EXPERT TIPS TO E-COMMERCE WEBSITE MAINTENANCE
Once you complete the build-out of your marketplace, a lot of time and effort will go forth in keeping your website live and routinely updated. This is called maintenance. Make no mistake, maintenance is never a ten-minute job.
It requires a complete, hands-on-deck effort from either your team or an agency to keep your website running smoothly. Unfortunately, if you don’t have a routine maintenance checklist or don’t know the first thing about managing your website, it may fall to the wayside.
The good news is that this guide will contain five important maintenance tips every e-Commerce platform should follow.
1. Insert Third-Party Code into Google Tag Manager
There are a lot of technical aspects in regards to managing an e-Commerce website, and this happens to be one of them. If you’re reading this, chances are that your marketplace has some sort of code snippet, whether it’s from Google Adwords or Analytics.
Google Tag Manager is a place where you can organize all of your snippets, saving you time in hard coding things. This is how it works. You simply insert the Google Tag Manager code snippet into the `<head>`.
Whenever you need to install a third-party application, go to Google Tag Manager, and insert the third-party code as a new tag. This is a great way to save time and centralize your code snippets in one place.
There are other benefits, which include:
- You can improve the speed of your website by having greater control over your scripts.
- You don’t need to hire new developers when you want to try out a new application.
- All of your code snippets are in one location for convenient management.
- You can simply remove code from applications you are no longer using.
- You can set up and configure trigger tracking events without messing up code.
- You can modify advanced analytics, using data layers, variables, and triggers.
- You can revert all changes if you change your mind.
- You can test all code before saving your changes and going live.
You can also use Google Tag Manager to keep track of your website’s campaigns and track how much revenue each campaign is bringing in as this company did below.
In sum, all code snippets you would otherwise hard code are instead inserted into Google Tag Manager for easy access.
2. Track 404 Pages in Google Search Console
Google Search Console is an invaluable platform that allows you to see how Google views your website. This tool lets you see how your website ranks on Google, all of the pages Google indexed, and all of the HTML improvements you can make.
Though, one of the most useful features of Google Search Console is the “Crawl Errors” category. This feature gives you a glimpse of all of the websites that link back to your broken pages, known as 404 pages.
404 pages are notoriously harmful to the user experience of your website because they obstruct user movement and are naturally embarrassing. 404 pages also inhibit crawlers from indexing your entire website and can stop your SEO campaign in its tracks.
Once you track and identify all of the 404 pages on your website, you can take two of the following routes: create a page for the broken links or divert the traffic using a permanent 301 redirect.
The last alternative is the simplest. It also allows you to consolidate the backlinks you have and send the traffic to wherever you choose. 404 pages are hazardous to your online presence.
Locate and repair them before the issue gets out of hand.
3. Conduct NPS Surveys
Consumer opinion is pivotal for both modifying your website to fit their needs and deciding what to do next in your marketing strategy. Luckily, you can conduct a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey to see what your customers have to say about your business.
Basically, you would send out emails to converted prospects that say, “How likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?” The recipient will then have to click on a number from 1–10 and leave a comment.
Here are the categories for each possible response:
- Promoters: These are the people who score in the range of 9–10. You can count on these individuals to leave a testimonial and promote your brand on social media because they absolutely love your products.
- Passives: These are the people who score in the range of 7–8. These individuals are somewhat satisfied with what you’ve offered but could still move on with your competitor. Your company should reach back out and provide webinars, discounts, etc.
- Detractors: These are people who score in the range of 1–6. Your company should reach back out to them to see if they aren’t satisfied and fix the problem by reconfiguring your campaign.
4. Conduct A/B Testing
Even if you have a successful marketing campaign in place, experimentation is still necessary to find ways to grow your campaign. Complacency is the root of failure — just ask Toys R Us and Myspace.
In the midst of your campaign, conduct A/B tests on your problematic pages and other areas of improvement. If any of your pages have a high bounce rate, then this indicates a problem you can solve by redesigning certain aspects of the page.
5. Hire a Digital Marketing Agency
This is perhaps the most important tip of all. As you can see, e-Commerce maintenance is very technical and requires a professional with proven experience in web design and marketing.
To save yourself the money and heartache of your website being neglected, hire a digital marketing agency for your marketplace.
Give Us a Call Today!
When it comes to providing maintenance for your e-Commerce platform, hiring a professional is integral. If you want to learn more about how we can help you, give us a call today at 972–464–2797.
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