until the buyable pin integration is available more widely; and two, preparing a good marketing strategy now. Once buyable pins are dropped in your lap, you should be ready to go.
Pinterest Buy Button Strategy
Think about what the Pinterest buy button will do: it will enable instant purchasing of a product—when the user is still feeling love at first sight. In a sense, the Pinterest buy button will accelerate the Pinterest shopping experience, cutting out the delay that can change intent-to-buy into a lost sale.
That means putting your best foot forward on buyable pins—your best foot in every area: most attractive products, best photography, products priced best for your market, and highest margins for you. These are the products you should prepare first for buyable pins.
The Twitter buy button will appear directly in a tweet—that’s right, a regular tweet that can be favorited and retweeted. That means unprecedented viral potential for actual product listings. Of course, this functionality only enables virality at the platform level. Most likely, only truly innovative and astounding products will see significant viral lift from the Twitter buy button.
Still, the Twitter buy button is attractive for many reasons. For one thing, Twitter isn’t starting with a few major brands. The buy button is now available to all ecommerce store owners in the US who use Bigcommerce, Demandware, or Shopify as their ecommerce platform. By our count, that’s over 173,000 online stores. In this blog post, Twitter advises ecommerce store owners to contact their ecommerce platform representatives to discuss implementing the buy button functionality.
Twitter Buy Button Strategy
If you’ve used Twitter’s advertising function, you know that the targeting options are highly granular. As well as choosing from hundreds of interests, you can target users who follow certain Twitter accounts, users who watch certain TV shows, and much, much more.
Couple all of this with the coming of Twitter buy buttons, and you have a whole new level of ecommerce targeting precision. That means when you go to promote a buy button tweet through a Twitter ad, you should come to the table with complete, detailed, and accurate information for the market demographic that wants your product. If you match product to demographic well, you should see a high conversion rate.
Instagram Buy Buttons For Visual Shopping
Instagram previously displayed concern over advertising on its platform: would ads disrupt the seamless visual flow of the Instagram experience? Instagram decided the answer was no—as long as the advertising format was considered within the context of the Instagram experience as a whole. Now Instagram is rolling out its own version of the social buy button. According to the platform’s official blog, Instagram’s buy button functionality will provide “an advertising experience that feels native to the platform.”
If you’re concerned about targeting options for the Instagram buy button, you shouldn’t be. According to that same blog post from Instagram, the platform will work with Facebook, enabling advertisers “to reach people on Instagram based on demographics and interests… We want to leverage the best of Facebook’s infrastructure for buying, managing and measuring the success of ads on Instagram.” This sounds like a great partnership, and advertisers who are familiar with Facebook’s high-powered targeting options should find it easy to add Instagram advertising to their repertoire.
Google Buy Buttons: BIG Changes Are Coming To Online Shopping
As Google announced on the Adwords blog, the search giant will start adding buy buttons to “I-want-to-buy” paid search results on mobile. For ecommerce retailers, that means mobile consumers can purchase from your store without ever visiting it. Google will transmit all the purchase data to participating retailers.
For consumers, this sounds like a great way to streamline the mobile purchasing experience. But what will it mean for ecommerce retailers? That’s a bit unclear. In the same blog post, Google says, “While Google hosts the product page and provides purchase protection for customers, retailers own the customer communication and can offer customers the option to receive marketing and promotional messages.”
How will this work? That remains unclear. Allowing customers to opt in to your newsletter is one of the greatest assets to your checkout process as an ecommerce retailer. Will Google collect this data, giving consumers that option? Will Google funnel this data to you in a useable format? It’s too soon to say. As usual, Google’s blog post on the subject is incredibly vague.
Facebook Buy Buttons: Not Quite Yet!
If you were ramping up for the launch of the Facebook buy button, you may have to wait a little longer. As the New York Times reports, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, said, “We are working on this, but it’s not the most important thing we’re working on.”
How will the Facebook buy button affect ecommerce when it does arrive? Clearly, it will work hand-in-hand with Facebook’s sophisticated ad targeting capabilities. That should give merchants the ability to promote a product post directly to the audience that’s most likely to buy the product. For niches whose primary social platform is Facebook, this will be a godsend.
However, not all products may see success with this form of promotion. For example, products with many options, like clothing and tech, might appear too streamlined in an in-line product listing in Newsfeed. Without all the options readily available, consumers might think, “that looks nice, but is it exactly right for me?” Doubtless, Facebook will address this problem; but for now, it remains a valid question.
The Bottom Line
What’s your ecommerce market? At 216digital, we’ve specialized in ecommerce consulting for over 15 years. We know the digital marketing landscape backwards and forwards, and we make informed recommendations to our clients every day. If you have questions about social media buy buttons in your market niche, get in touch. We’re happy to advise you.
Welcome to Part 5 in our in-depth analysis of major ecommerce platforms. In the previous four posts, we discussed WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and Bigcommerce. We examined the inherent pros and cons of each platform. In Part 5, we’ll talk about the ecommerce dark horse: Miva Merchant—or simply Miva, as it’s now called. Let’s get started.
How Does Miva Stack Up?
First, let’s talk about what Miva isn’t. Because Miva is so functional and expandable, it’s not for the entrepreneur on a shoestring budget. The old saying, “you get what you pay for,” holds true in ecommerce platforms as in everything else. While Miva isn’t free by any means, it provides great value and—if managed intelligently—great ROI. With a small but devoted development community and none of the inherent limitations we examined in Shopify and Bigcommerce, Miva customization is limited only by store owners’ imaginations.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Because @miva is a subscription service, PCI compliance comes built in. @216_Digital #ecommerce #saas” quote=”Because Miva is a subscription service, PCI compliance comes built in.”]
Also, note that like Magento, Miva isn’t for DIYers who don’t know code and can’t hire a developer. An entrepreneur considering WooCommerce likely isn’t in the market for Miva. Miva runs on a proprietary script, and major modifications are best left to professional web developers. However, just about every modification you can imagine is possible; and because Miva is a subscription service (unlike Magento), key functionality like PCI compliance comes built in, giving you one less thing to check off your list after signing up.
For code-savvy entrepreneurs (or those with plenty of development budget), Miva and Magento might look like neck-and-neck contenders at first. However, as G2Crowd reports, Magento doesn’t stack up too well against Miva. While Magento offers a free platform with added robust functionality at a development price, Miva offers a subscription platform plus added functionality at a lower total cost. Since Miva comes with more functionality out of the box, Miva development is simply not as expensive as Magento development. And while you’ll have to outsource Magento support to your 3rd party developer, Miva support is included in every subscription—even at the boutique pricing tier. That means you don’t have to pay $20,000/year to get someone on the phone. As Miva puts it on their website, they offer an enterprise-quality ecommerce solution without the enterprise-level price tag.
