How to increase sales in your online store
Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2024 9:34 am
In my work, when starting cooperation with each online store, I attach great importance to technical elements in the positioning process. If the store is slow, is not intuitive to use or some pages are simply blocked for crawlers, the chances of success drop dramatically. Therefore, it is worth preparing a technical audit for the site at the very beginning of your activities. This will require access to the appropriate tools. Some of them are free, but some require financial outlays. However, if you do not have the appropriate technical knowledge, it is worth leaving such an audit to a professional positioning company. It will be much more profitable. An expert will take care of preparing the website audit , and you will spend the time saved on something you know much better!
Google Search Console as a basic analytical tool
Free tool provided by Google, allows you to analyze basic elements on a website. Thanks to it, you can check how many of your pages are indexed, on which pages there are errors and what they concern. Additionally, you can check the organic traffic on your page, keywords for which the site is displayed, as well as each of the subpages. Additionally, the service has been offering Core Web Vitals metrics for some time . Showing basic web indicators for the site.
Based on the data presented in the service, we can discover, for example, that pages are not indexed due to the use of the noindex attribute or blocked in the robots.txt file. The basic error that we encounter when analyzing Google Search Console is the lack of a verified site map. Its absence can make it difficult for crawlers to find all the subpages that are important to us. You will read about the site map itself, where to find it, how to create it, in the further part of the article.
Having trouble with your visibility in Google?
Rely on the specialists from KS!
Check out the offer!
Screaming Frog
A tool that, in my opinion, is one of the best for technical analysis of a website. Based on such analysis, you can detect many irregularities that are partly responsible for the lower visibility of the website. It has a number of functions, among which we can distinguish:
Checking the response code of a particular page (200, 301, 404, etc.).
Checking meta data for individual pages (meta title and meta description).
Checking directives for crawlers (e.g. noindex, nofollow, etc.),
Internal linking.
Canonical addresses.
Protocol used (http, https),
Weight of photos, use of alternative texts.
The tool is available for free with scanning limitations viber database of up to 500 URLs, or as an annual subscription without any limitations and with more advanced features. For small stores with a small number of products, the free version is usually sufficient.
Page analysis performed with Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog Tool
Tools to check the speed of a website
There are many tools that allow us to check how fast our website is working. I think we all know that the faster the website works, the better. If the website loads slowly, some of our potential new customers may abandon it while it is loading, which may be one of the reasons for the high bounce rate. Information about the bounce rate can be found in the Google Analytics tool, which is also a free tool from Google. Returning to the topic - among the tools for measuring speed, I can recommend, among others:
Google PageSpeed Insight
GtMetrix
Pingdoom
Speed tests should be performed for the home page, product categories, the product itself, and other pages, e.g. blog entries. A practical guide to optimizing the speed of websites and online stores was prepared by Przemysław Durał. I encourage you to familiarize yourself with his detailed descriptions of methods for solving the most common problems.
Adaptation to mobile devices
For years, there has been a growing trend in the number of mobile users visiting websites. It is necessary to take appropriate care of customers who increasingly make purchases using their smartphones. To check whether the website is adapted to mobile devices, you should check the report in the Google Search Console tool, you can also use the website testing tool provided for free by Google available at https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
Most templates on the most popular CMS (content management systems) are fully responsive. This means that the layout of the page adapts to the resolution of the device used by our client. It is worth checking how the page works on different devices. Convenient navigation within the site, access to all information and its readability, as well as loading speed are technical elements that every online store should focus on.
Google Search Console as a basic analytical tool
Free tool provided by Google, allows you to analyze basic elements on a website. Thanks to it, you can check how many of your pages are indexed, on which pages there are errors and what they concern. Additionally, you can check the organic traffic on your page, keywords for which the site is displayed, as well as each of the subpages. Additionally, the service has been offering Core Web Vitals metrics for some time . Showing basic web indicators for the site.
Based on the data presented in the service, we can discover, for example, that pages are not indexed due to the use of the noindex attribute or blocked in the robots.txt file. The basic error that we encounter when analyzing Google Search Console is the lack of a verified site map. Its absence can make it difficult for crawlers to find all the subpages that are important to us. You will read about the site map itself, where to find it, how to create it, in the further part of the article.
Having trouble with your visibility in Google?
Rely on the specialists from KS!
Check out the offer!
Screaming Frog
A tool that, in my opinion, is one of the best for technical analysis of a website. Based on such analysis, you can detect many irregularities that are partly responsible for the lower visibility of the website. It has a number of functions, among which we can distinguish:
Checking the response code of a particular page (200, 301, 404, etc.).
Checking meta data for individual pages (meta title and meta description).
Checking directives for crawlers (e.g. noindex, nofollow, etc.),
Internal linking.
Canonical addresses.
Protocol used (http, https),
Weight of photos, use of alternative texts.
The tool is available for free with scanning limitations viber database of up to 500 URLs, or as an annual subscription without any limitations and with more advanced features. For small stores with a small number of products, the free version is usually sufficient.
Page analysis performed with Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog Tool
Tools to check the speed of a website
There are many tools that allow us to check how fast our website is working. I think we all know that the faster the website works, the better. If the website loads slowly, some of our potential new customers may abandon it while it is loading, which may be one of the reasons for the high bounce rate. Information about the bounce rate can be found in the Google Analytics tool, which is also a free tool from Google. Returning to the topic - among the tools for measuring speed, I can recommend, among others:
Google PageSpeed Insight
GtMetrix
Pingdoom
Speed tests should be performed for the home page, product categories, the product itself, and other pages, e.g. blog entries. A practical guide to optimizing the speed of websites and online stores was prepared by Przemysław Durał. I encourage you to familiarize yourself with his detailed descriptions of methods for solving the most common problems.
Adaptation to mobile devices
For years, there has been a growing trend in the number of mobile users visiting websites. It is necessary to take appropriate care of customers who increasingly make purchases using their smartphones. To check whether the website is adapted to mobile devices, you should check the report in the Google Search Console tool, you can also use the website testing tool provided for free by Google available at https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
Most templates on the most popular CMS (content management systems) are fully responsive. This means that the layout of the page adapts to the resolution of the device used by our client. It is worth checking how the page works on different devices. Convenient navigation within the site, access to all information and its readability, as well as loading speed are technical elements that every online store should focus on.