most popular e-commerce platforms seo pros and cons and migration issues

Most popular e-commerce platforms:

SEO pros and cons and migration issues

June 26th, 2014 – online marketing session for e-commerce business owners

About Promodo

automated shopping cart migration service Brief facts:

Launched in 2009

as one of

11 000+ customers

Key benefits:

Quick and automated No tech skills required Secure and accurate

50+ supported carts including

projects

Speaker

Yuriy Stakh MagneticOne/Cart2Cart

Head of Marketing Department at MagneticOne. Yuriy started his career in MagneticOne back in 2012 as a Junior Marketing Manager and rapidly developed his skills and expertise in content, social media and search engine marketing. A year after joining the company Yuriy was responsible for all marketing activities of MagneticOne’s flagship product - Cart2Cart an automated shopping cart migration service. And finally Yuriy was promoted to a Head of Marketing Department position where his key responsibilities include strategic planning, marketing management and public relations..

Speaker

Anna Korolekh Promodo

Marketing manager and, in past, an SEO consultant at Promodo. As an SEO consultant Anna has worked with large sites of the following niche: gambling, dating, travel, ecommerce. Anna is a certified Google Analytics individual and a regular contributor to Promodo and external blogs, also a regular speaker at the webinars. Currently Anna manages and oversees all marketing activities of Promodo in the English-speaking markets: SEM, SEO, social media, content marketing, email marketing, events.

Migration tendencies: how shopping cart popularity has changed over the last year

2008 – founded

200k - 240k – of live stores worldwide

~26% – e-Commerce market share

Physical locations of businesses using Magento

Websites using Magento in Alexa Top Million Sites

Some curious Magento migration stats that are worth to tweet

40% of all e-Commerce migrations are performed to Magento

In the last 12 months number of migrations to Magento increased by 24%

26% of all Magento migrations are actually Magento upgrades

2006 – founded

54k -100k – of live stores worldwide


Physical locations of businesses using Shopify

Websites using Shopify in Alexa Top Million Sites

Some curious Shopify migration stats that are worth to tweet

6% of all e-Commerce migrations are performed to Shopify

In the last 12 months number of migrations to Shopify increased by 98%

2% of all e-Commerce migrations are performed from Shopify

2009 – founded

50k – of live stores worldwide


Physical locations of businesses using Bigcommerce

Websites using Bigcommerce in Alexa Top Million Sites

Some curious Bigcommerce migration stats that are worth to tweet

3% of all e-Commerce migrations are performed to Bigcommerce

In the last 12 months number of migrations to Bigcommerce increased by 37%

3% of all e-Commerce migrations are performed from Bigcommerce

1999 – founded

25k-50k – of live stores worldwide


Physical locations of businesses using Volusion

Websites using Volusion in Alexa Top Million Sites

Some curious Volusion migration stats that are worth to tweet

Less than 1% of all e-Commerce migrations are performed to Volusion

In the last 12 months number of migrations to Volusion decreased by 20%

More than 5% of all e-Commerce migrations are performed from Volusion

Google Trends

General migration issues and how to avoid them

Avoid before migration:

1. Third-party modules

2. Non-default templates

3. Manual database customization

Make sure your target store is hidden from Google and other search engines

Whitelist IPs that you are going to run your migration from - short guide

Pre and Post migration recommendations for Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce, Volusion

General pre-migration tips:

Make a backup


Setup proper folder permissions


Keep images in default folders

Key pre- and post-migration tips:

1.Check if your hosting is compatible with Magento

2.Map your shops correctly during multi-store migration

3.Make re-index and clear cache after migration


1.Notify your customers before the migration

2.Change non-standard letters (i.e. umlauts – ä)

3.Prepare API Key and API Password


1.Make sure all of your products are named

2.Prepare API Path and API Token


1.Check your pricing plan

2.Use .csv file format

General post-migration tips:

Ask clients to restore their passwords


Customize your store (template, modules, other changes)


Test your store before the launch

What we usually want from a platform?

