E-commerce Website Maintenance: A Complete Guide
Online shopping is pretty popular today. Statistics suggest that global online retail sales generated $5 trillion in 2021 and is expected to reach $7 trillion by 2025.
As a result, functional and responsive online stores have a bright future ahead. They can expect to attract more shoppers and keep churning more revenues.
To maximize your chances of success, you need a functional and responsive website. Your ecommerce website needs to run smoothly and offer a great user experience.
This is where the role of ecommerce website maintenance comes in.
In this blog, we explore the ins and outs of ecommerce site maintenance. You will learn how to maintain your site and the reasons for its importance.
Additionally, we will help you choose a maintenance platform for your ecommerce website maintenance tasks.
What is Ecommerce Site Maintenance?
Your ecommerce store is brand new and perfect when it goes live for the first time. You can compare your website to a new car.
It runs like a dream, achieving top speeds and turning corners like a pro. However, your car shows signs of wear and tear as the time passes.
You must take your car for maintenance services now and then to keep it working smoothly. The garage will perform many tasks, like changing the oil, adjusting the breaks, and more, to ensure the optimum efficiency of your machine.
Likewise, the same applies to your ecommerce websites. You need to ensure everything is working fine and as intended to facilitate excellent shopping experiences.
That means you must update software, run security checks, and more. The entire process of maintaining your ecommerce platform is referred to as ecommerce website maintenance.
The process consists of several tasks that we will explore in the following sections.
Why is Maintenance Important for your Ecommerce Store?
The example of the new car should help you understand the importance of website maintenance. Your car breaks down more often and can give up in the middle of the highway due to a lack of maintenance.
Similarly, the same can happen to your e-commerce business. You must maintain your internet store for reasons like:
Excellent User Experience
A well-maintained website offers a seamless shopping experience to your buyers. Regular website maintenance enhances navigation, reduces loading speed, and facilitates faster checkouts. Additionally, you can reduce your cart abandonment rates with a good UX design and website maintenance.
Search Engine Visibility
Search engines love websites that are up-to-date and provide valuable content. Accordingly, ongoing maintenance ensures your site is more likely to rank higher in search engines and attract more organic traffic.
Foolproof Security
E-commerce websites deal with sensitive data and financial records. Comprehensive maintenance ensures your customer’s data and business are safe from cyber threats.
Lower Bounce Rates
Shoppers don’t favor slow-loading pages, broken links, and outdated content. Accordingly, effective maintenance lowers bounce rates and boosts conversions by mitigating these issues.
It is crucial, as the ecommerce industry has a bounce rate of over 45%.
What are the Benefits of Ecommerce Maintenance Services?
Website maintenance services do more than keep your online business running. You enjoy a host of advantages, such as:
Higher Conversion Rates
A top-notch virtual store generates trust by facilitating seamless buying experiences. Shoppers are encouraged to complete purchases and place more orders.
Customer Loyalty
Positive shopping experiences create customer satisfaction and build loyalty. Markedly, regular updates and optimizations show your commitment to providing unparalleled service.
Competitive Edge
A reliable and fast ecommerce site helps you stand out from inferior shops. You can also use your competitive advantage to rival big brands.
Seamless Scaling
Your online store needs to handle increased traffic and transactions in order to grow. Correspondingly, ongoing upkeep ensures you can expand your operations without disruptions.
You have created the foundation to grow your business without any restrictions.
What Happens When You Don’t Maintain Your Online Stores?
The consequences of not maintaining your e-commerce website can be the reason for your downfall. Eventually your site will lose its competitive edge and produce fewer sales due to the neglect.
You can experience several serious consequences, such as:
Security Breaches
Outdated plugins, software, and security vulnerabilities can lead to data breaches. It can expose customer information and payment records, damaging your reputation.
Shoppers are more likely to stay away from insecure sites.
Low Traffic
Your search engine rankings can suffer due to outdated content and SEO strategies. Subsequently, The lack of search engine optimization and maintenance will ultimately reduce your website visitors.
This will result in low sales.
User Frustration
A lack of website maintenance means broken links, slow loading times, and confusing interface. They are enough to frustrate shoppers and drive them away from your store.
Your user experience also takes a hit.
Missed Opportunities
You will fail to capitalize and adapt to the latest technological trends due to your inability to maintain. It will lead you to miss out on opportunities for growth and innovation.
The situation will make you lose your competitive edge.
Ways to Maintain Your Ecommerce Platforms
You must look after your digital store like your brick-and-mortar store. All your site elements should work perfectly to facilitate hassle-free purchases.
Below are a few ways to maintain your ecommerce website:
Update Core Software and Plugins
Download and install all software, theme, and plugin updates. It helps you avoid security breaches, access bug fixes, and improved functionality.
You can use a tool like Jetpack to stay on top of your ecommerce updates.
Update Product Listings
You should regularly update product descriptions, specifications, and prices to reflect changes. Additionally, ensure your inventory count is perfect to avoid out-of-stock situations.
