Upgrade from Magento 1.9? 5 Signs
When should you update your Magento 1.9 web site? It’s not uncommon for websites to be forgotten when other business matters are seemingly more important. “Our website works alright, doesn’t it?” Probably not. We review some common issues with existing websites and reasons why you should update sooner rather than later.
1. Slow Response Times
There’s tons of research on response time, to the point where it can get overwhelming. Let’s break it down. People are busy and don’t like to wait. Sites which take too long to load affect your bounce rates, sales conversion, and Google Page Rank (check out the Google Blog Post here.) Some research even shows that sites which have an average load time of more than three seconds increase their bounce rate by 7% for every second.
2. High Traffic, Low Conversions
Does your site get loads of traffic but it fails to convert to sales? This may indicate different problems. Issues like broken links, poor navigation, and a lack of quality traffic or stale/out of date content are also big culprits. Simply having an SEO friendly website doesn’t guarantee sales. If your customers can’t find what they are looking for fast and easy, they will go somewhere else.
3. Not Mobile Friendly
A website that’s optimized for PCs/laptops, tablets, and smart phones is a necessity. With over 40,000,000,000 (that’s right, 10 zeros!) mobile connected devices in use today, your site must look good and function fast on all platforms. Google is watching too – after the Google Mobile Friendly Algorithm Update, the search giant will penalize sites that aren’t mobile friendly when ranking your page.
4. Stale Content
In addition, no one wants to look at an old website. Old, outdated products or worse, websites, can deter a customer from making a purchase. Google is on the lookout, too! It ranks updated content much higher than older content. Keep your site fresh with new content to help on both fronts.
5. Added Functionality, Bug Fixes, and Security Updates
Also, it’s important to keep e-commerce platforms updated, improved, and maintained. These things include adding new features, catching and fixing bugs, and enhancing andupdating security. If you are running an older version of your site, you may be missing out on a critical, if not necessary, updates. Studies show upgrading your site, on average, every three years, keeps your sites appearance up-to-date and functioning at an optimum level.
Finally, if you need help updating your website, contact Web 2 Market today.