Miva: The Ecommerce World’s Best-Kept Secret
Don’t tell, but Miva is awesome! – Photo courtesy of Steven Depolo. Licensed under CC 2.0.
Now, Miva isn’t as well-known as some of the big ecommerce players. But why should it be? Where Miva’s competitors win new customers with a glitzy marketing machine, Miva is arguably the ecommerce world’s best-kept secret. Remember, marketing is expensive, and businesses pass expenses to their customers. If you sign up with a marketing-heavy service, you’re paying for the marketing that convinced you as well as future marketing to net new customers. Ecommerce owners who choose Miva do so for quality and reliability, not for the feel-good experience of working with a great salesman.
Miva has always maintained a transparent relationship with its users. Miva executives can be found posting in Miva forums and responding to reviews on 3rd party blogs. While Miva script is proprietary and customizations require involvement from the development community, the culture of Miva has an open-source feel. Among Miva users and developers alike, the saying is, “if the solution doesn’t exist yet, it can be created.”
Let’s put it this way: if you google “best ecommerce platforms,” you may not see many mentions of Miva. But that’s a testament to the other companies’ focus—marketing. Miva has a dedicated community of longtime clients and experienced developers. If you search for Miva reviews, you’ll find many testimonials from store owners who’ve been using Miva for a decade or more. Most say they would never switch.
Miva isn’t super aggressive in pursuing the low-budget startup—and for good reason. The shoestring budget can’t afford the quality that Miva provides, and the uneducated entrepreneur will take the sales pitches of the big companies anyway. Miva’s strategy focuses more on providing the very best ecommerce platform possible to those who can pay for it. Where Shopify’s average customer does $10k/year in sales, Miva’s average customer does $500k/year. These average customers are both small businesses, but as Miva president Rick Wilson explains in this post, “it’s a different kind of small.”
Further, the average lifespan of a Miva store is 8 years. For Miva’s competition, that average store lifespan is 2.5 years. We think that says it all.
The Bottom Line
As in all things ecommerce, there’s no right answer to the platform question. That answer depends on your market’s growth potential, the functionality you need, your budget, your projected yearly sales, and more. For larger small businesses that need limitless functionality without the handicap of transaction fees and limited access to development tools, Miva and Magento remain excellent choices.
In the early days, like everything else, design was a male-dominated profession. Today, women designers are changing the face of design with incredible innovation. At 216digital, we’re design connoisseurs. We thrive on innovative design thinking. We keep a pulse on the design industry, and we take note when someone creates something amazing. In this blog post, we wanted to talk about our favorite women designers and their work.
You’ll see an incredible amount of innovation in these designers’ portfolios. In the disciplines of graphic design, illustration, typography, and more, these 26 designers are pushing the boundaries of convention and creating new visual expressions.
We’ve organized our favorite designers into several specialty areas. But let’s be clear—these designers aren’t ranked in any kind of order. They’re all great, and no two are alike.
Jiani Lu practices groundbreaking graphic design in Taipei, Taiwan. Her work integrates all aspects of visual communication—imagery, graphic elements, and typography—with a new kind of flair that we haven’t seen before.
Shown: To My Future Self. Used by permission of Jiani Lu.
Jiani is a Canadian designer working in multiple disciplines. She has won awards from AIGA, Graphis, Adobe, and others.
Fanny Öhlund is forging a career in cutting-edge design. Her work features beautiful graphics and typography integrated into a unique whole. She has done work in print design, album cover design, branding, and more.
Shown: Áhpi album cover. Used by permission of Fanny Öhlund.
Fanny’s sense of pattern, contrast, and color is truly beautiful. For this writer, her work is often more than the sum of its parts. For more of Fanny’s work, see her website or Behance page.
Teresa Sdralevich has forged a remarkable career in illustration, poster design, and cover design. Her work utilizes large blocks of color and bold typography. She often engages social, political, and cultural issues, and her approach draws the most out of a simple collection of elements.
Book cover: Vota Larry, by Janet Tashjian. Used by permission of Teresa Sdralevich.
Teresa was born in Milan in 1969. She currently lives and works in Brussels, where she practices silkscreen printing in a collaborative space shared with other artists.
Best Ecommerce Platforms for 2015 – Pt. 4 – Bigcommerce
Welcome to Part 4 of our series on ecommerce platforms. In the previous installments, we examined WooCommerce, Shopify, and Magento. We discussed the inherent pros and cons of each platform. We concluded that WooCommerce is an excellent basic option. We also mentioned that Shopify’s transaction fee schedule could hurt high-growth businesses. In looking at Magento, we concluded that almost every business model would need custom development to fully utilize Magento’s functionality. In Part 4, we’ll look at another big ecommerce name: Bigcommerce. Let’s jump right in!
Bigcommerce:
Bigcommerce is growing fast. The Revolution Fund invested $40 million in Bigcommerce in 2013. SoftBank Capital and others pitched in $50 million in 2014, bringing the company’s net worth to $500 million. With something like 90,000 online stores running on the platform, Bigcommerce has big market share. Its features are quite competitive, though customer complaints suggest a lack of adequate support.
Industry insiders agree that Bigcommerce has one thing down pat: they’re a marketing powerhouse. An aggressive campaign has netted them tens of thousands of new users. When Magento pulled the plug on Magento Go, their SaaS (software as a service) version, they sent approximately 10,000 customers to Bigcommerce. However, big things develop their own kinds of problems. When a company’s goal is to eat up an entire market, other considerations can fall by the wayside. Though ecommerce beginners may not realize it, Bigcommerce has some serious shortcomings that limit its adaptability.
While Bigcommerce boasts tons of bells and whistles, it doesn’t give users some crucial features. As this thread in the Miva Merchant community forums explains, Bigcommerce doesn’t allow for template logic. In other words, you can’t add code to create a conditional statement like, “for this family of products, include a download link to the manufacturer’s docmuntation.” This is a serious shortcoming—and one with no workaround. Further, because of Bigcommerce’s API, you can’t integrate 3rd party functionality into the platform. This stands in stark contrast to Miva and Magento, which offer vibrant development communities and total freedom to develop custom 3rd party integrations.
