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8 Ideas for Utilizing Neural Networks in an Online Store

Ksenia Cheburova — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 11:45:27 +0000

In today’s rapidly evolving world, neurotechnology is advancing at a rapid pace, with one particularly intriguing domain being the integration of neural networks within the realm of e-commerce. These neural networks are already being extensively employed to address diverse challenges encountered in the management of online stores and marketplaces. One prominent application involves analyzing user interactions on websites to enhance the purchasing journey and refine service quality. However, the utility of neural networks extends beyond this. In this article, we’ll explore 8 distinct ways neural networks can be leveraged to optimize the performance of an online store or marketplace.

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1. Generating Product Descriptions

Utilizing neural networks can expedite the process of populating product cards. For instance, they can autonomously craft descriptions based on available product attributes or draw from existing content sources. Alternatively, a neural network can sift through customer reviews and descriptions of similar products to generate novel and distinctive descriptions. This streamlines the workload for copywriters, allowing them to allocate their time to other critical tasks.

Alibaba Group, a prominent global online retailer, actively harnesses artificial intelligence to generate product descriptions and titles across their platforms such as Taobao, Tmall, and Mei. Within Alibaba Group, a neural network has been developed capable of generating up to 20 thousand lines of text per second. For sellers, this process is remarkably straightforward: they simply input a product page link and choose the desired style of output. Subsequently, the program autonomously generates product characteristics and crafts a corresponding description in Chinese.

2. Generating Pictures

One promising field involves generating marketing materials without the need for designers. Tools like MidJourney, ChatGPT-4, DALL-E can produce images based on textual descriptions, simplifying the creation process for websites, advertisements, banners, and catalogs.

To streamline time and resources, companies can employ neural networks such as PixelIDTGAN to automatically generate product photos. This algorithm enables the creation of images featuring clothing on models without requiring studios or photographers.

An emerging trend gaining traction in the industry is substituting real models with AI-generated avatars. Levi’s, for instance, collaborated with the startup Lalaland.ai, employing avatars that emulate various body types, ages, and skin tones. This allows shoppers to virtually try on clothes, enhancing interactivity and personalization in the online shopping experience, akin to virtual try-ons in The Sims.

This advancement is anticipated to boost sales conversion rates as customers can visualize how items fit them specifically, fostering a more informed purchasing decision.

3. Negative Feedback Handling

Neural networks prove invaluable in handling feedback efficiently. They can swiftly and adeptly address negative reviews or comments by delivering personalized and polite responses. For instance, a neural network can autonomously assess the tone and content of a comment, generating a fitting reply without human intervention. This feature proves particularly advantageous in scenarios where managing each review manually becomes time-intensive due to a high volume of work.

Furthermore, proprietors of large SMM channels can leverage neural networks to maintain active engagement with subscribers. For instance, responding to comments on posts often necessitates detailed and attentive replies. The neural network is adept at crafting such responses, taking into account the context and ensuring a friendly, respectful tone. For instance, it can be prompted to “Craft a response to this comment, considering its content, and maintain a friendly, respectful tone.”

4. SEO

Leveraging ChatGPT can address various SEO challenges, streamlining processes and saving valuable time.

For instance, a neural network can adeptly generate meta tags like Titles and Descriptions, along with crafting unique titles for site pages. It ensures the inclusion of relevant keywords while adhering to length requirements. Moreover, ChatGPT simplifies the task of clustering queries by organizing them based on relevance. It also excels in rephrasing content to prevent duplication and evade search engine filters.

Another critical application of neural networks in SEO involves content generation for websites. ChatGPT proves instrumental in producing texts for basic page content, particularly beneficial when managing substantial workloads. However, it’s essential to note that the generated texts necessitate verification, adjustments, and additions to align with audience needs.

5. Advertising Creatives Creation

Neural networks allow companies to quickly and efficiently create attractive advertising creatives, as well as experiment with new ideas and concepts, which helps increase audience engagement and brand promotion.

Neural networks can write text for an advertisement. Suppose we need text for advertising on Instagram. To do this, we can send a request to generate advertising text, indicating the topic, desired volume and call to action.

Upon receiving multiple text alternatives from the neural network, we have the flexibility to choose the most fitting one, make necessary modifications if required, or request additional options. This process allows us to swiftly generate fresh ideas for a successful advertising campaign within seconds.

