Magento is one of the most widely used eCommerce platforms today that websites owners choose to grow their online business.

Sounds great? That’s true. However, frequently online retailers run into issues with the slow performance of Magento, due to overloading servers with requests during high-traffic events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday or viral ads are some of the most common.

How slow speed kills conversion

If you think that speeding up your website isn’t important… Think again.

A three-second delay in your page load time results:

1. 11% fewer page views.
2. 16% decrease in customer satisfaction.
3. 7% loss in conversion

Conversion drops by 7%, for every one-second delay. That’s $2.5 million loss per year if you sell $100,000 per day. This means that having a fast site is essential for keeping your bottom-line profits high.

Source: tribes.no

In fact, 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. This means if your site takes more than 3 seconds to load you lose almost half of your visitors before they land on your website.

Walmart’s case study is the best example, as they increased the conversions and revenue after increasing their site speed.

During the analysis, they concluded that the visitors who converted were landed on the page that loaded two times as faster as the visitors who didn’t convert

Source: slideshare.net

Here’s the key takeaway; Walmart noticed a “sharp decline in conversions as average site load time increases from 1 to 4 seconds”.

So if users aren’t willing to wait an extra second to load for such a well-known and reputable site in existence, they probably won’t wait for you.

Checklist to speed up your Magento 2 store in 2018

Performance can be improved by taking steps at different levels e.g. user experience and web store speed.

In this post, we’ll list down some of the ‘best practices’ identified by Progos Tech to decrease your load time.

However, your site might be aligned with some of these best practices, if you’ve previously worked on your site speed.

So if you want your Magento store to speed up, you’ll love today’s checklist.

Let’s dive right in…

• Enable Compression
• Merge CSS and Javascript Files
• Flat Product and Categories Table
• Prioritize above-the-fold content
• Optimize Images
• Set up Content Delivery Network
• Bonus: Implementing JS powered PWA frontend
• Manual Audit
• Accelerating Magento 2 with Varnish
• Conclusion

How to Use this Checklist

We used this exact checklist to speed some of many Magento stores and through our Magneto development services we’ve helped our client to get some SUPER fast speed.

You don’t need to implement everything on this checklist.

Just do the best you can.

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1. Enable Compression

The smaller your files, the faster your pages will load. Enabling Gzip compression is one of the easiest ways to reduce load time.

Gzip is a file format and software application that temporarily replaces the code in your text files to smaller file sizes.

Around 90% of the Internet traffic comes through the browsers that support Gzip, it’s a great option for speeding up your site.

Not sure if your site has Gzip enabled

The easiest way to check if your site has Gzip enabled is to head over to checkgzipcompression.com to see. Just enter your site’s URL, and if you have Gzip enabled, you’ll see something like this:

Source: http://wp-rocket.me

If you’ve checked your site and Gzip isn’t enabled, there are several different ways you can go about switching it on.

Ask your host

If you’d rather have someone else take care of enabling GZIP for you, get in touch with your hosting provider and ask them to enable Gzip as it is a simple process that should only take 5 minutes to set up. If your site is hosted with a reputable host, Gzip should be part of their standard service.

Enable Gzip through .htaccess file

<ifModule mod_gzip.c>
mod_gzip_on Yes
mod_gzip_dechunk Yes
mod_gzip_item_include file .(html?|txt|css|js|php|pl)$
mod_gzip_item_include handler ^cgi-script$
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/.*
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/x-javascript.*
mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^image/.*
mod_gzip_item_exclude rspheader ^Content-Encoding:.*gzip.*
</ifModule>

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2. Merge CSS and Javascript files

All separated CSS and Javascript files can be merged into one single file, this helps in reducing the number of requests from the webpage and reduces loading time.

When merging CSS and Javascript in Magento 2, you need to follow simple steps:

Merging CSS files

• On the Admin panel, click Stores. In the Settings section, select Configuration.
• Select Developer under Advanced in the panel on the left
• Open the CSS Settings section, and continue with following:

• In the Merge CSS Files field, select Yes
• When complete, click Save Config.

