Nearly all ecommerce owners understand the value of SEO, but many overlook the impact that a site redesign can have.

We find that roughly ⅓ to ½ of all website relaunches do affect SEO negatively, at least initially. In some cases, a poorly-thought-out relaunch means the site can never recover its SEO!

The solution isn’t avoiding a needed redesign but rather considering SEO closely as part of the effort. By taking careful precautions and preparatory steps before a relaunch, you can guard against a painful downgrade.

In this article, we lay out some of the most common SEO issues we see ecommerce sites experience during redesigns, revamps and as well as an initial launch.

We’re taking it as a given that you know how important it is to build and preserve SEO “juice” (if not read this 3rd-party article). What you may not realize is just how impactful “slight” changes can be, particularly with URL’s:

• Organic SEO rankings are inextricably linked to the specific URL of each page on your website.
• Changing the taxonomy of a URL, or even a single character in the URL, makes Google see that page as a brand new page that has never been indexed.
• Carefully following best practices for URLs is a baseline requirement for good SEO

Enough intro already! Let’s dive in.

Easy SEO Mistakes to Avoid and Beneficial Changes to Keep in Mind:

URL Structure Changes

Organic rankings are tied to the specific URL of each page.  Changing the taxonomy of a URL, or even a single character of it makes that a brand-new page that has never been seen by the search engines before.  Inbound links are associated with specific URL’s as well, meaning that when you create new version of that page, none of the link equity automatically follows.  If you’re changing platforms this is especially crucial as many ecommerce platforms create new directory pathways or alter URL extensions.  

What to Do About it

If your URL’s or page taxonomy is changing, ensure that you’re using 301 redirects to let search engines know that there is a new version of the page.  This will automatically redirect both visitors and search engine crawlers who access the old URL. Additionally, this will transfer most of your link equity from the old page to the new one.

The Wrong Redirect

Platforms (and developers) will often default to using a 302 (temporary) redirect rather than a 301 (permanent) redirect.  Both redirects will accomplish the same thing for a visitor, but Google looks at them differently.  The common belief is that a 301 redirect passes link equity while a 302 does not (because it’s temporary).  In all fairness, Google’s Gary Illyes came out last year and said that a 302 redirect passes the same equity as a 301 in a July 26th, 2016 Tweet.  Many in the SEO community don’t quite buy that yet.

What to Do About it

Check, check and double check.  Make the redirects work for a visitor and a search engine.  A tool like Redirect-Checker.org will show the actual request and tell you if a URL redirect is a 301 or 302.  Screaming Frog is another easy way to mass check URL’s for the redirect status code.  Even if Gary is right, why chance it?  Don’t set your redirects to 302 unless it really is a temporary situation.  

Top level and Footer Navigation Changes

Just like an inbound link from another website can add equity to your site, internal links in your site can play a similar role.  Think of your navigation in both the header and footer as the circulatory system of your site. Changing the navigation and internal linking structure is akin to changing the layout of your own veins and arteries.    

What to Do About it

Put in the time upfront and map out the current state of your site.  Look at where internal links are coming from for your pages if you’re changing the navigations.  Use Screaming Frog or your other favorite tool to check the crawl path report on URL’s if you really want to be diligent.  Know that pages losing a large portion of their internal links could have issues being crawled and indexed or lose some of their equity.  

Title Tag, Content and Data Migration

A redesign is hectic on any site, an ecommerce website exponentially complicates that process.  With so many moving parts it’s easy to sideline seemingly smaller things and tell yourself that you’ll worry about it once the site is live. Title tags, meta descriptions, headings, content and structured data shouldn’t be one of those things. Whatever SEO prowess the top level, category and product pages have right now is directly influenced by the meta data and content that’s present. Launching a redesigned site without the same data and information in place is a recipe to see organic rankings drop.

What to Do About it

Just like mapping redirects, put the time in up front.  Use something like a MOZ crawl test or Screaming Frog to get a full picture of all page titles, meta descriptions, H1’s and subheadings and structured data.  Make sure that you’re

Example 1, What Not to Do:

New Site Launch Date Dec 2016

This Google Analytics snapshot is of an online retailer in the software industry that redesigned their outdated site into a new platform.  The plan was to recreate the site exactly as it had always been, but move it to a new more user friendly platform.  

This is a textbook case of forgetting about 301 redirects completely in launching a new site.  Aside from the home page, every single URL of a 5,000+ page website changed, but Google couldn’t follow them.  To add fuel to the fire, category and product level title tags and meta descriptions weren’t moved to the new site either.   