6. Personalization

Since 2018, there has been a discernible shift towards hyper-personalization in marketing. Consumers are no longer content with generic advertisements targeting broad audiences; instead, they seek individualized offers. Manual processing of all clients, especially for large companies with extensive databases, proves to be inefficient.

Neural networks tailored for business purposes possess the capability to analyze vast amounts of data and discern patterns. This enables companies to automatically provide pertinent products and services to their clientele. For instance, Netflix’s recommendation service occupies a significant 80% of content viewing time.

The operational process involving neural networks for business typically entails uploading data into a database (accessible via developer-provided access), followed by its analysis and storage. When a customer poses a query such as “What to give a girl for her birthday,” artificial intelligence initiates a search within the database and suggests several product options for women. Detailed descriptions of products within the catalog are crucial for ensuring accurate recommendations.

7. Analytics and Forecasting

Neural networks are pivotal in analytics and forecasting within e-commerce. They facilitate the prediction of product demand, market trends, and optimal pricing strategies.

These networks are adept at predicting demand for goods by leveraging historical sales data, weather patterns, holiday occurrences, and other pertinent factors. This capability enables businesses to streamline inventory management, mitigate shortages or surpluses, and enhance customer satisfaction.

An illustrative instance of neural network utilization for analytics and forecasting in e-commerce is evident on the Amazon platform. Amazon’s neural networks scrutinize vast datasets encompassing purchases, user behaviors, and product attributes.

For instance, if Amazon seeks to forecast demand for electronics during holiday sales, like Black Friday, the neural network can analyze previous years’ electronics sales data, accounting for variables such as pricing, promotions, seasonal fluctuations, advertising campaigns, and even weather conditions.

Based on this analysis, the neural network constructs a demand forecasting model for diverse product categories. This empowers Amazon to optimize its product assortment, inventory management, and marketing strategies. For instance, the company can tailor its offers and promotions to align with forecasted demand, maximizing revenue and meeting customer expectations.

8. AI-driven Chatbots and Technical Support

AI-driven chatbots represent a vital tool for enhancing customer engagement by mimicking live interactions with managers, yet without the constraints of a rigid script. Neural networks also serve as technical support, furnishing product information and usage instructions by simply accessing technical documentation.

The integration of neural networks leads to heightened service satisfaction and cost reductions for the technical support department. Live operators are only indispensable for addressing intricate issues.

Consider these specific examples:

Personalized service in chatbots: By scrutinizing a customer’s purchase history, a chatbot can recommend products or services tailored to their preferences.
Automated problem-solving in technical support: AI chatbots analyze customer problem descriptions and propose suitable solutions drawn from the company’s knowledge base or past encounters.
Anticipating customer needs: Chatbots discern when a customer shows inclination towards purchasing a particular product, thereby offering relevant recommendations.
Automatic categorization of queries: Chatbots identify the problem category a customer’s query pertains to (e.g., technical issues, delivery inquiries) and route it to the appropriate specialist.
Data-informed chatbot training: AI enables chatbots to undergo training based on customer interaction data, enabling them to evolve into more intelligent problem solvers and information providers over time.

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Key Considerations When Working with Neural Networks

Neural networks are powerful tools that can greatly improve business performance. However, maximizing their potential requires careful consideration of several key factors.

View neural networks as aides, not substitutes for human input. While they excel at expediting routine tasks, they often necessitate additional refinement of the outcomes.
Clearly articulate your requests. When formulating queries for neural networks, strive for precision and specificity. For instance, if you’re seeking to generate titles for products in your store, provide explicit guidelines: “Craft a title for the ‘Red Stark Cobra Bike,’ emphasizing its lightweight and speed.” Providing contextual details enhances the accuracy of the results.
Be prepared to refine the outputs. Working with neural networks may yield unexpected outcomes. For instance, when using them to generate product descriptions, anticipate non-traditional phrasing. Thus, readiness to tailor the results to align with your style and requirements is crucial.
Factor in costs. While contemplating the use of neural networks, weigh not only the potential benefits but also the associated expenses. For instance, if considering paid services for data analysis and demand forecasting, assess whether the investment is justified and what outcomes are feasible.

