Pinterest is mainly used by women. Since my eCommerce site has an audience that is mainly women, I thought it was time to add the “Pin it” button to my product pages. The “Pin it” button is similar to other social sharing buttons such as Facebook, Google Plus+, etc.

Visitors to my product pages will now be able to click the “Pin it” button and easily pin my products to their boards. While users of Pinterest can use the “Pin it” feature that can be added to a browsers toolbar, I feel it’s best to put the button right in front of the visitor. You can check out the button on one of my product pages.

If you only have one page on a blog or a static non template page you want to add the button to, you can get the code here.

If you want to add the “Pin it” button to a Miva Merchant product page, it too is fairly straight forward, but requires a little different formatting of the code.

The following is a break down of the code I use on my Miva Merchant product page template.

<a href=”http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http://www.rainebrooke.com/product/&mvta:product:code;.html&media= http://&mvt:global:domain:name;/mm5/&mvte:product:thumbnail;&description= &mvt:product:name;&mvt:product:customfield_values:customfields:subtitle; at Rainebrooke.com” class=”pin-it-button” count-layout=”horizontal”>Pin It</a>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js”></script>

There are three areas above (in bold) that you’ll need to change for your Miva Merchant store. They are the URL to the product page, the URL to the product image, and the description you want to use. Note: there should be no spaces in the href code above.

With simple use of the Miva tags you can have each product page populate the “Pin it” button with the correct information. In my code above you’ll notice the formatting I use for my store. Insert the page and image URL format your store uses and then the description you want shown. For my description I use the product name, a custom field for subtitle (which is sometimes part of my products name) and then I end the description with my domain name “at Rainebrooke.com”.

All that’s left is to insert the code into your Miva product page template in the location that you want it displayed.

If your Miva Merchant store offers products which are very visual, target women or are commonly shared on social networks (most stores will at least fall into one of these)… then you’ll want to consider adding the Pinterest button to your product pages.

Note: Pinterest buttons can be added to any site, but as of this post, having a Pinterest account is only available by invite. If you would like an invite, let me know in a comment below (be sure to include your email address when adding your comment). After you’ve joined, please feel free to follow my personal account or my Rainebrooke account.

UPDATE: I just found out something about the Pinterest button that has me a little upset…  Pinterest has a relationship with SkimLinks. When someone clicks on a pinned product, the intial link looks like it’s a normal link going to the merchant site, but if you look closely you’ll notice a very quick redirect. SkimLinks turns these normal looking links into an affiliate link for Pinterest.  I completely understand the need for Pinterest to make money, but what bothers me is the fact that the link swap is completely undisclosed by Pinterest. How does this affect merchants? If you have Skimlinks as an affiliate, then you could be sending commissions for sales that you were not even aware of. I personally have pinned many of my own products on my Pinterest board. I also have Skimlinks as an affiliate. This means that each time I pin a product, I’m pinning a link which will send commissions to an affiliate for a potential sale that I’m creating myself. Pinterest needs to seriouly take a look at this undisclosed policy of theirs. I wouldn’t have a problem with it if I was aware of it from the beginning. Since it was hidden from me when I decided to add the Pinterest button, I now have decide how I plan on handling it. You can read more about this here.

Rainebrooke offers a huge selection of pink laptop bags for women. If you’re trying to think of the perfect give this holiday season, consider a pink laptop bag, cases, tote or sleeve from Rainebrooke.com

The pink laptop bag being offered in this giveaway is called the “Allie” (pictured above, left). It will fit laptops up to 14.25 x 11 x 2 inches in size (most 15″ laptops). It’s padded, has plenty of pockets, comes with a removable shoulder strap and has a bunch of room for all your stuff. You can check out additional images here.

Winner!

Thanks to everyone who entered!

Congrats to Courtney from Me & Bella. Courtney’s comment #10 was the random number selected at Random.org

Win It!

• Open to US only
• One winner will be chosen at random from the comments by using Random.org
• Giveaway closes on Tuesday Nov. 15th, 11am CST

To Enter:

• Visit Rainebrooke and comment here telling me which is your favorite pink laptop bag.

