âYou get what you pay forâ is a phrase that applies to many parts of life, and software development is no exception. However, much of what goes into software development is a bit of a mystery to the layman, and understandably so.
It took me four years of education to gain a cursory understanding and many more years of hands-on experience to gain real knowledge of software development. So if you arenât a technical expert and youâre paying for software development services, how can you truly evaluate quality?
The difference often lies in four areas: change management, planning and review, automation, and testing.
Simply put, companies that get these right produce higher quality software than those that donât. These key elements drive efficiency, building software with fewer errors while creating a structure that facilitates future development
Change Management
Source Control
We store code in a source control repository, meaning every change we make is tracked and saved. Furthermore, multiple developers can work on a project at once without fear of overwriting each otherâs changes.
We also practice Infrastructure as Code. This means that hosting environments are scripted as code and stored in the repository, ensuring that infrastructure can be stood up in a repeatable manner. The benefits include simplified maintenance, testing, and disaster recovery.
Versioned Releases
Every deployment is planned and versioned so that we know the exact state of our software and when it got there. Being able to reference past work enables us to add new features quickly and easily.
Planning & Review
Feature Specifications
Every feature is planned using a consistent format. We outline the featureâs business objective, document our assumptions and questions, outline dependencies, formulate a work plan, and determine how to test if itâs working correctly. We prefer to measure twice, cut once.
Code Reviews
Every line of code thatâs written is reviewed by another developer. Nothing is released without peer review and approval.
Automation
Continuous Integration
Code from all developers is run through software that compiles or parses the code, triggers the automated tests, and reports back on coding style and complexity. This happens daily (sometimes several times a day) and allows us to detect problems early â before code is deployed.
Automated Deployments
We remove the human element of error by automating our deployments. Continuous Integration Servers run in parallel with deployment tools to ensure that our clientsâ code reaches the intended servers efficiently and consistently.
Testing
Automated Tests
Every project is shipped with automated tests in place to ensure performance, accessibility, and predictable functionality. We use unit tests, integration tests, visual regression tests, accessibility tests, and load tests to ensure that the software we build behaves exactly as it should.
Acceptance Criteria
Acceptance criteria define the technical requirements of development work, and we write our acceptance criteria in Gherkin. This provides the perfect blend of human readability with technical specificity, and can also be used with automated testing.
Quality Assurance
We still test the good old fashioned way too. Every feature is tested against its acceptance criteria by a Quality Assurance Engineer. Before a feature is released, we ensure that the user experience is precisely as we intended it to be.
Spend Your Money Wisely
Through effective change management, planning and review, automation, and testing, we produce top quality software for our clients.
If youâre already working with a software development partner, ask if theyâre doing these things for your project. If they arenât, then youâre likely getting less than you deserve. Contact us today for a free consultation, and we can discuss applying these best practices for your next software development project.
As we leverage more tools and create more sophisticated digital engagements/experiences, we have more and more data about our customers available. With customer experience data alone, the average organization has over two dozen potential technology applications and data sources to leverage customer data (1) These include multiple social media streams, CRM platforms, marketing automation, PPC advertising, Point of Sale/eCommerce, survey tools, email marketing tools, and the list goes on.
There is so much we can do with data, but many organizations, managers, and executives feel like data exercises are frustrating and time-consuming. How can all this data be useful if we donât have ways to connect, view, measure, and act on it?
While technological advances may have gotten us to this issue of data overload, technology is also the solution to making data more meaningful and useful. Imagine the possibilities for efficiency when all of your information is available in one single location and all working together. This may sound like a costly endeavor, but the return on investment will be well worth it. According to a study by the University of Texas in Austin on Fortune 1000 companies, a 10% increase in data usability could increase a companyâs revenue by over $2 billion. (2)Â
Suggestions for using technology to make data more meaningful:
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Integrations
As the hub that ties all other administrative applications of an organization together, an ERP system is usually the most massive piece of software in an organization. The system includes modules for every facet of the business â finance, accounting, customer management, human resources, manufacturing, inventory management. Most organizations cannot afford to operate without the automation, integration, and efficiencies an ERP delivers.
Having a way to get information out of an ERP into other systems for specific reporting or usage is critical in today’s IT environment. Leaving data locked away in an ERP system may be slowing you down.
Having an application in place to automate these ETL functions of your business should only be the beginning. The real magic comes when you have meaningful data pipelines to get the information to the right departments, clients, or executives at the right time and in the format they need it.