Photo courtesy of Mark Sebastian. Licensed under CC 2.0. Modified by 216digital.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Unlike #miva and #magento, #bigcommerce can’t do template logic. @216_Digital” quote=”Unlike Miva and Magento, Bigcommerce can’t do template logic.”]
That’s not the only thing we worry about when we look at Bigcommerce. In the development area, user FTP access is limited to a few folders. Worse, Bigcommerce doesn’t provide any database access. That means if you want to change anything in those areas, you’re out of luck. Some developers complain that Bigcommerce’s code is too hefty, potentially dragging down SEO results. Finally, as with Shopify, you can only host a Bigcommerce store on Bigcommerce servers.
The Bottom Line
For a certain segment of the ecommerce market, Bigcommerce will work just fine. Ecommerce store owners who don’t need certain functionality and have no development background will love Bigcommerce. It works, it looks great, it provides a lot of power out of the box, it’s easy to use, and hosting is included. The trouble is getting functionality that’s not provided in the software itself. For store owners who want limitless custom functionality, Miva and Magento are lightyears ahead of Bigcommerce.
Stay tuned. In Part 5 of 5 in our series, we take an in-depth look at Miva. Mellier has built a remarkable career in graphic design, typography, and print design. Her work uses simple geometric shapes arranged in strategic placement. Her strong eye for color transforms her minimal geometry into vibrant, cohesive works.
Fanette completed her education at the Graduate School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg. She learned from masters such as Pierre Di Sciullo and Pierre Bernard. With this background, she has contributed significantly to the world of typography and intellectual communication.
Anna Kuts is a graphic designer, photographer, and calligrapher from Kharkiv, Ukraine. Her work marries a strong emphasis on texture with a nuanced approach to color. She is passionate about logo design in particular. She often combines unique textures with clear vector elements, and the results are beautiful.
Kharkov Guitar Quartet Poster. Used by permission of Anna Kuts.
We see a little Soviet Constructivist influence in this poster, but the overall effect is unmistakably contemporary. The piece contains excellent contrast, and the overall look is quite balanced.
Mercedes Bazan specializes in UI, UX, and editorial design. She lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her work features strong graphic elements, complex alignments, and refreshing color palettes. Her editorial designs in the magazine field are fresh, contemporary, and surprising.
Shown: Nikola Tesla Pressbook. Used by permission of Mercedes Bazan.
Cristina Pagnoncelli’s work utilizes great typography, balanced composition, and a clear sense of cohesiveness. Cristina shows an ability to weave seemingly unrelated elements into a total composition. Her use of type and lettering is particularly inspiring. Facebook asked her to create 10 letterings inspired by American cities. Now Facebook users can use these letterings on their photos.
Shown: Orlando lettering. Used by permission of Cristina Pagnoncelli.
With her sister, Raquel Pagnoncelli, she runs Des Figure, a communication studio. Cristina’s work shows an intuitive understanding of diverse graphic disciplines. She is one to watch.
Sue Doeksen is a graphic designer based in Amsterdam. She often focuses on bold color, eye-popping texture, and a fun approach to high-concept design. Her work is thoroughly contemporary, yet it knows its roots in great European design.
Shown: Landmark Pins. Used by permission of Sue Doeksen.
Sue describes herself as a “visual adventurer.” This approach shows in all her work. Sue’s designs are not static works; they seem to transform themselves as you look at them—even those that aren’t animated. Sue has collaborated multiple times with fellow Dutch designer Marta Veludo (see below).
9. Marta Veludo
Marta Veludo is an Amsterdam-based graphic designer, artist, and visual thinker. She works in a wide variety of design fields, including art direction, graphic design, brand communication, and set design. Her work regularly features playful colors and visual relationships.
Shown: D & R Wedding Invitation. Used by permission of Marta Veludo.
Marta’s work is truly unmistakable. She marries a quirky eye to a strong sense of formalism. The result is a dynamic visual language that is contemporary, yet knows its history. She has collaborated multiple times with fellow Dutch designer Sue Doeksen (see above).
Along with Enikő Deri (see below), Nora Demeczky runs De-Form, a design agency based in Budapest. Her work features a strong graphic impact and carefully-constructed balance across a cohesive whole. She achieves a great balance between form and content.
Enikő Deri runs De Form, a Hungarian design agency, along with Nora Demeczky (see above). Her work often features dramatic use of geometry in strict black-and-white. Her shapes and organization are incredibly fresh, and the overall effect she creates is mesmerizing.
Shown: Albert. Used by permission of De Form.
II. Branding Design
12. Kelsy Stromski
Photograph by Kyle Caldwell.
Kelsy Stromski founded Refinery 43 to design cohesive visual identities for her clients. She has designed unique branding for interior design studios, personal brands, nonprofits, food products, and more. Her design expertise is highly fluid and adaptable.
Shown: Bouchard Family Farms Ployes pancake mix packaging. Used by permission of Kelsy Stromski.
Kelsy’s work is firmly grounded in a thorough knowledge of her clients. She combines this knowledge with a deep understanding of the intended audience for the brand. The result is highly-targeted branding.
Ipek Eris is a freelance designer working in the fields of branding, logo design, and corporate identity. She has lived in Kenya, France, Germany, and England. This experience has given her an eclectic visual sense, and it shows in her work.
Shown: Rumeli70 Pharmacy branding package. Used by permission of Ipek Eris.
Ipek’s work shows a keen awareness of her client’s needs, married to a great visual sense. She establishes unity between separate elements by repeating motifs with variation.
We didn’t have to look far to find this designer. Sarah Yeager works for us! And while you may chuckle at the fact that we included our own designer in this list, wait till you see her work. It’s why we hired her.
Shown: MatVacay app design.Shown: Textbookly.com website.Shown: Sarah’s award-winning design of EmpoweRING, a piece of jewelry that lets the wearer send a distress signal to emergency contacts if he or she is in danger.Shown: #BrainCandies branding for WedoWE.
Sarah received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Communication Design from Kent State University. Aside from her design education, Sarah’s wide range of interests also informs her design process. She has worked in entrepreneurship, videography, photography, and painting. She finds these experiences invaluable as she designs websites, logos, and creatives for our clients.
Shown: John French with Hasselblad, paper collage on panel, 18×12.5 inches. Used by permission of Lola Dupré.
Lola Dupré has created an incredible illustration style. Working exclusively with paper and scissors, she makes surreal, distorted images, often using the human body as her subject. In enlarging some parts of her source image, she criticizes cultural assumptions about gender and beauty. Her work is beautiful, disturbing, and unmistakable.
