Business need:
Launch our new site on the Magento 2 platform: a platform that will not only allow us the stability and flexibility to build and grow in the years ahead, but will also, as odd as it sounds, help us stand apart from other Magento agencies who use Wordpress/other platforms for their site.
Old website:
We knew we needed a new website. While the old one wasn't stunning, it was limiting in how we customized and published content.
The first challenge that any agency redoing their website faces is balancing client projects with internal website development. There isn't an easy solution to this other than budgeting set amounts of time every day to work on the site. As nice as it would have been to have someone else handle the work, we were never once tempted to outsource the project.
Another challenge we faced was what platform to use for the new website. Practically all Magento agencies and partners use WordPress and other CMS-dedicated platforms for their sites. While we did briefly consider using WordPress, we just didn’t feel right using it. After all, we live Magento. Shouldn’t we use Magento to build our site?
As a smaller agency we wanted to set ourselves apart, and we realized that building our new site in Magento 2 was one way to do that.
New website:
Products and CMS Pages
Content (CMS) pages are the regular pages on the site. We use products as our Upsells are used to link related articles together. Static blocks are just as handy for us as they are for a typical ecommerce site.
Back-End Reports
We’ve tied the Magento back-end into our Jira development platform and can generate a variety of performance and production reports. Average turnaround time on open tickets? Click. Average tickets closed per developer? Click. We love having reports that are readily accessible and always up-to-date.
335% Traffic Increase
While we are still adding content and features to the site, we are pleased with how well the site is performing so far. With zero publicity tied to the new site, week-over-week traffic has more than tripled. Average pages per session have increased 31%, and the average session duration is up 21%. Bounce rate (percentage of visitors who view one page and then exit the site) has generally held steady; we’re adding some new features (sidebar links, etc.) to let visitors know about related content on the site.
All in all, we’re excited to join our clients running the Magento platform and look forward to growing the site on Magento 2.
Christopher Maxwell
Project Manager: keeping things running smoothly; Quality Assurance: ensuring that everything we do is top-quality.