Better Integration with your SaaS, Custom, and Third-Party Apps
Successful organizations leverage many different systems to achieve results â ERP, CRM, eCommerce platforms, accounting, analytics, marketing automation, channel/marketplace integrations, warehouse, fulfillment, and more. Most modern applications are built leveraging APIâs. These APIâs are the gateway to integrating systems and more importantly their underlying data. For software without an API custom software and services may be able to unlock that data and get it into the hands of the right people.
The takeaway â the cost of increasing data effectiveness is relatively minor compared to the resulting substantial returns.
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At Atlantic BT we have over two decades of experience building software and integrating software to work more efficiently together. Not every source of data or software application âplays nice.â That wonât stop us. We can build unique ways to harvest and integrate data, even if itâs not easy. We love a good challenge. Whatâcha got?
Local or service-based SEO is fairly straightforward: you optimize service pages, start a Facebook page to drum up local interest, build some relevant links to pages, write some keyword optimized blogs, and ultimately cover the SEO basics.
But for something like an online learning system, a media platform, or eCommerce; SEO presents new challenges. The sheer breadth of these websites is a challenge in itself. All SEO tasks will have to be prioritized by effort and impact, regular audits become essential to stay on top of site health, and youâll likely be coordinating with several internal or external marketers to keep things afloat.
Aside from page volume, eCommerce websites have a unique structure that presents industry-specific challenges. Digital ads will be closely tied to your revenue and technical SEO becomes a priority.
Take a peek at 5 of the top challenges that eCommerce SEO experts face and how they are handling them.
1. Implementing custom product descriptions.
Custom product descriptions are an opportunity to create unique content on product pages. Custom descriptions will also help you add several relevant keywords in one place.
Better still, you can incorporate some tricks in your product descriptions to make them convert – such as using sensory adjectives or suggesting some common product uses, helping buyers picture a product in their everyday lifestyle.
Here are some methods to create a consistent practice of unique product page content.
Train site users for SEO.
Train the people who actually upload products and add descriptions in keyword research. For example, we wrote a blog on SEO basics for this reason. We can share these simple tips with clients who have larger site sizes so that they can train blog writers to incorporate best practices.
A blog post isnât always the best way to train. Try having an SEO expert audit some existing pages and show teams how they would fix them. Showing tangible examples is usually easier to digest than having people read an overview.
Make sure you house a writeup or presentation as an internal resource. SEO is complicated, and youâll need to make it easy for learners to refer back to this material.
Automate unique descriptions.
A unique description does not necessarily need to be manually written. There are a plethora of tools and AI solutions that could be implemented to help. For example, these four software businesses offer Natural Language Generation (NLG) product descriptions:
If you have enough good reviews on a page, you may eliminate the urgency for a custom description.
While a high quality product may generate reviews on its own, using a tool like Power Reviews to ask for feedback after a purchase is a better way to ensure ratings.
Remember to ask customers to write something a few paragraphs long… or provide them with an example.
2. Prioritizing keywords with thousands of products.
Thereâs no single correct way to zero in on certain products. But here are some options to help you prioritize:
Pick keywords around your largest revenue-driving product
Pick keywords involved with a new product you are trying to grow
Pick keywords that are the easiest wins for your business – or âkeyword mappingâ
eCommerce keyword mapping.
Pick an âeasy winâ keyword by looking at traction youâve already built. Do you have any page 2 rankings for promising keywords? You might be able to bring them to page 1 with a simple internal linking strategy.
Focus on product landing pages.
Another approach is to manually optimize product landing pages, given there is a manageable amount. These will be your high level category pages.
Optimizing these landing pages eliminates the issues of having similar products compete with each other. If your site offers a high volume of similar products, this is probably your best bet.
3. Defining an unclear blog strategy.
What is the goal of your eCommerce blog? Likely, youâve discovered that a blog is the easiest way to get unique content on your website in bulk. Itâs also a great way to attract organic traffic from buyers in the âawarenessâ phase.
Maximize the ROI of your blog by using it for internal linking opportunities and faster conversions.
Boost sales by internal linking in your blog.
Backlinking from external sources can help boost the authority of your web pages and demonstrate relevance. Internal linking is an easier way to do the same thing, helping you capitalize on the authority youâve already built.
First of all, find blogs that have the most or highest quality backlinks to start with. These will be easy to pick out because they likely generate the most traffic.
