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What'­s new in Magento 1.6.1.0

For the ever evolving Magento community edition, we are lucky to be involved in a ecosystem that is so fast moving. Although the major highlights are mostly geared towards developers and a lot of the inventory was fixes (Full list here), I am going to pick out what is relevant to those running their own store and how these changes may affect them.

Major Highlight

• Added two-step password reset flow

What does this mean? In versions below 1.6.1.0, when a user clicked to say they had forgotten their password the user was prompted to enter their email address and a new password would be sent out. So, anyone who knows your email address could enter to have their password reset and the next time you come to log in it throws you an incorrect password error without you even knowing why. The second problem is that if someone else did have access to your email they would now have full access to your history on your favourite ecommerce store, now with 2 step it will send a link to your email address and then take you to the Magento site to change the password.

Improvements

• Added support for using Shift-Click to select a range of grid rows when clicking check boxes
• Added ability to register during checkout when using PayPal Express now those who want to get through the checkout as soon as possible can, or those that like a tie with the site they are buying with can register as a member of your store

Changes

• TheFind integration was removed much like the removal of Google base in version 1.6.0.0 which is now supported as a core extension, now shopping feeds can be used via extensions. .
• In a similar fashion the Google Optimizer was removed and will be supported as a core extension.

So we've got our copy and will let you know how we get on and anything else cool we come across. P.s if you are struggling with your Magento Store, want upgrade advice or some help check out our Magento Consultancy page where we detail how we can help you to help yourself.

A round up of whatís happened at Innovate 2011 via the power of Twitter from right here in the UK!

Via: @X_commerce / @magento / @webshopapps/ @royrub05

Magento Connect

A new Magento Connect has been launched over at magentocommerce.com/magento-connect which is a much more slicker part of the site ñ a lot of thought has gone into the design. A great set of facts on the front page about 4 million extension downloads (although I am not sure how many are down to our training sessions!) and over 5000 extensions on there ñ what an awesome community. †Plus the Magento connect extension market is worth over $100 million dollars per year †- phenomenal What'­s changed Now under 6 main categories with the ability to filter down.†Instead of the old version of more than 20 categories, there is now a†main navigation, broken down so that the searcher is able to drill down. Other neat features include the ability to search by a sliding price, there has also been the introduction of Trusted Extensionsshowing only trusted extensions that have been tested by Magento and found to have passed or exceeded security, performance and developer support which is a great way to raise standards in the already flourishing community.

Magento Go

A few snippets about Magento Go, the hosted (and closed) version of Magento, the main one is that from now on Magento Go will have extensions ñ again these will be trusted extensions plus usage: Magento Go has 10000 live stores.

PayPal

Paypal announced sites are able to leverage PayPal accounts to save users having to set up multiple accounts with PayPal Access. I am mostly likening this to Facebook connect for Ecommerce. Making it easier for the user to shop ñ what else do you want?!

X.Commerce

See more like this at†http://www.facebook.com/XcommerceFans X.commerce has effectively brought together many of the platforms that were huge on their own to form a powerful beast, in the form of eBay, PayPal and Magento as the main foundations with the a plethora of other companies that are supporting this movement including that all important facebook in itís open graph format (Not just liking a product but ëWantí ëOwní & and most importantly ëBuyí as well as others joining the X.commerce ecosystem from the outset. So that was just Day 1, I for one am looking forward to latter part of UK time to catch up on what has happened on Day 2 and also looking forward immensely to Meet Magento in the UK where I hope the same buzz will be about.