Example 2, Make it Through Unscathed

New Site Launch Date: Feb 2017

A men’s online clothing retailer migrated from an outdated ecommerce platform into an enterprise CMS.  The site had far outgrown the outdated site built in Pearl and was ready for a more professional solution.  

The entire URL structure of this site changed as did the navigation, adding faceted search and eliminating several lower margin brands.  The client started prepping launch several months in advance and had established a solid redirect strategy, migrated meta data and structured a robots.txt file to address faceted search functions.  They experienced temporary dip in organic traffic due to the massive change in taxonomy but recovered almost fully within 60 days.  

Example 3: Slingshot

Nov 2016

This company sells and supports several thousand downloadable course products and had been operating for several years on a home-grown CMS that was non-mobile friendly and unable to scale with growth.

This company took 6 months to plan for the launch of the new site and in that time mapped out several thousand new redirects, redid the navigation to improve indexing and crawl budgeting and improved the load the speed.  At launch, they experienced a few weeks of minor instability, followed by a continual upward trend that has continued.

A redesign is an exciting time for an ecommerce business.  

Top 5 SEO considerations when launching or redesigning an ecommerce store:

1. Get a 100% complete and clear picture of your current site as soon as you know you’ll doing a redesign.  On page elements, navigation, content and links.  Invest in some tools if you need to.
2. Create a clear page structure and taxonomy for the new site.  Document what’s staying, what’s going and what will be new.
3. Map out all your 301 redirects as soon as you can.  They’ll likely change the as the vision of the new site evolves and it’s better to alter the redirect mapping as you go rather than wait until things are solidified and then start.
4. Get your tech straight.  Take all existing rel canonical tags, schemas and robots.txt get them documented and moved to the new site.  Take into account changes in internal search or new navigations that might require alterations.  
5. Whether you’ve hired an agency or area completing the process in house, insist on making SEO a priority.  The project should be a collaborative effort and, if SEO isn’t at the forefront of mind, there won’t be anyone coming to the site to experience the new UX.  

Conclusion

Redesigning any website, particularly an ecommerce site, is perhaps the single biggest threat to the site’s successful SEO. This article lays out common issues and how to resolve them, to avoid a dangerous and potentially deadly downgrade in SEO following your next relaunch.

Co-written by Michael Bower and David Booth

Appeal to customers’ creative identity is one way to increase brand value

In a competitive marketplace, it’s important to consider all strategies that might lead to a meaningful connection with your audience. One way of reaching potential customers is to appeal to their social identity: the groups and tribes they believe they belong to.

When people feel that a product aligns with their own vision of themselves and their ideals, they are primed to be loyal, enthusiastic customers. This has real-world application for companies, especially for ecommerce companies.

In this paper we’ll examine:

• Studies that illustrate the importance of social identity in marketing
• The Creative social identity and why it can be effective when used in marketing
• Three types of creative social identities—the Maker, the Aficionado, and the Iconoclast—and real-world examples of how these have been successfully used in branding and marketing

The creative social identity

Social identity can be defined as the part of a person’s self-concept that stems from their perceived membership in a group. And there are many studies that show social identity has a substantial impact on consumers’ purchasing behaviors. People have multiple social identities that shift over time, even over the course of a day. For example, someone’s dominant social identity might switch from “mother” to “runner” to “baseball fan” to “environmentalist,” as context demands.

Savvy marketing can appeal to these social identities in various ways. This is a common strategy. For obvious examples: Nike and Gatorade strive to appeal to the athletic and competitive social identities of their customers.

Marketers can also build social identities around their own products. One example: Harley Davidson’s Harley Owner’s Group, where group members get invited to events and receive special offers.

Research also suggests that desired behaviors can be primed by the right framing of expectations. In the article linked previously, a study was done by the authors that showed that just placing people into a “Creative”-titled group resulted in more creative behaviors from those participants.   

In a 2012 study of attitudes and beliefs about creativity, nearly two-thirds of adults indicated that being creative was valuable to society and key to economic growth. Many respondents (Americans especially) agreed that creativity “defines a person and enables them to make a difference in their lives and the lives of others.” But only one in four felt they were living up to their creative potential.

Clearly, creativity is a highly valued trait. At the same time, people struggle to find ways to express creativity in their lives. This is where the marketing connection comes in:

By aiming your product or service at your audience’s desire to be creative, it’s possible to make a strong connection to your product.

