Having a contemporary search for your on-line retailer web site can increase consumer expertise, enhance visitors, and even drive extra conversions. Nevertheless, most retailer homeowners are cautious of redesigning their eCommerce web sites because of the worry of dropping visitors.
You don’t must be frightened. So long as you may have ample backups, evaluation all of your content material, and check rigorously, you possibly can keep away from dropping visitors and gross sales throughout an eCommerce web site redesign.
Maintain studying to search out out precisely how one can do it. It doesn’t require an enormous funds or extremely specialised expertise, simply endurance, diligence, and a few search engine optimization data.
Let’s leap in!
1. Create a Backup of Your Retailer
A web site backup is a duplicate of your web site that you should utilize in case your authentic web site will get destroyed or hacked.
It’s important to create a backup of your web site. In case one thing goes incorrect, you possibly can restore to the useful authentic. You must again up:
- Theme recordsdata
- Plugins
- Databases
So, how do I create one?
Backups could be created manually or routinely.
- Handbook backups. Handbook backups are created by copying the recordsdata out of your web site onto one other location in your pc or server. You’ll want to make use of FTP software program and hook up with your web site through FTP (file switch protocol).
- Computerized backups. Computerized backups are created by software program that screens modifications to your web site recordsdata and routinely creates backups when wanted.
For instance, you possibly can merely use a plugin device like Acronis Cyber Backup and comply with the directions. As you possibly can see, the plugin has all of the help wanted to make use of it.
However should you desire to do it your self, you have to begin by opening cPanel. cPanel is a function obtainable on most website hosting platforms that means that you can create a guide backup.
To take action, merely navigate to the “Recordsdata” part in cPanel, choose “Backup Wizard,” select the vacation spot to your backup, and enter a sound electronic mail deal with.
Utilizing an electronic mail checker, you possibly can confirm that the e-mail deal with you enter is legitimate, and you’ll obtain an electronic mail notification containing the backup obtain hyperlink as soon as the backup is prepared.
What when you’ve got a Shopify retailer? How will you again up your Shopify retailer?
Tips on how to Do a Shopify Retailer Backup
Shopify allows you to again up your retailer in two methods.
First, you should utilize an app from the Shopify App Retailer. Apps like Rewind Backups and BackupMaster are fairly common for this goal. They supply computerized backups alongside different options, however they’re subscription-based providers, so that you’ll have to pay month-to-month for the providers.
The opposite choice is to again up your retailer manually by means of CSV recordsdata. You should use this to again up information akin to merchandise, prospects, orders, monetary information, low cost codes, and reward card codes.
Merely click on on the information you need to again up (from the menu on the left, as proven under), then click on “Export” from the following window.
A brand new window will pop up asking for added info, like whether or not you need to export all merchandise or present merchandise solely. Tick the related bins and click on “Export Merchandise.” You’ll get a backup as a CSV file.
Apart from the information, you may also again up your Shopify theme by downloading it in these three steps:
- Log into your admin account and go to “On-line Shops,” then “Themes.”
- Click on “Obtain Theme File.”
- You’ll obtain the theme in your electronic mail as a .zip file.
2. Evaluate Your Present search engine optimization
search engine optimization information is essential to retain. The search engine optimization information will aid you evaluation your new web site’s efficiency in comparison with the outdated one, serving to you make knowledgeable tweaks. So, earlier than you redesign your on-line retailer, ensure you gather all of your web site’s search engine optimization information.
Right here is how to try this:
- First, open the Google Analytics monitoring device to export the record of top-performing pages and content material.
- Then, you have to monitor your key phrase rankings utilizing your key phrase monitoring device of alternative.
- As soon as the information is downloaded, you need to retailer it securely for future reference.
You additionally have to evaluation your web site velocity and uptime.
Retailer Pace
Customers need web sites to load shortly. In case your web site is sluggish, you’ll lose visitors. Google’s PageSpeed Insights is a superb device for checking your web site velocity. Examine your velocity earlier than the redesign, and once more after the redesign. In case your web site has gotten slower, you will want to handle this.
Professional Tip: You may also use the free Benchmark Hero app, which can audit your retailer’s velocity and technical efficiency, together with purchasing expertise, trustworthiness, and advertising and marketing towards probably the most important eCommerce manufacturers in your area of interest.
Retailer Uptime
Uptime can also be very important. Uptime is the metric that determines how typically your web site stays up. In case your web site goes down regularly, you’ll lose visitors.
Probably the greatest methods to treatment poor uptime is by selecting a dependable net host supplier. Examine the typical uptime to your net host supplier. An uptime of 99.9% is fascinating. So, in case your present internet hosting supplier is struggling to offer you such uptime, take into account switching to a different answer.
Shopify provides an analogous uptime assure (99.98%) to its customers. Nonetheless, you should utilize a device like Uptime to watch the uptime of your Shopify retailer. This device provides you with real-time updates at any time when your retailer or third-party apps break.
Bonus Content material: Shopify search engine optimization: Tips on how to Get Your Shopify Retailer to Rank #1 on Google
3. Retain the Previous Content material and Retailer Construction
When redesigning your eCommerce web site, do not forget that the outdated content material and construction nonetheless have worth.
