Magento philosophy empowering new innovators

When there is a time to learn something new about e-commerce, it is impossible to have that discussion without bringing up magento. It’s been around for five years now, and it is only growing stronger, moving in tune with the changing times and helping e-commerce owners everywhere find the best way to sell their products and services through attractive, well-designed websites that are easy to run and manage.

Magento has made easy of use and automation its philosophy and small business can easily begin their journey with the big sharks by starting an online platform without having the millions to back them up. it begins with hosting and support and the front end is customized design for the modern users who want to feel welcome whenever they visit an ecommerce store. The design should always reflect the spirit of the business, the brand and what it stands for, and Magento helps entrepreneurs use that feature to the most. The best part is there is no special skills in design needed, and everyone knows that many startups are often stifled by lack of funds, so this really opens up a lot of possibilities for a lot of brave and innovative people. Another great feature of the store is that you can buy different features that you need and add them on as you go and grow, which really helps you be flexible and use scalability as a strong point. If you need to add something you can simply buy that package and gradually perfect the store as more money comes in and you can afford it. This is a great path to take and it is important to never stop growing and always move up with the ideas that you already have.

Being friendly in the search engines is very vital nowadays and of course Magento hasn’t skipped this step and is helping new business players find their way in the search engines despite all the competition from the copywriting houses and SEO gurus out there. You don’t have to be an expert to use any of the products they offer, and that’s the beauty of it because nobody wants to be bogged down by technical stuff unless they are a developer or programmer, and that’s not something that you came into ecommerce for. You came to make money and nothing should distract you from nailing it on the head. Creating buzz and raising awareness of deals and promotions is something that should always be automated as well. Magento offers several tools for creating coupons, sales labels, gift cards and banners which helps store owners to build stronger relationships with the audience they cater for. Helping customers shop and pushing products they may like on them is the latest trend in ecommerce and you can use Magento products for making it happen at your store too. Keeping ahead of the game and staying current is what you can easily do with Magento.

Mike Bolton for Amasty which develops navigation magento extension for their clients

Magento philosophy empowering new innovators

SEO Tips for Magento Users

Magento was developed as the “next big thing” in ecommerce and shopping cart solutions. Unlike the shopping cart services that came before it, Magento has nearly limitless customization. This is very important for developing websites that will succeed in today’s crowded marketplace. With this level of customization comes the ability to utilize search engine optimization (SEO) within your shopping portal. SEO can help attract not only more traffic, but also the right kind of traffic — consumers most likely to make a purchase from your website. When you start setting up your cloud-hosted Magento marketplace, keep the following tips in mind to build the traffic you obtain from organic searches.

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  Enable SEO within the Admin panel: This is essential – you will not be able to complete the other steps until you take care of this simple change.


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  Titles: It is important that these are created to work within your SEO plan. Make sure you give each page a unique title as these are held in as being very important by the algorithm of most of the major search engines.


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  Descriptions: Avoid anything that is automatically generated. Write content that is targeted to the users, not the search engines. Use the targeted keyword once in each description. More than that and not only will your wording look clunky, it could set off red flags within the search engines.


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  URLS: These are important, too. Use short URLs, but make certain you take advantage of keywords when at all possible.


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  Headings: Properly using the H1, H2, etc. headings within your content can make it easier for your customers to read, plus it is an important part of your SEO plan. Keep them at an appropriate size and don’t use more than one H1 header per page.


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  Speed: While it may not directly impact your SEO plan, it is still important that you create webpages that load quickly. Optimize your images and provide alternate text that fits in with your SEO plan — this is a great way to sneak in a few extra keyword phrases.


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  Generate a Sitemap: With the Magento program, you can generate a sitemap and upload it directly to the search engines. This can help the search engines crawl your page more quickly and get everything properly referenced.


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  Internal and External Linking: Links are one of the most important and often overlooked aspects of SEO. Create useful in-page links as well as building those ever-important offsite backlinks.

As you can see, it is possible to use SEO within a Magento-powered ecommerce site. A Blue Acorn article explains that while Magento may not be completely SEO-friendly, it is more than possible to utilize the benefits of optimized pages within the Magento system. Like all types of SEO, it really is about trial and error. Therefore, do not be afraid to try something new, see how it works and make adjustments. Ideally, you wind up with a page that is user-friendly, looks great AND drives more traffic to your ecommerce portal.

Image credit: Stuart Miles on Freedigitalphotos.net

 

SEO Tips for Magento Users