6 Ways to Improve Your Magento Website in 2023

With online shopping volumes expected to continue into the new year, eCommerce businesses can use this time to optimize their Magento website to increase conversions.

There are a variety of ways Magento stores can improve their site’s optimization. However, current consumer trends point to six core strategies to focus on in 2023:

1. Speed Up Load Times
2. Optimize For Mobile
3. Upgrade Web Hosting
4. Secure Your Site
5. Simplify the Checkout Process
6. Improve Search Engine Optimization

Let’s break down each to help your site yield the best results.

Speed Up Load Times

Since technology now allows access to nearly everything with a simple touch of a finger, it makes sense that consumers also expect this during their shopping experience. These expectations are putting pressure on Magento users to eliminate or reduce any unnecessary site features causing slower speeds.

Optimizing your eCommerce site’s load times will directly reflect your store’s conversion success in 2023. Here are some ways you can optimize your Magento store for faster speeds:

• Decrease image and video quantity and sizes
• Reduce excessive extensions
• Upgrade to the latest Magento version
• Integrate a content delivery network into your site
• Use a single flat catalog for products and categories
• Reduce database log capacity — store for shorter time frames

Magento sites can also optimize load times using tools like GTMetrix, Google PageSpeed Insights, and more.

Google Page Speed

Optimize For Mobile

Optimizing your Magento website to be mobile-friendly can be a determining factor in increasing sales in 2023. With more users purchasing on mobile devices than ever before, it will be very beneficial for eCommerce businesses to ensure their sites are easy to use and visually appealing for all smartphone devices and tablets.

Magento users can optimize their sites for mobile by incorporating many features and eliminating excess content. When building your site for mobile, your business should aim to deliver concise, to-the-point information using fewer graphics and text.

For best results, here are some tips to design your Magento mobile site:

• Eliminate pop-up notifications and advertisements
• Use small images/graphics — eliminate or use small video files scarcely
• Increase text size for visibility
• Decrease heavy, long-form text content — quality over quantity
• Run A/B split tests to improve load times, performance, and conversion rates

While the functionality of your mobile website is important, the visuals are just as important. Your Magento mobile store can still achieve positive performance results, while also incorporating a visually appealing design — include high-quality graphics, distinguishable buttons, easy-to-use navigation, and a clean layout to direct traffic to the proper channels.

Upgrade Web Hosting

Integrating a highly efficient, optimized web host can give your Magento website the necessary tools to run to its best ability. Your store can benefit from upgrading its hosting to include advanced packages that will increase speeds and performance.

When choosing the right host for your Magento site, here are some things to look out for:

• Dependable security features — firewalls, SSL, two-factor authentication, etc.
• Scalability to include latest technologies and eCommerce growth
• Customer support — 24/7 is preferred
• Long-term contracts or fixed amounts — avoid these providers

For Magento-optimized hosting, Cloudways is a great, trustworthy solution for your eCommerce business to improve and secure store performance — it includes all the above features and more.

Secure Your Site

With many businesses moving online, security remains a top concern for many eCommerce stores in 2023. Your short-term and long-term success are dependent on how well you optimize your Magento site with the best security features.

Optimizing and updating your eCommerce store will be one of the biggest determining factors in preventing online attacks in 2023. Many retailers know this threat all too well, as nearly 2,000 stores were compromised in September 2020 because they did not update their site with the newest Magento version.

Security features like SSL certificates, HTTPS authentication, two-factor authentication, PCI-DSS Compliance, file permission updates, and more, are all crucial components to ensure your Magento store remains secure.

Some high-risk areas Magento stores should focus on to prevent cyber threats include:

• Phishing pages to steal sensitive data
• Malicious redirects infecting your site
• Fake advertisements on web pages
• Slow site speed or error messages

For more tips to secure your site in 2023, visit here.

Simplify The Checkout Process

Similar to load times and mobile-friendly sites, your checkout process can make the difference in acquiring a sale or losing business. Although consumers still want a speedy Click to Pay checkout, they also expect the process to be transparent and secure. Magento users can optimize this process to meet these expectations, while also improving their site speed and performance.

To simplify their checkout, Magento sites should streamline this process onto one page, with fewer clickthrough rates, and/or include a progress toolbar for customers to see all the steps needed to pay.

Magento businesses can also optimize their checkouts by incorporating:

• Secure checkout — display SSL security badges
• Multiple payment options and one-click payments
• Guest checkout option
• Cart savers
• Minimalistic design with high-quality visuals and bold navigation buttons
• Mobile-friendly checkout

To increase sales and improve customer experience, Magento users should optimize the checkout process to be intuitive, secure, and easy. Integrating with a reliable payment processor can further improve the experience by offering multiple payment options, secure one-click payments, and a streamlined checkout. A secure and efficient payment gateway can contribute to increased sales conversion, customer retention, and website traffic.

Improve Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization has become increasingly important for eCommerce businesses to increase organic and paid traffic to their sites. Magento websites can capitalize on this by incorporating SEO-friendly content that can improve SERP ratings and drive more sales.

Magento users can optimize their websites for SEO by:

• Incorporating header tags and titles
• Eliminating duplicate content using canonical tags — product filtering, pagination, product sorting, etc.
• Using cleaner, more understandable URLs — fewer codes and random letters
• Configuring meta tags for products
• Add more valuable, informative content — blogs, articles, etc.
• Include keywords in meta titles and descriptions
• Implement an efficient sitemap
• Showcase customer reviews to rank higher

Conclusion

As Magento websites prepare for what looks to be another busy year for eCommerce, they can take the steps now to set their business up for success. Optimizing and updating your site with the necessary tools and features will provide a better experience for your customers and increased profit for your business in 2023.