Switching Ecommerce Platforms
TheBBQDepot.com began their search for a new e-commerce service when Yahoo! Stores appeared to be going south. They wanted a system that would be better suited to their growing business, and keep their traffic right where it was.
Yahoo Stores had been a great platform for The BBQ Depot, but back then, the web still fell prey to some of the old myths about SEO, like gaming the rankings with bad content and links. Wanting to future-proof when the search algorithms began to change, The BBQ Depot knew they needed to make a switch to a focused, SEO-driven partner to ensure they kept getting traffic.
“I looked at EVERYBODY. It was a matter of who gave me, in my gut, the best feeling. That’s why I chose IntuitSolutions.”
– Tracy Hollander, TheBBQDepot.com
“I went and looked at everybody. Redhead Labs, eCart, I looked at EVERYBODY. It was a matter of who gave me, in my gut, the best feeling.. and that’s why I chose IntuitSolutions,” said Tracy Hollander, owner of The BBQ Depot.
Replatforming with BigCommerce
osCommerce and Magento were The BBQ Depot’s initial forays into larger-scale e-commerce, but they quickly became frustrated with the Magento platform because of the huge part they had to play in ensuring the success of the site.
“[Magento] felt like Fred Flintstone moving a car.”
– Tracy Hollander, Owner, TheBBQDepot.com
Not only do you need an Enterprise-level plan for support, but you need to find your own hosting, and then hire a developer to work with you. Looking for a managed solution for their hosting needs, they chose BigCommerce.
Fixing Magento Issues
After a less than perfect BigCommerce migration with a different partner, IntuitSolutions was chosen to clean up the migration and get the site re-optimized for better search engine results. As one of our always-available services, we excel at cleaning up code and getting your site back at top performance. IntuitSolutions also offers a wide range of SEO-driven analytics tools and options for using search engine results to your advantage.
IntuitSolutions oversaw a wide range of cleanup work and new usability development work on The BBQ Depot. We were able to make content and layout improvements through Analytics data and usability testing, as well as restructuring breadcrumbs, fixing broken links and creating new slider images. We also put their latest blog posts on the frontpage to allow them to always have fresh content available, and consolidated their code so the site could be faster.
Finally, IntuitSolutions implemented a responsive design to help The BBQ Depot to not only better provide for their mobile users, but to follow Google’s new guidelines for ranking factors. A responsive design is imperative to continuing to rank well, and with a steadily-growing mobile user base.
Need more info about the mobile push, or to check if your site is mobile-friendly? Visit our post about going mobile, or check your site at Google’s testing page.
Seeing Results on BigCommerce
Since joining BigCommerce, The BBQ Depot has experienced a number of improvements to their site metrics.
- Increased revenue by 108.3%
- Increased sessions by 85.4%
- Increased conversion rate by 12.4%
- Decreased bounce rate by 10.9%
“[IntuitSolutions] are the only ones that I trust, after everything I’ve been through. There’s nobody that can do what you do.”
– Tracy Hollander
Ready to right your ship on BigCommerce? Contact us today at 866-590-4650!
