Five Ways to Make Your Data Project Ready Tips to help improve your data before your new ecommerce project Are you planning on starting a new ecommerce project soon? Are you researching companies, gathering quotes, and figuring out a timeline? These are all essential things that need to be done before beginning your new project, but there are some other steps you need to take before starting that shouldn’t be overlooked. One of the most common things that our clients forget to do before beginning their ecommerce project is making sure that their data is ready for the change. Here are a few tips to help make sure that your data is project ready. Stay Up to Date When dealing with information and data, one of the first things you need to do is decide how to keep your data up to date, whether preparing for a project or not. You need to figure out how you are going to keep the data in your business systems and on your website synchronized and accurate. You can choose to put a team together that does weekly or monthly reviews of the content on your website to make sure that it is current and correct. You could also choose to have some of your staff perfect the data that is transferred over from your business systems by adding links and descriptions before publishing it on your website. It is important to have a plan in place to always keep your data accurate and up to date. Find Content Easily Before beginning an ecommerce project to improve or make a great ecommerce site, you need to have good, strong data that will make finding information and content on the site easy. Your data needs to have categories, subcategories, tags, and filters just to name a few things that make finding content easier. Going midway through an ecommerce project without your data in order will only prolong and slow the progress of the project. If you don’t already have this data in place and organized, it is a very good idea to prepare it before you start your ecommerce project. Be Search Engine Friendly Another important to do item before starting your project is making your content and data search engine friendly. You need to have categories, keywords, and phrases researched and picked out for what you want your business to be found under. Providing the company doing the ecommerce project with these search keywords will help them to better understand your company and will make the project much more beneficial for your ecommerce business. Having unique, quality content prepared to put on your ecommerce site will also help improve your search engine ranking. If you don’t already have content prepared, you need to assign people to start creating it now. Verify Your Data When preparing your data for a new project, it is important to verify it for accuracy. You need to put a plan in place to make sure that data is checked before it is transferred over to your ecommerce site and goes live. Consider assigning staff to check your content thoroughly before it is imported into the new system. Check the data against information you may already have in your business systems. Continue checking and verifying your data throughout the development of the project and maintenance of your website to maintain accuracy and quality. Data Enrichment When assessing data before projects, sometimes great, quality documents are found, such as detailed project manuals. If they aren’t already, it is a smart idea to digitize these valuable pieces of information and share them on your website or with your customers or potential clients. They made need updating or editing before being shared publicly but they can add a significant value to your business. You can also consider having industry experts at your company author articles, blogs or technical resources that could be helpful to your customers. The key takeaway is how to provide your clients with better data, information and resources that will make your company more helpful and therefore more valuable. Clarity Can Help At Clarity, we understand how important it is to have your data ready for your next ecommerce project. Our team at Clarity has helped numerous clients prepare their data before starting on their ecommerce project. To find out more about how Clarity can help you assess, prepare, and improve your data or to get a quote for your next ecommerce project, call or click to contact us today!