Merging JSS files

• On the Admin panel, click Stores. In the Settings section, select Configuration.
• Select Developer under Advanced in the panel on the left

Fortunately, this is an easy fix to make. Either add the file manually by making sure they’re merged into single file and without any whitespace.

 

• Open the JavaScript Settings section, and continue with following:

• In the Merge JavaScript Files field, select Yes
• When complete, click Save Config.

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3. Flat Product and Categories Table

Magento 2 uses Entity Attribute Value (EAV) database model, which isn’t much faster in terms of the performance. However, we can override the settings by enabling Flat Catalog. When your store applied the Flat Catalog, the new tables on the fly are generated and they will store all necessary data related to your products and categories.

Enabling Flat Categories and Products in Magento 2

• On the Admin Panel, Stores > Settings > Configurations.
• On the left panel, under Catalog, select Catalog.
• Open the Storefront section,
  • Choose Yes in the Use Flat Catalog Category field.
  • Choose Yes in the Use Flat Catalog Product field.

• Save Config to complete.

After updating to Flat category and products you need to Re-index the data from Index Management.

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4. Prioritize above-the-fold content (lazy loading)

Images are critical for an eCommerce website and its impossible to imagine a website without images.

Source: neilpatel.com

Lazy Loading Images refers to a set of techniques in web and application development that defer the loading of images on a page to a later point in time – when those images are actually needed instead of loading them up front. These techniques help in improving performance, better utilization of the device’s resources and reducing associated costs.

By default, Magento 2 doesn’t offer any method to lazy load the images. Hence, we’re listing some useful Magento 2 Lazy Load Extension:

1. Magento 2 Lazy Load Extension by BSSCommerce – $35
2. Lazy Load and Ajax Scroll by X-Mage2 – $29
3. Easy Lazy Loader by Evision Ecommerce – $19
4. Lazy Load Images For Magento 2 by MageBee – Free
5. Lazy Loader by Medma – $25
6. Magento 2 Lazy Load by Landofcoder – Free

By using any one of the extensions you can easily implement Lazy Loading on your images.

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5. Optimize Images

Images can play a major role in your site speed. They’re often very large files, which can slow down page load times.

It’s obvious that to get your conversion rate to a next level its necessary to include helpful product images. So, if you want to run a successful eCommerce site, images are absolutely necessary.

According to research, the median page size on the desktop is 1511KB. Images make up for almost 650 KB of that size, roughly 45% of the total size of the page.

This means that reducing their size could likely have a big impact on how long the page takes to load.

To optimize images on your magento 2 store, there are many ways. You can choose either to compress your images before uploading to the store using some tools like Tinypng or to optimize images real-time while delivering content with a CDN.

You can also use ‘save for web’ option in Adobe Photoshop which can also help you to compress the size of images.

Magento also provides many extensions to compress and resize images in its Magento Marketplace.

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6. Setup Content Delivery Network

A Content Delivery Network or CDN is one of the fastest (and cheapest) ways to significantly crank up your site’s loading speed. CDNs will take the burden of distributing large image files off of your server by distributing them via their global network.

A CDN also makes your site more secure from attacks and hacks.

CloudFlare and BootstrapCDN are just a couple that can get you started on your journey to rid yourself of those excess requests once and for all.

Configuring CDN in Magento 2 settings

Configure the CDN to step up your site load speed.

• Go to Stores > Configuration > General > Web
• Enter the URL provided by your CDN provider in Base URLs (Secure)
  
• Click Save Config
• Clear Cache to see results.

Access the CDN provider of your choice (StackPack, formerly MaxCDN, is another popular choice), you simply have to create an account and the website will itself walk you through few steps to pass on the request to CDN’s own servers.

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7. Bonus: Implementing JS powered PWA frontend

Progressive Web Apps, also known as PWA is a next big thing in Magento; The Progos Team reshaped the way eCommerce industry deals with Magento and build webshops – on the long run. If you want to be counted in front-runner, you need to power up your magento store quickly.

