If your e-commerce store isn’t properly optimized, then you are not yet ready to scale your business. So the product quality may not be the reason why your store isn’t performing well. For an e-commerce store to succeed, you need a reliable hosting provider that can meet certain performance benchmarks. But unfortunately, most don’t know what they want, don’t do any research before selecting a hosting provider, and end up choosing the cheapest option out there.
This is why today we will be going through some of the hosting mistakes that most e-commerce stores make and how to fix them. These mistakes may lead to loss in sales, a bad user experience, and lower chances of buyers coming back.
Using Cheap Hosting Providers
Don’t be a cheapskate! Even if you are on a budget, investing in a well-known hosting provider will save you so much time going forward. Many people who go for cheap alternatives face problems ahead, like limited resources when you scale, poor customer support, and longer loading times. The lower prices can be tempting, but the hosting type that comes with it is insufficient for scaling your e-commerce business.
Consequences
- Limited resources that come with shared hosting type or any other.
- No 24/7 and unreliable customer support.
- Longer loading times.
- Affects user experience.
Solution
- Do a little bit of research before you choose any hosting, and find reputable hosting providers that offer coupons and discounts so that you don’t go over budget without sacrificing quality.
- It would be time to switch hosting if you already have a hosting provider and are not happy with their service.
Limited Scalability
Often, the business model isn’t the only reason why your e-commerce store struggles to scale. Limited resources on the backend, like no auto-scaling features, less processing power, and poor traffic handling, result in limited scalability. A common reason for this shared hosting is in cheaper hosting plans that limit server resources.
Disadvantages:
- Increased load times.
- Poor user experience.
- A sudden increase in traffic may slow the site.
- Encountering failed checkouts, cart abandonment, etc.
Solution
- Upgrade to VPS, Cloud or dedicated hosting plans to improve performance.
- Utilizing Content Delivery Networks.
Ignoring High Bounce-Rates
Monitoring analytics and optimizing for improving performance is very important if you want to reduce bounce rates. This is one of the major problems e-commerce stores end up facing when using cheap hosting providers. Longer loading times can be one major reason why your store has higher bounce rates.
Cons of High Bounce-Rates:
- The customer may never return to your e-commerce store.
- Overloads the shared hosting servers.
- No dedicated support when you run into problems.
- Damages your SEO rankings.
Solution
- Upgrade CPU, RAM and other hosting resources for your store.
- Use CDN to increase traffic handling capacity.
Not Using a CDN
When someone lands on your store, you would want to make sure that the site loads fast and provides the best user experience possible. To ensure all this is where CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) come in. They load copies of your store’s data when a customer visits your website, no matter where they are in the world. This data is stored across many physical locations known as Points of Presence.
Consequences:
- With no CDN, your site may witness higher loading times for certain buyers in different parts of the world.
- Website slowdown during the shopping seasons.
- Limited global reach.
- Fewer security features.
Solution
- Integrate a CDN using your hosting provider.
- Try compression and caching using CDN for a better user experience.
No Firewall Security
Having the Web Application Firewall ( WAF) feature for your e-commerce website is essential as it protects it from bot attacks, SQL injections, and other threats. This feature provides Firewall Security and safeguards your store online. Although many CDNs come with security features, they may or may not include WAF. You can get it as an add-on feature. But it is important to remember to choose a suitable firewall ( basic to advanced ) depending on your needs and budget.
Consequences
- You would be inviting hackers without Firewall Security.
- Poses a significant threat to your e-commerce store
- Risk of data theft
Solution
- First, find out
- Decide how much you would want to spend on a firewall.
- Choose a suitable firewall for your e-commerce store, like Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) or Web Application Firewalls (WAFs).
Final Thoughts
Growing an e-commerce brand, especially these days, is hard enough. So you wouldn’t want to slow down its growth by not doing things you could easily do. A great user experience is what you want to go for, because this is what brings the user back, again and again. Hence, it is important to constantly improve the SEO optimization for your e-commerce store and its security.