Have you ever heard someone say, “I want to have a lightning-fast website because I need to have a good indexing among search engines!”? 

Right, we’ve also heard this story many times. Site performanсe is a critical component of search engine friendliness. 

However, there are many other factors affecting Magento SEO, as well. In a previous post, we made the case for customer experience as the most crucial driver of optimal website indexing. 

The more customers that use your website, the better ranking you will achieve. So, performance is far from your only consideration when discussing search engine optimization.

There are many technical aspects you’ll need to pay attention to in order to optimize Magento SEO. This article provides a Magento SEO checklist of tasks you can perform that will make search engine robots love your website.

Introduction

2021 was the second year in a row that businesses worldwide faced challenges born of Covid, and heightened by subsequent lockdowns. Many merchants realized they needed digital transformation, and fast. Some would choose to go fully online, while others pursued a hybrid model. 

New challenges led to market adaptation through new tools –  like live video shopping – and brought new players to the eCommerce ecosystem.

In this year-end edition of MageNews, we’ll revisit some of the best moments of 2021 from the world of Magento Open Source, Adobe Commerce, and eCommerce at large.

They say, “the greater the distance – the lesser the force of attraction.” (Sir Isaac Newton, I beg your pardon).  And here at Atwix, we used to have a pretty reliable formula for keeping remote teams “close.”

Each year – at least once a year – all Atwixers come together in one travel destination for a weekend of in-person connection, relaxation, and team-building. Welcome to the Atwix offsite.

It’s Almost Christmas

If we had to compare the eCommerce year with some sport activity, we’d choose the marathon. Let’s say that the distance is 12 months. It starts around January 1st and finishes on December 31st. In such a case, the month before Christmas is crucial as the last mile of a marathon is usually the most challenging.

The role of the main challenges can be played by two recurring events in the eCommerce world: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In previous releases of MageNews we shared several pieces of advice for November sales activity:

• Holiday Season: How to Prepare Your Website
• Choose the strategy to Succeed During the Holidays Sales
• The Matter of Choice: Selecting the Right eCommerce Platform

Such advice can help you during the November sprint. Do not hesitate to use them!
And in addition to the previous suggestions, we are happy to share a collection of news from the eCommerce world and the Community Activity Recap section with the latest updates about the brilliant contribution and collaboration of minds. The business section of the MageNews November edition covers the new partnership of the Adobe company and some valuable materials from the Magento Association. In the Community recap section, you will find fantastic news related to the Magento Open Source future, new tools and upcoming releases.

We’re thrilled to announce that Atwix has achieved Adobe Commerce specialization in the EMEA (Europe, Middle-East, and Africa), making it one of only a handful of Adobe partners to hold specialization in both the Americas and in the EMEA region!

This is a very exciting development in Atwix’s journey to becoming Adobe’s most-certified Magento / Commerce Silver Solution partner. And such rarified air puts Atwix in great company!

The Focusing October

This edition of Atwix MageNews was called Focusing October for a reason. While the eCommerce businesses are preparing for the Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas sales events, they also start focusing on the upcoming year’s planning. It is an excellent practice to have a vision of your business in its current state and some decades forward.

Focusing on the future in the eCommerce industry is a complex process. To make the right decision about the next step in business development, you shall consider many factors like technology, marketing, sales data analysis, and even new trends in social media. Long term success of the growth strategy conclusions is possible only when based on profound knowledge in the spheres described above. And by success, we mean not just a higher revenue but also predicting and mitigating the risks.

The Refreshing Autumn

As we mentioned in MageNews – August 2021, fall brought long-awaited coolness and business and community activity refreshment.

The eCommerce business is preparing for the Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas sales events. Such preparation is multisphered and includes marketing, engineering, logistics, management, etc. And, of course, knowledge sharing through local and global conferences. This type of activity is a perfect opportunity for beneficial communication between the community and business. 

Despite us getting used to pandemic, some changes remain unchanged, even when these are dramatic ones. Be it eCommerce booming or summer remaining a high season, full of news and updates in eCommerce ecosystem. We have collected some partner news after summer 2021, and it seems like everyone if getting ready for another great holiday season – thanks to Magento / Adobe Commerce ecosystem, we will all be equipped nicely.

When a merchant decides to run an eCommerce store, the very first challenges he/she meets is choosing a platform for this store. Like with many other products, it’s not as easy as googling for “the best eCommerce platform”. There are many factors that should be taken into account, and not all of them are obvious.

For example, you should consider the cost of the first version of your store not only by checking the price of the platform itself. All the additional functionality you might need, as a rule, will be provided either by paid apps/extensions or by custom development. And that fact also requires some additional budget. Below, we outline the key factors you should review before jumping into a new ecosystem.

Ho-ho-ho! Too soon? Actually, it is not! For those of us in eCommerce, now is the time to plan holiday season readiness. Get ready! The peak holiday shopping season is just around the corner. And from all indications, it’s shaping up to be a robust year for eCommerce. This is continuing the current trend, with a McKinsey study showing 10 years of eCommerce growth  happening in just three months. According to ROI Revolution’s analysis, in June 2021, ecommerce was up 95% over June 2019. Nearly 63% of consumers do all of their shopping online (BigCommerce). This data (and not only) does show the importance of eCommerce for your business.