Implementing the approach: Progressive Web App

Before implementing PWAs you need to decide the Javascript framework for handling data and displaying it. You can choose the framework between:

1. React
2. Vue.js
3. AngularJS

On the backend, these frameworks will help communicate with Magento 2 via Rest APIs.

Source: integer-net.com

Decoupling the fronted from the Magento 2 backend, will allow you to bypass the overly complicated Magento 2 frontend. Covering this results in a blazingly fast front-end.

At Progos we developed a platform that integrates with any webshop, delivering enterprise level solutions that scale indefinitely and power both your web- and mobile app.

 

Does these tips seem too complex? Try our Magento Speed Optimization Services

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8. Manual Code Audit

Well, it is the last step but it should have been the first one.

If you’re a developer and want to increase magento website speed, start with manual code audit.

On the one hand, Magento core is written by programming experts. You will find a little room for performance improvement through default installation.

It’s no surprise that custom or 3rd party extensions make Magento slower. A rule of thumb here is to have as extensions installed from a reputable vendor only.

How to review code manually

At Progos Tech, here is what we usually do:

1. Get a list of all custom extensions. From backend menu: System > Tools > Web Setup Wizard > Component Manager
   

1. Disable the third party modules one-by-one and benchmark the page speed.
2. Once the slow module is identified, add a patch to the module’s code, to get it fixed.

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9. Accelerating Magento 2 with Varnish

Varnish is a special server software that can deliver instant performance enhancing results. Also, its a full page cache and 100% of the client response is served from cache!

It is placed between the user and Magento:

Source: devdocs.magento.com

Implementing Varnish in Magento 2

You will have to install Varnish on your server, although Magento 2 uses Varnish natively.

After you’re done with the above follow following:

1. Log in to the Magento Admin as an administrator.
2. Click STORES > Configuration > ADVANCED > System > Full Page Cache.
3. From the Caching Application list, click Varnish Caching.
4. Enter a value in the TTL for public content field.
5. Expand Varnish Configuration and enter the following information:
   1. Access list
   2. Backend host
   3. Backend port
6. Click Save Config.

Varnish has opened the door for huge performance saving to all Magento 2 users.

Tools to Measure your Results

1. Webpagetest.org – provides you with page-loading waterfall charts and tons of other useful information. Supports mobile browsers.
2. Google Chrome Timeline – helps you analyze frontend performance. Takes a little time to get used to, but once you are familiar with it, it gives you valuable insights into why your Magento is slow.
3. Google PageSpeed Insights – an online tool that tells you what to do to boost site performance. Work on suggestions by Google and improve Magento speed.

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Conclusion

Getting Magento 2 store load times to where you want them to be is a challenging undertaking, but for the user will increase user engagement and conversion rate.

And though some of them may seem minor, even small steps toward reducing load time can make a difference and when you consider the impact that even one second can have on your conversions and success, they’re entirely worth it.

SEO is considered the vertebrae of ecommerce considering that search engines are the main source of traffic to every website. For over the last five years, the most visited websites on the internet have all been search engines. This should come as no surprise as most individuals who make use of the internet use it through the aid of search engines. No matter how popular a brand is, you are not assured that your prospects, in particular, will know your website. Search engines, however, will provide your prospects with results that are related to the keywords searched for.

These search engines usually provide your prospects with results based on the requirements set by those search engines. These requirements are necessary if they are to ensure that web users are provided with the best of results. Some of these requirements have been reviewed over time while others have stood the test of time. Below are the top five significant and effective SEO strategies recommended by  the best SEO agencies.

High-Quality Content

This is a classic pillar of an effective SEO strategy. This is one that has stood the test of time and will still rule the future. It could be considered the foundation of every SEO strategy. Content is what you present your prospects or customers with when they click on the link to your website when it appears as a result of a search engine. Without high-quality content, you will end up having only one-time visiting visitors.

Optimized Keywords

This is also another significant pillar of SEO strategy as this is one of the requirements of search engines. Keywords are the phrases or sentences that web users input when they are looking for something on the internet. Using the proper keywords for each content you develop is a good way to boost your SEO.

