You’ll often hear our Managing Director Karl Morris say “the old adage states build it and they will come – but it’s not the case with websites”. For websites to work they require strategic planning, a team of experts to build them and then ongoing monitoring and management to ensure effectiveness.
It’s no different for e-Commerce sites. Putting products online doesn’t automatically mean they will sell! Products are no different to services in that they need to be found in Google’s search results by being highly visible for keywords relating to what they are. If you want to sell products online, the products need to be highly visible online!
We build websites that work, e-Commerce or otherwise. Shopping cart categories need search-engine optimisation just the same as regular content pages. e-Commerce platforms like Shopify are great for start-up businesses as they present a cheap option for an e-Commerce site that you can get up-and-running in no time. Shopify has its place and if you can’t afford a search-engine optimised e-Commerce site then Shopify would be the way to go. If you wish to use a tool such as Shopify it would also be beneficial to use a professional who understands SEO and who can help you take advantage of some of the SEO tools available on Shopify.
However, for an established business to go from a search-engine optimised website to a Shopify site would be ludicrous. And unfortunately, the Google Analytics chart above shows the decline in website traffic for one of our past clients who deleted their account with GOOP in favour of a Shopify site.
The business’s weekly website traffic has steadily declined from 1823 website sessions (between January 4 and 10, 2015) to 592 website sessions (June 28 – July 4, 2015). And as you can see it continues to decline at an alarming rate.
Be careful when moving from one web provider to another. It could prove disastrous for your business.
GOOP is proud of its client retention rate with most of its initial clients remaining as clients today.