Nina Geometrieva is a rising star in photography, graphic design, and branding. She brings a strong sense of geometry to her design as well as her photojournalism. For this writer, her most incredible work is the stunning photoshoot of Tokyo which she produced with Damjan Cvetkov-Dimitrov—including the capsule hotel photos which you’ve probably seen somewhere on the internet already.
Shown: Tōkyō desu. Used by permission of Nina Geometrieva.
Nina and Damjan documented their Tokyo trip in this Medium post. Check it out for more incredible animated GIFs.
Nadzeya Makeyeva is an illustrator and designer based in Minsk, Belarus. Her work features ingenious use of texture and line, and each piece seems to create and inhabit its own world. Check out her Psilocybin Rabbit:
Shown: Psilocybin Rabbit. Used by permission of Nadzeya Makeyeva.
Nadzeya attended College of Arts #26 in Minsk. She has worked as a concept artist, illustrator, designer, and UI/UX designer, at multiple firms and as a freelancer. Her work shows a remarkable fluidity and ability to adapt to different purposes, styles, and materials.
Vicki Turner is a British designer and illustrator with a strong eye for color, shape, and line. Her work features incredible geometric representations of common shapes. Vicki has developed her own consistent style, almost an iconographic language which is easily understood by anyone.
Shown: Misty Morning Commute, shortlisted for the AOI & TFL Prize for Illustration. Used by permission of Vicki Turner.
Vicki has worked with non-profits, startups, and everything in between. She brings a problem-solving mindset to the client relationship, and she offers insight on product and branding. She is also the founder of Feist Forest, a boutique builder of fine wooden tables for creatives.
Erin Zingré started her illustration career in style, at age 4, with a preschool drawing of the Headless Horseman, a Guillotine, and Death Himself. As she puts it, this drawing still captures the essence of her work: “kinda cute, kinda creepy, and altogether not-quite-right.” It’s a beautiful kind of not-quite-right.
Shown: Coloring Book for Grownups. Used by permission of Erin Zingré.
Erin is a multidisciplinary designer now working out of Seattle. She is not taking freelance work at this time, due to her work designing at Amazon. With this talent, it’s no surprise she’s been snatched up.
Anna Grosh is a Siberian designer working in San Francisco, CA. She specializes in illustration, typography and lettering, and design. Her illustration shows a nuanced touch and a powerful expression of emotion.
Shown Circus D’Hiver Bouglion poster. Used by permission of Anna Grosh.
Anna also excels at highly ornamented work and calligraphy. In the digital age, it’s refreshing to see a human touch and detailed hand work. Anna is one to watch.
V. Typography, Calligraphy, and Typeface Design
21. Marian Bantjes
Marian Bantjes has forged a remarkable career. Her work spans graphic design, typography, calligraphy, and lettering, and it has won her international acclaim. In the following piece, which she created for AGI’s annual special project, she used dirt and sand from around the world to create a Coexistence poster. Note the obsessive attention to detail—and the transience: she didn’t glue the sand down, and she wiped the poster away after photographing it.
Marian worked as a book typesetter from 1984-1994. From 1994-2003, she ran Digitopolis, a graphic design studio which she cofounded. From 2003 to the present, she has pursued freelance work in design, art, and lettering.
Laura Pol is a designer, photographer, and videographer based in Venice, CA. As a designer, she has created a wide variety of logos, both type-based and graphic, in which she integrates clean typography with an overall aesthetic. She has also created several fonts, which are available for free (donation suggested) on her website.
Shown: Tyde Font sample. Used by permission of Laura Pol.
Typography and typeface design aren’t Laura’s only pursuits. She has also collaborated on editorial designs, art direction, branding, and more.
Lisa Pan (Pan, Yi) is a graphic designer based in Taipei, Taiwan. She has developed an incredible illustration style, and she also excels at creating beautiful typography. She often combines lettering with illustrative work. Her pieces are truly jaw-dropping.
Shown: Typoholic Zoology Collection. Used by permission of Lisa Pan.
Lisa shows an incredible ability to adapt her illustration style and her typographic sense to any project. Her work also shows a great balance between complex and simple textures.
Louise Mertens received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in graphic design at Sint-Lucas Antwerpen. While in school, she interned at Mirror Mirror. After an internship at Sagmeister and Walsh, she launched Louise Mertens Studio in 2014. She now specializes in art and art direction, with a strong emphasis on collage. In the work below, she achieves a dynamic unity from several competing elements.
Shown: Jiyu 4. Used by permission of Louise Mertens.
Louise’s use of color and her carefully-combined textures are unmistakable. As she says on her website, she is “inspired by the female body, the mysterious, and the incomprehensible.” She has developed a truly unique style.
Marta Gawin practices design in Katowice, Poland. She specializes in editorial, poster, exhibition, and visual identity design. Her work features strong contrast between graphic elements, plus incredible typography.
Shown: JazzArt Festival 2015. Used by permission of Marta Gawin.
Marta earned her MA in Graphic Design from the Academy of Fine Arts, Katowice, in 2011. She works as a freelancer now, and she is regularly hired by both commercial organizations and cultural institutions. Her work is high-concept, with a heavy emphasis on unique content.
Candy Chang takes her background in urban planning, her expressive sense, and her training in design and combines them to create beautiful public art installations. Among many incredible works, she created the Before I Die phenomenon—a black wall stenciled with the phrase, “Before I die _____”.
Shown: Before I Die. Used by permission of Candy Chang.
This is a participatory public artwork which invites passersby to share their deepest longings in public. The original Before I Die wall in New Orleans gained international attention, and now there are over 1,000 Before I Die walls in 70 countries around the globe.
Design is changing faster than ever. New trends are always emerging, and in our opinion, things just keep getting better and better. These 26 women are pushing design to new places we’ve never seen before. This is truly a golden age of design, whether in web, branding, typography, illustration, or photography.
From 216digital, a hearty THANK YOU to these designers for their willingness to share their work. Keep at it!
Best Ecommerce Platforms for 2015 – Pt. 3 – Magento
Welcome to Part 3 of our ecommerce platform comparison series! In Parts 1 and 2, we examined WooCommerce and Shopify. We discussed each platform’s strengths as well as its weaknesses. We concluded that WooCommerce is excellent for basic, low-budget ecommerce startups. We also noted that Shopify’s transaction fees could seriously hamper business models that forecast high growth rates. In Part 3, we’ll examine one of the biggest players in ecommerce: Magento. Let’s get started!