Quality Backlinks

Does this mean that the more your backlinks are, the higher your SEO is? That is not always the case especially when those backlinks are not linked to top sites. Having quality backlinks is a good way not to just increase your SEO but also assure the user clicking on your link that you are trustworthy.

Ensure your page load is very fast

This could be termed as the first SEO strategy. Users tend to click the back button if your page takes more than two seconds to load. In this era where most networks run on 4G, you have no excuse if your website takes longer than two to five seconds to load. It is advised that you design your website using online tools so that you do not end up stuffing your website with images that will cause it to lag.

Mobile friendly websites

If your website is not yet optimized for mobile view then you have a lot of catching up to do. You can either design your website such that its general interface is suitable for mobile web users or you can also get it done by any best SEO agency having dual interface separately for desktop and mobile views.

Social Media Optimization

Just like the mobile-friendly website, social media presence is also important for your SEO. Social media is a great platform to build your brand while creating an interactive forum in form of a community for your users. This social media community will help you assess how well you have been living up to expectations and tell you if there is a need to re-strategize.

As time goes on, SEO strategies will come and go while others will be reformed. These strategies stated above, however, will stand as a pillar to support other strategies

You often hear a good number of individuals say words they either don’t know the meaning of or misunderstood the meaning entirely. Talking about making mistakes in understanding the terms, people tend to miscue web design for web development and vice versa. You won’t blame them though, especially if people have no idea about coding, programming, etc.

This article will help you differentiate between web development and web design using their definitions, functions and so on as a means of driving the point home.

Definition

Web design is a process of configuring the outlook of a website page by changing the color, adding some features and plugins, etc. Web development, however, is the process of writing codes or programs on which the website will run. This can be termed as decorating the internal part of a website. Simply put the developer’s focus more on how the customer will be able to get things done.

Functions

Web design is concerned with how a website will look like at the end of the day. This includes the color, theme, graphic, content, etc. While web development is concerned with the functionality of the created website. It can be considered as the foundation on which website design stands. Web design is concerned with code and program on which the website will run when it is eventually designed.

Tools

Tools like Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and other wire-framing software are in the web designer’s toolkit. Most web usually works with already made demo templates or themes provided by any of the various content management systems.

Programmers, however, can develop a website from scratch as they have adequate knowledge of programming and coding. They are more focused on bootstrap, HTML, JavaScript, CSS and so on.

Skills

Web designers need only primary skills such as knowledge of SEO, Magento development, etc. Their main skill is creativity as they have to be adventurous when designing web pages. This does not mean web designers usually design web pages in a way they like. No, they are creative and adventurous in line with certain requirements else they may end up designing poor and unoptimized web pages.

Web developers, in best web development companies, however, are more analytical in their approach and they need secondary skills such as programming and coding. In addition, to enhance with superb code writing technology, it’s also necessary for good web developers to cultivate a strong aesthetic ability. Improve themselves with the more profound development of knowledge to achieve the designer’s function prototype or visual effects chart.

To make the internet be a better place for users, the web designers can’t ignore the coding completely, and the web developers should try to understand the designer and get a better cooperation. Qualified web designers should understand the code better than graphic designers and understand design better than programmers. You can say that web developers are the builders of the website (they lay the foundation, put the blocks in place, the roof etc) while the web designer paints the website, plants the flowers, etc. Though they may be similar, they cannot function without each other as they both need each other.

Commerce is as old as man itself. It started with the trade by barter system and has grown immensely since then such that you no longer need a physical form of exchange to make a purchase. E-commerce development has helped to revolutionize the process of buying and selling. You can now purchase goods from the convenience of your bedroom. Virtually every firm has an official website. Many of these firms have taken a step further by designing a mobile app that provides equal features as the official website. A lot of online stores are sprouting everywhere as people are beginning to realize the importance of ecommerce. The first rule of an e-commerce business is to retain their customers by offering a positive buying experience. The two main touchpoints in e-commerce business are mobile and website. Most users today prefer to shop online through a mobile app rather than a website, and many businesses make the mistake of neglecting their mobile app or worse, not offering one at all.

