Updating and maintaining your ecommerce website is an important yet overlooked task. Regular maintenance of your ecommerce website will make it secure, load faster, and gives a trouble free browsing experience for users.
Unfortunately, many ignore ecommerce website maintenance and run into massive problems later on. When problems arise in an ecommerce website, it can be devastating because you’ll lose customers.
So keeping your ecommerce website well maintained should be on the top of your to-do list. Below is a general ecommerce website maintenance checklist that should be performed on a regular basis to ensure you don’t lose customers.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
- Ecommerce Website Maintenance Checklist
- Product, price and page addition
- Design refresh
- Security updates
- Functionality additions
- Re-check links on your website
- Review your contact information
- How much will it cost to maintain my ecommerce website?
- Why is website maintenance important for your ecommerce store?
- Conclusion
Ecommerce Website Maintenance Checklist
Product, price and page addition
As your online presence grows, you may want to sell few more items. Or add few more pages like FAQ or give more instructions on how to use a product. Or, you may want to remove a page and replace it with something else. They can be done easily as long as you’re using a CMS like WordPress.
While you’re at it, make sure you remove discontinued products update product descriptions and if required add more information.
When it comes to price, some of them are unstable and may even change every day. And others may require updates due to discounts. You have to always keep an eye on price changes. Keep your customers informed when price changes are made or if there are any special offers.
Design refresh
You may decide to change the background color of your website from gray to white according to the latest graphic design trends. Or want to make small changes in your logo according to the current logo design trends.
You can edit your HTML and CSS files to adjust your requirements. Keep in mind that before making the changes, it has to be properly tested.
Security updates
No matter the CMS you’re using, security maintenance is the most important part of ecommerce website maintenance.
In your ecommerce website, many of your customer’s sensitive data are stored. If you ignore security updates you risk losing all the data.
Functionality additions
If your ecommerce website needs something that your CMS cannot accommodate, you have to add plugins to expand the functionality. Adding plugins can perk up your website and in CMS’s like WordPress, they are a requirement to get your ecommerce store to function.
You can also modify the checkout process and collect your email address for newsletter signups with plugins. They can be installed easily and implemented on your website immediately. You can also go for a custom designed plugin if you want it to have tailor-made functionalities.
Re-check links on your website
Your user will click on a link hoping to find out more information. If the 404 page pops up, it will annoy the user and they may even move on to another website to get information or buy a product. It is always good to a weekly check to find out if all the internal and external links are working properly.
Review your contact information
Double check all your contact details- email address, telephone number, and physical address.
Update website terms and conditions, privacy policy, and disclaimers. And make sure all the forms in your website are working properly.
Review website SEO
Think of ways to improve your SEO to increase traffic. Examine your current SEO tactic to increase relevant traffic. You can also get help from our SEO maintenance retainer team to find out about the importance of SEO maintenance on a website.
Ecommerce website maintenance cost
It depends on the ecommerce platform you’re currently using. We’ll break it down according to the platforms.
Custom Ecommerce stores
If you already have an established custom ecommerce that is based on a PHP or Java framework, then the ecommerce website maintenance cost will be around $20k-$30K per year
Magento
For Magento stores, it will cost around $10k-$50k per year.
Opencart/Volusion/Zencart
Monthly website maintenance plan starts as low $300 per month.
Shopify/BigCommerce
Development starts from $1000 and a monthly maintenance may not be required as their support system is good.
Why is website maintenance important for your ecommerce store?
To help you understand why website maintenance is important for an ecommerce store, we have tried to answer some of the common questions around this area.
-
What will happen if I don’t maintain my ecommerce website?
The look and browsing experience of your website will leave either a positive or negative impact on the viewer’s mind. An updated website means your website is always on trend and will create a good reputation for your business.
-
Does avoiding website maintenance harm my business?
What will your reaction be if you came across Christmas discounts during July? It will give an impression that you’re no longer doing business or you don’t care about maintaining your website. Keeping your ecommerce website updated will allow people to trust your business.
-
My ecommerce website has a good ranking in search engines, why should I maintain it?
Search engine bots prefer a website that is fast, well-maintained and error-free. Every time you update your website, the search engine bots will improve your rankings. If you don’t add relevant keywords, you will not be able to maintain your ranking which will ultimately lead to loss of traffic and ranking.
Wrapping up our Ecommerce website maintenance checklist
Ecommerce website maintenance is more than just keeping your small business website updated. Apart from that, your website has to be user-friendly and easily navigable. With advanced technologies in the rise every now and then, you have to make sure your website is compatible with different technologies.
Our experts at Web Design Retainer have a deep knowledge of all the process and the requirements that have to be made for ecommerce maintenance. If you have any website maintenance issues or in need of website maintenance services, contact us anytime