Overall, leveraging neural networks in e-commerce holds significant promise. These networks have the potential to automate business operations and facilitate growth within the dynamic online marketplace. Nevertheless, it’s crucial to recognize that achieving success demands thorough examination and customization of the outcomes to align with the unique requirements of your business.

The post 8 Ideas for Utilizing Neural Networks in an Online Store first appeared on Cart-Power.

IT Outsourcing: Advantages and Disadvantages

Nataly Komonova — Fri, 24 Nov 2023 08:52:38 +0000

Outsourcing involves bringing in external professionals to address your needs, either in part or fully. The outsourcing services sector is expanding and gaining popularity. A key factor behind this trend is the cost efficiency it offers compared to recruiting and employing in-house specialists.

Several driving factors for the growth of IT outsourcing include:

Shortage of qualified specialists within the company.
Enhanced security and accessibility in the outsourcing process.
Cost-effectiveness of hiring experienced specialists to streamline business processes.
Ability to concentrate on strategic business objectives by outsourcing specific tasks.

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Previously, IT outsourcing was mostly associated with technical support, but its scope has now expanded. The rise of e-commerce, new services, and cloud technologies necessitates greater automation of business operations.

What Services Can Be Outsourced?

Software development: platforms and systems for business processes.
Web development: ecommerce platforms, websites, marketplaces, their server and client parts.
Database management: automation of exchange processes between accounting systems and the website.
Website promotion: search engine optimization and marketing services.
Development and support of infrastructure: provision of hosting services.
Creation and maintenance of virtual assistants: chat bots, online consultants.

How Does Outsourcing Work?

Based on the level of collaboration with the company, there are different outsourcing options:

Project model. Engage with a project manager to connect specialized experts for specific tasks. For example, introducing non-standard payment methods may require a UX designer for a clear checkout, and backend/frontend developers for implementation on the site.

Dedicated team or specialist. Hire a specific developer or an entire team exclusively for your project. This option suits larger projects or startups.

Both the project model and the dedicated team can, depending on the payment method, be based on the principle:

Fixed Price. The price for services is clearly stated in the contract, so you know what to expect in this and subsequent months. But for this it is necessary to clearly understand the scope of services and formulate technical specifications. So, for example, SEO promotion services can be scheduled monthly for the whole year and the amount indicated. But for the task of transferring an online store from one CMS to another, it is not advisable to use Fixed Price; Time and Material is better suited for this.

Time and Material. The price will depend on how many hours the specialists spent on the task. At the same time, tasks from month to month may vary in complexity and volume. From the example above, transferring a store to another CMS may be accompanied by difficulties with non-standard export/import of data from orders or with rendering the store design, because the current template is not suitable.

Where is Outsourcing of IT Services Used?

In 2022, the global IT services market, including in-house and third-party services, was estimated to be valued at approximately $1250 billion, as reported by GrandViewResearch.
The pandemic led to a surge in demand for virtual workplaces, collaborative document services, and data exchange, especially with geographically dispersed employees. Across various industries, nearly 60% of organizations engage in outsourcing app development. In the financial services sector, this figure increases to 72%, with retail and wholesale companies following closely at 60%. Companies in the healthcare sector, on the other hand, exhibit a comparatively modest engagement at 31%.

In Eastern Europe, there is a growing preference for outsourcing, primarily due to the availability of highly skilled IT professionals at more affordable rates. On average, the hourly rate for a developer in Eastern Europe falls in the range of $35 to $60.

Benefits of Outsourcing for Ecommerce

Cost savings play a key role in outsourcing, with 59% of companies citing it as the primary reason according to a Deloitte study. Outsourcing enables 57% of companies to focus more on core business processes. It eliminates the need to retain full-time employees and consider workload post-project completion. Hiring external specialists for short periods suffices for product development and implementation.

The global pool of specialists is a significant advantage. IT companies offer remote services, allowing businesses to select a suitable company based on budget and location, and facilitate remote development.

The number of specialists and companies is increasing. According to Statistica’s projections, the sector is expected to employ 62 million people globally by 2023. The expanding array of products and services is driving the demand for specialized skills, making it more feasible to outsource a specialist.