• Affordable

• Reliable (high up-times)

• SEO/marketing friendly

• User-friendly with various customizable design templates

• Simple and intuitive admin dashboard

• Helpful, accessible support

• Additional features

Prices:

. Shopify Volusion BigCommerce Magento Minimum Package $29/mo $15/mo* $34.95/mo freeMaximum Package $179/mo $135/mo* $199.95/mo up to $1,400/moTransaction Fees 0%-2% 0* 0%-2% 0*

Performance: . Shopify Volusion BigCommerce Magento Hosted/Self-hosted Hosted Hosted Hosted Self-hostedStorage 1GB-unlimited Unlimited Unlimited -Bandwith Unlimited 1-35GB Unlimited -Uptimes Very good Poor Excellent -Site speed OK More or less OK Slow

Simplicity & Friendliness: . Shopify Volusion BigCommerce Magento

Support Very good Poor AverageVery little, onlyhelpyourself kind

Templates (variety,user friendliness) Very good Good Good ModerateSimplicity Very simple Simple Very simple Very diffi cultMobile friendly Yes Yes Yes Yes

Additional features: . Shopify Volusion BigCommerce Magento Blog Yes No Yes NoMarketplace No No No YesSocial commerce No Yes Yes NoAbandoned shoppingcart features Yes Yes Yes YesDaily deals, promos Yes Yes Yes NoReviews/ratings Yes Yes Yes NoForum Yes No Yes NoApps and add-ins Yes Yes Yes Loads!

What do we need for SEO?

Ecommerce platforms SEO checklist:

SEO checklist1 301 redirects control2 Control of Titles with full possibility to customize them separately for each page and using templates3 Control of Headings with full possibility to customize them separately for each page and using templates4 Control of meta Descriptions with full possibility to customize them separately for each page and using templates5 Control over pages content, possibility to add custom text to all pages6 Control over robots txt file or possibility to add meta robots tag to specific pages or sets of pages7 Control of Alt attributes for images with full possibility to customize them separately for each page and using templates8 XML sitemaps automatically generated and regularly updated9 SEO friendly URLs (control over URLs)

10 No duplicate URLs issues11 Canonicalization of URLs12 Search firendly navigation and structure13 Breadcrumbs14 Blog15 Built-in Analytics integration16 Schema.org integration17 Social sharing (supporting Open Graph protocol)18 HTML sitemaps19 Internal linking opportunities20 Google authorship verification


SEO checklist Shopify Volusion BigCommerce Magento 301 redirects control + + + +Control of Titles with full possibility to customize them separately for each page and using templates +/- +/- +/- +Control of Headings with full possibility to customize them separately for each page and using templates +/- +/- +/- +/-Control of meta Descriptions with full possibility to customize them separately for each page and using templates +/- +/- +/- +/-Control over pages content, possibility to add custom text to all pages + + + +Control over robots txt file or possibility to add meta robots tag to specific pages or sets of pages - + + +Control of Alt attributes for images with full possibility to customize them separately for each page and using templates +/- +/- +/- +/-XML sitemaps automatically generated and regularly updated + + + +SEO friendly URLs (control over URLs) +/- +/- + +No duplicate URLs issues - - + -Canonicalization of URLs +/- + + +Search firendly navigation and structure +/- + + +Breadcrumbs + + + +Blog + - + +Built-in Analytics integration + + + +Schema.org integration - +/- + +Social sharing (supporting Open Graph protocol) - + + +HTML sitemaps - + + +Internal linking opportunities + + + +Google authorship verification - - - +