It helps with search engine optimization for key phrases, hyperlinks, and different alerts to find out how possible a retailer or product web page can be related to the search phrases a consumer entered. It additionally helps with model consciousness, since customers anticipate to see the identical content material as earlier than.
Google’s algorithm considers the URL construction and the web page content material when deciding which pages are most related for every search time period and key phrase question.
So even when a few of your outdated URLs present up somewhere else in your new web site than they did earlier than (like perhaps on totally different pages), Google will nonetheless take into account them legitimate hyperlinks and move alongside visitors accordingly.
However you need to additionally watch out about how a lot of that outdated content material you retain. Think about how a lot duplicate content material is on every web page and whether or not you possibly can merge them right into a single web page with complete info.
Let’s say your on-line retailer is focusing on the key phrases “males’s exercise sneakers” and “males’s train sneakers” on totally different pages. Over time, these pages might battle to rank on Google Search outcomes. That is often resulting from key phrase cannibalization.
What Is Key phrase Cannibalization
Key phrase cannibalization basically means having a number of webpages focusing on the identical key phrase or search question. So, with the instance above, it will be finest to merge the 2 pages to cease them from competing towards one another.
We see key phrase cannibalization so much throughout SaaS content material manufacturing. It may be a good greater drawback within the eCommerce trade, contemplating on-line shops often have a whole bunch to 1000’s of product pages. You really want to maintain a detailed eye on this, as it will possibly damage your rankings.
You also needs to maintain any photographs which were optimized for search engine optimization in place. That can maintain them from being penalized by Google as duplicate content material, since search engines like google had already listed them earlier than the redesign.
Evaluate every web page and guarantee there are not any damaged hyperlinks or lacking photographs on every web page (if there are, repair them earlier than transferring ahead).
4. Do an On-Web page Content material Evaluation
Upon getting accomplished your on-line retailer redesign, it’s a good suggestion to research your on-page content material. Content material consists of all of your retailer pages, touchdown pages, weblog posts, and product pages.
You possibly can additionally take this chance to improve a few of your content material utilizing search engine optimization software program. Or through the use of a device like Hyperlink Whisper to make sure all essential pages have inner hyperlinks. Inside hyperlinks are crucial to make sure no essential pages find yourself being “orphan pages” (pages that aren’t linked to from every other webpages on an internet site).”
Other than the fundamentals, listed below are some issues to remember:
- Duplicate content material
- Key phrase cannibalization
- Decayed content material
- Natural CTR evaluation
- Content material relevancy
- Archiving
Let’s take a more in-depth take a look at every.
Duplicate Content material
You need to guarantee there is no such thing as a duplicate content material, as this could have an effect on search engine optimization rankings. This implies writing distinctive product descriptions for every product web page. You additionally need to maintain a detailed eye in your URL construction to make sure they’re constant and clear.
For instance, search engines like google might even see “www.petstore.com/product/” and “petstore.com/product” as duplicate content material.
To keep away from this, we suggest utilizing canonical tags to point out search engines like google your most popular URLs.
Key phrase Cannibalization
As talked about earlier, ensure you’re creating inner competitors between your webpages. This implies creating distinctive content material for every web page.
Decayed Content material
Decayed content material refers to content material that used to carry out nicely however now not does. The shift in efficiency could be resulting from many issues, like key phrase cannibalization, duplicate content material, and a shift in search intent, amongst others.
To repair this situation, you’ll have to audit the web page and presumably replace it. For example, chances are you’ll have to replace the product description with new info to clean up the web page.
If the trigger for the decay is duplicate content material, you’ll have to create distinctive content material for the duplicate pages or merge them into one optimized web page.
In the meantime, a shift in search intent might imply that Google stopped rating product pages focusing on “males’s trainers” and began rating “better of” articles, for instance. In such a case, you’ll need to create a weblog put up to extend your possibilities of rating for that search time period.
Natural CTR Evaluation
A web page can rank excessive however nonetheless endure from a poor CTR. It’s essential to research this metric. To enhance your retailer’s CTR, you’ll have to write higher meta descriptions and title tags.
Content material Relevancy
You additionally have to determine in case your retailer content material is related. This consists of the content material in your touchdown pages, product pages, and any weblog posts you’ll have in your web site.
One of the simplest ways to research your content material is by conducting a content material audit.
- First, take a listing of your web site’s present content material.
- Subsequent, you have to analyze relevancy; irrelevant content material ought to be excluded within the redesign. For instance, your Valentine’s Day provides touchdown web page might now not be related as soon as the sale and occasion are performed.
You should use a content material audit device like Semrush Content material Audit to generate a listing of URLs and related information. A device like this lets you arrange your audit and discover sure sections simply.
Archiving
When making any content material modifications, it’s essential to archive the outdated content material in case you have to revert to it.
There are a lot of causes you would possibly have to return to outdated content material. For instance, chances are you’ll tweak a selected product web page just for its efficiency on the major search engines to tank. Having the outdated content material archived someplace would turn out to be useful in such a situation.