A guide for those looking to move over to Magento Ecommerce

Magento really does offer the whole package, so your set on Magento now what? One of the biggest starting points for anyone with an ecommerce store is actually sorting out their data. If like most people you have been on a few different platforms and you are exporting data it can be in different format, doesn'­t fit with the fields you have set up ñ if this is the case and you are importing via spreadsheets you may run into some of these well known problems; Problem 1.The export /import did not bring all the data over in a user friendly way. Extra characters, missing options, missing prices, we'­ve seen it all. Problem 2. The export / import has brought the wrong images or assigned the wrong images to the products there is nothing worse than a user finding a product and being misled or bailing because it is the wrong image. Problem 3. You don'­t know how to start with Attributes.Pay careful attention to attributes as once a product is assigned to a set it is very difficult to move it into another, similarly if you have a diverse range of products it is beneficial to separate these out so that when you are entering data you don'­t have everything from size to expandable for bikinis and suitcases. Attributes aren'­t just for data input, tons of features run off these and this is why it is vital you set them up properly, for example Magento Compare & Advanced Search in Magento run off attributes too. How to resolve this data problem I find it best to disable all products and attempt to work through them one by one.†To disable, simply; 1. Select all­ from the catalogue and click on the 'Actions' drop down and select 'Change Status'

2. A new option will appear for enabled and disable, select Disabled­ andSubmit­.

3. All the products you selected will be disabled, ready for you to use the filters to work through them one by one.

Before you start addressing problems 1 and 2, you will need to have a good think about what attribute sets you want and how you want them to work for all of the features I mentioned above, as well as promotions, layered navigation and product display. Next, you can address problems 1 and 2 - going through them may take a bit of time but it will help you get the right data set ñ after all there is nothing worse than a customer coming to your store and not being able to find out all the information about a product. I would recommend you try and spend as much time with your data before unleashing it on the world ñ this way it will be easier to manage in the long run. Then...after the hard work an average magento ecommerce store should not need that much ongoing management. As long as you have a) Someone who checks regularly for orders and can deal with the shipping b) Someone who knows how to do the above if your magento store manager if off sick. BUT If you want a successful Magento store you need to know how to make the most of it'­s many features so if you are managing the store on your own, you may want to consider getting trained up Magento and in particular on how to administer the store I'­m not talking doing the above and just shipping orders but actually being in control of the store instead of it running you! See the full details of our magento courses.

All of the wonderful data about impressions from your webmaster tools account is now available directly in Analytics. First though, you need to make sure that they are configured to share data.

How to set up data sharing between Analytics & Webmaster Tools1. Log into your analytics (new version) and click in the left hand column under search terms Search Engine Optimization as per the image above. Here you will be asked to link up your account with webmaster tools;

This report requires Webmaster Tools to be enabled.

What is Webmaster Tools?

Webmaster Tools is a free product that provides data and analytics to help improve your site's performance in Google search.

Enabling Webmaster Tools data within Analytics

Once you connect a site you own in Webmaster Tools to your Analytics web property, its data becomes visible in your Search Engine Optimization reports. You can visit the Web Property Settings page in Analytics account management to change which of your Webmaster Tools sites' data you wish to show, and control which profiles on your Web Property have access to view the data.

How to use Webmaster Tools data within Analytics

Webmaster Tools provides data about what users see in Google search results before they decide to click to your site (or some other site). You can use this data to identify opportunities and prioritize development effort to increase the number of visitors to your site. Examples:

• Identify landing pages on your site that have good clickthrough rates (CTR), but have poor average positions in search results. These could be pages that people want to see, but have trouble finding.
• Identify search queries (keywords) for which your site has good average positions, but poor click through rates. These are queries for which your pages get attention and improved content could lead to more visitors.

2. Click on the link to Set up Webmaster Tools data sharing 3. Once you click on the button, you will be taken to a page with the heading Web Property Settings4. In here, you can confirm the Basic information (already set for the website you are editing), select which Webmaster account using the radio buttons to specify which account it should be set up with and click "Save."Wait a few days and you will get all the information you used to get in webmaster tools but in a slicker format - a more rightful place for info on search engine data.

How can I make use of the Magento advanced search?