For Extra Entries (enter a new comment for each extra entry):

• Follow @ten23media on Twitter
• Follow @rainebrooke on Twitter
• “Like” Rainebrooke on Facebook
• Blog about this giveaway, with this blog title linked back to “Ten 23 Media – www.ten23media.com”
• Tweet about this giveaway using this Rainebrooke giveaway tweet (once per day)

The fine print:

• One bag will be given away.
• Giveaway is open to anyone in the US.
• We will pay for shipping (Ground) within US.
• We reserve the right to remove comments that we can not confirm from the entry methods above.
• Winner will be notified by email at the email address provided with the comment. The winner will have 48 hours to reply to the winning email notification. If we do not receive a reply within 48 hours a new winner will be chosen.

Each year I get really annoyed at these increases. Why? Because I don’t feel they’re justified.  While some really large advertisers may benefit in some way from some form of extra push or efforts that the comparison site may offer; most smaller advertisers don’t get anything extra except an extra expense through the holidays.

As much as I’d like to pause my comparison shopping site advertising during the holidays, I don’t. They do provide traffic that converts. I won’t argue that. Yes, the conversions increase, but because the overall shopping traffic increases. I just don’t see that the comparison sites do anything extra to make this traffic increase happen. It happens naturally because of the holidays.

Since they increase the advertising rates does this mean that I get to increase my prices for the holiday?

To me, it’s like homeowners insurance going up for a month because it’s hurricane season. Or your car insurance agent calling you on the phone while your driving home from work to tell you your rates are going up for the day because it’s raining outside. Or your cell phone bill going up during the holidays because you’ll be talking more to family and friends.

The comparison shopping sites are not increasing demand. They provide the same service as normal… demand increases simply because people shop more during the schooldays. On the other hand, they don’t have an affect on supply either. In my opinion they increase the rates because they know they have the advertisers by the b**ls… so why not make an extra few bucks when no one can do a thing about it.

Oh well, it’s one of those necessary annoyances in my opinion. I don’t like it, but I work with it. That’s my 2 cents. What do you think?

Retargeting is a marketing method that delivers ads to visitors who have visited your site, but left without purchasing. It attempts to retarget or get the visitor back to your site to make a purchase or complete some other action that you want the visitor to perform.

Ad retargeting is a powerful marketing technique that can sometimes greatly increase conversions.

After checking in on a few competitors the other day I found a couple ads following me around from site to site. This was retargeting in action. I noticed the ads were being served by Adroll so I headed over to the Adroll site and noticed they currently have a free 2 week trial period. Free advertising… sign me up.

Setting everything up in Adroll is a very easy process. It took me a matter of minutes with the exception of being able to filter out customers who had converted. I didn’t want ads being served to this group of people because they’ve already purchased. Since Miva Merchant has a dynamic URL for the invoice page, there is no way of creating an Adroll segment where you simply put in the URL of the invoice page.

Thanks to the very helpful Mike (by Adroll chat support) and Ryan (by email support), the solution was provided to me.

Here are the steps for setting up Adroll retargeting with Miva Merchant and filtering out customers who have purchased.

Step 1. Place the main Adroll tracking pixel in the Global Footer.

Log into your Miva Merchant store, click on your store name, and then click on “Global Header & Footer”. In the “Global Footer” section, scroll all the way to the bottom of the code and insert your main tracking pixel code at the end on a new line. You can get your tracking pixel code under the “Manage” tab in your Adroll account.

Step 2. Place the main Adroll tracking pixel with additional code in the Invoice page footer.

In order to track visitors who have made a purchase you must add an additional piece of script to the bottom of the main tracking pixel script. Since this additional script must be at the bottom of the main script, you have to place the entire script (main tracking script + additional script) in the Invoice footer. This will result in the main script being rendered twice on the invoice page, but I was told by Adroll that this wouldn’t be a problem.

Click on your “Pages” link within Miva. Find your INVC page and click “edit”. Click on the “Header & Footer” tab. In the footer section, scroll to the bottom of any existing code and place the entire Adroll tracking pixel code with additional code (highlighted below in blue). Note: the main code below does not contain your adv id or pix id. You can get your main tracking pixel code from the “Manage” tab in your Adroll account.

