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…)
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…)
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…)
Running an eCommerce website comes with its toll of responsibilities. One of the most important ones is website security.
Not taking all the necessary steps to keep your eCommerce website as secure as possible can have very serious consequences on your business.
As a general rule, there are 3 main elements to eCommerce website security. You should make sure you’re on top of them: (more…)
This is another popular question. Often you want to show items on a CMS page rather than a regular category page. But you still want to have the layered navigation to filter results like it appears by default with Magento at the category level (when listing products).
To add Magento’s layered navigation to a CMS page where you’re showing items simply edit your CMS page in the admin – under the “Design” tab put this code:
<reference name="left">
<block type="catalog/layer_view" name="catalog.leftnav" before="-" template="catalog/layer/view.phtml"/>
</reference>
That will show the layered navigation at the very top of the left column on your CMS page. Of course make sure your CMS page layout is “2column with left bar” (under “layout” in the “Design” tab). (more…)
We recently saw how to avoid issues with Magento editor to edit content on CMS pages (such as the home page for example) but I wanted to take the time to post a much better way to handle content in CMS pages with Magento. (more…)
If you’re running Magento 1.4 (or 1.4.0.1) and your “email to a friend” form doesn’t send emails, that’s because your Magento template (Magento theme) is not fully compatible with 1.4.
Note that the “email to a friend” form won’t return any error – it just won’t send the email and won’t redirect to the product page like it’s supposed to.
So here’s what you’ll need to do to update your Magento template in order to quickly fix this error: (more…)
Yet another Magento bug a lot of people are experiencing after upgrading their Magento installation to 1.4. Here’s a quick fix: (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…)
When developing a new website or web application, you should choose to work with widely used web technologies that are popular on the internet. Why is this a smart choice?
Large pool of talented people.
If you work with widely used technologies, you’re aiming at a large pool when looking for talented people to work with. That’s really important. When working with technologies that are more rare, you are tying yourself to the companies or individuals you’re working with. By using more popular technologies, you’ll have a choice if for whatever reason you need to find other people to work with. And all the past work done will not be in vain because other people will know how to work with it.
Cost effective.
It is usually more expensive to work with technologies that are more rare. Of course it’s not the rule but it’s often the case. Again the pool of competitors is smaller so that usually means higher prices.
Access to resources.
In addition, it is much harder to find resources, frameworks, platforms, and in general open source software when you use technologies that are less popular – so you miss out on a lot of shortcuts and powerful options. Basically everything has to be coded custom – again that’s much more expensive and is not sustainable.
Prepared for growth.
Working with the wrong technologies will interfere with your company’s growth. Any web application needs to be regularly updated, maintained, and carefully secured (especially when it comes to Ecommerce for example). By not choosing a route where you can use popular software and platforms that are themselves regularly updated by the community, you are signing up for a long relationship with your developer and will end up being too dependent. It’s not a smart choice.
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