5 Reasons to Maintain Your Online Store

Websites are now a vital part of your marketing and should be treated as a serious business asset. Some research shows that up to 90% of all buying decisions start with an online search

How you appear online defines your brand and image. A great website mixes intuitive design with?shareable multimedia content to make the online presence sticky?and brings back visitors again and again.

Images that are compelling, articles that beg to be read and videos that educate and entertain are part of the content mix that takes your brand from bland to bold.

This dynamic web is where the modern business?needs to play and this is not a static sandbox.

Online stores need constant care, maintenance. Often they need to to re-designed and re-built.

As a minimum they need to have the latest version of the content management system to ensure they are safe from hackers and spammers.

As we continue to evolve into a digital economy that lives or dies on the connection to the internet having an online store that never goes offline is vital.

What are some important reasons why you need to?constantly maintain your online store to?ensure you have a robust website that performs, is always on, attracts traffic and converts visitors into paying customers?

1. It costs you money

If you have 1,000 visitors everyday clicking to your store, then every minute, hour or day your website is down is costing you money. The opportunity cost of being offline and invisible is lost sales and also means that prospects?won?t come back because your have damaged your credibility.

Nickel and dime your website at your peril.

2. Protect it from hackers

If you value your online presence and it is generating leads and producing sales with your online store then a recurring nightmare is logging into your website and it looks like some has taken to it with an axe.

It has been hacked!

Websites that are not updated to the latest version are much more prone to invasive hacking as hackers over time discover the back doors to gain entry. Updating your website to the latest version is one easy way to make it more secure.

This needs to be done on an ongoing basis.

3. Your site doesn?t rank high in search engines

Older websites were often not built for search engines. Ever seen URL?s (website addresses) that look like ?gobbledygook??

Keywords and phrases?are the ?golden? terms that people use to find you. Build or have an old website that is written with gobbledygook and search engines?will not easily find your website. Updating your website that is optimised for search engines is now mandatory for a modern and successful business website. Having these keywords built into your website are vital so Google can easily find and index your website.

Research?shows that over 90% of all clicks through to websites are from appearing on the first page of Google. The other staggering statistic is that over 40% of all clicks are on the number one position on the search results page.

4. Your brand looks out of date

If your bricks and mortar store looks shabby you need to renovate or even start from scratch. Websites that look like they were built by a mad monk doesn?t do your brand image any favour either.

Websites are much more visual on a modern and social web, so if your site look likes a dictionary (all text and no images or multimedia) will instantly brand you as uninviting and out of date.

Customers will click away.

5. Increase your conversion rates

Upgrading your website and taking advantage of the latest technology is paramount on a fast evolving web. Customers need constant reminders through email marketing and social sharing that you exist.

A shopping cart?that takes customers through multiple pages will lose 15% of all visitors?for each page of your?checkout process. So if you have a 3 page checkout instead of a one page process you could have lost 30% of your customers!!

Modern ecommerce platforms such as Magento are optimised for high conversion rates that are tried and proven with checkout pages that work well and convert often.

Infinity can help you maintain and support your online store and website. These start from as little as $168 per month and go right up to our fully customised support plans.

Contact us to find out more.

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Source: http://www.infinitytechnologies.com.au/blog/2013/01/21/5-reasons-to-maintain-your-online-store/

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