Archive for the ‘web design’ Category

Magento checkout extensions have been pretty popular for a long time. For Ecommerce owners the idea of increasing sales just by making the checkout process smoother is a very appealing one.

The problem is that most checkout extensions are actually harmful to conversion rates and checkout usability.

All Magento checkout extensions I’ve seen out there are very bad in terms of load speed, conversions, and stability.

Don’t combine checkout steps into a single crowded step

First of all I have no idea why but all checkout extensions I’ve ever seen combine the checkout steps into a crowded 3-column design and promote this as if it’s a positive thing.

Here’s a screenshot taken from one such extension to illustrate what I mean:

Even the savviest users get confused with such a layout! Not to mention most internet shoppers eager to complete their purchase quickly and move on. I mean – which fields are you supposed to fill out first? Why are there so many options everywhere? It’s really overwhelming – especially if you’re just buying a shirt or a pair of shoes!

There are a ton of checkout extensions but somehow they all combine all checkout steps into one crowded page with 3 columns. It doesn’t get any worse in terms of usability and conversions!

Don’t overwrite Magento’s functionality

These extensions also completely overwrite Magento’s checkout functionality which is a big no no in terms of upgade-ability, stability and security.

What that means is that you’ll run into countless issues and problems with new Magento verions, and other 3rd party extensions (such as payment methods, shipping methods, etc).

Don’t weigh down your checkout page

In  addition these extensions add their own style files, template files, and layout files to the checkout page which will affect  load speed and page performance – actually slowing down the most important page of an online store!

Don’t trust anything but numbers

If you’re trying out a Magento checkout extension, you should make sure to test conversion rates with A/B testing (you can use Google Website Optimizer for that if you want a free and quick implementation). One company did test conversion rates and saw a huge decrease in conversion rates when compared to the original Magento checkout process!

Well, that’s expected to anyone with any sense of design and usability.

Look for an alternative

You can stick with the native Magento checkout functionality and that’s fine. Except for the very first step which is very confusing to users:

Fortunately this first step can be easily and seamlessly removed with the Optimized Checkout Extension without affecting any of the checkout functionality and all its possible scenarios.

If you want users to sign up for your newsletter at checkout you can incorporate this very simple extension which adds a newsletter check-box with a bunch of possible scenarios you can configure in the admin.

Links mentioned in this post:

• Google Website Optimizer
• A/B Testing the One Step Checkout Magento Extension
• Magento Conversion Rate Optimization – Cart and Checkout
• Optimized Checkout Extension
• Newsletter Checkout Extension
  

Whether you’re a web designer, eCommerce manager, or simply someone who runs his own website, having the right tools at hand will have a huge impact on your efficiency; from maintenance and website management, to customization and design.

Here’s is a very selective list of free tools anyone who runs a website should have: (more…)

Every page on your website should have a single URL associated with it. The main reason for that is that Search Engines penalize websites with duplicate content (i.e. same content on different URLs). (more…)

Everybody knows a website’s landing page is really important. Since it’s easier to scroll than to click, one of the guiding principles in landing page design is that long landing pages tend to yield better results than their shorter counterpart.

Here are 2 truly awesome long landing pages utilizing the browser native scroll in an innovative way: (more…)

Many SEOs believe in implementing the attribute “rel=nofollow” on the menu links of Ecommerce sites.

That’s actually a pretty common SEO misconception even amongst the more experienced Search Engine Optimizers.

Here’s why, how, and everything in between: (more…)

Here’s a very nice Magento based online store: www.giro.com which was featured yesterday on the Magento blog as part of a great series of posts. If you’re designing a Magento theme or deploying a Magento based Ecommerce and you’re in need of some inspiration, then you should definitely browse through the live stores featured there. (more…)

Looking for a simple way to make rounded corners using CSS? Here it is! With this very simple method, you don’t need to use any images or complicated code with divs etc. Nothing really is necessary. Just 2 lines in your CSS file.

All you need is the following CSS property (in this example I create a “rounded-corners” CSS class which you can then apply to your HTML element): (more…)

Magento (community edition) is definitely one of the best Ecommerce platforms out there. But Magento has significant drawbacks and as it grows more and more popular, more and more people are also looking for simpler, better suited alternatives for their Ecommerce website.

Keep reading and watch a screencast video on how to get an Ecommerce website in under 5 minutes using a great alternative to Magento. (more…)

Many people are having the issue where the toolbar and pagination doesn’t show when listing products on a CMS page and are continuously asking for help on the Magento forums but as far as I could see there is no solution posted there. In fact that’s the case for most questions posted on the forums.

How to show the toolbar and pagination when listing products on pages other than category pages is actually quite simple. In fact it’s very simple! (more…)

Magento 1.4 comes built in with a wysiwyg editor that is there to make it easy for less savvy users to edit rich content on their store’s home page, content pages, product descriptions etc without HTML knowledge.

There is also an option to hide the editor in case you want to use external code and paste it there or if you want to edit the HTML directly.

If you know HTML, you’ll probably want to use your favorite editor and only paste the code in the admin when you’re done (with the editor hidden). The problem is that the editor gets very buggy if you do that and then try to make a small edit directly in the admin – or even if you load the edit page in the admin and save again! That’s because the editor is not hidden by default and when loaded it adds <p> tags everywhere and removes empty divs. Depending on the code you have this will either destroy your content’s formatting on the front-end or make it disappear altogether.

Keep reading for a simple way to solve this annoying issue with the Magento editor! (more…)