Quick launch of projects. When it comes to launching projects quickly, the time-consuming process of searching, adapting, and training employees can be impractical at the startup stage. It’s more effective to opt for an external team when there’s a need to implement a project within a short timeframe, rather than undergoing a lengthy search for the right specialists.

Increased profits. Boosted profits can be achieved without starting projects from the ground up. Frequently, companies require minor adjustments and enhancements to expedite operations, automate processes, and enhance the throughput of applications and projects, ultimately leading to increased profits. Maintaining an entire staff of programmers for periodic improvements becomes unnecessary.

Safety and guarantees. In addition, development companies typically offer guarantees for completed tasks and free bug fixes. When working with a development team under a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), concerns about the security of confidential information are alleviated.

Disadvantages of Developer Outsourcing Services

Limited project management. Limited project management can arise when the development company operates in a different time zone, following its own 8-hour schedule. This time difference can lead to delays in issue resolution. Additionally, when working under the project model, the company allocates limited time to customer tasks due to other ongoing projects.

Problems with mutual understanding with developers. Challenges related to mutual understanding with developers often stem from language barriers. Difficulties commonly arise in aligning goals and describing the logic of work. Customers may struggle to articulate their requirements using industry-specific terminology. In such cases, providing official documentation, examples, and screenshots of the desired functionality can facilitate better communication.

Dishonesty of developers. The issue of developers’ dishonesty is a potential concern when seeking cost savings on their services. It can result in a low-quality product that may initially appear functional but conceals underlying issues that only professionals can detect. In our experience, we’ve encountered instances where a major marketplace project was entirely put together by freelance developers, and with only a week left before its launch, it became evident that the site was incapable of handling customer traffic and would likely fail.

How to Choose Outsourced Developers?

When selecting a company for outsourcing services, making the right decision is paramount. Otherwise, valuable time and resources will be squandered in search of a new developer, potentially delaying the realization of your business idea indefinitely.

What you can check before starting to work with a development company:

Expertise in your industry. Prior experience with similar projects accumulates unique insight. This facilitates faster project integration and reduces the need for extensive explanations of work logic and features. Shared understanding and collaboration with like-minded individuals are likely to enrich your experience.

Portfolio and recent projects. Evaluate the latest work; if the company’s portfolio primarily consists of projects from a year ago, it warrants consideration. Request a showcase of designs for thorough evaluation.

Adaptability in operations. Can the development team modify and update the project scope if the workload expands or in scenarios where the project vision is not fully crystallized? Are they open to providing various options for interaction and pricing?

Quality assurance and guarantees. Gain clarity on the testing procedures, the involvement of QA specialists during the process, and the company’s approach to error resolution and post-project support timelines.

Reviews and ratings. Customer reviews and ratings play a crucial role. While favorable reviews are typically featured on the company’s website, it’s essential to verify their authenticity. If verification isn’t feasible, referring to platforms such as G2.com and GoodFirms can provide valuable insights, as these are reputable sources for evaluating IT agencies.

Partnership. Consideration of strategic partnerships and industry affiliations is also vital. Such alliances foster the exchange of tools and expertise, ultimately enhancing the quality of development. Additionally, an extensive affiliate network portrays a company’s proactive stance towards business development strategies.

The IT outsourcing market is rapidly evolving, with an increasing number of companies looking to outsource at least one business process. According to Clutch research, around 80% of small enterprises are currently using or planning to outsource part of their IT processes. However, finding skilled developers who can deliver high-quality solutions is a challenging task, and when such developers are found, companies often prefer long-term business partnerships.

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Furthermore, companies worldwide are prioritizing integrated solutions, with cohesive teams that work seamlessly together. This integrated approach fosters a faster and more efficient development process.

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Checking Site Performance. What Is A Technical Audit For?

Cart-Power Team — Fri, 19 May 2023 10:47:29 +0000

A technical audit is the process of analyzing and evaluating various technical factors that may affect the functionality and performance of a website. These factors may include site loading speed, content optimization, HTML tags, links, and other technical characteristics that affect user experience or search engine rankings.

A thorough technical audit helps identify problems with a website that reduce its effectiveness. It also gives recommendations and insights on how to improve it. Typically, an audit includes a page-by-page site analysis that checks key performance indicators such as page load time, response codes, and other technical elements on each page of the resource. Based on the results of the audit, significant improvements can be made to increase its visibility in search engines, improve its position in SERPs, and improve the user experience.

