It is a common saying that to err is human, to forgive is divine. However, few can accept the truth when they tend to invest their hard-earned money in building an online store. Magento 2 development is also complex, and just like any other profession, they are also subject to mistakes to a certain level as other professions work. But, the magnitude of the mistakes should not be so high that it has to cost the owner a great fortune. To be safe, I am highlighting some of the mistakes the Magento 2 developers commit so that you get to educate them and ensure they do not commit them while coding for your mega project.
- Using default layered navigation
On one side, layered navigation is suggested the most for better user experience and usability; however, it has a darker side that is about its bad impact on the SEO of a Magento 2 store. The default layered navigation works by filtering catalog items with different attributes like category, color, size, price, etc. As a result, duplicate content makes the metadata more complex, including the title, description, and URL. Ask your Magento 2 developer to use the Magento 2 multi-select layered navigation or make sure the search engine does not index the layered navigation.
- Ignoring title tags optimization
The default settings of a Magento 2 store need extensive optimization. The developers usually ignore them, considering it the job of SEO executives. The common mistakes they commit in doing so include not setting title tags for the home tag, alt text for images and logo, etc. it may seem to be minor changes, but it reflects a lot about your business. Start personalized the default title with optimized keyword and business theme to make them speak about your goals and objectives. Please take the following measures to rectify their mistakes.
- Create relevant title tags to remove the common home tag
- Add alternate text to images and other visual content
- Replace the default title, i.e., Magento Commerce
- Remove duplicate content created on different pages
- Incorporate keywords with search intent in the long titles
- Unorganized pile of images
Online stores need to portray a clearer picture of products. That’s why they have to upload high-quality photography covering different angles and aspects. These high-definition images may help draw a real-life picture, but it ultimately deteriorates the website’s speed and performance, leading to underperforming in SERPs.
Magneto 2 developments may not include such a plan as they may recommend reducing the file sizes, which may also ruin the quality of the images. In this regard, WebP images extension for Magento 2 is one of the reliable solutions to effectively shrink images to almost half of their size without compromising its quality. WebP is the next-generation image format developed by Google to help store owners boost SEO by keeping the website speed and performance at optimum levels.
- Setting a complex theme.
Being an open-source eCommerce platform, Magento boasts hundreds of attractive and user-friendly themes. However, the merchants somehow let the developers select a theme. So they choose as it attracts them, without thinking that either it will be suitable for the niche or industry the business is all about. Additionally, there needs to be a consideration about consumer behavior.
Focusing the attraction of layout and features make the developers choose a bulky and heavier theme which is a catastrophe for the SEO of the website. Instead, Magento 2 developers and store managers need to seek a user-centered theme, light in weight, and designed specifically to showcase the distinct kinds of products they have to add.
- Not Switching Index, Follow
An online store may lose on SERPs ranking if the Index, Follow tags are not switched while moving from the staging server to the live server. The staging server is useful in Magento 2 developmental stage to ensure the changes are tested before final implementation and bugs are removed. It removes the risks of errors before the website goes live.
Ignoring indexation of the staging server will bring rank loss. Therefore, the developers need to use no-index/no-follow tags when starting the development so that the test version of the website is not indexed and the changes are not shown in SERPs. Then, they need to switch the tags again to Index/Follow to ensure the live website is crawled.
Final thoughts
Developing a Magento 2 website is problematic because it includes complex concepts and advanced coding scripts. A team of professional developers takes the project well-prepared from scratch until its completion, but they often fail to fulfill the basic SEO requirements, due to which the website does not perform well in SERPs. As the mistakes are highlighted in this post, you can quickly go through your webshop to find if any of them exist in your store, too, so prompt corrective measures should be taken.