Despite the growth of Magento development, there are tons of ecommerce mobile apps that are not giving the best of services to users. Some mobile apps are just an eyesore as they give a terrible user experience. Some firms sometimes just hire a programmer to write a mobile app for the sake of it. You can still have a good app but it may not be interactive. If you go through this article, you will be equipped with savvy tips to build an interactive ecommerce app.

Make the Navigation Simple

You will not have a good app if your app users have difficulty finding their way around your app. One feature that makes an app easy to use is its navigation. You may need to work on your app if it takes app users to make more than three clicks to find what he wants.

Advertise mostly if not only related products

I find it ridiculous when I am going through a mobile commerce, select the product I am interested in and I am presented with unrelated products in the related products section. How can I be buying a brand new phone and you will be advertising a pair of shoes for me instead of a charger, power bank or earphones? If you are guilty of this, you need to repent.

Security and Ads

I hate popup Ads, they are interrupting and annoying. I do not mean that you should not advertise on your mobile app but you should not use it to scare your app users away. Most users are likely to quit and uninstall an app from their phones if their app experience is usually interrupted with popup Ads. So you may want to tone down on the way Ads pop up on your mobile app so as to promote a better user experience.

Push Notifications

This is a two-edged sword with one side bringing the precision you need in marketing and the other side delivering a death blow to your mobile app. Push notifications can be effective when used properly and could also be disastrous when overused or not used properly. When using push notifications, mind the number of times you send notifications to the app user as well as the content those notifications. Your app should include analytics to help you understand consumer behaviors and buying patterns. Google Analytics for Mobile Apps measures your app’s full value. Session time, cost of conversion, click-through rates, and accessing custom fields all provide valuable information about consumer behavior.

A mobile ecommerce app is necessary especially if you want to grow your brand. However, you can mar your brand with an under standardized mobile apps.

One picture they say tells a thousand words. It is rare to walk over one hundred meters and not find at least six of either posters, banners, etc. about one school, business opportunity, vacancy at an office. People also tend to remember pictures they see than letters they’ve read. This means that a simple chart showing how your product increased productivity for your customer is more memorable than even the most glowing testimonial. This is a point at which marketers can properly explore to promote sales i.e. by visualizing data. Data visualization is the process of breaking down complex and fragmented pieces of information into easily understood images. It helps if these images provide clear evidence of a desired outcome for the client or customer.

So instead of the usual long, boring and complex epistles of how your products and services have improved the lives of your customers, you may want to spice it up with some visual aids such as charts, graphs, and pictures. If you are still having second thoughts, permit these points to affirm how data visualization is helpful in marketing.

It draws the attention of individuals.

If you are an internet user then you will agree that words are never lacking on the internet. As such, most web users tend to scroll past them after merely glancing at them. Even when the content catches their attention, they can easily lose interest in the content when it becomes a bit too complex. The story is different when it comes to images. Most individuals may take their time to get what message the image is giving.

It has a lasting impression

This is definitely one reason why data visualization is very helpful in marketing. People tend to remember visually enhanced content than those that are purely verbal. There is this game I always play to kill time, it involved combining letters to produce a valid word. I, later observed that I was connecting the letters in my head to produce a valid word even when I wasn’t using my phone. In other words, the visual nature of the game has caused it to have a lasting impression on me such that I do not need to look at my phone to play the game. This is similar to content visualization. When used effectively, your customers will not necessarily have to revisit your content before they remember it.

It passes messages across quicker

By breaking down complex pieces of information into easily understandable ones, data visualization passes your message across quicker. While doing this also, it highlights points that could be missed if it were to be in a long and boring text. Data visualization will help users get a hold on the message you are passing across effectively and efficiently by sending messages to the right sense organs of your prospects.

Transparency and trust

Data visualization softwares developed by Magento development companies promote trust between you and your prospect by ensuring transparency in your business. Data visualization removes all hidden, complex and complicated clauses in your content. Most individuals are wary of the fact that marketers downplay the side effects of a business. With data visualization, however, all will be laid bare and by doing this you are promoting trust.

