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Independent Guide to Selecting the RightE-commerce PlatformAn E-commerce Manager's Checklist to Key Considerations

First Edition

Foreword by Dave ChaffeyPhil Robinson, Alan Rowe & Lindsey Annison

101 Guide Series

Independent Guide to Selecting the

RightE-commerce

Platform

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Phil Robinson,Alan Rowe & Lindsey

Annison

CONTENTS

About the Authors IntroductionWhich E-commerce Platforms Do TheTop 10,000 Global Sites Use Top 10 Checklist for Choosing An E-commerce PlatformReal-Life Challenges with Industry E-commerce Experts Platform OptionsPlatform Considerations: Which Platform Should I Choose? Platform Considerations: Which Platform Should I Choose? Platform Considerations: Which Platform Should I Choose? Why Use Magento Enterprise, or not?Hosting SpeedThird Party IntegrationsBrilliant Plugins and Extensions for Magento WordPress IntegrationBuilding a Magento Site That Converts Building an SEO Accredited Magento SiteProven 35 Step Process for Building E-commerce Sites Checklist for Choosing a Magento PartnerDon’t Forget These 10 Post-Launch Marketing Considerations Download Our Other Digital Marketing Books

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Phil Robinson is a digital marketing consultant with over 19 years’ experience. In 2004, he founded ClickThrough- an agency focused on search engine marketing and conversion optimisation.

In addition to his role as Founder & CEO of ClickThrough, Phil also provides best practice training for businesses and writes books on digital marketing strategies.

Alan Rowe is Director of Web Development at ClickThrough Marketing. He has 15 years of web development and database engineering experience for companies across a wide range of sectors including projects for Peugeot and Kia. Alan spent five years as Technical Director at a web development company and was also a trainer at Birmingham University teaching database driven web solutions.

Lindsey Annison has been an Internet marketing consultant since 1995, and is a renowned author, conference speaker and blogger. She has been authoring books and white papers for ClickThrough Marketing for 6 years.

ClickThrough is a digital marketing agency, providing web development, search engine optimisation, pay per click management, conversion optimisation and content marketing services.

Since 2004, ClickThrough has helped several companies from big brands to small start-ups grow Google rankings, boost conversions, increase return on digital marketing investment, and stretch Internet marketing budgets to get value for money.

We pride ourselves on giving honest advice based on the latest digital marketing best practices. Our RITE core values of Results, Innovation, Trust and Excellence drive everything we do.

A proven & trusted agency since 2003

Creators of BidCops.com - Europe’s leading free AdWords Auditing Tool

We are a Top 100 Agency on Recommended Agency Register

We have published several books on digitalmarketing, sold on Amazon

Proven track record from our work with clients including Peugeot, Triumph, Nectar, Comic Relief, Scottish Power and Halfords

Our people all receive our industry-leading, Digital Academy training

Active members of the IAB, eConsultancy and SEMPO

Thought leaders, giving clients the inside track on what matters in search, social media and the digital marketplace... before it happens!

Whether you are thinking of changing your search or digital marketing agency, or just looking to improve your online conversion rate, our team of search conversion experts can help.

Find out what we can do to grow your business. Call us on 0800 088 7486 or visit www.clickthrough-marketing.com

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INTRODUCTION

The e-commerce sector continues to experience phenomenal growth. What this means for your e-commerce store is a high-pressure, demanding role to become and remain THE most vital link in revenue generation for your online business. It is, therefore, critical that you make all the right decisions regarding design, build and implementation... for today and into the future.

You may be...

• Selling a handful of products• Selling thousands of products from a

multi- location company across the globe• Already using one e-commerce store but

struggling because it cannot achieve your goals• Enjoying expansion and need to look at a

scalable alternative as your business continues to grow

You may be in any or all of the situations listed above but it goes without saying that developing an e-commerce siterequires the right choices to be made. The platform and the developer you choose are two of the key decisions that will need careful consideration. This Guide will help to explain

the fundamentals of an e-commerce build and look at all the important facets and functionality that an e-commerce site should have to succeed.

For reasons you will soon discover and appreciate in this Guide, we have focused on Magento as a preferred platform of choice. A great e-commerce site will be fully functional, SEO-compliant and built for conversions. The goal is to lead (qualified) visitors into the sales funnel and the money into your business.