Modifications after a technical audit improve the visibility of the site in search engines, increase user friendliness. A technical audit is an important part of a long-term website performance strategy, so it’s worth doing it regularly and not putting it off.

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When Do You Need Performance Audit?

During a technical audit, various aspects of the overall condition of the site are carefully checked. The audit includes checking for broken links, identifying duplicate content, analyzing site architecture and page speed, reviewing meta descriptions, and ensuring that the site follows to SEO best practices.

Is the site loading slowly? The problem may lie in a large number of heavy files, images, or lack of caching.

Is your site not ranking in search results? There may be problems with page indexing, page metadata.

In addition to the fact that the audit must be carried out regularly, consider situations when it is definitely necessary.

5 Situations After Which a Technical Audit is Required

1. The site has just been developed and launched.

Ypu may have a question: why does a site need an audit if it has just been launched? Technical audits are critical to the long-term success of a website. According to the results, it will show errors, the correction of which will allow you to index the site faster and simplify the future SEO optimization process. A technical audit early in the life of a site will help identify any potential issues before they become serious.

2. The site moves to another CMS, platform.

In order for the site not to lose positions in the search, it is necessary to audit for the presence of problems that should not be transferred to a new site. It will help you find out if page redirects are configured correctly, if directives for indexing pages are written, if sitemap.xml is generated correctly, if there are broken links, if meta tags are transferred, if canonical pages are configured to eliminate duplicates. Site migration is a global process in which technical audit is only one stage. For more information on what to do in terms of SEO during the transfer, read the article “How to Migrate a Site to CS-Cart And Save Positions in Search“

3. Expansion and scaling of the site.

The more pages that are added to the site, the greater the chance of errors. And if they are added in bulk, as in the case of expanding the site to several domain zones, then errors can grow with the same progression as the number of pages. An abundance of technical errors can affect search engine visibility and traffic. Conducting a technical audit before scaling a website across multiple domains will help ensure that each domain is stable, secure, and consistent.

4. Planned increase in the load on the site.

A sharp increase in traffic to the site may be due to seasons, sales, or other reasons. A technical audit involves reviewing a site’s back-end infrastructure, including its servers, network components, and codebase, to make sure they can handle the expected spike in traffic. We also analyze the front-end of the site to identify issues related to usability, accessibility or performance that may affect the user experience.

5. A complete redesign of the site.

Global changes in the site interface may affect the availability of pages and their performance on different devices. The abundance of heavy images, new elements, unoptimized code on the page can slow down page loading or not be displayed at all on mobile devices.

What is Included in a Technical Performance Review?

The verification of all components of a technical audit can be divided into groups. The verification includes an audit of the following items:

1. Load speed audit

This checks the current performance of the site and the components that affect it. This includes the current page loading speed, server-side and host-side checks, server-side and client-side code checks.

2. Site structure analysis

Here, the correctness of the settings of the robots.txt and the sitemap.xml, the security of the resource, the URL of the pages, the presence of mixed content, duplicate pages, the availability of internal links and link nesting are checked.

3. Assessment of external technical components

Checking the indexing of pages in Google and other search engines, setting up outgoing links and the presence of broken links.

4. Internal technical components

The presence of micromarking and assessment of its filling, the presence of redirects and the correctness of their settings, the presence and absence of meta tags on pages, the presence of duplicate pages, the evaluation of canonical pages are checked.

Checklist for Technical SEO Audit

Below we have prepared a brief checklist for the technical SEO audit of the site. This is a minimum of work that will allow you to successfully launch the site, as well as check the basic SEO optimization of already working resources.

1. Robots.txt

Search engines have a negative attitude towards sites containing a large number of “technical” pages. Such pages include: feedback forms, user’s personal account, pages for official use, user’s personal data, pages with search results, sorting pages, etc. Such pages must be closed from indexing so that the site does not fall under sanctions and filters. For this, the Disallow directive is used. This directive is written in the robots.txt file with a list of all pages that need to be closed.

2. Sitemap.xml

A sitemap is a file with links to the pages of a site that tells search engines about the actual structure of the site. Here you can specify the most important sections of the site and additional information about them (for example, versions in other languages or when the page was last updated). This allows search engines to more accurately index content on your site.