Associating your product or service with the right social identity could enhance affinity for your product, build a community around your brand, and drive customer behaviors aligned with your overall strategy.

Now let’s look at three types of creative social identities and how they’ve been used by other companies.

The Maker

Given the popularity of the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) culture, the Maker movement, and other similar trends, it’s not surprising that some people have an increased valuation for self-assembled products. This is known in behavioral economics as “the IKEA effect.”

This is a seemingly irrational phenomenon: people are willing to pay a premium for products that they must spend time and effort assembling themselves. How is this explained?

Even amongst people that claim no intrinsic interest in DIY projects, when their labor results in a successfully completed project, be it a Build-A-Bear or a bedside table, they tend to value their creations as on par with those of experts. Researchers posit that this increased valuation results from the positive feelings of productivity, enjoyment of the assembly task itself, and in some cases the ability to create products that reflect personal taste.

In essence, the customers have become Creators, or Makers. They’ve put their own labor into something and therefore have a greater connection to it.

There are many ways to harness the power of this IKEA effect to enhance your product’s value. Ecommerce marketing is particularly well-suited for this application.

Perhaps the most straightforward way for customers to imbue a product with their own labor is through customization. A Bain & Company survey of online shoppers showed that those who had customized a product engaged more with the company by:

• Visiting its website more frequently
• Spending more time in its online store
• Remaining more loyal to the brand

Offering targeted customization options can shift the customer’s mindset from passive to interactive, changing the shopping experience from one of mere transaction to one of creation. Reimagining your ecommerce interface as an arena for creativity may appeal to customers who highly value creativity.

Dan Ariely, co-author of the IKEA Effect paper, emphasizes the importance of customers’ desire for this sort of interactive consumption. Where consumers might once have been content just to absorb information while reading or watching television, they now crave “constrained creativity.” Constrained creativity gives consumers the freedom to express themselves while also providing the structure by which they can measure their success— think paint-by-numbers, or a service like Blue Apron.

Indeed, Blue Apron provides a great deal of structure—they develop the recipes, portion and deliver the ingredients, and provide step-by-step instructions—while simultaneously encouraging subscribers’ creative expression, inviting them to customize their meal plan and execute the actual cookery. Their content marketing strategy, which led to 500% growth in 2015, relies on a similar combination of structure and self-expression: the team creates articles about the dish, its history, and new cooking techniques in order to engage subscribers and make them more likely to share their cooking results on social media networks.

The trend toward constrained creativity is in line with survey results indicating a sense of frustrated creative potential: if a customer feels that he lacks an outlet for his creative identity, he might place great value in products and services that allow him to express it. Brands that wish to appeal to would-be makers can use this knowledge to enhance the connection between product and customer.

Some ideas for appealing to customers in this way:

• Offering online opportunities to customize products
• Offering content that teaches the customer how to use your product for DIY projects
• Offering brick-and-mortar experiences, like workshops or cooking classes

Other real-world examples:

• Nike has a division called NikeiD, which allows users to design their own shoes.
• Zazzle and CafePress are both companies that allow you to add your own custom artwork to a diverse array of clothing and household items.

The Aficionado

Another key driver of consumer choice is a consumer’s identification with a connoisseur social group. This form of creative consumption, which involves immersing oneself in a single product category, such as craft beer or vintage bicycles, illustrates the extent to which customers seek self-expression and community through the things they purchase. The purchasing experience itself becomes a form of self-expression, less about shopping than about going on a mission to learn and explore an interest.

One unsurprising but powerful example of the relationship between consumption and social identity comes from the music industry: a 2013 Nielsen study revealed that the 40% of consumers who identity as “fans” are responsible for 75% of total spending. These “Aficionado fans” spend across the category, not just listening to and exploring new music, but spending on artist merchandise, concerts, and online streaming services.

To appeal to the Aficionado, one approach is to present your storefront as a carefully curated collection of products, services, and stories central to your category. By connecting to the aficionado’s twin motivators, immersion and expertise, a brand can present itself as an essential resource for the aspiring connoisseur.

The Blue Apron strategy is again instructive here. Not only do they offer their customers an opportunity for structured self-expression, they also position their brand as a one-stop shop for the subscriber who wishes to become knowledgeable about food culture. The company’s foray into ecommerce, the Blue Apron Market, primes shoppers for purchase by creating and reinforcing the social identity of creative connoisseur. Product categories for product include headings like: “Uncork like a sommelier, sip with style,” “Smart Seasonings,” and “Cook Like A Pro!”