<script type=”text/javascript”>
adroll_adv_id = “XXXXXX”;
adroll_pix_id = “XXXXXX”;
(function () {
var oldonload = window.onload;
window.onload = function(){
__adroll_loaded=true;
var scr = document.createElement(“script”);
var host = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://s.adroll.com” : “http://a.adroll.com”);
scr.setAttribute(‘async’, ‘true’);
scr.type = “text/javascript”;
scr.src = host + “/j/roundtrip.js”;
((document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’) || [null])[0] ||
document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0].parentNode).appendChild(scr);
if(oldonload){oldonload()}};
}());
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
adroll_segments = “order_complete”
</script>

Step 3. Set up your conversion segment in Adroll.

In your Adroll account, under the “Manage” tab, click on “Segments & Conversions”. Scroll down underneath the graph and click the “Add New Segment” button. Set the Type to “Conversion”. In the Name field type “order_complete”. In the URL field type “+order_complete”. I kept the duration set to 90 days and the conversion value field blank. Save your changes.

Step 4. Set up filtering.

After you’ve set up your campaign, ad group and uploaded some ads you’ll want to set up filtering so you can filter out customers who have converted. Click on your campaign name, then click your adgroup name. In the right corner underneath the graph you’ll see a button labeled “Edit Audiences”. Click this button and you can set up the filtering. For the “All Visitors” segment select the radio button “target”. For the “order complete” segment select the button “ignore”. Click Save.

Wait for your list to build:

After your ads have been approved and your list builds to 1000, your ads will start showing to people who visited your site, but did not make a purchase. If your ads are done well, you should get a percentage of these visitors back to make a purchase.

Side note: The steps above were provided to me by Adroll. As I previously mentioned, the invoice page will have the main tracking pixel twice. This is because the additional script has to be below the main script. If you know of a different way to accomplish this, please let me know and I’ll post it here.

Miva Merchant / Adroll Video

Below is a webinar video from Rick Wilson at Miva Merchant that covers Adroll and the partnership with Miva Merchant.

Adroll Miva Merchant Webinar from Rick Wilson on Vimeo.

Thanks to my parents I was always encouraged to work for myself. Besides a few jobs during high-school and college, I’ve never had to work for anyone except for my customers. Right out of college I started a service related business. Did that for 10 years. Sold it, and went on to internet related businesses starting in 1999. Since that, the internet is where I’ve been. Starting with affiliate marketing, eBay and PPC arbitrage and now eCommerce and consulting.

While I’ve accomplished a lot, there are many things I would like to go back and tell my 22 year old self. Below are the top 5.

1. Take More Risks! The biggest risks usually have the largest payoffs. Not only monetary, but in all areas of business. When you’re young you don’t have a mortgage to pay, kids to worry about and other debts that may hold you back. You can afford to fail and learn from failure. I’m not saying you should take stupid risks, but risks that are calculated and have big potential. Think smart, plan and take risks that you’ll be happy you took while you’re young.
2. Don’t listen to negative opinions of others. Like many new business owners fresh from college, I listened to the opinions of everyone around me. While it’s smart to listen, the negative opinions will sometimes hold back your growth as a company. I was fairly good a filtering negativity, but I’d tell my 22 year old self to filter even more. The best entrepreneurial ideas usually come from the creative mind of one. The most successful and creative companies didn’t get started by the founder listening to people saying the idea can’t be done. Try your ideas no matter how crazy other people say they are.
3. Go with your gut instincts. There are many times I can remember that I had a gut instinct about something but didn’t go with it because of #1 and #2 above. This is why #1 and #2 are so important. Not taking risks and listening to others can severely hinder your potential. If you’re starting a new business you’ll be filled with ideas. Don’t let others tell you your ideas are wrong or not the “safe” option. Your idea could be the next Facebook. Go with your gut instincts, they’re usually right.
4. Get help in areas you know you’re weak. Like many new entrepreneurs just starting a new business, I thought I could do it all. I was wrong. I did hire an accountant, but I should have also hired an ad agency and PR firm. Sure, I knew textbook knowledge in these areas, but nothing of the real world and making things happen as fast as they could have. I took the slow path and did all my advertising and PR work myself. If I would have hired professionals in the areas I was weak, I could have had much greater success in a much faster time.
5. Think outside the box and have fun! Many new business owners, including myself back in ’89, think inside the box. It’s safe and comfortable in the box. You can follow others and do as they do. Don’t do it! Think WAY outside the box. Think creatively. It’s much more fun and it provides much greater reward when your crazy ideas are successful.