3. Using metatags and titles

Title is one of the main elements of internal optimization. It displays the main page title. Avoid keyword spamming. Use only the most basic keyword phrases that will capture the essence of the page. The more interesting and meaningful the title of the page, the more clicks on it. The Description metatag is designed to display a brief description of the page content. If you do not fill in this tag, the search engine will take a section from its text to describe the content of the page, which may be undesirable. H1 headings should be unique for each page.

4. URL optimization

Duplicates are pages on the same domain with identical or very similar content. Most often they appear due to the peculiarities of the CMS, errors in the robots.txt directives, or in the wrong setting of 301 redirects.

The lower the page nesting level, the more:

The landing page will be indexed faster.
The page will get more weight.
Less chance that the page will fall out of the index.
The visitor will reach the goal faster.

5. Image optimization

The lighter the picture, the faster it will load, the lower the bounce rate on the site. In addition, the small size of the images saves hosting space. The Alt attribute adds a text description to the picture. Title describes the image when hovering over it. They should be different to avoid duplication, describe the image and not contain common words.

6. Micromarking

The micromarking briefly conveys the content of the desired page. Most often they are used to unambiguously distinguish certain types of content from the crowd. Search robots better understand the content of the page. Also, the use of micromarking helps to increase transitions to the site.

7. Site usability

To collect traffic from all possible sources, you need to configure it to display correctly on various devices and in various browsers.
If the site does not display correctly in some browser or on some device, you lose visitors. Search robots prefer sites with correct (valid) HTML code. Search engines are guided by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) standard. You can check your site for validity using online tools and services. They will find errors in the HTML code and display them on the screen with the necessary recommendations.

How to Check the Site On Your Own

You can find both paid tools for complex SEO audit and free services for dedicated tasks.
Semrush, SE Ranking, Rush Analytics are popular among paid services. Benefits of paid services in a variety of tools. In one service, you can find insights for a marketing strategy in terms of SEO promotion. On the other hand, a set of tools does not mean that all of them will be useful to you or that the most necessary one will be absent among them.

We have made a selection of free services to check the technical components of the site:

PageSpeed Insights – allows you to find out how quickly the pages of the site load, gives an estimate of the speed of loading pages on PC and mobile devices. As well as recommendations for improvement.

W3C validator – checks the website layout for validity. The service will find all the errors in the HTML code and display them on the screen with the necessary recommendations.

A tool from Yandex – Analysis of the XML sitemap checks the correctness of the compilation of the Sitemap file, finds errors.

Mobile Friendly Test – allows you to find out how the pages of the site are optimized for mobile devices. It does not analyze the entire site, but individual pages.

Browserling – checks the site for cross-browser compatibility. To do this, you need to select the appropriate operating system and the desired browser.

Schema.org Markup Validator – does a general check of all types of schema.org markup without regard to Google rules. And to see what rich results might be for your structured data pages, you can use the Rich Results Tester.

What to Do With the Results

Diagnostics of the technical part of the site, error detection is the first step to the effective functioning of the site. The task of the audit is only to identify errors that, in order of priority, need to be corrected. This will serve as a good foundation for the site for further search promotion.

One of the most frequently asked questions is: Is fixing technical errors enough to improve search rankings? Search promotion involves not only technical factors. Search engines evaluate hundreds of factors to generate search results. It is not known how much weight each factor has in order to say for sure: “correcting a technical error will raise the site 2 positions up”. In addition, search engine algorithms are constantly changing and updating to ensure that users actually get the right content for their search results.

Just improving the download speed and getting to the top of the search results will not work. This requires a set of measures for search promotion. SEO audits are like a check of the health of your site, which must be carried out regularly, from launch to development.

In Cart-Power, following the results of the Technical Audit service, you will receive a detailed report with a description of the problems, their prioritization, an explanation of the significance for the site, as well as ready-made tips for correcting. You can fix the errors yourself or entrust it to us.

Useful Tools If Your Site is Made on CS-Cart

HTTPS Switcher. This add-on allows you to automatically transfer all pages of your site to the “Safe” status and make your site reliable for your customers.