This Guide will tell you some of what we have learned at ClickThrough Marketing in 220,000 hours of website design, Internet marketing and e-commerce development since 2004.

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WHICH E-COMMERCE PLATFORMS DO THE TOP 10,000 GLOBAL SITES USE

February 2013 snapshot: Magento has a 26%

market share of e-commerce sites in the Alexa Top

1 Million. Over 125,000 merchants are using

Magento for their e-commerce storefronts, including

some of the largest

brand names in fashion, clothing, sports and

electronics. (Source: Customer Paradigm,

http://clikth.ru/1mXoTJG)

Custom Cart 31.94%

Magento 12.25%

WooCommerce 6.19%

Zen Cart 3.73%

osCommerce 3.47%

BigCommerce 3.31%

OpenCart 3.00%

Volusion 2.92%

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PrestaShop 2.79%

Shopify 2.48%

Yahoo 2.48%

Magento Enterprise 1.27%

VirtueMart 1.23%

WP e-Commerce 1.19%

Other 20.40%

TOP 10 CHECKLIST FOR CHOOSING AN E-COMMERCE PLATFORM

SCALABLE TO FIT WITH YOUR EXPANSIONIt can be difficult to envisage how your company may expand both on and offline, but choosing a non-scalable platform can leave you out-of-pocket. You may need to begin all over again with your e-commerce build if the platform cannot adapt to your growing requirements. Magento is often called the “platform for growth” with good reason.

For instance, you may need to integrate multi-channels into your future requirements.

1 NAIL THE STRATEGYWhat exactly do you want your e-commerce platform to achieve? You need to develop an e-commerce strategy that works for YOU, YOUR business and YOUR buyers. This will include assessing, understanding, designing and developing for future growth, personalised shopping experiences, ease of use, multiple stores and brands, affiliates, marketing, back-office integration, social media tie-ins, as well as taking into account likely new developments and consumer habits.

Understand today how your online store and e-commerce requirements may grow and adapt over the coming years. This will help ensure that your e-commerce store has the lifespan required for significant ROI and ongoing customer satisfaction well into the future.

2 FREE OR PAID? OPEN SOURCE OR PROPRIETARY?

Much Open Source software is now a viable proposition for any size company or organisation. The size of development communities working on Open Source projects are often the envy of reputable companies who quite simply cannot afford

to hire that many staff. These developer communities work tirelessly and passionately to improve the code and functionality, to develop extensions and plug-ins, to advance the core program, and to troubleshoot bugs. What this means is that the resulting software can be considerably more robust, advanced and reliable than the equivalent proprietary solution.

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Some of the enterprise level proprietary solutions claim to be multi or omnichannel software and the same can be said of Magento Enterprise as well as Magento Community (withextensions). The beauty of Open Source, however, is that you can hand pick software to suit your needs, and through APIs create integrations into your site. We would recommend finding the best solutions for each channel needed and integrate into Magento if you need a single hub, or keep them separate if not.

We often use a combination of the best SAAS alongside Magento. For example, through integrating with stock control systems, it is possible to order online and pick up from the nearest physical store (click & collect). The objective of offering your customer a unique brand experience across all shopping arenas is not something that can be controlled and accomplished exclusively through a website alone. You need to evaluate all methods of customer and brand touch points in order to ensure brand continuity and consistency. As far asMagento is concerned, a well-constructed, responsive web site will provide this consistency. In addition, it will ensure that any 3rd party integrations are well executed.

TOP 10 CHECKLIST FOR CHOOSING AN E-COMMERCE PLATFORM

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“THE BEAUTY OF OPEN SOURCE,HOWEVER, IS THAT YOU CAN HANDPICK SOFTWARE TO SUIT YOUR NEEDS”

CUSTOMISABLEThere are restrictions within some e-commerce platforms that will prevent you from creating stores that exactly suit your requirements. This may be acceptable to a small company with limited products, little in-house expertise, a tiny budget, and in a niche market where its products stand out. However, being able to create the store that not only best represents your brand, but also suits your customers’ needs and yours are vital.

Full customisation, including of the core files and classes, gives Magento the edge over other e-commerce platforms. It allows you to create a store that is the envy of your competition. Note that you will require experienced PHP developers for advanced customisation - talk to ClickThrough Marketing about the myriad possibilities for store and back-end customisation.