Magento:
Magento occupies a unique place in the ecommerce software market. The platform is available in two major divisions. The Community Edition, or CE, is a free, open-source download with a vibrant user and developer community. It’s a robust framework, but it requires thorough knowledge of code to get it running (and keep it running).
Magento Enterprise is a subscription-based service aimed at high-volume online retailers. Enterprise prices start at around $18,000/year and may range up to $70,000/year. Note that a custom quote for the Enterprise version can only be obtained from the Magento Enterprise sales team.
Magento Maintenance: Sold Separately
This guy can’t help you update your Magento installation. You’ll have to do it yourself. Photo courtesy of Pedro Ribeiro Simões. Modified by 216digital.
While Magento CE is free, maintaining a Magento CE store isn’t free. It will cost you, either in time (if you’re already a professional developer) or in money (if you’re not). Since the software is open-source and hosted on your server, Magento doesn’t help you with upgrading its software, fixing problems, or keeping your backend architecture in good shape. If you don’t have the time or expertise to do all this yourself, you’ll need to hire a developer, potentially on a recurring basis.
However, you get what you pay for. Businesses that can afford ongoing professional web development will find great value in Magento. The platform is powerful, scalable, and ready to integrate with countless 3rd parties.
How Big Is Big Enough For Magento?
That’s a great question. Some sources say Magento provides value for stores doing $500,000/year and above in gross sales. However, some developers who work with Magento don’t recommend it for stores doing under $1 million/year in online sales. Needless to say, Magento is not for the bedroom entrepreneur with a laptop and a dream. For startups on shoestring budgets, WooCommerce for WordPress may be a more reasonable solution—as long as WooCommerce’s fairly basic functionality is sufficient for the business model.
Support is part of the ongoing development cost associated with Magento. Magento itself does not offer phone or email support for its CE users. Magento forums are available, with a large community of users and developers posting regularly. However, as with any online forum, it’s “buyer beware” with regard to the quality of any given answer. In this regard, hiring an experienced development team is a great solution for firms that can afford it.
Because Magento is free and open-source, it doesn’t come with PCI compliance out of the box. You’ll need to work with a 3rd party solution to achieve PCI compliance. However, Magento’s $0 price tag comes with benefits, too. Unlike Shopify, Magento doesn’t charge transaction fees—though of course, you’ll still pay transaction fees with your 3rd party payment gateway. Lastly, as a free product, Magento CE offers another advantage over more “user-friendly” platforms: it has no inherent restrictions in bandwidth or number of products.
The Bottom Line
For larger firms with the development budget to get the custom store they need, Miva and Magento are the most powerful options. A Magento license is free, while Miva is an SaaS (software as a service) subscription. However, Miva may be cheaper in the long run, since more features come bundled into that subscription and won’t require custom development.
Ready for more? In the next post, we look at Bigcommerce.
Miva Retro ReadyTheme Customization: Tailored To Your Needs!
Miva users know that Miva is the ecommerce world’s best-kept secret. With Miva now offering responsive ReadyThemes free with every license, it’s easier than ever to put a functional, beautiful skin on your Miva store. In fact, most of our clients agree: Miva ReadyThemes really nail it after just a little customization.
Bee Bald Man Care Products sells skin care products for the head. Their products offer incredible value for bald and non-bald men alike. But men aren’t the only ones who love Bee Bald; women use their products, too. Bee Bald has a developed a great brand. Clearly, they needed a great website to match.
When Bee Bald came to us for a redesign, we knew that the Miva Retro ReadyTheme was perfect—well, nearly perfect. Bee Bald founder Dennis Fisher wanted to make a few changes to the theme. He had some ideas on how to optimize this theme for his business, and we were happy to help. The fact is, a pre-loaded theme is rarely a perfect fit for a business owner’s vision. Every business is unique, and themes are designed to please a wide user base. Bee Bald needed something unique. We agreed that Dennis had some great ideas to take his online store to the next level.
So how did we take the Bee Bald store to the next level? Let’s dive right in.
Dennis liked the Retro ReadyTheme overall. “As a template, it was great,” he says. “But it’s not all things to all people.” Specifically, he wasn’t happy with the theme’s homepage layout. The stock layout was functional and looked great, but that functionality didn’t quite fit his product line. We adjusted the homepage product offering template, replacing the stock configuration with a product carousel. We also tweaked the colors and the copy to match Dennis’s specifications.
As you can see, the resulting Bee Bald homepage looks stunning. Dennis has developed an amazingly cohesive brand—one that really sells his product to his niche. Clearly, Dennis’s design decisions were one key part of building that awesome brand. Honestly, we think a lot of marketers could take a cue from Dennis.
It’s obvious that a great ecommerce design appeals to online shoppers. However, a great design coupled to a cohesive brand also makes a great impression on other businesses. In Dennis’s case, as he hammered out relationships with distributors the old-fashioned way, his website turned into a stellar asset. Dennis could throw someone a link with confidence, knowing his website design would showcase the excellent quality of his product line.
Responsive Web Design: Critical In Today’s Ecommerce Market
Ouch. Looks like non-responsive design. (Original photo courtesy of Jan Vašek; modified by 216digital.)
Dennis was getting a lot of mobile traffic on his old site, but mobile users weren’t converting. Dennis thought that mobile users were leaving the site because it wasn’t resizing to the small screens of phones. We agreed—and the same is true for all non-responsive sites today. If you’re not serving pages optimized for mobile devices you’re losing sales.
For ecommerce store owners, mobile website design isn’t an option. It’s a necessity.
The Retro ReadyTheme is fully mobile responsive out of the box. However, when you add custom extensions to a responsive theme, you have to ensure that the customizations look great on mobile, too. Dennis needed a store locator module for his site. We integrated a powerful store locator module into the new Bee Bald site—but we knew that that alone wasn’t enough. We made sure the store locator module was fully mobile responsive and integrated into the look and feel of the theme. That way, customers could find a Bee Bald store on the go—and they wouldn’t be distracted by a clunky store locator experience.
Bee Bald looks great on mobile.
We believe it’s the little things that count, so we also tightened up the overall look of Dennis’s Retro ReadyTheme installation. These incremental changes added up to a great overall brand impression—on mobile and on desktop.
