I am very excited to announce that another Miva Merchant store, IDWholesaler.com, has joined the ranks of the top 500 e-commerce sites in 2009. Boasting a 30% sales increase in 2008; proof that combining exceptional customer service, great products and low prices still yield a thriving business in the midst of a wall street meltdown.

IDWholesaler.com is the largest retailer of the equipment needed to print photo identification cards and the accessories used to display them. Serving their clients with guaranteed lowest prices, expert advice, and free in-house technical support on everything sold on the site.

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Everyone with an ecommerce website wants to rank better in the search engines since this usually increases traffic and sales. If you have done any research into SEO at all you find articles about changing page titles, Meta descriptions, Meta keywords, h1 tags and several other items. One of the most time consuming aspects of SEO for a website is unique Meta tags (title, description and keywords).

Just to be clear, yes the title of your page is considered a Meta tag.

Going through and writing unique Meta tags may be feasible for a small site however once you start approaching 50 products the tasks can be very time consuming. This begs the question, is it worth spending hours and hours writing unique Meta tags?

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If you have a brick & mortar store or office then this week’s store spotlight features products every public building, including yours, requires by law. The Exit Light Company was formed in the year 2000 in San Diego, CA by Jeannette Carrico and her partners when they wanted to create an emergency lighting and egress sign company that specialized in energy efficient and environmentally-friendly products. Since their inception nine years ago, The Exit Light Company has done exactly this. In two separate case studies, the company proved, empirically, that their products use 80% less wattage without losing performance.

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Everyone says content is king in the SEO world and most people think this is strictly text content. Amazingly though videos with very little text content (a title and description) can be your most powerful content for optimizing search rankings and potentially your conversion rate. Considering 77% of people online watched a video on the internet in November 2008 and since this online community are making e-commerce purchases; you want to be in front of this growing crowd.

In April 2009, YouTube received 3.2 billion searches beating both Yahoo and Microsoft in volume of searches. Also, YouTube saw a 9% increase in searches performed from March to April which is larger than the increase by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft sites. Given that YouTube is growing the fastest and getting a large number of searches each month you probably should make videos a top priority of your marketing plan. The numbers for YouTube are only getting bigger which means if you are not showing up in video results then the potential revenue you are losing is getting bigger each month too.

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This week’s Store Spotlight has zeroed in on Kersten Cards.  With Mother’s Day behind us and Father’s Day on the horizon, there’s no better time to check out the numerous holiday and greeting cards found at Kerstencards.com.  Focusing on the lighter side of life, these cards are a fantastic way to show your love and appreciation for those special people in your life.

The Kersten brothers, Rick and Pete, knew they wanted to be artists as children.  Influenced by Walt Disney and his movies, the brothers developed their comedic and creative sensibilities in that tradition.  They have been successful in every artistic avenue they have traversed, from animation to sculpting, but lately have been devoting their talents to their line of greeting cards.  Their zest for life can be found in each card they design.  The Kerstens have created a tradition of holiday and greeting cards infused with their humorous nature.

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Many of the store owners I talk to want to do a blog but don’t really know where to start to get setup and add content that people will actually want to read. Today I am going to give you 10 topic ideas that you can easily use to generate content for your ecommerce blog for the next year.

New Product Announcements

Whenever you release a new product or a brand you sell releases a new product make an announcement on your blog and include as much detail as possible such as MSRP, release date, the day you expect to have stock of the product and the day you will start shipping the new product out. You might even create a product page to link to such as a coming soon or pre-order page for the product.

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Gary and Julie Shimer began their company, “I Do” Engravables Signature Keepsakes in Atlanta, GA in 2004 and simultaneously launched their website. Even in this rough economic climate, business is booming for the unique company that sells engravable picture frames for weddings and other memorable occasions.

A wedding is one of the most important days of any couple’s life together. There are thousands of choices to make and every detail matters. The guestbook is small in physical presence but is an important way to remember who attended the ceremony years down the road.

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