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SELF-HOSTED OR HOSTEDA self-hosted solution is one that you own a license to and

can run on your own hardware. A hosted solution is a service provided to your company for a cost - these fees can differ widely and may be based on revenue, number of products and transactions, or even bandwidth usage.

No hosting company can boast 100% uptime, but if youre-commerce presence and sales are entirely reliant on a hosted solution, you can see the impact of downtime on your sales; a potential problem over which you have no control should that host experience server issues. Redundant and failover hosting services are essential and there can also be migration issues should you build your store with certain hosted e-commerce providers. After spending money on a store, it would be disappointing to discover that you cannot easily move it to a new platform and your own servers. Some providers make it impossible to migrate your data and design elsewhere. Not only that, you may find you have to wave goodbye to your IP should you move. All in all, a drain on time and resources and a situation you definitely want to avoid.

PERFORMANCE AND STRAIN ON HOSTING SERVERS

The databases behind e-commerce stores can be complex, and busy stores can be conducting hundreds of thousands of transactions an hour. This can put a strain on the servers hosting your database and possibly even threaten the responsiveness of the database. When that happens, the speed at which results are returned to the shopper will decline—not a good thing!Mirrored servers as well as separate database servers can help to mitigate this type of problem, but these come at a cost. You should seek out specialist hosting if you are planning large stores. (See also: Hosting Do’s and Don’ts)

TOP 10 CHECKLIST FOR CHOOSING AN E-COMMERCE PLATFORM

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SEO READY / CONVERSION READYSome e-commerce platforms have been built without

ensuring that the finished store will conform to an SEO audit. In an ever-changing Internet marketing landscape, this can cause multiple problems and the work required in order to overcome these can prove costly. This problem hascaused many an Internet marketing manager to pull hair out in desperation when the finished product simply will not perform on the search engines. Here at ClickThrough, we are firstand foremost a digital marketing agency; we know the pitfallscaused by design and build done without accounting for the complexities and intricacies of SEO. EASE OF

USEWhen choosing which e-commerce package will suit you, consider the experience required to configure the platform to suit your needs - will you use in-house skills or bringin developers? Magento, for instance, has very stringent qualification examinations, which reflect the knowledge required to configure the software. Hiring a developer to work in-house can prove costly and time-consuming, especially if you donot have multiple projects requiring those skills. You will need PHP skills available to customise Magento so that it delivers all that you need. Other e-commerce packages may require less programming, but may also deliver less functionality.

TOP 10 CHECKLIST FOR CHOOSING AN E-COMMERCE PLATFORM

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JUMPING ON THE BANDWAGON

TOP 10 CHECKLIST FOR CHOOSING AN E-COMMERCE PLATFORM

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Should you use what everyone else is using? No! It is imperative to have a clear understanding of all factors that affect your store and your business prior to choosing a platform. The most common error when making the platform choice is over-estimating what you require because xyz brand or abc competitor is using it. The platform needs to suit your business requirements, and not vice versa.

10 PROJECT MANAGEMENTE-commerce design and build is not a simple task. In order to cover all the bases, competent project management is essential. You will need to plan carefully beyond just the design and build process to think about how the finished store will assist the marketing and sales departments.

“IT IS IMPERATIVE TO HAVE ACLEAR UNDERSTANDING OF ALLFACTORS THAT AFFECT YOUR STORE AND YOUR BUSINESS PRIOR TOCHOOSING A PLATFORM.”

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Working with an agency to develop your store can present challenges you may not have considered before making your decisions about which platform and which agency to select. At the outset, it may be that you do not know what you do not know. Until the process has begun, you cannot ask the right questions that will save problems further down the line. A bit of a Catch 22 situation there!

BUDGET SHOCKSHere is a good example to illustrate how the financial aspect can very quickly and unexpectedly, become an indomitable challenge in your e-commerce implementation process. One company has been using IBM WebSphere and encountered problems with that platform because it is simply toocomplex, too expensive to support, too difficult to amend(e.g. prices, attributes and extra features) and suffers SEO issues that have proven impossible for them to overcome. It has become apparent as time has progressed that there is one question the client failed to ask the agency. “Howmuch do you charge for changes or consideration of new developments, technologies or plug-ins?”

When a simple conversation about, “Do you think we should add MailChimp?” comes with an invoice attached for a chat, followed by a £1500 bill for MailChimp integration, this can

become a financial outlay that may be outside the initial budget for your site. Simple add-ons such as MailChimp should not come with a hefty price tag attached.

