As most business owners and developers working with Magento (now also known as Adobe Commerce) know, the platform is not lightweight. Those dedicated to building the best e-commerce websites explore various possibilities and widen their knowledge to ensure they are utilizing Magento’s full potential. Some decide to find a Magento website support company to help them navigate the complexities of the platform.
Whatever way you choose, we have prepared a list of ideas that you may utilize to enhance your website’s performance, visual appeal, and much more. Let’s look at some methods to help you take your shop to the next level!
Do You Need to Improve Your Magento Store?
Lots of eCommerce business owners choose Magento for their online stores as compared to other most popular CMSs Magento gives more customization opportunities which is important for brand consistency and awareness.
Although no content management system is perfect. For instance, some of the stores report that their Magento stores do not load quickly enough which is currently essential for good rankings and customer experience.
The good news is that you don’t have to put up with tech issues that bother you as a business owner. We’ll list some of the most popular ways to improve a Magento-based website. Note that the list is not exhaustive and some other options may be more beneficial for you depending on what particular problem you want to be solved, what is your deadline and budget.
If you think your store’s website could be improved, consider making some changes so you can provide a better user experience and attract more customers. A fresh look and enhanced functionality can significantly impact your further success, even if you are already doing well. Remember, your online presence is a direct reflection of your brand, so investing in improvements is essential for building a better reputation.
Even if you believe your shop works great and has all the necessary features, there is always room for improvement to grow and stay ahead of the competition. Exploring new strategies is always encouraged, as what you find out may increase customer satisfaction and, ultimately, drive more sales.
If you do not feel like performing the upgrades and improvements yourself, try looking for Magento services or independent freelancers specializing in Magento to help you achieve your goals.
How to Improve Your Magento Website Successfully?
There are many different approaches to improving your store, from easy solutions that can be implemented quickly to more complex strategies that may require professional assistance. Once you are committed to making improvements, consider thoroughly auditing your online store to identify areas for enhancement.
Whether you choose to focus on optimizing your website’s speed, enhancing the user experience, or improving your SEO strategy, taking the time to assess and address areas of weakness is a wise step.
1. Make Your SEO Better
Search engine optimization is a great way to drive more traffic to your website and increase your visibility online. SEO is not only the written content, like blog posts or product descriptions, though. It also involves optimizing your website’s technical aspects. Things like metadata, image alt text, and proper linking all play a role in improving your SEO strategy.
This aspect of your store’s website should never be ignored, as properly optimized SEO gives you an advantage over competitors. Google algorithms also favor well-optimized websites, so make sure your SEO is up to par. Just the fact that you can climb up the search engine rankings with simple optimization best practices is a powerful reason to invest time and effort into this page improvement method.
2. Invest in PWAs
The full name for PWAs is Progressive Web Apps. They are simply web applications that load like regular websites but offer an enhanced user experience similar to native mobile apps. It is a great solution for businesses looking to improve their website performance and user engagement.
Stores built with the PWA technology often see increased conversion rates as they load faster, are more responsive on mobile devices, and provide a seamless user experience across different platforms. Progressive Web Apps also have the functional ability to partially work offline, which makes them very useful for users with limited internet connectivity.
Consider contacting professional businesses offering Magento PWA development services if you want to implement those on your website.
3. Upgrade to the Latest Magento Version
If you are still using the old Magento 1, it is preferable to move to the latest version of Magento to take advantage of the latest features and security updates. The support for Magento 1 ended a few years ago, meaning that it is now obsolete and will not receive any further patches or help. Make sure you are able to transfer all your data, frameworks, and extensions to the new version smoothly to avoid any disruptions.
The community help for Magento 2 is much more active and robust, providing a wealth of resources and support for users, so you might find it easier to manage your shop with the latest version. Additionally, upgrading to Magento 2 will also improve the overall performance and security. It is also vital to highlight that Magento 2 brings some new cool features to the table, like personalized recommendations, ChatGPT integrations, automated discount extensions, and more.
All of these are not just fancy additions – such website improvements positively influence your sales. Users are more willing to shop on websites that provide fast, modern, and thought-out user experiences as it becomes easier to find the desired items, contact support, and get a response in seconds. Dealing with an outdated and heavy website is usually a very frustrating experience.
4. Optimize JavaScript and CSS
Merging and minifying JS and CSS files is a reliable way to improve site speed and performance. While to an untrained eye, these tasks may seem daunting, Magento 2 offers tools that simplify the process and do not require advanced technical knowledge to do so.
Minification is a process that consists of optimizing a code by removing extra or unnecessary elements while retaining functionality. Merging is similar but consolidates multiple files into one, reducing the number of (likely too many) HTTP requests needed to load a page. This provides faster reaction times and will likely result in a better user experience.
5. Implement Lazy Loading
If you want to optimize your site speed further, consider implementing lazy loading for the page content. This will improve the loading time of media files like images or videos on your website by only loading them when they are visible to the user, reducing unnecessary data transfer on the initial page load.
“A smoothly running eCommerce site is like a well-timed orchestra, with lazy loading as the conductor ensuring every visual note is played at just the right moment.”Alex Mokievets, the head of business development of NEKLO.
Lazy loading can significantly improve page speed and the user experience, especially for websites with a lot of visual content. It is also good for your customers, who may have limited Internet plans or slower connections, as it reduces the amount of data that needs to be loaded to their devices at once.
Lazy loading is a technique that is recommended by most SEO experts as it allows websites to load faster. And website loading time is one of the important ranking factors for Google and similar search engines. You can check your website with the Pagespeed Insights tool which assesses parameters such as Largest Contentful Paint, Time to First Byte, First Contentful Paint, and some others.
Lazy loading techniques along with reducing unused CSS and JavaScript, using modern image formats and other web development best practices, help keep those parameters in the green zone.
6. Hyvä Theme
Hyvä Theme is a recent trend in Magento development. It has become a rival to the default Magento theme – Luma. The founders of Hyvä wanted to create a way to optimize Magento websites, and make them faster and better-performing. And it seems like they’ve actually managed to achieve this goal.
The company is still working on additional products that would support their Hyvä Theme: they provide a library of UI components, build Hyvä-compatible extensions, and released an Enterprise version that would support more complex Magento features like AI personalizations and B2B experience.
They also have a separate Hyvä Checkout which follows modern best practices on how to make a checkout that’s fast, not overwhelming but it still offers business owners features that help with cross-selling and up-selling.
More and more vendors are converting their stores to Hyvä and seeing how their Core Web Vitals results improve up to 100 in terms of performance, speed, and SEO. This in turn influences website rankings, traffic, and in the end, more buyers.
Which Options are the Best for Your Store?
To determine what optimization and performance choices would be best for your website, you need to thoroughly analyze what could work for your business in particular. Consider conducting a performance audit to identify areas of improvement and prioritize accordingly to your findings.
Finding the best solutions for your website might take a moment (and may require some investment, whether financial or in terms of time needed), but it will very likely benefit you in the long run.
Web developer and SEO specialist with 20+ years of experience in open-source web development, digital marketing, and search engine optimization. He is also the moderator of this blog "RS Web Solutions (RSWEBSOLS)".