Then, link these top blogs to products that youâd like to focus on using keyword anchor text.
The keyword anchor text will signal relevance to search engines, and the blog postsâ backlink authority will pass through to the product page.
Conversion optimization in your blog.
Boost product conversions throughout your blog by incorporating featured product callouts, adding a recommended product widget in the blog, or adding popups with limited offers and coupon codes.
You could also go the longer (but less pushy) route: gather newsletter signups on your blog and nurture them with emails including offers and featured products.
4. Optimizing URL structure.
There are a couple of optimal URL structures for eCommerce.
Most optimized eCommerce stores today are using one of these two structures:
storename.com/category/sub-category/product-name
storename.com/product-name
Using the first option works like a breadcrumb, showing users exactly where they are on the website.
On the other hand, the second option can keep your URL short and reduce confusion (especially if you have many levels of categories on your site). To give you some more schema markup opportunities, you can use a breadcrumb on your product page along with this shorter URL.
For instance, Best Buy uses this URL structure for a product page:
Also note that Best Buy is a large website with similar products. They need to add unique identifiers like an SKU in the URL to prevent duplicates.
Should you restructure if your site is organized differently?
Changing your site structure and implementing a high volume of redirects will hurt your SEO initially. However, cleaning up your website should pay off over time if youâre willing to take a temporary hit. And if youâre already suffering in the organic department, you have nothing to lose!
5. Third-party scripts are slowing down your website.
With sales tied closely to marketing spend, you probably have all sorts of third-party scripts to track conversions (Google ads, Linkedin, Facebook, etc.). An easy precaution to take is uploading scripts in Google Tag Manager so that marketers can pause them when they are not in use.
A Google study proved that 53% of mobile ad clicks immediately exited when load times exceeded 3 seconds. Now calculate your site conversion rate and average sale to determine the revenue impact.
Site speed is worth the investment! And as frequent deployments can affect your site speed, the only way to stay on top of it is to perform regular audits. We recently compiled a prioritized list of 6 key factors to boost website performance to give your team a starting point.
Marketing and Development are tied closely together.
Youâve probably noticed that all of these SEO best practices are closely tied to eCommerce web development. For this reason, youâll need to rely on a development team that is well-versed in eCommerce SEO, or make sure that youâre investing in appropriate training.
Ready to get the ball rolling? Give us a call – we offer free consultations to get started building your eCommerce digital strategy.
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Instagram has slowly been increasing its features for advertisers and sellers. The new Instagram Shopping experience provides an additional revenue stream for the app itself (as they charge a fee for sales). But itâs also providing a whole channel for brands to gain exposure and drive sales!
Read on to learn more about the ins and outs of Instagram Shopping and see what brand value is in store for you.
Whats the new Instagram Shopping experience like?
Instagram Shopping began with the rollout of tagging products within posts and video descriptions. Users were able to click on these products and either save for later or click through to purchase on the brandâs website.
But this month, Instagram began rolling out a whole new shopping experience in test phases.
How do users get there?
Instagram shops are now a tab in the interface, letting users browse products when theyâre in the mood to purchase.
How do users browse products?
Products are organized into collections, making it easy to stumble upon appealing items. Product recommendations are based on the brands that Instagram users are following, meaning this shop is completely customized towards an individualâs preferences.
What other features should I know about?
Instagram influencers and creators are also able to tag products in their own posts. This means that affiliate programs are now more useful to sellers than ever before.
Better still, users now have access to a seamless in-app experience. Since all of their information is already stored in Facebook pay, the checkout process is simple.
How does Instagram Shop benefit eCommerce sellers?
Bypass larger brands – get exposure through targeting your niche.
eCommerce is a growing, competitive space; especially since Covid forced many stores to rely on digital sales.
While you are enjoying the benefits of more people shopping online, you likely noticed that traditional channels are becoming more competitive at the same time:
Search engines driving organic traffic
Paid ads targeting through custom audiences and search intent
Social media exposure through relevant hashtags or the Instagram Explore page
Now, Instagram Shop provides a channel with less barriers to entry. Focus on growing your Instagram following and affiliate partnerships to tap into a ready-to-buy audience, without worrying about search engine bloodbaths or the Instagram Explore pageâs ambiguous algorithm.
Tap into an audience that is more likely to purchase.
Not only are Instagram users getting an extremely personalized shopping experience while theyâre in the buying mindset, they also have a convenient checkout experience.