For this particular client, a move to Magento is nowimminent. And, this is the perfect example of why othercompanies should make Magento their first choice rather than their last resort.

SLOW PACE OF CHANGEThe dynamics of the e-commerce market and the increasedsophistication of shoppers are both rapid changes. Many store owners discover that the platform theychoose is simply not equipped to keep pace with their requirements. This is one of the advantages ofOpen Source; requests for new features can be asked directly of the developer community.Frequently, a feature that is popular is added to the next core upgrade or is made available to all for free or at lowcost. It can often be a simple plug and play extension that takes literally minutes to set up.

REAL-LIFE CHALLENGES WITH INDUSTRY E-COMMERCE EXPERTS

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One client realised that the vast majority of their shoppers were accessing the store from mobile devices. They took advantage of the latest version of Magento which includes multiplenew features for responsive sites to cope with the different requirements for mobile users:

• device-specific media capabilities for audio and video

• touch and swipe features for products and images

• cross-sell and upsell capabilities

• product drag and drop into the shopping cart

• and much more!

POST-BUILD ISSUESYour marketing department may discover issues with the

e-commerce store once it has gone live. The most common problem with certain platforms is the store structure which makes Internet marketing very difficult. Developers often do not understand the marketing requirements of a website or

usability (UX). Whilst delivering a superb store from a design point of view, the developers also need to understand that the marketing team must also be able to promote it without being penalised by the search engines. The customer support team cannot afford to be inundated with complaints that the store will not work for users. If this does happen, it can lead to poor reviews and negative conversations which in turn will affect the brand’s reputation. As we know, it is tougher to bring on new clients and far easier to retain existing ones...if you do the right thing and ensure you retain their loyalty with a consistently high quality experience.

REAL-LIFE CHALLENGES WITH INDUSTRY E-COMMERCE EXPERTS

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CONDITIONAL ATTRIBUTE DEAL BREAKEROne hosted platform that has come on in leaps and bounds and which can be run on a very limited budget is Shopify. The same is true of BigCommerce. Don’t get me wrong; Shopifyis wonderful; we love it, however, it is not always appropriate. If you are starting out and intend to use all the biggest and best SaaS to cover your end-to-end digital solution, then Shopify may be ideal. One limitation that has been a deal- breaker for us and Shopify is conditional attributes. This is where you choose one product variation and this influences your subsequent choices. So if you are selling a customisable PC, you might be offered the choice of Intel or AMD CPU. Depending on your choice you would then choose an appropriate motherboard. You cannot achieve this with Shopify; however, it is built into Magento.

REAL-LIFE CHALLENGES WITH INDUSTRY E-COMMERCE EXPERTS

ONE HOSTED PLATFORM THAT HAS COME ON IN LEAPS AND BOUNDSAND WHICH CAN BE RUN ON A VERY LIMITED BUDGET IS SHOPIFY.

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PLATFORM OPTIONS

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You will need to decide whether you want a solution under your full control and on your servers, or whether you are content to use a self-hosted solution. There are a number of pros and cons to be considered with each choice.

HOSTED SOLUTIONSVolution and BigCommerce tout themselves as being Magento alternatives, however, they are hosted solutions. Shopify is a smaller scale option, as is MagentoGo.

Pros: Hosted solutions are much cheaper, more stable and easier to use because they are built for the mass market and hence, are more user-friendly. This also leads to the hosting being part of a more expensive server set-up than most individual companies can afford. The advantage, of course, is much better uptime. Plug and play is easy to work with, and add-ons and extensions are easy to install.

Cons: There may be a lack of flexibility, (extensions, plug- ins, etc.) purely because it is built to suit the mass market rather than your particular requirements. Additional issues could include the inability to customise and fit any bespokeneeds that you may have, as well as a lack of functionality. For instance, Shopify is unable to cope with conditional attribute configuration. There is also a level of vulnerability - being part

of a shared environment makes it a more attractive target, so if the host gets hacked, millions of sites may be affected.

DOWNLOADED (SELF-HOSTED)like IBM WebSphere and .net, Magento

Pros: This solution will give you complete control and total freedom of choice. It has the capability to tailor-make service provisions to your market requirements. In addition, you will have control over market choices, such as which serversto use. It will also allow you to conduct testing from the live, commercial environment.

