It has been almost a year since BigCommerce made a big leap from Blueprint to the Stencil framework. BigCommerce Stencil development and migration is a big deal not only for the developers but also for the store owners. BigCommerce Stencil Development offers deploying of coding system which are flexible in nature to ensure that the changes can be seen in real time.
From the store owner’s point of view, Stencil offers a faster loading time which means less number of people leaving the site and other features. Let’s see what else BigCommerce Stencil has to offer.
Preview Option
With BigCommerce Stencil you can say good bye to the risk of making an error on the webstore. This is by far the biggest advantage Stencil has over Blueprint. This allows the developers to test and manifest changes on a testing server and observe the website’s behaviour. It not only eliminates the risk of passing on an error on the live website but also makes the implementation happen at a quicker turn around time.
Flexibility to Developers
A big relief for developers from BigCommerce. Stencil has removed all the stubborn untouchable coding blocks so that developers are free to play around with them and instill tweaks in the program. In the Blueprint days, the developers had a hard time modifying the codes as it had a rigid framework.
This is also a big boon for store owners because now customizing their stores with numerous features and add-ons can be done easily. They no longer have to solely depend on BigCommerce for adding new features in the store.
Smarter Database Management
Remember when you had to upload the entire catalogue on the store in order to show a select few items? BigCommerce Stencil allows you to select only the items that you wish to showcase on your store and deselect rest of the items.
As a result your old heavier pages can now load quickly. Apart from this, it also minimizes the chances of displaying a wrong item on the website because now you are dealing with selective data.
Real Time Feedback
Another reason to go for bigcommerce stencil development is that now it offers a real time tracking of all the changes that are being made on the website. You may have a quick look on how the modified website looks on your desktop and other devices. This not only saves a lot of time during the development stage but also acts as a check point for measuring the responsiveness of the changes.
Agile Website
BigCommerce has ensured that Stencil measures up to the benchmark scores of web page loading time. It manages to score pretty high (Cornerstone theme = 89!) on the Google Page Speed score without compromising on the quality of images used.
We already know how much it is crucial for any website to have faster loading time. It is one of those features which can make-or-break your business. You might want to read this blog for an in-depth comparative analysis between BigCommerce Stencil and Blueprint.
Mobile Friendly
BigCommerce Stencil framework is Google AMP enabled which makes it load faster on mobile devices. Also, your mobile friendly pages will display the AMP logo alongside its url. This feature makes the webpage load quicker than Blueprint version pages. It also performs better than the websites which don’t have AMP enabled pages. Google even offers better ranking to AMP enabled pages. What more can you ask for?
SEO Optimized
The last but not the least, BigCommerce Stencil comes with many SEO centric features like easy HTTPs migration, ready-made Robot.txt file, inbuilt sitemap generator etc. Since these fronts have already been taken care of, all you have to do is to focus more on other SEO related aspects. As a result your SEO efforts will be relatively smoother and easier to implement on the website.
You may have spent a lot of efforts and resources in building your Blueprint website. You may be wondering is it worth the effort to again venture into BigCommerce Stencil development, specially when you are dealing with a huge webstore. Well, with the Stencil update, BigCommerce has raised the stakes so high that you only stand to loose by not choosing Stencil over Blueprint.
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