By connecting their products to connoisseurship, intelligence, and expertise, Blue Apron invites its readers into a social group of discerning “foodies” and frames its brand as an essential avenue for one type of creative expression. This association may be a factor in customers valuing the product highly.

Evidence also suggests that merely changing the price of a given product can lead the motivated customer to overvalue it and, crucially, derive more pleasure from it. A 2008 Stanford study involved subjects being told they were tasting two different wines, one that cost $5 and the other $45. In fact, both wines were the same. The study showed that the part of the brain that experiences pleasure became more active when the drinker was consuming the more expensive wine. Price can change, and perhaps heighten, experiences.

In contexts where would-be aficionados lack the actual skillset to discern the difference between products, they rely on price to indicate comparative value. This is why it can be a good strategy to present customers with products at multiple price points: the selection of a higher-value product can be a substitute for actual connoisseurship.

Other real-world examples:

• Most car companies let you select some custom options when picking out a new car. One example is Cadillac, which has a “Build your own Cadillac” section of their site.
• A Williams-Sonoma breadmaking machine was a failure until the company released a closely-priced higher-end model, which caused people to more highly value the lower-cost machine.

The Iconoclast

In a landscape where consumers are armed with more information than ever before and are provided seemingly endless opportunities for comparison and evaluation, some argue that an appeal to connoisseurs is insufficient.

In her book Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd, Harvard Business School professor Youngme Moon suggests that some of the most effective brands appeal to consumers using creative destruction. She argues that for “idea brands,” the most effective way to increase product value for consumers is through singularity, difference, polarization, and even hostility.

To return to the example of IKEA, Moon sees the store as having built its brand around a set of apparent negatives, including:

• Inconvenient locations
• Self-assembly
• Limited delivery options
• Rather low-quality products

However, IKEA embraced and enhanced its status as a “reverse brand,” presenting itself as a “retailtainment” experience. IKEA fans do not shop at the store for its quality products; they shop there for the singularity of the experience it offers—one that appeals to a customer’s sense of themselves as adventurous and willing to buck the culture of luxury, convenience, and pretension associated with other furniture stores.

Iconoclasm, or the practice of rejecting widely shared beliefs and practices, is also associated with individualism and creative vision. Brands that make an unconventional appeal, or demand their loyalists to take a stand, seek to activate this social identity. Creative destruction may seem a paradoxical form of self-expression, but it can be a powerful motivator for customers who wish to set themselves apart from the herd.

Establishing your brand as one that bucks trends, that creates a customer experience that doesn’t have wide appeal, or that polarizes its user base, can create unique opportunities for customer interest and loyalty.

Other real-world examples:

• Apple’s “1984” commercial and similar Apple campaigns were aimed at attracting unorthodox, iconoclastic creative people who would be attracted by the independence and power allowed with the personal computer.
• Soylent is a meal-replacement beverage popular amongst entrepreneurs and tech workers. Their branding is aimed at creative people who are so busy they don’t have time to waste on meals. Also, the product’s name is reminiscent of Soylent Green, a fictitious food product made from human beings: another indicator that they’re trying to appeal to iconoclasts who don’t mind dark humor.  

Find applications to your marketing efforts

Some of your customers will be seeking outlets for their creative social identity. Presenting your product or service as an appeal to their identities as makers, aficionados, or iconoclasts can be a powerful tool for increasing the perceived value of your offerings and increasing brand loyalty.

Would your products or services be a good fit for creative social identity messaging, or perhaps for targeting other social identities? Here are some suggestions for trying to find real-world applications to your company:

• Read this paper again, thinking about how the concepts and examples mentioned might have an application to your company’s offerings.
• Read the articles and studies linked in this paper, which have other real-world examples.
• Conduct a brainstorming session where you come up with new ideas for social identity marketing.
• Reach out to experienced business strategy companies (like our company, Sellry) for consultation on ways to implement these ideas.

For any questions about this white paper or about ecommerce strategy in general, please feel free to reach out to us. Our company is Sellry; we specialize in all things ecommerce—from user experience strategy and interface design to high-end hosting optimization; from custom module development to data integration.

The world has seen its fair share of epic battles: David versus Goliath, Muhammad Ali versus George Foreman, Microsoft versus Apple. Now, two tech heavyweights duel for domination of the digital retail market. In the red corner, Magento, the world’s most popular e-commerce software, used by more than 200,000 merchants. In the blue corner, Shopify, a platform used by big-name brands like Google and Tesla. While Magento boasts more users and a bigger market share than its opponent, Shopify still packs a punch. But which software should be crowned champion?

