Does StoreConnect replace an existing CMS?

The beauty of StoreConnect is that it is capable of fully replacing your existing CMS (like Wordpress et al) in it's entirety.

Of course, it doesn't have to, and many clients might start with a separate domain name for their store such as shop.example.com with their existing CMS running on example.com, however this is not optimal for a number of reasons.

Often, the concern around StoreConnect is from a marketing and SEO viewpoint, how will the new StoreConnect site allow us to track how effective our marketing and SEO is? And will we lose existing SEO on current URLs we have.

Let's go into each one:

SEO features of StoreConnect

StoreConnect provides for SEO fields on every page with the ability to add specific content as needed. We also generate Page Meta Data which can be directly edited, programmed and modified through our theme editor if desired.

Google Analytics & JavaScript tracking capabilities

StoreConnect also provides the ability to add any Javascript you need to the site such as Google Analytics code and full Javascript editing and direct HTML editing capability. Your SEO team can be confident that they can create the HTML they need for the site.

Marketing spend tracking & UTM codes

But the problem with tools like Google Analytics is that they can only track some of the data. With StoreConnect's UTM tracking feature you can track inbound ads and traffic from the first time they land on the site, all the way through to a closed sale in Salesforce with all of this data completely available for reporting in Salesforce. You can track this even without needing Google Analytics. And better yet, if a user clicks on more than one ad, then every ad they clicked on will be recorded against the final order or abandonded cart, providing full visibility into which marketing is working, and which is not.

Merchant feeds & sitemaps

StoreConnect also provides a full sitemap feature as well as Facebook Catalog Feed & Google Merchant Feed on a per store basis.

Maintaining existing URLs

Finally, your SEO and CMS team may have invested big to get their current page ranking, and obviously maintaining the SEO of these pages is critical. To facilitate this, StoreConnect provides a Route Mapping feature, allowing you to do 301, 302 or in page redirects of URLs to their new location.

Summary

So while you could run StoreConnect as a separate system to the CMS site and keep the CMS site running, we would highly recommend migrating the entire site to StoreConnect as this will:

1. reduce costs;
2. reduce the infrastructure needed;
3. remove any integration requirements;
4. remove the need to update content in multiple locations;
5. improve security;
6. improve visibility and reporting of marketing through to sales;
7. provide a fully dynamic site that can be changed according to what is happening in Salesforce for Real Time Marketing;
8. provide you with additional capabilities around process and approvals.

StoreConnect is designed form the ground up to be a complete Customer Commerce system, providing everything needed for your Content Management as well as eCommerce requirements, all powered out of Salesforce.