The Cleveland Connection: A Local B2B Partnership
photo by: Rick Harris
An entrepreneur often wears all the hats. When Dennis started gearing up for the launch of Bee Bald, he was learning about the ecommerce world from scratch. Since the technical aspect of ecommerce was so new to him, he realized only shortly before launch that he needed to make changes to the proposal he’d submitted to his developer. The developer was local to the Cleveland, OH area, but they weren’t quite prepared to deal with the nuances of changing a Miva project on the fly. While Dennis’s relationship with his original developer had showed initial promise, he began to realize it wasn’t till-death-do-us-part. He needed a dedicated Miva developer.
Enter 216digital. Justin Sims, our lead web developer, took over Dennis’s project. When we asked Dennis to reflect on his experience with us, we could hear the genuine appreciation in his voice. “Justin did a terrific job,” Dennis said. “He was accessible and responsive. He helped streamline the process.” Now that’s an aspect of responsive web design that you don’t hear about every day—responding right away to a client’s needs and concerns.
In the process of working with us, Dennis learned a lot about Miva. We didn’t keep any secrets from him. Dennis can now perform many store updates himself, meaning we’re billing him less. A lot of companies wouldn’t do that. Why give away the secrets that build value into your services? We simply don’t see it that way. Dennis is our client, and it was our job to build the best ecommerce tool we could for him. Dennis was equipped to learn Miva, and we were happy to teach him.
The Bottom Line
At 216digital, we have a passion for all things Cleveland. Cleveland beers, Cleveland sports teams, we’re 216 all the way. (That’s the area code around here, by the way.) It was exciting to help a Cleveland-area entrepreneur achieve his business goals.
Of course, our clients come from all over. If you aren’t from the Cleveland area, we’ll show you the Cleveland work ethic as we create a stellar ecommerce site for you. So, when you’re ready to start that next project, remember 216digital. With 15 years of experience as a Miva certified partner, we can make your Miva ReadyTheme nail it!
Best Ecommerce Platforms for 2015 – Pt. 2 – Shopify
If you search Google for “ecommerce platforms,” you’ll find a lot about WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and Bigcommerce. If you do a little digging, you might find Miva, a longstanding ecommerce platform that’s not as well-known. Each platform has its own selling points and drawbacks. For some businesses, hidden drawbacks to any given platform may eventually overshadow that platform’s selling points. In this in-depth series, we’re examining the benefits and drawbacks of 5 major ecommerce platforms. In Part 1, we talked about WooCommerce. In Part 2, we’ll look at Shopify. Let’s dive in!
Shopify:
Shopify is a major player in the ecommerce game. With 150,000 active stores, Shopify is responsible for an incredible amount of online commerce. Shopify offers a range of responsive themes, Paypal integration, blogging functionality, a CMS (content management system) and a fairly basic abandoned cart email integration. In that regard, Shopify is generally competitive among ecommerce platforms. However, Shopify has some serious drawbacks which entrepreneurs should consider before committing.
Watch out for those transaction fees!
The biggest problem with Shopify is its transaction fee schedule. This is tied to your choice of payment gateway. If you go with Shopify’s own gateway, Shopify Payments, you’ll be charged 1.8%-2.4% plus $0.30 on every transaction. The percentage charge depends on your plan tier. If you want to use Shopify Payments, you’re in luck. But if you want to integrate with a 3rd party payment gateway, you’ll pay two transaction fees every time you make a sale: one to your 3rd party, and one to Shopify itself. In this scenario, Shopify’s fee goes down to 0.5%-2.0%, depending on your plan tier. Keep in mind that you’re already paying Shopify for the software and hosting. If you’re considering Shopify, you should really crunch the numbers on your projected sales and margins and see how this all adds up.
Shopify’s discount functionality is also limited. The only discounts you can apply are percent off, dollars off, and free shipping. Clearly, these are the most common discount types; but what about scenarios where you need a different type of discount solution? Miva’s built-in discount functionality is far more robust. Without add-ons, Miva offers volume pricing, add-on products, basket discounts, buy product X and get product Y, product discounts, and two types of shipping discounts—entire order, or per-product.
Some developers have claimed that Shopify’s code is not lightweight. Shopify contains in-line javascript at the beginning of the page. Experts generally recommend using external javascript or putting it at the end of the page. Note that Miva in stock configuration has no in-line javascript at the beginning of the source code.
Shopify gives you two shipping methods out of the box. However, carrier-calculated shipping rates aren’t available in any plan below the $179/month tier. This puts smaller operations at a disadvantage. In Miva, shipping options are in no way tied to your website hosting setup.
Overall, Shopify provides a good value to startups and small online stores that don’t need unlimited functionality and have big enough margins to take the transaction fees. Shopify is feature-rich, and those features will work just fine for many smaller operations. However, the limitations we discussed could hamper a store that starts to take off. That’s a key question that entrepreneurs should ask themselves when considering an ecommerce platform: will this software still serve me well in 3 years? In 5 years? In 10 years? And in the case of Shopify, as business grows, how will those transaction fees add up over the years?
The Bottom Line
Shopify offers excellent functionality and features. However, its transaction fee schedule represents a serious drawback for businesses doing larger sales volumes. In this regard, Shopify is more suited to small operations that will stay small. For larger operations, or for fast-growing stores, Miva and Magento offer more freedom and flexibility and have no inherent transaction fees. Note, however, that they may be more expensive than Shopify to get off the ground.
Best Ecommerce Platforms for 2015 – Pt. 1 – WooCommerce
Google “eCommerce platforms,” and you’ll probably find a lot about WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and Bigcommerce. Dig a little deeper, and you might find a longstanding platform called Miva. Each of these platforms has its strengths and weaknesses. For some businesses, the weaknesses of any given platform may heavily outweigh that platform’s strengths. In this in-depth series, we’ll take a look at the benefits and drawbacks of 5 major eCommerce platforms. We’ll also look at what kind of business each platform is most suited for. As one of the Top WooCommerce Developers, we’ll be kicking things off with our analysis of the WooCommerce platform.
WooCommerce: Great For Startups With Small Budgets
WooCommerce is an online shopping cart plugin for WordPress. As such, WooCommerce can only run on WordPress installations. WordPress is the web’s most popular blogging platform and content management system, and it’s only gotten better in the last few years. With the WooCommerce plugin installed, it’s a great option for anyone just starting out in online selling.
The WooCommerce plugin itself is free, making it even more optimized for startups with low budgets. However, the free plugin lacks some extensions. Certain shipping options, payment gateways, extension of product fields, and other functions require add-ons. Some of these plugins are free, but most require a purchase. For more complex online stores, WooCommerce isn’t free at all, due to the number of plugins that must be licensed.
