A good ecommerce website is more than just a good-looking website. It’s also a website that’s back end is strong and secure.
A strong back end of your website can make a massive difference for you and your business. If it’s strong, you can be confident that it will always be up and running and that customers will have no problem finding and purchasing the products they want.
But if it’s not, then the worry starts to creep in. Will my site go down today? Are customers have problems purchasing products? Will my site have a security breach today? Worry is your enemy as a small business owner. And a bad website only increases that.
So how do you make sure you have a solid back end of your ecommerce website? Well, here’s how.
Limit the ecommerce plugins and extensions in use
The first thing you need to do is to make sure you’re using only the plugins and extensions that are necessary for your website. The more of those you have on your website, the slower the website is going to go.
Do you really need five social media plugins on your website when one will do the job? Or do you need two SEO plugins? The answer to both is no.
Each plugin or extension requires code that needs to be run and assets like CSS, JavaScript and images, that need to be loaded. And those take precious time during the loading process for your webpages. And time is money on the web today.
Also, if you’re using WordPress, make sure you only have active plugins installed on your website. Inactive plugins might not seem like they’re doing anything, but they are taking up space and can present a security risk if someone can find a way into them.
So run through everything you have installed on your website and make a list of what is vital for your website and what can go. And make sure you don’t have anything running that’s not needed.
Get your website ready for the holidays!
The time to think about your website and online store for the holidays isn’t the week before Thanksgiving or Black Friday. It’s now. Whether you want to build an online store or want to make sure you have the right web hosting and management, you need time to make the correct decisions and do it right. So let’s talk about your website for the holiday season.
Make Sure Your Site is Ready for the Holidays!Make sure you’re on good hosting
Also, you need to make sure you’re on good web hosting for your website. While it might seem like a small thing, having a good web host can make a big difference.
If you’re currently on shared, cheap hosting that’s not something you really want to be on if you’re selling products online. The odds of something going wrong on their end, like a security breach or the servers going down frequently, are just too high to feel comfortable
Those types of hosts have their place. They are great for someone who might be starting out with either a personal or small business website that’s nothing more than an online brochure with a contact form. If that’s what you’re going for, that’s fine.
But if you’re selling products online, or want to do that, then you’re going to need to step up your web hosting. You need to get on managed hosting with a reputable web host, like Bluehost, GoDaddy WP Engine, Liquid Web, etc. (those last two are for WordPress websites). These websites have the structure to prevent security breaches and keep them contained if one happens. Plus, you will rarely have any down time (I haven’t any downtime with WP Engine that I can remember).
So if you want to improve the back end of your website, a quick and relatively easy step is to move to a more reputable, stronger web host.
Always stay updated
Finally, always, always, always make sure your website is updated. If you’re using a content management system, like WordPress or Drupal, make sure that the CMS is updated as well as any plugins and extensions.
A lot of times developers will release new updates that include security fixes that will likely be disclosed once the new update has been released. Running older versions without those security fixes can put you site as risk.
Having a plan for keeping your ecommerce website updated will help keep your website as secure as it can be against outside attacks. Make sure you’re going through the website at least once a week and updating all of the components, plugins and themes to their latest versions to mitigate issues.
Plus, new updates will come with new features and enhancements that can allow you to do more things and potentially speed up your site as well. So stay updated.
So if you’re looking to make sure the back end of your ecommerce website is as strong as it can be, make sure all of the items here are checked off. Having a strong back end could be the difference between a great holiday selling season and a rough one.
You’ve got this!
