Should I upgrade from Business v7 to v8?

[demonlooper]

Hi,

I use v7 business.

It is working perfectly for my small store.

Is there anything extra that v8 does that 7 does not?

I like the coupon codes in v7, are they in v8 catalog or both catalog and business.

I don't need integration to sage etc

Label printing does not matter to me.

I like the sound of 'best sellers' and 'also bought these items' features.

Are they in all versions of v8?

Thanks in advance, a link to a comparison chart would be great I could not find one.

[RuralWeb]

One big point and the main reason I would strongly suggest upgrading is the improved SERPs produced by V8. I have several upgraded sites and have been tracking their performance over the last 5 months and the results are very impressive. This has resulted in a 300%+ increase in sales for one site and big improvements on the others.

The sales increase has more than paid for the upgrade so that is the reason why I would move to V8 ASP.

[demonlooper]

I don't know what SERPs are

[RuralWeb]

Serach Engine Results Pages - ie V8 gives your site far better possitions in the search engines IMO = more people find your site = more sales

[pinbrook]

Serach Engine Results Pages - ie V8 gives your site far better possitions in the search engines IMO = more people find your site = more sales

whist this can be said to be true you also should factor in the fact that xmas shopping will also account for a rise in visitor numbers. it will be interesting to see the increase in sales over the next 5 months - just to determine how much of that 300% is due to SEO and how much was general www xmas activity.

I am aware that we are talking about 2 things here, Malcolm is saying v8 can result in better SERPs thus better sales, I am also suggesting that some sites will simply have had more visitors in the pre xmas period regardless. I suggest this as I remember last year one site I was looking after last year was really frustrating me, it had good SERPs but I felt the sales were low, I could not figure out what was wrong, then BAM, November and December its sales increased by 6 fold. My conclusion the site was being found but people just weren't buying at the time of year I was investigating the site.

Additional to my theory our data centre saw a massive 450% increase in bandwidth demand over this time last year with V8 sites accounting for 3% of the sites in the DC.

Just an observation

[RuralWeb]

whist this can be said to be true you also should factor in the fact that xmas shopping will also account for a rise in visitor numbers. it will be interesting to see the increase in sales over the next 5 months - just to determine how much of that 300% is due to SEO and how much was general www xmas activity.

I knew someone would say that which is why I thought hard about posting it at this time of year. I am really factoring in xmas as well - i think everyone has had better internet sales this xmas so that dose need to be taken into account.

As I said I have been monitoring the sites for 5 months now and the effect of V8 can be seen as far back as July - keyword positions improved, pages indexed improved, page views improved and sales improved as a result of more traffic.

As jo says I also detected shoppers looking about in November and purchasing in December so I can relate to that.

All I am saying is that IMO one of the major factors you have missed from your list is the increased SE performance - its up to you if you feel the cost is worth the possible results.

As for the others in your list then there is not much difference between V7 and V8 other than the best sellers/new products and design features.

[pinbrook]

And going back to the original Q, in my view the marketing module is worth upgrading for.

upselling with related products, also boughts is an important new feature. Admittedly it also depends on your product range but gift stores, computer stores, clothes are prime examples where you would benefit from upsell.

When I am computer purchasing I always look at related items ie ink and paper to go with a printer, cables to go with networking equipment etc.

The mailing list addon has the potential to pay for itself if you build up a loyal customer base.

The design features also allow you to build a better design into the store making the whole thing look less actinicy.

[demonlooper]

Thanks for the response guys, luckily I'm in a very niche market so can get on Google page 1 no problem, I'd like the 'also bought feature' but probably not worth the ££ to upgrade then, I could do the best sellers or featured product on my homepage anyway, which I edit manually.

Great help guys, thanks

[RuralWeb]

I'd like the 'also bought feature' but probably not worth the ££ to upgrade then, I could do the best sellers or featured product on my homepage anyway, which I edit manually.

Agreed - these features can all be done manually in V7 if you have the skills so i would stick to V7 if you dont need the SEO improvements.

[Duncan Rounding]

Are you talking of 'clean css' layouts that rate better in V8 or the standard template designs as well?
What is it that makes V8 better for SEO - is it that there is less html clutter or what?

[RuralWeb]

Are you talking of 'clean css' layouts that rate better in V8 or the standard template designs as well?

The sites use tabled designs and the new V8 standard designs - not css

What is it that makes V8 better for SEO - is it that there is less html clutter or what?

A difficult one - Im not really sure yet as I have not had any spare time to dig into V8 and see the exact differences between it and V7 - Im too busy getting to grips with designing with it!!! It does have cleaner code though and google likes clean sites.

I have more V8 sites coming online soon, so with more sites to look at I will get a better idea of what is happening and how best to optimise V8 sites. It will take at least another year to fully appreciate the SEO advantages of V8 but at the moment I can see that one of the best investments a site owner can make is to upgrade.

[freakmode]

We upgraded from V7 bus to V8 - best feature was add to cart on extended info layout.

As for SEO - have seen no difference between V7 and V8 with our SERPS.

[wjcampbe]

I would expect Malcolm, having the SE qualification, to have gone to the trouble of keyword research before naming each and every page, and also to have made maximum use of meta tags, product naming and description opportunities to emphasise the unique page keyword etc.

With this, he would be the first to realise any possible gain from the conversion to v8.

Personally, I am reserving judgement on posssible v8 SEO gains till I have a lot more data available to analyse.

[RuralWeb]

best feature was add to cart on extended info layout.

As for SEO - have seen no difference between V7 and V8 with our SERPS

This is interesting - I have not used this feature as I have my doubts over its ability to improve SERPS.

[RuralWeb]

the first to realise any possible gain from the conversion to v8

As you say bill it is very early days for V8 but as I posted back in Oct I have noticed an improvement on the sites I have upgraded so it is worth mentioning it for people who are considering upgrading.

Also my post above about the extended info pages is my one area of concern about the SEO improvements in V8 - it will be interesting to get some feedback in terms of ranking effects from sites that are using it.