Buyers shop with Facebook pay, meaning there is no hassle to input all of their billing information. For you, that means less cart abandonment.
How do I set up my Instagram shop?
If youâre new to social media selling, make sure your domain is verified through Facebook Surfaces and Instagram Shopping. Then, connect to a business Facebook page.
Next, youâll need to connect a product catalog to your Instagram Business Account. You can either manually upload your products, or you can sync your website if itâs built with a supported platform (like Shopify or BigCommerce).
Once youâve configured your catalog, you can submit your Instagram account for review. If your account is approved, youâll be able to enable shopping in your settings.
Whatâs next for Instagram Shopping?
With new features that make Instagramâs shopping experience streamlined and personalized, this is becoming an essential branch of eCommerce strategy.
And it doesnât stop at setting up your Instagram store. Live shopping is coming soon! That means that influencers using an Instagram Live can tag products within the video.
This is valuable real estate! When someone posts a live, all of their users are notified immediately (jumping to the top of everyoneâs feed).
Itâs a great time to start setting up influencer marketing programs to take advantage of upcoming features.
Shopify provides the ability to have a fully functioning eCommerce website without having to do any coding or hosting.
Because it is a Saas offering, all you need to do is sign up for an account and start adding products to your store. It is very simple to use.
Some customizations are able to be made through its API and Liquid templating. While Shopify is not easily customized like Magento 2, it works well if you would like to start a small, simple store.
In what scenarios should you use Shopify?
You have a small product catalog.
Shopify is a great starting point for a business with a small number of products. It simply wouldnât make sense to use a robust platform like Magento 2, which would include a large upfront investment and unnecessary features for inventory management.
eCommerce is not the main focus of your website.
If you would like a store in addition to your main website, Shopify is a simple way to do this. For example, many businesses need a side store to sell merchandise for the brand – like t-shirts, mugs, or stickers.
Because Shopify is a low time and monetary investment, itâs quick to see a return with this secondary revenue generator.
You need a quick proof of concept.
Many businesses wish to test selling some products before focusing on expansion. Due to the low cost barrier and how quickly a store can get running, Shopify can be a great way to dip your toes into having an eCommerce site without having to commit capital.
For those needing a store up right away, but still want the customization of Magento, a solution could be to have a store running in Shopify while the Magento 2 store is being built out. Once the Magento 2 store is complete, you can rely on a partner to help migrate the products.
There are little customization and integrations required.
If the eCommerce site requires very little customizations and very little integrations with other services, then Shopify becomes the obvious choice.
Shopify allows some customizations using its Liquid templating language. However, with the amount of effort it takes to truly customize Shopify themes, another option often makes more sense.
Youâre on a tight budget.
If you are not willing to invest a lot of money upfront, Shopify will help you get going at a smaller cost. Because it is a Software as a Service (SaaS), you wonât have to worry about monthly hosting fees, maintenance/upgrades costs, and other expenses involved with using a platform like Magento 2.
Shopify does take a percentage of every sale, so as the store grows and does more business, the cost savings will lessen. At that point itâs time to consider migrating to something else.
You are mostly selling through third-party marketplaces.
Shopify has built-in support for various third-party marketplaces. Many storefronts are supported, including Amazon, Facebook, and Pinterest. If youâd like to mostly sell in these places, but also want a centralized place to maintain products and have some web presence, Shopify is the optimal solution.
In what scenarios should you not use Shopify?
You have a B2B store.
Most B2B stores require more integrations than B2C. Also, many require more advanced customer management such as login portals and history of past orders.
For these reasons, Shopify is rarely a good fit for B2B stores.
You have multiple websites.
If your setup includes multiple stores which share some products, Shopify does not offer a solution to handle this. In Shopify, youâd have to use multiple accounts for each store and consider each store its own entity.
Magento, on the other hand, supports multiple stores out of the box, enabling products to be shared across multiple stores and websites and to be managed from the same codebase.
You need multilingual support.
If your eCommerce website needs to be multilingual, it can be challenging to set up in Shopify. While there are apps on Shopifyâs marketplace that offer this type of support, it is not built-in or easily managed.
You need extensive integrations.
Shopify provides a simple API that can be used for integrating the stores into different services, but for more extensive integrations it can become impossible.
A team experienced in many platforms can guide you.
Magento 2 is a feature-packed eCommerce solution that provides complete flexibility when creating an online store. Out of the box, it comes with advanced features which allow you to run an online store with very little add-ons needed.
