Magento 1 – End of life?

Official announcement from Magento that their older versions will no longer be supported by Magento has put many e-commerce businesses on the risk of losing sales and support.

THE RISKS;

• Your e-commerce store will be at risk

After the 30th of June 2020, you will still be able to sell from your majento1 website, but will lose security updates which is one of the major factors in running any e-commerce store.

• Your payment provider might drop you

P.C.I Payment card industry are payment providers; they help in the running of your business when it comes to making a purchase on your online store.  PayPal and other credit card companies require you to have security updates and making sure website is fully protected and secured.

The PCI has a Data security standard which all websites most comply, but with the advent of the Magento end of life, payment providers wouldn’t want to risk supporting vulnerable sites which can result in the payment of non-compliance fines and ultimately the downtrend of your business reputation.

• You will lack support for critical extensions/modules

The extension creators will no longer be launching any new module for Magento 1 and eventually will stop providing support for their Magento 1 extensions.

• Routine updates will take longer

When a software is no longer supported by its host, the routine updates done through developers’ support will be extremely difficult. You may find developers who would be willing to work on your M1 website to produce patches and routine updates, but at a very high price and there is no guarantee that Payment Providers will be accepting the updates.

• High cost of maintenance

The money that will be spent on maintaining your current open sourced Magento 1 store, you may be better off using subscribed versions with not much difference in cost.

UPGRADING OR MIGRATING THE CURRENT PLATFORM

There are two options that you will have to think about.;

• Upgrade from Magento 1 to Magento 2
• Migrate from Magento 1 to Different Platform

Compared to Magento1, Magento2 has an improved site performance, its architecture is more stable and supported by thousands of Magento marketplace developers. However, looking at the cost of migration, risks, and managing cost of Magento2, we recommend to move it either BigCommerce or Shopify (from small to medium sized businesses)

Why BigCommerce?

 The BigCommerce is a SaaS platform specially designed for e-commerce businesses. You can get almost all functionalities of Magento with hosted solutions so you can concentrate on your running the businesses instead of maintaining the system, upgrading or security etc.

While cost is not a big factor for many of e-commerce stores but for some it does. The biggest advantage of using BigCommerce is over Shopify is that they don’t charge per transaction fee and you are charged a fixed amount per month depending your turnover.

BigCommerce provides quality support 24/7 and offer stores with easy upgrades, backups, deployment, scalability, and front-end flexibility.

If you would like to know more about BigCommerce Platform, please follow the link https://www.bizvista.com.au/bigcommerce-online-store/.

Get Professional Help

We at Biz Vista offer you customised services for the Magento 1 or Magento 2 migration to BigCommerce or Shopify. Whether you store has few hundreds or thousands of products, we can look after all the nitty gritty complications and making sure migration procedure is smooth, effective and within your budget.  

Shopping online saves customers a lot of time, and that’s why according to research the percentage of customers shopping online and through their mobiles is around 80%. If 80% customers are moving towards online shopping, then what will happen to the growth of businesses who are only selling physically? In order for retail business to have an increased outreach and the ability to target more customers, it is essential for them to have an e-commerce websites. If you are an e-commerce businesses, researching on why you need to have an e-commerce website, then read below for 5 reasons why you should have an e-commerce website.

Build an Online Presence

If you want to compete with your customers effectively, then you need to establish an online presence to allow your customers to interact with you on multiple outlets, and increase your availability to them. The best way is to create an eCommerce store by choosing a professional digital agency that can help you grow your business online as well.

Increase your Visibility

Visibility is essential for growth and increasing your market reach, when you build a website then you are increasing your outreach, and can have a wider market range, and you will also have more growth opportunities because you’d be able to target customers in other areas.

Lead Generation and increased Sales

Gone are the days of cold calling, consumers tend to buy more from businesses who provide them with solutions rather than sell products. Your website is the opportunity for you to interact with your customers on a different level and increase your customer base with increased lead generation which will lead to an increase in sales.

Increased Understanding of Customer Behavior

Through websites and web analytics programs you can understand your customers behavior in a better way, by analyzing the posts they interact with the most and what kind of products they are purchasing and then focus more on further capitalizing on the strength of your strong sell and improve your weak products.

Reduced Costs

With an e-commerce store, your work load for managing inventory, creating reports could decrease because you could invest in software that will help you automate your operations. Thus, your costs on human resource for managing inventory and data bases will reduce.

In the era of online shopping, your website is the first place for some customers to interact with you, as most consumers now do not like to go through the hassle of shopping, and they prefer shopping online. So build your online presence and gain a competitive edge over your competitors by providing a differentiated online service.

What Is Website Audit And Analysis?

A website audit is a complete analysis of all the things related to your website’s performance online. A full and detailed audit gives you a deeper understanding as to the reasons why your website is not performing well online that it should or the reasons why your product sales and conversion rates are not increasing.

Why Do You Need An Audit?

Website auditing covers all aspects of your website in order to identify problems and issues holding your website to either rank well or improve conversions.

If you are a business owner and wondering what you can do to improve your business online or what are the strategies that can help your business get more visibility online as well as generate leads and conversions, you might need our services. There’s a huge list of what involves in auditing but here are few to give you an idea on how we perform auditing for your website:

• Indexed pages
• Page errors
• Site speed
• Mobile-friendliness
• Google ranking factors
• Meta data
• SEO
• Branding
• Link Structure
• Content
• Images
• Backlinks
• Social signals
• Campaigns analysis
• Marketing strategies
• Use experience
• Sales funnel

A complete website auditing is not a quick process. The proper audit can take several days in case you have a larger website but an average it can take approximately 2-3 days doing an audit on a standard sized business site.