Cons: You may be dealing with high monthly costs. Plus, everything will be your responsibility; whether this is maintaining uptime and servers, resolving issues with the web developers or host, and so on. You could find yourself becoming an island away from the developer community. For instance, if your store evolves away from the core to such an extent through the need to customise, it may be difficult tofind help. You will need a development platform to test prior to going live, particularly if customisation has been extensive.

Consider the cost - An e-commerce store needs to pay for itself and not become a financial burden simply because poor decisions were made when building it. Make your budgetgo much further simply by choosing the right platform and anticipating what you will require in the future.

Size matters - If your business is quite small, with hundreds rather than thousands of products and SKUs, and not requiring integration with third party systems, (such as accounting, stock control, and distributors), then Shopify might be more appropriate than Magento.

Look into the future - It is important to think clearly about your plans for future growth and avoid needing to re-build your store 18-24 months down the line. The availability of e-commerce SaaS and plug and play solutions have made entry levele-commerce extremely affordable for SMEs.

Stand out from the crowd - Do not be carried away and just use what everyone else is using. Few companies require the complexity, or license and support costs of platforms such as IBM WebSphere, which has often been used becauseof the bandwagon effect. Although it can also go beyond the requirements of many, Magento is often a more suitable solution. What is important to keep in mind is that your

PLATFORM CONSIDERATIONS: WHICH PLATFORM SHOULD I CHOOSE?

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store needs to stand out; not simply be a clone of another company’s store!

Think clearly - Many large corporations are under the misapprehension that they require a Microsoft or other giant company’s solution (like IBM WebSphere). This is legacy thinking. “No-one ever got fired for buying IBM” is from the days when there was limited competition and options such as Open Source simply did not exist.

The other side of the coin - Smaller companies tend to over- estimate their size and requirements. Do not buy an Enterprise solution if you are an SME!

Be brave - Your requirements may be met by a smaller scale or Open Source solution. There are plenty of well-known brands using Open Source, so you will not be alone...just in case you need comfort in numbers!

Don’t act like sheep - There can be a degree of herd mentality, but do not choose a package just because a large brand name is using it. Look closely at how well these stores work before deciding to emulate them.

Make it usable - User Experience (UX) is a vital component

of your e-commerce design. A quick look at customer review sites will allow you to discover that the customer thinks a certain brand’s e-commerce set-up is difficult to navigate or complicated to use.

How complicated is it? Simplify! - The architecture and infrastructure needed to run some systems mean that it is really expensive and difficult to make changes. This can further mean that SEO issues are very hard to resolve.

Omnichannelling - Consider all the different channels that will be required to reach your customer: mobile, bricks and mortar stores, website, social media profiles, and offline advertising all

PLATFORM CONSIDERATIONS: WHICH PLATFORM SHOULD I CHOOSE?

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need to be considered to make your store accessible to every potential customer. The platform you choose should integrate all channels so that access to your store is a simple matter, whatever the device or the initial touchpoint for a consumer.

Developer dilemma - Magento can be a challenge. It is considered an advanced system that requires advanced PHP developers and front end designers. It can be more expensive to support than an out-of-the-box solution. It is infinitely flexible but it does require a level of expertise for developers.Nevertheless, Magento costs are likely to be significantly lower than the equivalent .NET or WebSphere costs.

How large will you grow - Magento is built with multiple stores and global e-commerce in mind; all built from the same database. This is particularly true of the Enterprise version, so scalability will not be an issue from 100 SKUs to millions.

Make ‘em pay - eBay’s ownership of both Magento and PayPal mean that PayPal is more tightly integrated with Magento than with many other packages. You will also have many other payment gateways available as extensions to cater for multiple payment options.

PLATFORM CONSIDERATIONS: WHICH PLATFORM SHOULD I CHOOSE?

THE PLATFORM YOU CHOOSESHOULD INTEGRATE ALL CHANNELS SO THAT ACCESS TO YOUR STORE IS A SIMPLE MATTER, WHATEVER THE DEVICE OR THE INITIAL TOUCHPOINT FOR A CONSUMER.

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It is good to think big, but Magento Enterprise, and others in the same league, are beasts. Open Source developmentoften relies on techies and geeks, who may not comprehend all the intricacies of running a business, design features, marketing and SEO. Magento was one of the first platforms to address all of these issues in an affordable package - the Community Edition.