Round 1: Email Automation

Email automation is a powerful weapon for any marketer, providing brands with knockout campaigns that target lucrative prospects. Seventy-nine percent of top-performing companies have used marketing automation for more than two years, while the majority of users think it’s worth the price. 

As a Magento user, you’ve likely seen an abundance of email automation add-ons and extensions — MageMonkey, SMTP Pro Email, Springbot — that capture leads and boost sales through highly targeted email campaigns. Follow Up Email, from Aheadworks, is one of the most widely used, providing a hulking suite of automation tools: shop cart tracking, coupon tracking, email templates, analytics.

Shopify offers a treasure trove of email automation apps, too. While its store is much smaller — Shopify has just over 100 apps, compared to a whopping 5,000 on Magento — you’ll find all the big names, such as perennially-popular MailChimp, possibly the Mike Tyson of email automation, and lesser-known extensions like Klaviyo and iContact. If you’re looking for marketing automation with bite, you can’t go wrong with Email Automation from Beeketing, which does everything it says in its name. Just like Follow Up Email on Magento, you can create powerfulYou can create compelling, personalized campaigns that send sales into the stratosphere, with marketing messages that are less likely to end up in the Trash folder. There

Email Automation from Beeketing, another email automation app, sends an email to your customers 30 minutes after they make their first order. Just like Follow Up Email on Magento, there‘s no coding, the app works on both desktop and mobile, and you get a glut of customization options.

Winner: Shopify

While it It‘s more expensive than its Magento contender — prices start from $19 per month, compared to Follow Up Email’s $149 yearly subscription — Shopify’s Email Automation by Beeketing delivers a sucker punch: but merchants could see a hefty 50 percent email response rate after using this app, and customers are 250 percent more likely to convert. It’s the Mike Tyson of email automation. 

eCommerce Email Marketing by Soundest displays a customizable pop-up on your web pages so you can collect subscribers. This email automation app turns new visitors into subscribers and takes just a few seconds to set up.

Round 2: Recommendations

Even if you don’t install any extensions, Magento’s native functionality personalizes your online store so consumers see a list of recently viewed and compared products, which usually appear on the right sidebar of a catalog page.

Shopify’s native feature set is just as impressive: merchants can use product tags to recommend related products. However, if you crave more functionality, head to the Shopify App Store, where you’ll find must-have add-ons like LimeSpot Personalizer and Also Bought. Both of these do what Magneto’s native recently-viewed tool can’t: consumers Consumers can see a list of recommended products based on their preferences and interests.

Personalized Recommendations, also developed by Beeketing, takes focuses on upselling and cross-selling to a whole new level. You can promote products that consumers might like based on their purchase history and behavior. Using The app uses super-smart algorithms , the app and suggests relevant products to the right customers: cart recommendations, recently viewed items, your store’s best sellers. Unlike some extensions on Magento’s marketplace — Majik Product Recommendations and Frequently Bought Together, to name just two — Shopify’s Personalized Recommendations comes with no subscription fee. The app costs you nothing if you make no money and analyzes the behavior of customers for more efficient marketing. 

Findify Search & Recommendations is another option. “[We use] data science and our unique machine learning algorithms to automatically generate personalized recommendations, in real time,” they say on their store page.

Product suggestion apps are becoming increasingly popular among marketers. A huge massive 31 percent of e-commerce store revenue is generated from personalized product recommendations, according to a study. Also, conversion rates of consumers who click on product recommendations are more than five times higher than those of customers who don’t click on these suggestions.

Winner: Shopify

Unlike some extensions on Magento’s marketplace — Majik Product Recommendations and Frequently Bought Together, to name just two — Shopify’s Personalized Recommendations comes with no subscription fee. In fact, the app costs you nothing if you make no money. Personalized Recommendations might prove extremely lucrative, too: the app could generate an extra four percent of sales.

 

Unanimous Decision

If you’re a merchant who is contemplating a move to Shopify, expect the same functionality you’re used to with Magento: stress-free CMS content management and impeccable design, all backed up with a reliable, speedy, MySQL database. You’ll find a bounty of plugins that turbocharge your marketing and sales strategies, too. Email Automation and Personalized Recommendations, both from Beeketing, , so you can optimize your online store so you can and generate a bigger return on your investment. Now, making the switch to Shopify won’t leave you down for the count.

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