Magento Website Maintenance: The Optimum Checklist

As it is important to create and develop the best Magento website, in the same way, it is important to maintain the integrity of the website and keep it error-free for the customers, whether existing or potential.

Just owning a website is half the job!

Maintaining your website is indeed mandatory for a successful online business. Though it might sound a tedious task to some, believe it or not, it does save a lot of time and money. Conversely, neglecting it can cause serious issues with the website’s performance and result in loss of sales, revenues and customers. Thus, you need to stick to a Magento maintenance checklist that comprises of all the elements required for a high-performance store. Thought these elements might appear simple but they make a huge difference.

Not to forget, the checklist should be followed by the best practices for Magento maintenance. Only then can you achieve the store of your dreams and build a brand that precedes all.

Now it’s time to get hands on the checklist for Magento website maintenance.

Start by Analyzing Your Site’s Performance

Magento website maintenance should begin with a performance analysis that aims at spotting any potential problems that are existing or may arise in the future.

Luckily, tools such as Google Analytics enable in easy monitoring of key parameters like traffic, bounce rates, form submissions, orders and much more. Complexities in these parameters indicate problems; for instance, a high bounce rate reflects problems with speed, content or spam traffic. Ai addition to this, unusual traffic spikes, decline in conversion rates and decrease in orders are other concerns to watch out for.

79% of customers who report dissatisfaction with website performance are less likely to buy from that same site again.

Examine the Speed of Your Website

Speed is a factor that ruins a huge number of eCommerce business. Either it is content, images or graphics that might be hampering the speed, your website should always have the fastest speed as it greatly affects the customer’s interest. Here’s the proof:

• 47% of people expect your site to load in less than 2 seconds.
• 40% will abandon it entirely if it takes longer than 3 seconds.
• 85% of internet users expect a mobile site to load as fast or faster than on their desktop.

(Source: Kissmetrics) 

So, it’s important to keep a check on the parameters on a regular basis in order to get customers and good site speed.

Perform a Security Check

Besides speed, security is another top priority for any eCommerce website. So a security check is another task that you cannot ignore doing as a part of your site’s monthly maintenance routine. Any lapse in security puts the user data at risk as well as can cause other issues for your business, considering the new data privacy laws that have been declared for eCommerce sellers. Moreover, Google also prioritizes the sites that are secure and gets them on top of search rankings.

35% of individuals will abandon a site if it does not appear to have a security badge.

Check on Broken Links

Your store might be vulnerable to broken links which can directly have a negative impact on user experience and lead to cart abandonment. Therefore, keeping a check on those links should be a part of your maintenance. Tools like Google webmaster or Bing webmaster facilitate easy detection of error pages and enable you to fix such pages so that you can provide a smooth user experience.

Test Your Forms

Another key part of maintaining your Magento eCommerce store is to check the forms that make a part of the selling and marketing process. Typically, an online store runs several forms to collect user information, email addresses, contact details and queries. Even a minor glitch in here can result in a huge loss of leads. Besides testing these forms, test the backend process for responding to the queries as well.

Test the Order Process

One of the overlooked but most important parts of the maintenance is testing the order process. It is crucial to test the entire order process not only monthly but on a regular basis to ensure that every single UX is a seamless one. Analyse criteria such as product navigation, add-to-cart, checkout and payment since these are major reasons behind returning customers and cart abandonment.

27% of customers leave because the checkout process is too complicated.

Backup Your Store

Another crucial task on your monthly website maintenance checklist should be to back up your website.

In case of any technical, security or any other issues with your online website, you can sit back and relax with complete knowing that you have a backup and will never have to start from ground zero or build an entirely new website from scratch.

Update Content

Apart from all the technical aspects, your site should always have fresh content for your visitors. A fresh and new blog does wonder in engaging more visitors and increasing site traffic through SEO. You can also run contests or promotional campaigns just to add more fun and engagement.

Marketers who prioritize blogging efforts are 13x more likely to see positive ROI.

Well, this is the complete checklist for maintaining your Magento website and keeping it at its best. Implementing each of these in the right manner will definitely prove beneficial.