The Enterprise version was developed for larger corporations, and whilst using many of the same core files, it has additional features, increased reliability and tighter security. Magento (Enterprise) is aimed in the same place as WebSphere andis much more agile, but much easier to personalise and customise.

Both the Community and Enterprise editions offer multiple stores using a common back-end. There is a single administrative area meaning that all the products/inventory, customers and orders are held in the same place.

Security has been built in from the outset with Magento; so many concerns that affect other packages have already been addressed in both the Community and Enterprise editions.

WHY USE MAGENTO ENTERPRISE, OR NOT?

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Database driven websites can use bandwidth and processor power much as an oil tanker consumes diesel! If youare going to send a lot of traffic, you need to either have a separate, dedicated server for the database or ensure MYSQL has caching turned on.

Speed matters - Google research back in 2009 showed that even a 0.1% improvement in load time can increase sales by 1%. In 2014, users are even more impatient to get results; so if you want your site to deliver results quickly, you will certainly want a dedicated server.

HOSTING SPEED

SPEED MATTERS - GOOGLE RESEARCH BACK IN 2009 SHOWED THAT EVEN A0.1% IMPROVEMENT IN LOAD TIME CAN INCREASE SALES BY 1%

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Many companies have discovered that an e-commerce store cannot be a stand-alone site; it needs to be integrated with your back and middle office systems or you will simply create more and more administration tasks for your already overburdened workforce.

If you are looking to join up back and middle office, then Magento is great. For example, there are already extensions to integrate with Sage 50 and through Magento’s SOAP API,you can integrate with SAP, Sage 100, 200 and many other 3rd party systems. You can also create automated connections to fulfillment centres, receive feedback such as tracking numbers to help you to follow an order right through from stock control, billing, delivery as well as refunds, repair returns or exchanges.

THIRD PARTY INTEGRATIONS

AN E-COMMERCE STORE CANNOT BE A STAND-ALONE SITE; IT NEEDS TO BE INTEGRATED WITH YOUR BACKAND MIDDLE OFFICE SYSTEMS ORYOU WILL SIMPLY CREATE MORE AND MORE ADMINISTRATION TASKS

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Brilliant Plugins and Extensions for Magento There are more than 7500 plug-ins in the MagentoConnect marketplace so you will be spoiled for choice. There is no need to design your own solution to a problem when so many excellent and tested plug-ins exist. Order alerts, in-aisle checkouts, order ahead functionality, payment gateways, frequently bought together, Ajax catalogues, one page checkouts, real time visitor tracking and much, much more.

In the extensions sections of the Magento site, there are ratings, reviews, plus the well-known third party makers to help you choose the right, high quality, reliable extension for you.

Reputable plugin makers include:

Magestore.com (e.g. Ajax cart Extension) W

ebshopapps (.e.g. Multiple Table Rates extension)

Aheadworks (e.g. Follow Up email and Advanced Reports)

Amasty (e.g. Extended product grid with editor and Coupon

Generator)

Ajax Cart Preview

Blast Lucene Search

BRILLIANT PLUGINS AND EXTENSIONS FOR MAGENTO

IN THE EXTENSIONS SECTIONS OF THE MAGENTO SITE, THERE ARE RATINGS, REVIEWS, PLUS THE WELL-KNOWNTHIRD PARTY MAKERS TO HELP YOU CHOOSE THE RIGHT, HIGH QUALITY, RELIABLE EXTENSION FOR YOU.

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You may have an existing WordPress site or blog that you wish to integrate with your Magento store. There is a Fishpig plug-in that makes this a simple task, allowing you to use the same theme for both Magento and yoursite, associate posts with products and you only need to log in once to administer both your blog and your shop.

Fishpig also provides support for a host of popular WordPress plug-ins that you may already be using.(Magento WordPress Integration)

WORDPRESS INTEGRATION

FISHPIG ALSO PROVIDES SUPPORT FOR A HOST OF POPULARWORDPRESS PLUG-INS THAT YOU MAY ALREADY BE USING.

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Magento has tons of functionality such as cross sells, checkout functions, pricing rules, discount codes,coupons, and advanced customisation. The point tobear in mind is that if the agency or designer building the site does not understand conversion, a Magento- built site may not perform to meet neither yourobjectives nor those of your visitor.