Making a spreadsheet for the outdated and new content material is a superb solution to arrange this. And to take your web site to the following degree, take into account incorporating inventive and informative infographics concepts to interact your viewers and break down complicated info in a visually interesting means.
For instance, you possibly can replace your content material to share recommendations on how prospects can use your merchandise in an enticing infographic.
5. Take a look at Your Design and Launch It
If you wish to get your new design out into the world, you have to guarantee it’s prepared. To take action, you have to check your web site.
Testing is often performed on a staging server. Why? Having your design on a staging server means that you can check all of the components of the web site and resolve any errors earlier than there are actual penalties.
What about Shopify shops?
Bonus: Tips on how to Set Up a Staging Web site for Shopify
First, you have to create a second Shopify retailer the place you’ll run the assessments. You probably have a Shopify Plus subscription, you should utilize one among your unused enlargement shops for the staging web site.
For customers on the opposite plans, you possibly can arrange a free retailer utilizing the Shopify Companions program. Right here’s how one can go about it:
- Go to the Companions program webpage and arrange your accomplice account.
- Click on on “Create Retailer” from the principle dashboard when you’ve created an account.
- Choose “Improvement Retailer” within the subsequent dashboard when requested to pick the shop kind.
- Give your retailer a reputation.
(We suggest giving the shop a singular however associated title, so you possibly can inform it aside out of your dwell retailer. For instance, if the principle retailer is “petcare.com,” you possibly can title the testing retailer “stagingpetcare.com.”)
The free account created by means of the Shopify Companions program is often sufficient for many testing functions. Nevertheless, should you’re unable to make use of it for no matter cause, open a brand new retailer by means of the Shopify fundamental plan. However needless to say you’ll should pay the month-to-month costs.
Now, together with your second retailer prepared, you’ll want to put in an app like Rewind Staging to import the information out of your dwell retailer and create a staging atmosphere on the second retailer. To try this, you’ll want to comply with these 4 steps:
- Head over to your dwell retailer and set up the app from the Shopify App Retailer. This may act because the supply retailer.
- Set up the app within the second retailer, which can be your vacation spot retailer.
- Copy the important thing from the supply retailer to the vacation spot retailer to hyperlink the 2.
- Choose the information you need to copy out of your supply retailer into the staging retailer after which click on “Start Process.” (It’s advisable to repeat all the information to make sure the staging retailer mirrors the dwell retailer fully.)
That ought to copy all of your information onto the staging retailer, which now you can use to run your assessments. The disadvantage to all that is that Rewind Staging is a paid app. It’ll set you again $99/month.
When you’ve totally examined your web site on the staging server, you possibly can launch your redesigned web site. That’s if the positioning is performing as meant, after all. In any other case, return to improvement and repair any points you’ll have seen throughout testing.
Publish your web site to the dwell server and advertise to your prospects by means of social media, electronic mail, or perhaps a digital enterprise card. That ought to convey in additional visitors, which can then generate public suggestions. It’s crucial to maintain a detailed eye on the preliminary suggestions, as it may be valuable when making ultimate changes.
6. Audit Your Web site After the Launch
The time instantly after you launch your web site is essential for making modifications. Even with a rigorous testing stage, errors slip by means of the online. So you have to audit your retailer after an internet site redesign.
These are the varied audits it’s best to carry out:
- Examine that each one redirects are working accurately
- Examine the search engine optimization of your top-performing pages
- Evaluate load instances with the unique web site
- Examine all titles, headings, and meta descriptions
- Search for 404 errors
- Take a look at on totally different browsers
- Take a look at cell functionality
It’s possible you’ll audit your web site utilizing search engine optimization instruments akin to Ahrefs or Semerush or through the use of the free eCommerce audit device — Benchmark Hero.
Nevertheless, you need to recurrently monitor customer suggestions to make sure your eCommerce web site is optimized to your potential customers and current prospects.
To collect priceless public suggestions, you have to guarantee it’s straightforward and perhaps even rewarding for customers to take action.
Due to this fact, present a transparent and easy kind or pop-up to encourage customers to report any points they might encounter whereas utilizing the positioning.
Conclusion
Redesigning an current eCommerce web site with out dropping visitors is all about reviewing and testing the totally different components of the web site. You lose visitors — and gross sales — when errors are missed and the content material isn’t as much as scratch.
Begin by making a backup of your retailer and reviewing your present search engine optimization. You additionally have to retain a lot of the outdated content material and construction, and the content material must be search engine optimization optimized and related to your web site’s aims.
Lastly, you have to launch your web site however make sure you proceed auditing to search out any minor errors earlier than you lose visitors.
Implementing the following pointers provides you with one of the best probability to revamp your eCommerce web site with out dropping visitors. Nevertheless it’s an ongoing course of; you have to monitor consumer suggestions to maintain on prime of any issues.
Obtained questions? Submit them within the feedback part under!
Nico Prins
Nico is the founding father of , a SaaS advertising and marketing company. The corporate works with enterprise SaaS purchasers, serving to them scale lead technology globally throughout EMEA, APAC, and different areas.
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