You can also update product images, videos, and more.
Backup Your Store
Make sure you create regular backups of your site, products, and customer information. It will help you get back on your feet quickly and avoid data loss in case of security breaches or hacks.
Optimize Store Performance
Tweak your store regularly to ensure continued improved performance. Use insights from performance monitoring tools to focus your priorities.
Performance optimization involves tasks like:
Optimizing site speed
Reducing site complexities
Testing your checkout pages
Removing unused plugins and elements
Security Maintenance
Security audits are an integral part of website maintenance. It helps you identify vulnerabilities and take steps to address them.
Additionally, ensure all your security plugins are working well. You must also implement all security patches.
Marketing Maintenance
You must perform a few marketing tasks to ensure your site converts customers. It involves steps like:
Fine-tuning your site based on Google Analytics insights
Managing broken links
SEO optimizations
Blogging and messaging
Content Update
Fresh and relevant content scores high on search engine rankings. Update your ecommerce website content regularly to keep appealing to your audience.
You can also upload new offers and promotions to attract more shoppers.
Always perform keyword research and use the exact keywords in your copy. It helps people find your content and generates more organic traffic.
Test for Mobile Devices
Always test your website changes for mobile devices. Your store should work seamlessly across devices for the best results.
How to Select the Right Ecommerce Maintenance Platform
An ecommerce website owner can opt for a maintenance platform to perform regular maintenance work. These user-friendly platforms help business owners manage complex technical aspects with great ecommerce website packages.
The platforms offer several features like:
Automated backups
Security scans
Performance monitoring
Content management
A maintenance platform may make sense if you want to avoid hiring a website maintenance company. However, you must be ready to put in your effort and be ready to learn.
Ecommerce website packages often provide a maintenance platform free of cost. You can also choose your own platform after considering several factors.
Below are a few tips to help you out:
Establish your needs
: Consider your website’s complexity, traffic volume, and unique requirements. It helps you determine the features you need in your maintenance platform.
Scalability
: You need a platform that scales as you grow. It should be able to handle increased demand and countless transactions per second.
User-friendliness
: Look for a solution with an intuitive interface. You should have no trouble finding your way around and performing your maintenance checklist.
Security features
: Ensure you choose a platform with robust security protocols. It must protect customer information and your digital storefront.
Regular updates
: Select a platform that releases frequent updates and security patches. It protects you from the latest cyber threats and attack techniques.
Responsive support
: Go with a platform that provides 24/7 support via call and chat. It can mean the difference between uncompromised uptime and loss of thousands of dollars.
How Much Does an E-commerce Maintenance Platform Cost?
Several factors determine website maintenance costs. It is the same when you consider the cost of ecommerce website management services.
What you pay is based on factors such as:
Features You Choose
A platform with basic features like content updates and security monitoring is highly affordable.
In comparison, you pay more for advanced features like performance optimization, SEO tools, and automated backups.
Scalability
A platform that scales seamlessly often costs more. However, they offer a tiered maintenance plan based on the number of products, visitors, or transactions.
It can help you grow as you go and save money in the long run. You can also avoid frequent platform changes when you scale your online business.
Customization
Ecommerce businesses come with diverse needs. The level of customization you want can impact the overall maintenance cost.
Platforms that allow customization and integration with other tools may come at a premium.
Ease of Use
A platform with an intuitive interface streamlines your workflows and helps you maintain your site efficiently. Needless to say, they are also expensive.
However, you can avoid training costs, time, and effort in the long run with an intuitive platform.
Support
Quality customer service makes a difference. You can access quick assistance for technical issues and security breaches.
Premium support with phone and chat assistance will cost you more.
Security Measures
Advanced security plugins and monitoring cost a development company thousands of dollars. You are going to pay more for comprehensive security measures like:
Real-time monitoring
Malware scanning
TLS integration
Ransomware protection
It is never a good idea to compromise security for money.
Hosting and Domain
Some platforms offer domain registration and hosting as a part of their plans. The cost of hosting can affect your final website maintenance costs.
Third-Party Tools
Many virtual stores rely on third-party tools for marketing, analytics, or payment processing. Your cost will go up if your platform seamlessly integrates with third-party tools.
Billing Model
Some platforms offer flexible monthly subscriptions. Others give you discounts for yearly contracts.
Your choice will impact the platform charges.
Additional Services
A few maintenance platforms offer additional services like:
SEO optimization
Website design
Web development
Content marketing
Digital marketing
Any additional service is going to cost you money.
Create Your Website Maintenance Checklist Today
Ecommerce website maintenance is vital for every business owner. It helps you offer fantastic shopping experiences and stand out from the crowd. You can also lower abandoned carts, boost conversions, and increase sales.
Do you want to increase your conversions further? Then read our blog on boosting ecommerce conversions to take your business to the next level.
We offer professional ecommerce website management services to help you grow your business. You can hand over your maintenance responsibilities to us and stay free to enhance your productivity.
Schedule a call today to learn more about our services.