SEO-names Editor. For easy management of SEO names of any objects: products, categories, characteristics, tags, pages, blog articles, etc. Sometimes when objects (products, pages, etc.) are deleted, records about this object remain in the seo_names table, thereby blocking the use of this SEO name for other objects. This add-on will help you easily find, change or delete unwanted entries.

Lazy Load for Images and Blocks. Loads images not immediately when the page is opened, but as it scrolls. This helps improve performance and conserve device resources. According to our data, the loading speed of pages with more than 50 products doubles.

WebP Images. The add-on automatically converts images to modern WebP format without quality loss. As a result, images weigh on average a quarter less than their PNG and JPG sources. As a result, page loading times are reduced.

JSON-LD Markup. The JSON-LD Markup add-on automatically marks up data on site pages to generate structured data for search engines.

SEO For Images. It adds alt and title texts to all images. You can also change the names of image files. It is enough for the administrator to set up a couple of templates, and the texts for them will be generated.

SEO For Filters. The add-on creates SEO-optimized landing pages for search queries like “Category + filter combination”. Not all filter pages need to be turned into landing pages, but they can be optimized by creating SEO names for them. The module allows you to set SEO names for feature variants used in the filter.

SEO Optimization. This is a package of solutions for SEO promotion of your store: flexible management of the indexing of site pages will allow you to exclude pages that should not be in the index, minification of the page’s HTML code, export / import of 301 redirects, working out extra slashes in the URL, managing the canonicity of various pages store and the Last-Modified HTTP header, and even an SEO name editor to edit the SEO name table right from the admin panel.

Extended Sitemap XML. It allows you to generate an advanced XML sitemap that meets all the requirements of search engines. Exclude missing products, products without prices, categories and brands without products from the sitemap. Add additional custom links and a separate XML image map.

All-in-One SEO Pack. It already includes 9 most needed modules. As a result, you get the maximum effect from their joint use.

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The post Checking Site Performance. What Is A Technical Audit For? first appeared on Cart-Power.

What Is Pagination In An Online Store And How To Optimize It

Cart-Power Team — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 07:48:47 +0000

There are many sections and a wide range of products on marketplaces and online stores. To structure this information, there is pagination, the navigation element of the site. It is found in directories, blogs and divides, organizes information into pages. We will tell you more about pagination pages, share recommendations on what to do with them and how to optimize them.

What is pagination

When you enter a marketplace or an online store, you are offered a huge number of products. It is sometimes impossible to fit all products even in one category on one page. In this regard, the second, third, … n pages appear.

Dividing a large amount of data into pages is pagination. The term pagination comes from two words “page” and “navigation” .
Thanks to it, pages load faster, and it becomes easier to work with information. For example, if there are a lot of products on the page, then it turns out to be heavy and takes a very long time to load. This has a negative impact on search engine rankings. And buyers will simply leave without waiting for the page to load. Too heavy pages may not be indexed at all and therefore will not appear in search results.

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Pagination can be of various types:

Numeric pagination. The most common, online stores and marketplaces in most cases use it.

Through the “Show more” button. In this format, there is no way to go through several sections, the products will be loaded sequentially by clicking on the button.

Endless tape. Products will automatically load in real time when the user reaches the end of the page. It is believed that infinite scrolling allows you to keep the attention of visitors longer.

Often you can find combined approaches to pagination. For example, a numbered list and an endless tape. In this case, the visitor can choose how it is more convenient for him to view the goods.

Why pagination needs to be optimized

Optimized pagination affects the ranking factors of a site in search engines and can increase positions in search results. In order for a product from the 10th page to get into the search results, it is important that search robots do not perceive all ten pages of one product section as the same.

What can happen if pagination pages are not optimized or optimized incorrectly?

Pages will not appear in search results. Reason: appearance of duplicate pages. If the content on the pages starts to match (including meta tags, headings), then search engines will perceive such pages as duplicates and simply throw them out of indexing.
Users will not be taken to the main page, but to a random one from the list. Reason: misconfigured relevant page or rel canonical. Users will not get to the main page from the search, but to the 4th or any other.
You publish new pages, but they all do not appear in the search. Reason: The crawl budget has been used up. A search engine can crawl a certain number of pages at a time. And in order to bypass all the pages of the site, she needs more time, as a result, the necessary pages will be slower to get into the search results.
Pages do not appear or are poorly indexed. Reason: all pagination pages are closed from indexing in robots.txt. Robots do not visit these pages and do not display them in search results.