Marketing has evolved from selling your products at all cost to buy the heart of people over to your brand. You can do this by visualizing data as this will help draw the attention of individuals to your business while the transparency of your business will retain them.

Since the inception of e-commerce development, a lot of things which signify other things are usually tagged as those things they signify. In simpler terms, certain things are mere representatives of the things they are assumed to be. One of them is traffic and conversion rates. Traffic has to do with the number of people visiting your website either through search engine results or through visiting your website directly while conversions are the rate at which people patronize your business online. This could be by subscribing to a newsletter, paying for a product or employing a service. Traffic can be related to people coming to your office to make inquiries while conversion is when they actually pay for what you have to offer. Keeping that in mind, I can say that you can have traffic without having conversions. Just as people can also make enquirers from your office without purchasing your product or service. This could be as a result of certain factors, such as lack of quality content, poor page loading speed, and poor landing page optimization. A landing page is a page that is designed to turn leads into conversions by making them take the call to action. Every web page on your website is a potential landing page so you can apply the principles of your landing pages. However, these landing pages are designed specifically for the purpose of conversions.

A landing page could be the difference between a high conversion and a high bounce rate. An optimized landing page caps all your marketing effort while a bad landing page kills it. This article will provide you with the dos and don’ts of optimizing landing pages so as to enable you to make the most of your traffic.

Don’t be scared of flat designs

A good number of marketers misunderstand landing pages and marketing pages and consider both as same. However, this is not the case. The marketers often get mistaken while designing a web page in terms of page load time. The high page load time is not a good practice especially when it comes to developing an ecommerce website. In such a case, stick to flat designs.

Do not be scared with popup Ads

Am I the only one who hates popups? Definitely not. Probably because previous research showed popups as a way of catching people’s attention, marketers have abused it. These days, popups are more like a violation of your right to the internet. I wonder what is the use of popups on a landing page when you have done the marketing already? Instead of scaring individuals with popup Ads on your landing page, you can use it as an overlay when the web user is about leaving your website.

Do use multiple calls to action

This is where I expect marketers to drive their point home instead of overkilling the landing page itself. It is not always safe to place your call to action button at the bottom of your page with the belief that your web visitors will be patient enough to read the entire content of your landlord page before using the call to action button. What if they already have an understanding of what you have to offer and are just looking forward to converting straight up? You can place a call to action button at strategic places. In addition, you can use buttons for your call to action instead of using links. You can even go a step further by using animated buttons to inform your website visitors that they are doing the right thing.

Do add online forms as they are great for capturing leads

Sometimes, your lack of conversions may be due to the fact that you are more interested in conversion instead of creating leads. In other words, you may not be making leads because you are more concerned about making sales than about creating a condition that will prompt prospects to convert. One way to create a lead is by the use of online forms. These online forms are an upgrade on the usual newsletter as they help you get more information about the person that could become your customer. You can customize these forms to suit your needs and you can also use animations to guide users during the course of filling these forms. Forms are also great as web users tend to see them as being harmless and less intrusive compared to newsletters.

Don’t duplicate processes and information

Your website will most likely be considered an amateur website when the processes contained in prior pages that led the individual to the landing page is repeated on the landing page. Human beings are stressed by facing a lot of challenges, your website should not be adding to the number. Avoid repetition if possible as this will irritate your prospects and cause them to leave your website. You should instead make it clear that you appreciate by redirecting them to a “thank you” message page.

Sometimes, failure comes from over trying or trying too hard as much as from not doing anything. When it comes to marketing, business, and e-commerce development, the simple actions are usually what gives the maximum or optimum rewards.

Usually considered an ecommerce giant, Magento ecommerce website development is widely considered the best choice of eccomerce website development whether you’re growing firm or an established or known brand its features are suited to meet the demands of everyone into ecommerce. Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform written in PHP. The software was originally developed by Varien, Inc, a US private company headquartered in Culver City, California, with assistance from volunteers. It is actually of no surprise that it is considered as one of the best platforms for ecommerce website development. Below are some of the reasons:

Fast Loading Web Pages

A website that doesn’t load within three to five seconds is considered “slow” and when it comes to page load speed, Magento is a clear winner!