When you set up your store you should aim to break down as much of your product as possible. During set up you will normally set these up as attributes, within an attribute set. You can then specify which of these fields will be searchable in the advanced search, a basic advanced search may look like this; In this example, we are going to add fields to this search, in this case whether a suitcase is expandable or not. How to make an attribute appear in the advanced search;

1. Navigate to -> Catalogue -> Attributes -> Manage Attibutes
2. Find your attribute that you want to edit and click on it, this time it will be suitcase_expandable
3. On the front end properties section. Look for available in advanced search and change this to be Yes

4. Save the attribute and your attribute will now appear in your advanced search parameters.

Putting all your effort into getting more visitors to your online store? You could be missing the real money spinner!

So you have an ecommerce store and you want to sell more products or more product quantity. What do you do?

• Do you spend all your time trying to optimise (Search Engine Optimisation) your website so it comes top for of Google for all of your products?
• Do you start increasing your Adwords budget so you get more click throughs on your Pay Per Click campaigns?
• What about sending more regular emails to your existing clients and prospects?

The answer is you could do all of that, and that should get you the results you are looking for but if you just do this then you could be wasting money and time there is something you should be doing in your ecommerce store which will improve your sales without doing any of the above and then when you do the rewards will be higher. What am I talking about? Well how about looking at how many visitors come to your before you get a sale? Look at your analytics for the last month (typically this will be Google Analytics if you don'­t have any installed get it installed now) and work out how many visitors came to your website,divide this by the number of sales you made in the same period. This will give you a visitor to sale conversion number. For example, last month your ecommerce store received 5000 visitors and you made 50 sales. 5000/50 = 100. So for every 100 visitors who arrive at your site you get 1 sale. Your task is to improve on this.The next thing to do is to start looking at how you can make it easier to purchase from your website. Maybe your checkout process is cumbersome. Perhaps there are barriers to someone buying that means they are dropping out of the sales process every site is different but it could be things like-

• Having to register for an account and not begin able to just purchase the items as a guest
• The delivery cost is too high
• Your prices are not competitive to others selling the same items
• Your store does not offer the right payment options

I could go on. Now you are aware of the types of problems, try placing an order on your website. Then ask friends, family and colleagues to find and try and purchase a specific product from your website do not help them, tell them your ecommerce store website address and the product you want and then leave them to it. When they have completed the task get feedback from them how easily did they find the product, could they work out the checkout process, did they come across any problems. The more people you can get to do this the better the information you will obtain. Hopefully you will identify where problems might be. Implement some remedies to sort these; you may have to go back to your ecommerce store designer/ developer to do this. Once these changes have been implemented, measure the conversion rate over the next few weeks. Imagine if by doing this you managed to get an increase on conversions of just 20%? Using the example above this would mean you would get a sale for every 83 people who visit your website instead of every 100. If an average sale is worth £50 you would be earning £3000 per month instead of £2500 per month for the same number of website visitors. Now when you start improving the visitors numbers your return on investment (ROI) will be significantly higher because of your higher conversion rate. I'­ve used small values here to illustrate the point so scale these figures up to fit your store. Can you see that if you then look at increasing all the following elements ñ visitors to sale, average value of a sale, frequency of repeat visitors and total number of visitors then only small % improvements in each of these could make a massive difference in the £ turnover of your ecommerce store. For now do start working on making small incremental changes to make a big difference to your profit. That is good Internet Marketing. Fore more information on our ecommerce marketing courses, take a look here.

Lately I have been spending a lot of time looking at ecommerce stores and what makes a good one and what makes a bad one. Well my research has come to the conclusion that there are a lot of bad ecommerce stores out there, fear not, Future Clients Training is here to help. So if you are running an ecommerce store, or you are looking to set up a online shop of some description here are a few tips to make sure you head in the right direction with it.

1. Remember the purpose of your online store

This entry was posted in Internet Marketing, Ecommerce and tagged google analytics, google tools on 9th September 2011 by Deryck Harlick.

I posted on twitter a few weeks ago that I thought I was all caught up after holidays, but by, Google can make some announcements in a week but I think I