So you’ve built a new eCommerce website with WordPress and are planning to launch it soon. That’s awesome!
But before you launch your online store publicly, what are your QA(testing) plans and strategies? Have you ensured that your eCommerce website is ready to get exposure from users and search engines? Has your eCommerce developer done the required QA?
If yes, do not read this post further and start counting the money you will earn from your website. However, if you haven’t gone through the testing process yet, hold it! Do not launch your website first. After all, it’s about your reputation and investment, so do not take any risks.
Are you wondering what critical QA elements should be for a WordPress-based eCommerce website?
In this blog post, we will learn about a few critical QA checklists every business must follow before launching its WordPress eCommerce website.
#1 Security
A. Secure Admin Login
If your WordPress developer has not secured the admin login of your website yet, ask him to do so now. This is the first step to protecting your website from the eyes of hackers. How to do this? Below are a few essential measures to secure admin login of any WordPress eCommerce website:
1. Never use “admin” as a username
2. Use a one-time password process for your admin login. This one-time password will be valid for one session only. You can use plugins like One Time Password to do this quickly.
3. Use plugins like Login Lockdown, which will block access to the site after a certain number of failed login attempts.
4. Add a secured firewall for your WordPress website through great plugins like Wordfence. This plugin also helps to lock down admin login for the users trying to log in with several failed attempts. You may also lock down admin for the users trying to log in with specific usernames.
Implementing the above measures for your eCommerce website will solve most of the security problems associated with WordPress websites.
B. Secure WordPress Website
Other than securing admin login for any WordPress eCommerce website, it’s also essential to protect the whole website against virus threats. Being the most popular CMS in the world, WordPress has become a popular target for hackers, too. With useful plugins like AntiVirus, you can secure your WordPress eCommerce website from viruses.
In one of my previous blog posts, you can read more about securing your WordPress eCommerce website.
#2 SEO
As we all know, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) effectively gets website traffic. If you want to attract a well-targeted audience to your eCommerce website, you must ensure that your website has all the basic yet essential On-page SEO elements. Let’s discover them one by one.
A. 404 Pages
Non-existent web pages of a website show “Page Not Found,” aka 404 (header status). These pages harm users’ experience and affect the website’s SEO score.
Therefore, every webmaster should first ensure that no such pages exist. Even if no such pages are found on a website, a script must be added in the .htaccess file that redirects all 404 pages to 301 (moved permanently).
Luckily, several helpful plugins, like 404 to 301, are available for WordPress eCommerce websites (free to use), making this process as quick as 5 minutes.
B. Broken Links
The links that show “page not found” are known as broken links. There could be several reasons for a broken link, e.g., spelling mistakes of the URL on a link, linking to non-existent pages, etc. Again, broken links badly affect a website’s user experience and SEO score. Therefore, it must be fixed on the top priority, especially when you have an eCommerce website.
Some useful plugins, like Broken Link Checker, help webmasters identify and fix broken links on their eCommerce websites.
D. Loading Speed
Using high-resolution product images on an eCommerce website is normal because every website owner wants their users to view and feel the products better. But did you know that by using high-resolution images, we compromise the website’s loading speed?
Slow loading speeds frustrate users and affect SEO. Search engines like Google consider loading speed one of the most essential criteria for ranking a website in the top positions of search results.
Some online tools, like Page Speed Insights, are free and allow you to check a website’s loading speed. These tools also help you identify the possible causes of slow loading speed.
E. Meta Tags
For those who don’t know about meta tags, a meta tag is a summary of any webpage we can use to help search engines understand that page and show it in the search results. Targeted keywords in meta tags can increase the chances of better positioning on search engine listings.
Have you adequately utilized meta tags for all the pages of your WordPress eCommerce website? If not, you must fix this immediately. Several tools, like Yoast SEO, guide you through writing optimized meta tags.
F. Sitemap
The sitemap is a file that tells search engines about all the pages that must be indexed by their robots/crawlers. This file helps search engines to travel to different pages of a website. Useful SEO plugins like Yoast SEO can help you to achieve this job. Creating and deploying sitemaps on the server through these SEO plugins is just a few clicks job.
#3 User Experience
A. Checkout Process
Because of the complicated or ugly checkout process, you don’t want visitors to leave your eCommerce website. As with WordPress websites, a checkout form is considered the backbone of any eCommerce website.
Before you launch your eCommerce website and invest money in its advertisements, put yourself in the user’s shoes and consider whether your checkout process needs enhancements. A simple checkout process generates more sales, conversions, and fewer abandoned orders.
B. Forms
Have you checked all the forms on your WordPress eCommerce website? Make sure that all the form submission results are processed properly and saved. Also, check that all the forms have appropriate validation (mandatory fields) so that you can receive all the necessary information about every user that would help you contact them in the future.
C. Cross-Browser Testing
This is something that most web developers do not invest their time in, although cross-browser testing is an integral part of QC.
What exactly is cross-browser testing?
Cross-browser testing is when testers or web developers compare and analyze website functionality and styles across multiple browser platforms and operating systems. This helps them identify and fix any potential discrepancies.
Since you never know which browser your visitor may use to browse your eCommerce website, it’s essential to test and fix the website for all the major browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc.
D. Payment Gateway
It would be regrettable if your eCommerce website is attractive, supports all browsers and devices, and attracts a targeted audience, but your potential customers cannot pay swiftly. If your customers cannot pay online, the whole objective of getting an eCommerce website would be wasted, wouldn’t it?
Please make sure to test by completing a few transactions yourself. This reminds me that you must also provide your customers with several options to pay online. Think about their convenience and preferences rather than yours.
Final Words
An eCommerce website carries huge responsibilities for making profits for any organization. Wouldn’t it be worth testing each aspect of your online store before presenting it to the world? Think about it!