When you first created your company’s eCommerce website, there is no doubt that plenty of time, care, and thought went into the design. Creating something that customers would want to visit, return to, make purchases on, and reflect the company in the truest of forms are all key criteria. The problem is that, over time, even the best, the most modern at-the-time website starts to become tired, old, and drab. Unfortunately, because the user experience counts for so much, that tired site can end up affecting your profits in a negative way.
Every business needs to constantly explore ways and means to keep improving their e-commerce platform.
This means updating the UI and UX, improving product display, working on on-page technical optimizations like page loading speeds and checking for mobile responsiveness.
In simple words, your eCommerce platform needs a complete overhaul. Don’t worry. Here’s help.
If you want to stay ahead of your competitors, you need to evolve your website according to the latest technologies. That’s where you start by planning a complete overhaul for your eCommerce Platform.
Of course, knowing that your eCommerce site needs a major overhaul and then accomplishing it are two totally different things.
That is exactly why these tips can prove so helpful, as they can help you develop the most effective overhaul plan.
The first step is to understand and assess what your business lacks and what needs to improve. There’s a good chance it isn’t all bad, which means you need to examine what’s currently working and what needs to be improved.
This will allow you to pinpoint the areas that need attention, tweaking, and a new look/design. You don’t want to rush this process, as you want to be sure you’re crafting a successful action plan. Here’s how you can go about assessing your website –
Audit your Current Site
First, analyze the current state of your website. Check the traffic, user experience, product listings, navigation, and the performance of your eCommerce platform on different websites.
Define Business Goals: The next step is to outline your desired business outcomes. Do you want the sales to increase? Or do you want to improve the customer engagement? The outline of the brand presence needs to be improved with a higher conversion rate.
Identify Target Audience
Understand the needs and pain points of the customer demographic to tailor the design of your website accordingly.
Now that you know what’s working and what’s not, ready your eCommerce platform for strategic planning. Create a plan of action based on your findings. Such planning mainly involves the following steps –
Competitive Analysis
Analyze the websites of your competitors to identify the best practices you can use on your eCommerce Platform.
Platform Evaluation
Do you think the current eCommerce platform isn’t working for you? In that case, try something different. A new platform might help you get the growth you are looking for.
Site Structure and Navigation
It’s best to create a logical structure that has an intuitive navigation to help users easily get the products they are looking for.
It’s also helpful to put yourself in the shoes of your customers/clients and see what they see. This means trying your site on different browsers and devices. What is the experience like? Ideally, it should be smooth, fast, modern, and user-friendly across all aspects.
While doing this exercise, you should also try navigating the site, using the search tool, and even making a purchase. Again, it’s about putting your feet in the shoes of customers.
Are you planning an eCommerce overhaul without technical consideration? Then it won’t work. Technical performance is important for the website’s optimal technical performance. I’m talking about everything from the on-page to the off-page, as well as technical SEO performance.
On-Page SEO optimization
Implement the keywords relevant to your eCommerce platform’s needs. Optimize the meta description and structure of your website data to improve your website for better search ranking.
Performance optimization
To optimize the technical side of your website. This includes taking care of the image size, improving loading time, averaging the caching mechanisms, and improving website speed and time.
Remember, overhauling your site should be about more than just the look of the site; it’s also about the performance. One of the biggest complaints that website visitors can have is the speed of a site. Looking for ways to boost the speed can be a huge win.
Before you are ready to launch your eCommerce website for improved customer experience or (other desired outcomes), here are a few steps to ensure –
Usability Testing
Run thorough user testing to find different issues. Refine your website design before you launch the platform online.
A/B testing
Test and identify different versions of the design elements you are planning to use for the website. A/B testing with users can help you uncover insights about what works and what doesn’t for your eCommerce website.
Content Migration
Transfer the existing content and the product data from your old website to the new one. Carefully add existing product data and content to the new site while maintaining SEO value.
Launch strategy
Once you’re done analyzing and implementing all the other technical aspects of the eCommerce website, prepare for launch. Proceed by developing a launch plan that includes communication with the stakeholders and the customers.
If your eCommerce platform goes through a complete overhaul, an explanation needs to be put in place. You need a well-planned piece of communication in place to help your customers understand what you’re offering.
Prepare your social media campaign, ads, and content calendar for different channels. Let your existing customers know the site is renewed and better than before. Make sure to discuss the key values your customers will get after you’ve completed your eCommerce website overhaul.
Sometimes, even with all your best efforts, overhauling your eCommerce site just isn’t going to be successful. It can take the expertise of those in the industry who can provide you with the advice and information you need and put those plans into action. Take Cake Commerce, an eCommerce marketing agency, as an example.
Cake Commerce can help by creating a brand-new design for your website, whether that means a complete overhaul or just sections of the site.
You will be able to discuss your thoughts, ideas, and goals ahead of time, and they will craft the “perfect” plan and then follow through on it. This will take all that responsibility off your shoulders.
Remember, even after an overhaul, you may have to make slight changes and tweaks to make the website fit customers’ needs. And that’s okay. Take time to observe shoppers’ responses, use social listening tools to gather feedback, and work on it.
These tips and ideas will help you assess your eCommerce site, identify the problem areas, and effectively address them. How would you overhaul your eCommerce website? Let us know in the comment section. Thank you for reading.
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Mashum Mollah is an entrepreneur, founder and CEO at Viacon, a digital marketing agency that drive visibility, engagement, and proven results. He blogs at BloggerOutreach.io.