If you’re young, just out of college or just starting out in business… take my advice and the advice of other “positive thinking” business people around you. Entrepreneurs that have already been through the process of starting and growing a business can teach you a lot!

Do you have some lessons and things you would like to go back and tell yourself? Share them below in a comment.

Basically, microdata uses simple tags which help Google, Bing and Yahoo read your pages, understand the content on your pages, and in turn deliver better search results and rich snippets.

The other day I thought I would dive in and implement Schema.org microdata on my eCommerce site. Many blogs I’ve read mention how people are hesitant to implement these tags because of the potential amount of work involved. Thankfully since my eCommerce site runs off Miva Merchant these changes are fairly easy to make. All of the tags are placed in the PROD (Product Display) page templates. Some on the Page template and some on the Product Display Layout template.

Before I go any further on how to add the Schema.org microdata to a Miva Merchant product page, I’d like to give a disclaimer. I’ve just implemented these tags on my site. While everything appears to be working correctly, I can’t say for sure that everything was done exactly right. Make these additions to your site at your own risk. Microtags are suppose to be helpful to search engines, but I can’t say how it will effect your search results, rich snippets or rankings in the search engines. With that said, read on if you want to add the tags to your Miva product page templates.

Since almost every Miva Merchant site that I’ve personally looked at it slightly different, the placement of these tags will be different. I’m only going to provide general directions and locations for tags. You’ll have to read through your template code and find the exact place to put everything. Place the code, test the page to make sure it renders correctly and then use Google’s Rich Snippet tool to see if everything is getting picked up correctly.

ItemScope:

To start with, you have to surround your product area with this tag:

<div itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Product”></div>

This tells the search engines that the item is a product. This code will go on your PROD, Page template. The first part <div itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Product”> will be placed right before your product display tag <mvt:item name=”product_display” />

The closing </div> need to be placed at the bottom of the PROD, Page template. I placed mine right above the footer code.

Most of, if not all of the remaining microdata will be placed on the Product Display Layout template, which all falls in-between the code above. The code above is like the container for the rest of the microdata (see properties of the Product) .

Product description:

Your description section could be on your Page template or your Product Display Layout template. Find yours and wrap the description section with this:

<span itemprop=”description”></span>

Product Image (URL):

The product image URL is where I had some trouble. My site is running the latest Miva Merchant version, PR8 update 3 at the time I wrote this article. I was using the product image machine code, which had this code:

<img id=”productFull” src=”graphics/en-US/mmui/dot.gif” alt=”&mvt:product:name;” title=”&mvt:product:name;”>

Typically you would add the microdata tag (itemprop=”image”) like this:

<img id=”productFull” itemprop=”image” src=”graphics/en-US/mmui/dot.gif” alt=”&mvt:product:name;” title=”&mvt:product:name;”>

However, this won’t work because of the dot.gif that the code contains. After looking around, I found this post at the Miva forums. The post discusses replacing a PR8 blank.gif with the legacy code. I did this and it appears to work correctly… meaning the Rich snippet tool is pulling in the product image.

My img code is now the following:

<img id=”productFull” itemprop=”image” src=”http://&mvt:global:domain:name;/mm5/&mvt:product:image;” alt=”&mvt:product:name;” title=”&mvt:product:name;”>

If anyone sees why this change would cause a problem, please let me know.

Now, move over to your Product Display Layout template.

Along with each itemtype=Product (above), each product has to have an Offer. This tag will contain the “Offer” information about the product… (see properties of the Offer).

In your template find where the properties of the offer reside (price, availability, etc), and wrap it with this tag:

<div itemprop=”offers” itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Offer”></div>

The rest of these tags don’t all have to be used. It’s beneficial to use as many as possible, but you have to decide what you want to add. Some you won’t be able to add because the information may not even be shown on your product pages.