• Navigation & Structure

• Breadcrumbs

• Schema.org


SEO checklist Shopify Volusion BigCommerce Magento 301 redirects control + + + +Control of Titles with full possibility to customize them separately for each page and using templates +/- +/- +/- +Control of Headings with full possibility to customize them separately for each page and using templates +/- +/- +/- +/-Control of meta Descriptions with full possibility to customize them separately for each page and using templates +/- +/- +/- +/-Control over pages content, possibility to add custom text to all pages + + + +Control over robots txt file or possibility to add meta robots tag to specific pages or sets of pages - + + +Control of Alt attributes for images with full possibility to customize them separately for each page and using templates +/- +/- +/- +/-XML sitemaps automatically generated and regularly updated + + + +SEO friendly URLs (control over URLs) +/- +/- + +No duplicate URLs issues - - + -Canonicalization of URLs +/- + + +Search firendly navigation and structure +/- + + +Breadcrumbs + + + +Blog + - + +Built-in Analytics integration + + + +Schema.org integration - +/- + +Social sharing (supporting Open Graph protocol) - + + +HTML sitemaps - + + +Internal linking opportunities + + + +Google authorship verification - - - +


•Open Graph protocol

•HTML sitemap

•Internal linking opportunities

Migration impact on rankings, Precautions

301 redirects:

• 200 OK

• 301 Redirect

• 404 Not Found

301 redirects:

• Create & map a complete list of page URLs!

• Only! If for some very serious reasons the above is totally undoable, consider the following options:

• Download for Google Analytics most successful in terms of traffic pages and map them in the first place

• Download the most linked to pages report from your Google Webmaster Tools and map them

• Map all of your category pages• Redirect top-selling products (E-commerce

performance report in Google Analytics)

• Test the redirects (Xenu, ScreamingFrog (free for up to 500 URLs only))

• Create good, custom 404 pages

• Try to use server redirects if possible and use regex redirects to minimize the server load

Other precautions:

• At lest for the first couple of months after the

migration keep the content (Titles, H1’s, texts)

the same

• Make sure to notify your customers of the

changes - possible slow load times, structure

and design and other changes

• Make sure to ONLY use new URLs in your

internal linking

• If you have control of any backlinks to your site,

change them to new URLs too

• Think about the internal linking patterns, try not

to change those much too

Other precautions:

• Update XML and HTML sitemaps with new URL

and submit the new one to Google Webmaster

Tools

• Measure your traffic and rankings (at least with

SemRush) before the migration and after

• When you have moved be prepared to fix at

once SEO bugs of your new platform (duplicate

URLs usually)

• Measure and test everything – your conversion

rates, load times, abandoned carts etc

21.3.1121.3.11

Analytics tip:After migration you can have 2 options in terms of Analytics:

•Create new Analytics property and start tracking the new site from scratch

•Use the same Google Analytics code

https://www.google.com/analytics/web/template?uid=wgYGwhy1RtW8aBkj4Z5qfA

Create a Custom report with full URL displayed:

21.3.1121.3.11

Small prediction:Your organic traffic will decline anyway!

But if you have done everything right and keep monitoring your site’s performance, organic traffic will be going back during 4-10 weeks after the migration.

Free online marketing auditWe would like to invite all you to take a free 10-15 minutes personalised webinar for a quick audit of your website and marketing campaigns by Google certified experts.

- Quick usability audit of the existing site;- Quick SEO audit and review of existing analytics;- Audit of PPC campaigns;- Technical audit;- Best practices of conversion rate optimization;- General online marketing strategy insights.

Free online marketing audit

Special 10% discount code: Webinar-Gift

Thank you for your attention!

Anna KorolekhMarketing manager at Promodo

e-mail: [email protected]: ann.moseva

Yuriy StakhHead of Marketing at MagneticOne

e-mail: [email protected]: cmo-m1

Promodo.com/blogTwitter.com/promodo_enFacebook.com/promodo

Plus.google.com/+Promodo-com

Please follow

Shopping-cart-migration.com/blogTwitter.com/Cart2CartBlogFacebook.com/Cart2Cart

Plus.google.com/+Shopping-cart-migration

most popular e-commerce platforms seo pros and cons and migration issues

Business