To avoid all these problems, it is important to optimize each pagination page. We share our recommendations below.

How to optimize pagination pages for stores

1. Each page must be indexed.

They cannot be closed from indexing in robots.txt. If it will be closed, the robot will not index products from these pages. Consequently, the site owner loses product traffic when the buyer is looking for a specific product model.

2. Set up a relevant page.

So that a relevant page is displayed in search engines, i.e. main for a section or directory, you need to set up a tag with the rel=”canonical” attribute.
There are differences here, depending on the search engine.

Google requires you to specify the current page in canonical. In the Cart-Power blog example, the Canonical tag should contain the page https://cart-power.ru/blog/page/4/

Yandex – the 1st page of the section should be indicated in the Canonical tag of all pagination pages, as it is implemented in the Cart-Power.ru blog

3. Individual meta tags and titles for each pagination page.

Meta tags and H1 headers should not be duplicated throughout the site. Pagination pages are no exception.
To avoid duplication, in the formulas for generating Title, Description and H1, on pagination pages, add the number of the current page to the very end.

For example:
Buy Jackets for Kids: at {Store Name} — Page 2
Buy Jackets for Kids at {Store Name} with free worldwide shipping. Call {phone number} – Page 2

In the case when the current h1 is used in the generation of the title and description, then the page number does not need to be additionally put down, because page number will be taken from h1.

For example:
Section “Jackets for children”. The heading h1 of the first page of the section is “Jackets for children”. Next, we add a page, we get: “Jackets for children – Page 2”.
Thus, substituting the title h1 in the title, we get:
Jackets for children – Page 2: in the store {Shop name}

How else to optimize the same type of pages

There can be a lot of pagination pages on marketplaces, they all look the same. There can be many similar pages of the same type on the site. Optimizing them requires a lot of effort and monotonous work. Below are life hacks on how to optimize such pages so as not to waste a lot of time:

1. Individual meta tags and titles for the product pages.

Each product page must have unique meta tags: title, description, h1 to avoid duplication. Even if you have two similar products, with a slight difference, such as color or equipment. These differences should be specified in the meta tags.

Example:
Iphone 14 512GB black
Iphone 14 512GB white

More details about meta tags and how to make attractive product pages for search engines are described in the article “Perfect Product Page: SEO”

2. Micro-markup for product pages.

In the search results, the page is displayed as a snippet, a small announcement of what is on the page. The attractiveness of the snippet directly affects page traffic.

The announcement may include:

Image;
Rating;
Price, etc.

Snippets are generated by the search robot based on what is posted on the page. In order for robots to take the necessary information for product cards, use the Product markup of the Schema.org standard. It will help you create compelling snippets.

For CS-Cart, Shema.org markup is implemented for product cards by default.

3. Universal formulas for basic optimization.

The formulas for generating titles and meta tags for sites are all unique and are formed taking into account some features of the store. But you can create universal formulas that are suitable for basic website optimization before starting SEO work.

For example:
Listing of goods
Title: {H1} buy in an online store at a price of {min. price in category} with delivery | {Store name}
Description: {category name} buy from {store name} online store at a bargain price from {minimum price in category}. Large selection of goods. Delivery nationwide. {phone number}

Product page
Title: {Product name} buy at the price {product price} {currency} in the online store with delivery | {Store name}
Description: {Product name} buy at the price {product price} {currency} Delivery throughout the United States. Favorable conditions. {phone number}

4. Breadcrumbs

All pages on the site, except for the main page, must contain breadcrumbs. The last paragraph of the breadcrumbs should repeat the h1 of the current page and be non-clickable.

Breadcrumbs must contain the full path from the main page to the current page. They also need to be structured with Shema.org markup.

Conclusions

Pagination is a site navigation element for structuring and organizing products by pages. It makes pages load faster.
Pagination pages are pages of the same type that must be open for indexing and be with unique meta tags. So products from all pages will fall into the search results.
Optimizing such pages is a monotonous but rewarding task. To optimize pages of the same type, use formulas and templates to reduce labor costs.

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The post What Is Pagination In An Online Store And How To Optimize It first appeared on Cart-Power.