Slow loading online stores go down very quickly. In many cases, the loss from slow pages is permanent and greatly contributes to the demise of the business. Magento with high-end caching technologies such as the Cloudways Full Page Cache and other database optimization techniques such as Memcached and Redis speed up the stores considerably.

Open Source

You can call Magento the android of ecommerce development because they both have the common feature of open source. Despite the sophistication, other Operating Systems for phones that fact that android is an open source makes it the most preferable OS and Magento is no different. Magento is a free ecommerce platform released under Open Source License ver 3.0 and built using PHP and other open source tools. By using these technologies and remaining open source means that Magento as a platform has several distinct advantages over the competition. The Platform is highly adaptable and could be modified endlessly to exactly fit project requirements.

Using open source tools also means that the platform guarantees a robust performance and enhanced security for merchants and developers.

Unlimited Possible Designs

Just like the Android OS, Magento development also offers a wide range of possible web page designs. The share of mobile devices in global ecommerce transactions is rapidly growing, and soon it will surpass all other device classes. Realizing this, Magento incorporates HTML5 capabilities, ensuring that the storefront has a responsive design that caters flawlessly to mobile devices. In addition, Magento offers features such as Griding, image scaling, AV capabilities, gesture controls, drag-and-drop, etc. Magento is also a highly customizable ecommerce platform. It allows you to develop incredible frontend user experiences by editing layouts and templates or add new colors and styles of your choice. Backend refinements can also be redesigned to fulfill business requirements by rewriting code, modifying events and grids.

Pocket-Friendly

Magento is designed to meet the needs of everyone interested in ecommerce development. Whether you’re just starting or already established, Magento will give you that extra edge without boring a hole in your pocket in a bid to keep your business above the water. Magento offers limitless and restriction free integration of all third party components, thereby shortening the development and deployment timeframes considerably. The good thing is that many of these components are free to use. Others are available for just a couple of dollars.

Marketing in its traditional state was about creating awareness about your business, goods or services with the aim of convincing people to buy your product. This could be in forms of advertising, discounted sales, promotional offers to mention a few. This approach was okay as it brought a great return on investment. At a point, however, people began to observe that the marketers were not saying the complete truth. Instead, they would only tell you what you want to hear. If you want to buy a phone with a good memory (RAM) and substantial internal storage (ROM) and a long battery life (say 4000 mAh) for example, the marketer will show you a phone that fits most of your requirements but make it look like it meets all your requirements. He would do this by the hammering of the unique selling point of that product while downplaying its weakness. Using the same example as above, imagine that the phone has only eight GB internal storage (ROM). The marketer will hit the hammer on the fact that the phone has a 5000mAh battery that will last for over 27 hours of talk time. He will also convince you that you can augment for the limited storage capacity with a micro SD card.

To sum it up, marketing was seen as a desperate means to sell one’s product until content marketing was born. Content marketing is a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material such as videos, blogs, articles and social media posts. It differs from other types of marketing, such as direct response, influencer marketing, brand marketing, etc. In that, it doesn’t explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in a product or service by creating helpful, informative content designed to highlight your expertise and solve a problem. Content marketing is more focused on helping the consumer, customer or prospect than selling a product or promoting a brand. I am sure that you are already considering content marketing. This article will equip you with content marketing tips and tricks that can help to grow your business

Create valuable content

If there is one reason why content marketing is called content marketing, it is because it gives content that is of great value. When using content marketing, you have to understand the line your brand belongs to and also how to make life easier for the people you are involved with. This information will give you an idea of the topic to develop your content on. Content marketing is more than just the words contained in the write-up, it is about the value it comes with. High-quality content will serve as the basis for building a reputation for your brand.