Product name:

<span itemprop=”name”></span>

My site has a heading 1 tag wrapped around the product name, so the microdata tags looks like this:

<span itemprop=”name”><h1>&mvt:product:name;</h1></span>

Product price:

<span itemprop=”price”></span>

Find your price section and wrap it with the tag above. Mine looks like this:

<span itemprop=”price”><span id=”price-value”>&mvt:product:formatted_price;</span></span>

Product availability:

<span itemprop=”availability”>In Stock</span>

Product brand:

<span itemprop=”brand”>YOUR BRAND NAME</span>

Product manufacturer:

<span itemprop=”manufacturer”>MANUFACTURER NAME</span>

Product ID:

<span itemprop=”productID”>PRODUCT ID</span>

The tags above (as shown with the product name and product price) can be filled in automatically if your product page shows the information such as availability, brand name, manufacturer, product ID, etc. My site doesn’t show some of this information, but all you need to do is find the correct miva tag which pulls in the information and place it in the appropriate <span> microtag above.

For sites like mine which don’t show certain visible information, Google allows a few machine readable values for product pages. These available values are category, priceValidUntil, currency, price, identifier, condition.

I used four of these values which do not show visibly on my product pages.

<meta itemprop=”currency” content=”USD” />
<meta itemprop=”condition” content=”New” />
<meta itemprop=”identifier” content=”&mvt:product:code;” />
<meta itemprop=”category” content=”YOUR CATEGORY” />

For the category, I selected the category from Google’s product category taxonomy.

I placed these machine readable tags within my Offers container (explained above).

The Schema.org microtags above are only a portion of the tags available. You may want to add more (reviews, ratings, etc.) or less of what I have shown. If you want to add other microtags, you can read the documentation for them at Schema.org.

I’ve seen a lot of new websites start up and then fail because of some simple design mistakes. Below are the top 10 most common design mistakes that I’ve personally come across when helping out new website owners. Most of these mistakes are easily fixed but require time and a little money to fix the right way. By avoiding these 10 common mistakes at the beginning, you’ll save yourself some time and money because you’ll get it right the first time.

1. Keywords – There are three areas of mistakes dealing with keywords.

• Not having a keyword strategy – Starting with a basic keyword strategy can help you with the entire design process. List your target audience, the keywords your audience may use to find your products/site, and how you plan on structuring these keywords into your site. With a basic keyword strategy you’ll have a better idea of how your site can be structured (navigation, etc).
• Using industry keywords – Don’t target industry jargon keywords in your website content. You should never assume your visitors have an understanding of your product and/or service. Use everyday language/keywords that your customers will be using.
• Keyword stuffing – This is one of the oldest SEO tricks in the book. And it’s a trick that search engines figured out long-long ago. Don’t try to make every page on your site a dictionary of keywords. Don’t stuff keywords in your <title> tags. Use common sense when you write content for your website. Each page of your website should be targeted around a central theme for the page… concentrating on a small group of keywords related to the topic for the page. If you have multiple topics, then use multiple pages. Each of these topics/pages should then tie into a central theme for the site as a whole.

2. Flash and Splash – Flash has its place, but it’s not for covering your entire home page or main landing page. Most visitors don’t want to wait for your flash file to load and then have to watch something they may not be interested in. It may look cool or pretty, but you need to ask yourself… Is it creating conversions for me? If you think it is then do an A/B test to check our your assumptions. If you’re considering flash on your page then my suggestion is to use it in a limited way. For example, highlighting a particular feature you’re trying to get a customer to see. Splash pages are another annoying design style in my opinion. In order to optimize conversions, the click path your customer has to take needs to be as short as possible. Adding in a splash page is almost always unnecessary and just adds in extra clicks for the visitor.

3. Hard to find contact information – Your website visitors should be able to easily locate your contact information. Include a link to your contact info on every page of your website. Don’t bury the link at the bottom of the page. Make sure it stands out. On the contact page itself, give your visitors multiple ways to get in touch with you. Email, Twitter, live chat, phone, etc.

4. Hit counters – Believe it or not, I still see new website owners putting hit counters at the bottom of their pages. No one cares how many visitors you’ve had and worse, it looks very amateurish. Use an analytics program to study your websites traffic. Google analytics or Open Web analytics are two free programs. There are a multitude of options for you to study your website traffic without having to put up a hit counter which gives you useless data.

5. Poorly written page titles <title> tags – Title tags are extremely important for getting visitors to find your website in search engine results. Your title tag should directly relate to the content that is on the page. Don’t stuff the tag with keywords, but use a logical combination of words that make sense to your target audience. Having “Home” or “Products” for your title tag will get you nowhere. Each pages title tag should be unique.