Because WooCommerce was developed by WooThemes, it allegedly runs best on one of their WordPress themes. Most of those aren’t free. Because the plugin is open-source, WooCommerce users do not have access to phone or social media support. However, users who purchase a WordPress template from WooThemes do have access to the company’s support forums.
For simple operations, and for entrepreneurs with simple requirements and zero budget, WooCommerce can’t be beat. However, for larger stores and established operations, WooCommerce can’t provide the full functionality and flexibility of Miva or Magento. Magento requires extensive 3rd party development to reach the level of functionality that larger ecommerce firms will require. Miva requires less development to get a new store to market, but it may still require some, depending on the new store’s business model. Though development costs more than plugins, larger stores see the value in having storefronts, checkout procedures, and product features optimized to their exact market needs. Because WooCommerce is WordPress-based, WooCommerce users depend on existing plugins to modify site functionality. In Miva and Magento, the possibilities are almost endless.
The Bottom Line:
WooCommerce is great for simple operations and low-budget startups. However, it doesn’t have the extensibility of larger and more expensive platforms like Miva and Magento. As such, it may not be suitable for low-budget startups with complex storefront needs. But for bloggers who already use WordPress and want to start a basic online store on the same domain as their blog, WooCommerce is perfect.
Miva Suivant ReadyTheme Customization: The Sky’s The Limit!
If you use the Miva shopping cart platform, or if you’re looking to start a Miva store, you’ve probably heard of Miva ReadyThemes. These themes offer beautiful, functional styling right out of the box. However, they look even better with a little customization. Here at 216digital, we regularly customize Miva ReadyThemes for our clients. One of our favorite recent projects was a redesign via ReadyTheme for D’Andre New York, a seller of fine shearling coats. In this post, we’ll talk about that project and explain the Miva Suivant ReadyTheme customization that we performed.
D’Andre New York: A Great Product Deserves a Great Website
D’Andre New York sells fine shearling coats. These jackets feature beautiful, understated styling. Since they’re made of real wool, the moisture-wicking property of the material gives the wearer natural climate control. That means shearling coats can be worn comfortably in summer or winter. With this natural flexibility and their finely-tailored lines, shearling jackets are the pinnacle of outerwear style. Of course, high quality comes with a price tag. Shearling jackets typically range in price from $1000 to $3000.
D’Andre New York’s target customer is affluent, style-conscious, and expects high quality. If the product itself delivers on all these—which it certainly does—then shouldn’t the website that sells the product display that same excellence? That was our reasoning, and Tatiana, owner of D’Andre, agreed. She wanted a redesign of her website, something that would showcase the beauty, durability, and value of her shearling products.
D’Andre’s Legacy Site
D’Andre New York’s old site had excellent functionality, and it had served the business well for years. However, the site was built in the days of low-resolution screens, and it looked a little small on today’s larger monitors. Worse, the site was built long before the mobile responsive revolution. It was awkward and cumbersome to use on a mobile device. With more and more customers shopping and purchasing products directly from their phones, D’Andre stood to lose out on potential business. With each sale worth a few thousand dollars, D’Andre needed to convert every prospect who came their way.
D’Andre New York’s legacy site in mobile simulation. Get ready to zoom and scroll!
It wasn’t just the resolution and lack of mobile responsiveness that worried us. D’Andre sells a fine product to an affluent market. We believed that D’Andre’s old site didn’t quite convey the level of luxury and comfort that wearers could expect from a shearling jacket. We thought the site ought to display the excellence that D’Andre’s shearling coats provide. Clearly, it was time for a redesign.
Miva Suivant ReadyTheme: Almost Ready To Rock And Roll
Miva ReadyThemes give Miva store owners beautiful, functional online stores right out of the box. But as with all cookie-cutter solutions, ReadyThemes leave a bit to be desired in the details. A little customization takes a Miva ReadyTheme to the next level. D’Andre New York had chosen the Miva Suivant ReadyTheme. We agreed that this theme was perfect for a retailer of fine shearling jackets. It just needed a few tweaks.
For starters, the Miva Suivant ReadyTheme has a large header. This isn’t necessarily a problem—except that by default, that header anchors to the top of the screen when the user scrolls. It’s not too noticeable on desktop, but on a mobile device, that pinned header eats up a lot of real estate. For every client using the Suivant ReadyTheme, we routinely recommend customizing the header. In D’Andre’s case, we changed the header so it wouldn’t stick to the top of the screen. We reasoned that users know where the header is. They know to scroll up if they need to use the navigation bar. This change significantly improved the user experience of D’Andre’s new website.
The header wasn’t the only tweak that the Suivant ReadyTheme needed. With the ongoing evolution of SEO (search engine optimization), Google now values good content more than ever, and many web users find value in useful, informative content. Blogs and magazines can display the entirety of a piece of content without compromising other organizational goals. However, in an ecommerce setting, selling product is critical. Too much content on a product or category page could keep the all-important buy buttons hidden from site visitors. Yet content is critical for SEO! What’s a webmaster to do?
For all our clients doing customized ReadyThemes, it’s a simple fix. We custom-code an option to display the first 150 characters or so of the content, followed by a “read more” button. This gives us the best of both worlds: 300+ word content for SEO purposes (and for those readers who want to educate themselves fully), and product imagery and buy buttons still displayed above the fold for users who are close to making a purchase. For D’Andre New York, this solution was a no-brainer.
Optimizing D’Andre’s Onsite Content
Speaking of content, it’s one of the most important components of branding. Content that doesn’t convey the right brand impression negatively affects marketing. In the case of D’Andre New York, we recognized at once that Tatiana’s great luxury brand needed content that created an opulent, luxurious impression. With Tatiana’s permission, our SEO content writing team began writing new copy for the D’Andre website.
Our process was simple. We researched other luxury brands, such as Rolex and Mercedes-Benz, to get a feel for the appropriate voice and tone. We settled on two points of focus for D’Andre. For Tatiana’s women’s collection, our content revolved around the word “elegance.” For the men’s collection, we chose the word “achievement.” These words matched D’Andre’s brand perfectly. With these two ideas in place, the rest of the content flowed. The result was a unique, memorable brand identity in all D’Andre’s onsite content.
Image Optimization: A Key Element In Ecommerce Marketing
Customers want to see what they’re buying. In the case of D’Andre’s fine shearling coats, customers want to see not only the overall look of the jacket, but also the elegant details of accents and trim. With D’Andre’s old site, product images looked small on larger screens, preventing customers from getting a complete picture of the jacket they were considering. Every product image on the site existed in two separate files: a tiny thumbnail version, and the full-sized version. Since the thumbnail had to be created manually in an image editor, and since both images had to be uploaded manually, the old system required double the work on catalog updates.