Magento 2 includes advanced eCommerce features and unlimited customization.
Outside of the standard eCommerce features needed to run an online store (user management, catalog management, cart, credit card processing, etc.), Magento 2 comes with advanced eCommerce features:
Advanced promotions building
Customer groups with customer group pricing (far exceeding Shopifyâs capabilities)
A robust CMS for creating pages, navigation, and more
Various product types
B2B Features (commerce edition only)
Dynamic rule based product relations (commerce edition only)
Customer segments (commerce edition only)
Multi-lingual support
Multiple catalogs, stores, and websites
Multi-source inventory
Magento 2 is fully customizable, and allowing development teams to add any additional features a client would request. All platform limitations are removed – meaning anything can be expanded if it falls within a developer’s skillset.
Choose between two versions: Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce.
Magento Open Source is a free version that contains enough features for most stores. However, it does not come with any support from Magento directly.
Magento Commerce, on the other hand, provides more built in features (customer segments, b2b, dynamic product relations, and more) and direct customer support from Magento.
Magento Commerce is costly, but for many larger businesses it is the better option due to the addition of support and features.
Which eCommerce scenarios would benefit from Magento 2?
You need extensive integrations to external systems.
If a website needs extensive integrations to external systems like an ERP or CRM, Magento 2 is the best option. That’s because Magento 2 has a robust API that makes many of these integrations possible.
There will always be some complex situations where the API is limited. In these instances, a trusted partner can create custom integrations to go beyond the supplied APIs.
You have multiple websites or stores.
Magento has multi storefront functionality built in. Everything is managed through the single application, with no need to install additional servers.
Products are shared between the different websites/stores with the ability to easily include or exclude each. On the other hand, other options like Shopify require you to purchase additional accounts, manage the products independently, and manage the customers independently.
You need an advanced custom theme.
Magento 2 empowers teams to create any theme free of restrictions that come with other eCommerce solutions. Regain full control of UX and create unique product layouts and interactions.
You have multilingual stores.
The work has already been done – Magento 2 has all of the terms that are used in its base theme translated to multiple languages.
The only translations you need to worry about are data that are entered into the store and any changes to the copy in themes.
With other platforms, you’ll be forced to purchase third-party apps to handle the translations. While these third-party solutions are effective, they are challenging to manage compared to Magento’s store scope switching.
You are a B2B store.
Magento 2 Commerce edition supports additional B2B features, which helps set up the functionality of the stores. These features include:
Company accounts
Shared catalogs with special pricing for B2B customers
Quick orders
Requisition lists
Quotes
Payments on Account
Many times B2B websites require customized features to work with their business rules. Magento 2 provides the flexibility to implement these rules.
Your website has large catalogs with complex products.
Magento 2âs product management tools are well-equipped to handle volume. This is especially true when it comes to configurable products. Magento provides a feature dedicated to creating and managing additional product attributes, creating flexibility in what information is attached to products.
You need the option to expand.
If an eCommerce business in Shopify needs a custom feature, they will be limited to what the APIs would offer, third-party apps, and their Liquid templating language.
In contrast, Magento 2 is limitless. Any team with the right development knowledge can build custom features, making skill sets the only limiting factor.
Your store has a high volume of transactions.
Magento 2 does not charge a fee on each sale. Depending on the plan chosen, Shopify can take between 2.9% and 2.4% with an additional $0.30 from every transaction (and even more if using an external payment gateway).
For lower volume stores, this might not be an issue. With a large volume store, the additional costs of the transactions can add up.
In what scenarios is Magento 2 a bad fit?
You have a small product catalog.
If a business has a catalog of less than 100 products, Magento 2 is more than likely too robust. Even if you have 1000 products, simpler options like Shopify or WooCommerce might suit all of your needs with the benefit of convenience.
You need something built quickly.
A Magento 2 store takes development time and careful planning to get up and running. It also requires setting up hosting, deploying code, and more.
Another solution to consider is quickly launching a Shopify store while building a Magento 2 store. You might also want to try a proof of concept website before fully investing.
You’re on a tight budget.
While it is the most powerful and flexible eCommerce option, Magento 2 is more expensive to run than other platforms. Even with Open Source, the cost of hosting can quickly become expensive.
A robust server infrastructure is required to run Magento efficiently and at optimal performance. Furthermore, the upkeep of Magento 2 applications includes frequent security updates.
A team experienced in many eCommerce platforms can guide you.