6. Consistency in font size and overall design – If you’re not a designer then consider consulting with one. Having inconsistent font size and inconsistent overall design is a quick way to turn off potential visitors and customers.  Your site doesn’t need 10 font sizes. One size for the body, one or two sizes for your headings and possibly a smaller size for link and/or text that is of low importance. In addition to font size consistency, keep the overall design consistent. Don’t use one set of fonts for your home page, a second set of font’s and sizes for your product pages and then a completely unrelated design for your blog. Keep everything consistent. It will give your visitors a better feeling of continuity.

7. Crazy color schemes – Steer clear of crazy color schemes. Look around… you’ll notice the most successful and best designed sites have a consistent color scheme. Don’t use 15 colors in your design. Don’t try to highlight things on a page by using several different colors… that’s what bold is for. A good starting point it to use 3 colors in your sites design.

8. Music – Don’t have music automatically play on your website. It’s a huge turn off for most people. If you want music on the site, make it optional so the visitor can start the music if they want to.

9. Own your own domain for your site, email, and blog – Domain names and hosting are very reasonably priced these days. There’s no reason to start your website or blog using a free hosting service. Same goes for email. Having your own domain name for your site, blog and email lets your customers know you take your business seriously.

10. Generic or no logo at all – Your company logo says a lot about your company. Using a generic logo that you personally made with clip-art does not say the right thing. Even worse is having no logo at all, but instead using plain text. You don’t need to spend thousand of dollar for a nice logo. There are hundreds of designers out there that can design an original and one of a kind logo for your business. Check out this page for logo design sites, blogs and logo inspiration.

Plan and avoid these common design mistakes… your new website startup with have a much better chance of success. If you would like my help in planning your new website or eCommerce store, then send me a message… I’d be happy to help.

Interested in sharing the common design mistakes you frequently see? Post a comment below.

Miva Merchant has unlimited design flexibility, excellent support, it’s secure and has an easy to use interface for managing and processing your eCommerce orders.

While Miva Merchant offers some basic eCommerce templates which you can purchase, the beauty of Miva Merchant is its ability to be customized to exactly the design you’re looking for.

If you’re not familiar with design or have no understanding of programming and templates… have no fear.  Below is a list of Miva Merchant website designers and developers that can help you on your new eCommerce site. This is not a complete list, but it’s the companies which I follow and which are active in the Miva Merchant community. You’ll find these companies frequently helping out in the Miva forums and through their Twitter accounts.

When you’re ready to get started on your new Miva Merchant eCommerce site, give one of these companies a try. If you have any questions about Miva merchant or you need help with getting your new online small business started, let me know. I’m here to help.

• Web Design and Development from Miva Merchant – Miva Merchant has their own design team that can build your eCommerce store. Check out the stores they’ve developed or fill out the project form for a free consultation on this page. Follow Miva Merchant on Twitter and check out their Facebook page.
• Durrani Design – Durrani Design is based in southern California and has been around since 2007. They can design your site from top to bottom. I can personally attest to their design skills since they developed the most recent version of my eCommerce site, Rainebrooke.com. Follow Durrani on Twitter.
• Glendale Designs – Glendale Designs in based in Phoenix, AZ and was started in 1999. They specialize in the development, setup and custom design (layout) integration of Miva Merchant Shopping carts as well as Miva module installations. You’ll frequently find them helping out in the Miva forum. Follow Glendale on Twitter.
• PCINET.com – PCINET has been doing website design and development work since 2001. They can design your site, help maintain it or help with all types of customizations. PCINET is another company you’ll frequently find helping out on the Miva forum.
• NetBlazon – NetBlazon offers jumpstart packages for those looking for a quick eCommerce start-up. Or they can customize these package more to your needs. Want something completely unique… they can do that too. You can follow Susan (one of the founders of NetBlazon) at her blog DoublePlus, on Twitter, and in the Miva forums.
• Tiny Queen Designs – Tiny Queen Designs has been providing Miva website design and development services since 2004. While they can provide full site builds, they specialize in Miva Merchant maintenance… such as template customization, module installs and updates and general product maintenance.
• eMediaSales – eMediaSales is a San Diego based design and development firm which offers several different design packages for Miva Merchant. Follow eMediaSales on Twitter.
• MivaDiva – The MivaDiva has been offering Miva design and development services since 1998. She can help with design, development and maintenance of your Miva Merchant store. Follow MivaDiva on Twitter.