Create room for interaction

I strongly believe this should not be part of the tips of content marketing but I will still talk about it for new converts on content marketing. The idea of content marketing is to raise interest, not only to arouse the interest but to nurture it in a way that it becomes a possible lead if not conversion. There is no way if neither a lead nor a conversion will be possible if there is no room for interaction. Using a professional mechanical engineer, for example, you cannot post content on how to replace your headlight without allowing individuals to comment or ask questions. This would make you look unprofessional. Allowing for interaction among the customers themselves and you as a professional will help nurture their interest and make them want to take the necessary call to action.

Don’t rely on one content strategy

Relying on one content marketing strategy is not the safest thing to do as a content marketer. There are myriad ways to revamp up your content marketing strategies i.e using latest CMS developed by magento development companies or any well-known SEO agency. Variety is the spice of life and content marketing should be no different. Do not rely on one source of traffic as you stand to lose a lot from doing so. Your website is necessary, as necessary as your social media platforms. Who says you can’t blend content marketing with social media marketing?

Content marketing is a long-term plan. As such, there should be other means to augment for it while it takes its time to yield results. This does not in anyway discredit content marketing as a reputation builder and future of your brand.

The ecommerce industry has seen a lot of growth since its onset and it doesn’t look like stopping anytime soon. What started in the United States some time ago has gradually grown significantly in Asia. The likes of Alibaba is giving Amazon a serious run for its money.  Worldwide retail e-commerce sales reached $2.290 trillion in 2017, some 10.1% of all retail sales, and are set to hit $4.479 trillion by 2021. This is an industry that has helped bridge a lot of gaps, online stores unlike physical stores are open to everyone that can access the internet no matter your geographical location. While many markets are already well developed, there’s still a huge potential audience to be reached and some exciting up-coming trends will help to reach them. Exciting and developing new markets like Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Latin America are set to take off in a big way and new technologies are likely to cause a huge shift in the way companies to market their goods online. Below are some shifts that may likely trend for time to come in ecommerce.

Mobile Inclined Ecommerce

It is no longer news that most individuals access the internet “on the go” and online shopping is no different. Research has shown that people who shop regularly do that using their mobile phone and this will be a significant shift in ecommerce. Mobile will reach 70% of e-commerce traffic by the end of 2018 and more and more people will purchase via their mobile devices. According to Goldman Sachs forecasts, mobile commerce revenue in 2018 will equal the total e-commerce revenue for 2013, some $626 billion. Companies like Google, Samsung and Apple are making it even easier with advancements in mobile payment technology which will make mobile check out the preferred method of payment for many customers. For example, in the U.S., Starbucks already sees 10% of orders via their Mobile Order and Pay app.

Voice Search

This generation of people wants things easy and the use of written language may not really stand the test of time. There’s an app that searches for the title of a song by simply analyzing a line played from the song. All you have to do is open that app when the song is being played and you’ll be given results. Ecommerce is very likely to shift in that direction as individuals will begin to shift towards the use of voice searches as against written words. Mobile phones these days are actually in support of it as most of them have a voice assistant feature that enables the phones to perform certain commands using voice control.

Social Media Marketing

People are also beginning to realize the amount of traffic they can get through the use of social media and ecommerce will also shift in this direction. This is because social media when used as online shops are cheaper, have a lot of traffic and potential buyers and also enables people to have fun while doing business. These social media platforms mostly if not all of them have an application which makes them user-friendly. This has encouraged individuals to subscribe to their services. These social media application now come with business features. Instagram now gives you the feature of creating a business profile, WhatsApp also helps to personalize the account you already have to suit your business by automatically replying your messages so that your customers think you’re always online.

Augmented Reality and Use of Multimedia

Before now, videos were usually used to advertise businesses. They were usually pop-ups that carried information about the product or services. Instructions and manuals are also going from the usually written form to audio-visual form. The use of augmented reality is also gaining acceptance. You can now use your phone to examine how a piece of furniture would look like in your room without having to bring it into your room.

Greater Competition

There will also be a shift in competition as people are now beginning to realize the potential of ecommerce development and there is a significant increase in the number of investors and as such, it should be expected that more online shops will be established. Individuals are also beginning to understand how importing and exporting works. Their eyes are now being opened that you don’t need to be a billionaire to operate an online store, that all you need is the necessary and substantial information.