Enter the Miva Image Machine. This state-of-the art functionality dynamically creates multiple image sizes from one image file, eliminating the need to create thumbnail sizes manually and upload them separately. The Image Machine also allows alternative images. These show up as thumbnail images below the main image on a product page. Users can click on any of these alternative images and view the full-sized image in a popup. This allows store owners to provide multiple views of a product, giving customers a sense of what the product looks like from different angles.
The Bottom Line
We saw at once that Tatiana’s company offered a great product. We wanted to improve the overall value of her brand by optimizing the impression her company made on web visitors. With a little Miva Suivant ReadyTheme customization, Tatiana’s redesign was ready to go, clearly communicating the luxury and style that customers could expect from D’Andre New York.
It was a pleasure to work with Tatiana. Through deep market analysis and ongoing communication, we formed a partnership with her to improve the marketability of her brand. We think you’ll agree—the new D’Andre New York website looks beautiful, fully matching the luxury and elegance which D’Andre offers its customers.
If you’re considering a responsive Miva design for your ecommerce store, get in touch with us today. We specialize in Miva design and development, and all our work is fully mobile-responsive. Whether you need tweaks to a Miva ReadyTheme or a ground-up custom design, we’ll turn your vision into a reality. Drop us a line, and let’s start talking about your next big thing.
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
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.
Google classifies search types based on user intent. This is a great way to approach the keywords you’re trying to rank for. What is the user intent behind the keyword? It should always match what users will find on the page which you’ve optimized for that keyword. It’s a fairly obvious point, but it’s worth making. For example, if you’re a paid stock photo site trying to rank for the keyword “free stock photos” so you can persuade users to buy stock photos when they searched for free photos, the intent of your landing page does not respect the user intent behind the keyword. This practice is fundamentally deceptive. Just don’t do it. As Google’s instructions to raters show, Google continues to refine its ability to match user intent to honest search results.
If you’re a brick-and-mortar business, you should pay special attention to “Visit-in-Person” search intent—that is, local searches on mobile in which the user is looking for a nearby brick-and-mortar location. For example, a music store with both a physical retail location and an ecommerce store should prepare its online presence for Visit-in-Person search intent. As well as a fully functional, mobile-responsive online store, this business should have a fully populated Google Business page with accurate location, contact information, and hours. Incomplete or inaccurate information could stop mobile users from finding the brick-and-mortar location they’re looking for. You’ll find this information in section 12.7.4 of the PDF.
In that same section, you’ll find a discussion of ambiguous queries that could be the name of a restaurant (Visit-in-Person intent) or the name of a spice (purely informational query). In writing web copy for your site, you should be precise, leaving no room for semantic ambiguity, while also writing naturally. Be informative, clear, and natural. This will allow Google’s powerful Semantic Search to match precise contextual results to keywords that display ambiguous intent when examined out of context.
Take note here: fundamentally, Google is getting better at divining user intent behind queries. That means that SEO efforts will gradually move away from technical precision (e.g., including exact-match keywords in copy at a recommended density) and towards excellent, well-written copy that matches user intent. Good content marketing is fast becoming the most effective road to good SEO. We expect that trend to continue.
In Google’s PDF, you’ll also find a discussion of “Special Content Result Blocks” (section 12.8.2). If you haven’t noticed, this feature has started appearing at the top of SERPs when the query has a definite answer for which no entity can claim copyright. As the document makes clear, SCRBs only appear when the user has asked Google a specific question—for example, “how much does a gallon of water weigh?” In our screengrab, the SCRB appeared with a URL to a landing page—but not all SCRBs have landing pages associated with them.
For ecommerce stores, that means checking content strategy very carefully. If some of your content strategy involves trying to rank for questions with definite, non-negotiable answers related to your niche, you should trim those topics from your content strategy. Google is so sophisticated at this point, it’s starting to give us answers directly, without sending us to 3rd party sites for the answers. That means content strategists must narrow the focus to topics on which they can provide fresh, useful information which Google can’t get elsewhere or prepare from aggregate data.
Google classifies search types based on user intent. This is a great way to approach the keywords you’re trying to rank for. What is the user intent behind the keyword? It should always match what users will find on the page which you’ve optimized for that keyword. It’s a fairly obvious point, but it’s worth making. For example, if you’re a paid stock photo site trying to rank for the keyword “free stock photos” so you can persuade users to buy stock photos when they searched for free photos, the intent of your landing page does not respect the user intent behind the keyword. This practice is fundamentally deceptive. Just don’t do it. As Google’s instructions to raters show, Google continues to refine its ability to match user intent to honest search results.
If you’re a brick-and-mortar business, you should pay special attention to “Visit-in-Person” search intent—that is, local searches on mobile in which the user is looking for a nearby brick-and-mortar location. For example, a music store with both a physical retail location and an ecommerce store should prepare its online presence for Visit-in-Person search intent. As well as a fully functional, mobile-responsive online store, this business should have a fully populated Google Business page with accurate location, contact information, and hours. Incomplete or inaccurate information could stop mobile users from finding the brick-and-mortar location they’re looking for. You’ll find this information in section 12.7.4 of the PDF.
In that same section, you’ll find a discussion of ambiguous queries that could be the name of a restaurant (Visit-in-Person intent) or the name of a spice (purely informational query). In writing web copy for your site, you should be precise, leaving no room for semantic ambiguity, while also writing naturally. Be informative, clear, and natural. This will allow Google’s powerful Semantic Search to match precise contextual results to keywords that display ambiguous intent when examined out of context.
Take note here: fundamentally, Google is getting better at divining user intent behind queries. That means that SEO efforts will gradually move away from technical precision (e.g., including exact-match keywords in copy at a recommended density) and towards excellent, well-written copy that matches user intent. Good content marketing is fast becoming the most effective road to good SEO. We expect that trend to continue.
For ecommerce stores, that means checking content strategy very carefully. If some of your content strategy involves trying to rank for questions with definite, non-negotiable answers related to your niche, you should trim those topics from your content strategy. Google is so sophisticated at this point, it’s starting to give us answers directly, without sending us to 3rd party sites for the answers. That means content strategists must narrow the focus to topics on which they can provide fresh, useful information which Google can’t get elsewhere or prepare from aggregate data.