Do you have a favorite Miva Merchant designer and developer? Share it below in a comment.

For those times when I’m looking for stock photos, I’ve included a list of my Top 10 favorite stock photography sites.

1. iStockphoto – iStockphoto is my favorite stock photography site. It’s usually the first stock photo site I head to when I’m looking for photos. The have a huge selection of stock photos, illustrations, videos and audio files. The prices vary depending on the size of the photo. In their main collection, small photos are 1 credit with the largest photo costing about 15 credits. Credits vary in price depending on which package you choose. The lowest “Pay as you go” package is for 6 credits, costing $9.75 ($1.63 per credit). The per credit price gets lower the more credits you buy. If you’re in need of a lot of stock photos, then take a look at their subscription packages. They offer a 3 month plan for $979, which gives you 30 credits per day.
2. Getty Images – Getty Images is a more pricey option for stock photography, but the selection is good. The pricing is based on royalty-free (RF) or rights-managed (RM). Royalty free images are a set price based on the size of the image. I’ve only purchased a few very specific images, but they were roughly $20 for a small size. The much higher priced option is the rights managed. When you find an image you have to go through several drop down selections to actually view a price. The selections are very specific depending on your intended use of the photo. In my opinion, this whole rights managed offering needs to be simplified. I think they would sell more of these images if they streamlined the pricing model.
3. fotolia – fotolia is another low priced stock photography site that I like. They offer a credit and subscription model. Credits run about $.75 with images costing 1 credit for small images and upwards of 40 credits for really large images. The subscription model is based on the number of months and daily download limit that you choose. Lowest price option for premium images is 30 days, 25 downloads a day for $249.
4. Shutterstock – Shutterstock offers a great selection of photos and video footage. Prices for stock photography are based on a subscription or package model. Subscriptions start at $249 for one month and a 25 per day limit. Or buy a package such as their starting package of 5 downloads for $49. Videos on Shutterstock/footage start at $10 per clip.
5. Stock.XCHNG – Stock.XCHNG is a free stock photography site owned by Getty Images. The selection is nice, but I’ve often come across images that are a little too amateurish for my taste. However, it’s hard to beat free.
6. BigStock Photo – BigStock photo offers a good selection of professional images with a nice simple pricing model. Images run about 1 to 6 credits, with the starter package of 25 credits costing $49 (or $1.96 per credit).
7. ThinkStock – Thinkstock gives you access to millions of released, royalty-free photos and vector illustrations selected from Getty Images, Jupiterimages and iStockphoto. Three pricing options are available. Image packs, such as 5 downloads for $59. An annual subscription for $149 per month, gives you 25 downloads per day. Or a monthly subscription of 25 downloads for $249 per month.
8. Photos.com – Photos.com currently offers around 2.6 million stock photos. Images packs are available that start at $1.99 for a single web images or $7.99 for a print image. They also offer monthly prices, such as 3 months for $299 which gives you 100 images for week.
9. Clipart.com – Clipart.com offers a nice selection, although I feel a little on the amateur side. Nonetheless, I’ve found a few images here that I’ve used in the past. Subscriptions start at one week for $14.95
10. FreeRangeStock – Last but certainly not least is Free Range Stock. A great free stock photography site with a nice selection to choose from. Create an account and your in. With this and other free stock photo sites… do the right and polite thing, give credit to the photographer.

Do you have a favorite stock photography site that I didn’t mention above. Share your favorites below in a comment.

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• Photocase

We took a look at traffic by Google result for iPad users and found that the #1 spot is much less dominant in the touchscreen environment – in fact, the top spot only got 20% of overall Google traffic. Still by far the biggest chunk, but lower than the 34% that the top spot gets for overall desktop traffic.

What does this mean for advertisers? If you’re not #1 in organic results or PPC results, have no fear when it comes to iPad users. There’s a good chance that you’ll still be found since iPad users are going much deeper into the results. If your marketing something directly to iPad or tablet users, then you’ll really want to test multiple positions in your PPC ads. You may find lower positions will convert better than higher ones. As with all advertising, test, test and test… study your analytics and find what works best for your site and products.