Main Focus Areas:

• Technical Audit
• SEO Audit
• On-site Audit
• Off-site Audit
• Social Media Audit

Benefits of Website Audits

• KNOW your website completely
• GROW your audience
• INCREASE User Experience
• RANK better online
• DIY strategies
• DEAL with your SEO companies
• SPEED UP your website*
• SEE what your competitors are up to
• IMPROVE online visibility
• IMPLEMENT better digital strategies
• SOLVE website issues
• GAIN social awareness
• EXPAND your market
• BUILD your brand
• GET ideas that will work
• DEVELOP your e-skills
• Improve content
• UNDERSTAND Google better

Need to improve your E-Commerce website? Not generating enough traffic, leads or sales online?  Simply having an online store for your business does not necessarily mean that your business will start generating revenue.

Firstly, what is E-Commerce all about?  It is basically the commercial transaction of buying and selling online. With the rapid growth of the digital world, almost all business transactions are conducted online, which is why it is important for every business to not only have a website, but a one that also works properly!

In order to ensure that your business’s website is working properly and performing well in the online world, there are 11 key elements which need to be on your checklist before you can expect any improvements or better results. This is why E-Commerce specialist provide E-Commerce services such as consultation, audits, strategies and recommendations to improve overall business.

In this article, I will assume that your website has at least 300+ products that are sold nationally.

1. BRANDING

Website branding also plays a major role in terms of online presence. How your website appears in a search engine when someone searches your business name is important. In order to have a good website branding, your website name should appear in at least the first 5-10 pages of Google.

1. HOMEPAGE

Research indicates that users typically stay on a website for less than a minute and if your website does not capture their attention, it is highly likely that you will not only lose them, but also not have them visit your website again.

The homepage should have following:

• User friendly interface
• Responsive infrastructure
• Page should load fast
• A slider
• Easy navigation
• Some specials on popular products
• Popular Categories
• New or Featured Products
• Search Bar
• Heading Tags
• Good web content

1. META TAGS

Meta tags such as Title and Description must be executed according to your niche and keywords. A title should not be more than 80-90 characters long, and the description must be under 160 characters. If your page title, description and content on the page collaborate with each other, you will have better chance of ranking. You should not use the same title and description on every single page.

In some of E-Commerce platforms, whatever you write for the homepage’s title and description, would automatically show on every single page of your website so make sure you are not doing that. Whatever you write in your meta tags, it will be visible on search engines so choose wisely.

1. INFORMATION PAGES

Inner pages such as Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, Shipping & Returns, About Us , and other sections also gain customers’ confidence in your website. Make sure you have appropriate information there about all those pages.

1. CATEGORIES

Categories are one of the most important features of any e-commerce website. If your website has many categories with each category having over a 100 products, make sure you create sub-categories and sub-divide the products. You can use either filters for main category or create sub-categories thumbnails to offer easy navigation.  By doing that, you are not only offering better user experience, but also have a good chance of ranking on those categories and sub-categories.  You need to have better content strategies for these sections which will be explained in content strategy.

1. PRODUCTS

There are two ways for users to find a specific product on a website; by search and through categories. If you don’t offer better navigation and easy search options for products that are being searched, you are going to lose your customers. Therefore the title of a product is very important as well as its description and features. Make sure you have following for each item:

• A good title
• Item code or SKU if it’s well known product
• At least 2-5 images with ALT tags
• Features
• Description
• Social Share Icons
• Pricing & Add to cart function
• Related or Similar Products at the bottom

Here’s an example:

1. SEARCH SECTION

Many E-Commerce Stores fail to recognize the importance of a search section within the website and what features should it offer. An online store with thousands of products has to offer a wide range of search options otherwise it becomes too difficult for customers to navigate on the website or for what they are looking for.

The search section should be easily identifiable by customers and visible on the header for all versions such as desktop, tablet and mobile. A customer must not put in efforts to find the search bar on your website. The best practice is for the search bar to appear next to your logo or above menu bar.

1. CONTENT

It is well known in the SEO industry that “Content is King”. What this means is it is essential for any website to have good content if you want to engage the user or grab their attention. It is important to provide content that they would want to read. Having content could potentially make you or break you depending on how good it is. You do not want customers to browse your website and leave it because they feel or seem disinterested in the service you are offering or product you are selling. This is why engaging with your customers through language and content is very crucial. It is like having a friendly customer service and providing your customer/client with what they need. Therefore a healthy website should have quality content for categories and products. Having a Blog on website is always a good idea.

1. CHECKOUT

If your checkout section is not configured properly or optimized according to better UX strategies, you will find lots of abandoned carts. The Checkout section should be customer-friendly and offer the following options:

• Variety of Payments Gateways
• Ability to Edit, Remove and Add products etc
• Tax information
• Shipping charges
• Visible Submit Order button
• Order confirmation page

1. SOCIAL MEDIA

It has become a well known practice for eCommerce stores to have social profiles. If your e-commerce store lacks social media appearance such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc, you are missing out on the benefits of getting more sales, traffic to your website, increasing brand awareness and customers’ engagement.

1. SEO AND SEM

SEO(Search Engine Optimization) and SEM(Search Engine Marketing) must go together if you are looking to increase your sales and brand awareness. I have come across many ecommerce businesses that either use SEO or SEM and I have always advised to use both. SEO may bring you organic traffic and sales after a certain period of time but SEM brings quick results whether it’s traffic or sales.