Out of the box, Magento features Cross Sells (people who bought this, also bought this), Up Sells (…you are interested in Bronze….why not consider Silver or Gold?), attributes (e.g. colours, size, etc.) and categories (household goods, computers, clothing, books, etc.) which makes it easy for customers to drill down and find exactly what they seek, as well as related items for accessories.

There are also many downloadable themes available at low to medium cost. These features can be a good start, but an agency that understands the customer and marketplace is best placed to work out how best to present that business and increase conversion rate. This may be through use of colour, white space etc. (we have lots of information on conversion best practice).

Also connected to conversion rate is speed and there is a lot that needs to be done to make a Magento site run quickly.

This is connected to hosting and platform extension as well as setup. If you are considering using an off-the-shelf theme, be aware that it may be packed full of code libraries you might not need, which can slow your site down considerably.

For instance, a site which takes 4 seconds to download into the customer’s browser can be optimised to load in around half that time. It is essential to have a developer who understands these issues, particularly as page load time is one of the factors in the search engines’ algorithms.

BUILDING A MAGENTO SITE THAT CONVERTS

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Over the last decade, we have developed an SEOaccreditation (or checklist) which every site we develop (or work with) must pass in order for us to permit the website to go live. An SEO accredited site will pass all of the search engines’ criteria to help improve ranking and performance.

Straight out of the box, any Magento system is poorly prepared for SEO; other platforms are usually even worse and can require even more work to resolve the problems.Understanding the importance of an Internet marketing-ready website from the outset means our Magento sites are built with SEO accreditation as a developer priority.

We check and cross-check 20 technical criteria in our SEO accreditation, including the existence of broken links, use of redirects, application of robots.txt, use of canonical links, effect of duplicate content, instances of 404 errors, URL formatting, titles, descriptions & keywords, aspects relating to pagetext, home page aspects, use of page tags, implementation of image tags, internal linking & anchor text, search engineinclusion, XML Sitemap Implementation, server location, server speed, use of branding, attention to detail, use of external links and many more factors.

For instance, by default, Magento generates many different URLs to serve up what is essentially the same page. This creates canonisation issues. Also Magento’s layered navigation creates thousands of unnecessary URLs and may end up with hundreds of thousands of Google indexed URLS when there are only a few thousand products. Precise steps need to be taken to deal with this and direct Google appropriately in order to avoid penalties.

This is the same problem with many blue chips on IBM WebSphere, .net or Vendor. They simply cannot solve the issues and this generates problems with Internet marketing as well as UX.

BUILDING AN SEO ACCREDITED MAGENTO SITE

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Since 2004, we have worked on hundreds of web build, site migration and ecommerce projects. We have evolved a unique 35-stage process to successful e-commerce site build - the goal being to deliver a conversion-led, SEO accredited site that maximizes traffic volumes and conversions.

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Magento is an advanced system and it requiresexpert developers who are able to deliver the level of customisation you will need. Most companies do not have the required expertise in-house and choosing a partner experienced with advanced PHP development is essential if you want your website to meet yourrequirements.

The design and functionality of your store is important, but so is ensuring that once built, it can be found and is easy to use. ClickThrough has all the required design, programming and development skills in-house. In addition, you will have the advantage of our remarkable teams of successful digital marketing experts, covering all the necessary expertise including SEO, PPC, social media, email marketing, conversions, PR and content marketing.

CHECKLIST FOR CHOOSING A MAGENTO PARTNER

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During the site design and build, you should remember that once the site is launched, there will be marketing considerations, and these should be incorporated into the design phase. It can be extremely difficult, if notimpossible, to take these into account post-build so due consideration must be given to aspects, such as:

1. Site structure for ease of use as well as for the search engines

2. On-page optimisation for page content and keywords

3. CTRs (ClickThrough Rates) for optimised microdata, which includes well-written page titles and descriptions

4. Clean keyword URLs (rather than default auto- generated URLs which can play havoc with SEO)

5. Page Rank flow (or link juice)

6. Product feeds for Google’s PLAs (Product Listing Ads) to ensure your products are included in the listings.

7. Quality score for your PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns

8. Content marketing, including downloadable guides and landing pages for specific content

9. Social profile integrations and RSS feeds

10. Review sites relevant to your sector, such as Feefo

DON’T FORGET THESE 10 POST-LAUNCH MARKETING CONSIDERATIONS

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