|
View the web version
Hi there, hope you're having a great Friday!
This is Colm and Simon from CommerceGurus, with a handpicked weekly roundup of eCommerce articles.
There was some very big news this week from Google.
They have confirmed that it will roll out the new page experience signals in May 2021. It also plans to introduce a new visual indicator for pages that fully comply with the page experience requirements.
There are no additional details on what that will look like but AMP’s lightning bolt is a good example of how small graphics can have a meaningful impact on users’ behavior when navigating through search results.
Google’s Core Web Vitals assessment gives a pass or fail rating, with a “pass” requiring a good result in all three metrics.
Speed has never been more important to prioritize and site owners have only 6 months to prepare for this change.
The official post from Google covers the main details but Sarah's roundup at WP Tavern is an excellent summary of the challenges (and opportunities) ahead for stores.
Read about Google Ranking Signals at WP Tavern
Colm discovered an interesting product this week - 180+ tactics used by the highest converting, fastest growing stores on the Internet.
You can see 25 of them for free on the homepage. A couple stood out as we implemented them in our Shoptimizer theme.
Tunnel Checkout
Remove header and footer from checkout to create a distraction-free 'tunnel'. Reducing the number of options a user has will increase the chance they will perform the action you want them to take and proceed further in the checkout process.
Category Descriptions for SEO
Help category pages rank better in search engines by adding category descriptions at the bottom of your pages. These pages don't contain much relevant text naturally, so adding a couple of additional keyword-optimized paragraphs can be of much help.
There are lots of more tactics, even for free, and the full version contains over 150 suggestions.
Check out the eCommerce Tactics Database
I really enjoyed this post by Harry Roberts. in which he shares one of his favorite web performance workflows.
I needed a more holistic way to visualise performance across an entire site, and—ideally—something more useful than load times.
He explains how he first identifies key page types such as the product listings page (PLP), product details page (PDP) and search results page (SRP).
Then for gathering data he uses Web Page Speed Test - what he calls the "gold standard".
Finally he plugs all the data into a spreadsheet, which he makes available for free (or a small contribution).
Page speed is going to be more and more important over the next 6 months and this post is a great place to start.
Read about Site-Speed Topography
What the challenger banks did differently: a study into the UX of banking.
Monzo, Revolut and Starling—often called the challenger banks—have built billion-dollar businesses around the belief that they offer the best overall banking experience.
But are they actually any better, or is it all clever marketing? To answer that question the author opened 12 real bank accounts, and logged everything.
Each chapter provides a forensic analysis of a particular feature or user journey.
For something a bit different, this is a really enjoyable deep-dive into some excellent user interfaces clashing with the old way of doing things.
Learn about the UX of banking
I've been an icon hunting spree lately and my latest discovery is this really clean set of 'micro' icons called Radix.
They'd be a great fit for websites and stores and are MIT-licensed so you can use them on commercial projects.
As well as SVGs, it also includes Figma and Sketch versions to download so if you're using these design creation tools they're extra easy to drop in.
Check out the Radix free icon set
That's it for this edition. Simply reply to this email if you have any questions or suggestions, we read every message. Have a great week and best of luck with your projects!
Colm and Simon from CommerceGurus
|