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Magento SEO- How to Optimize your Magento Store for Search Engines

September 27, 2016 by Shehnaz Jabbar Leave a Comment

Image Courtesy: Google

If you run, or are thinking of starting an online store, one of your top priorities must be to make sure that the desired customers find you. There is no magic bullet that can help you sky-rocket your sales. But understanding SEO (search engine optimization) will definitely help you generate more leads.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)and why is it important?

Search Engine Optimization is the process of increasing traffic to your website, by obtaining a high-ranking on the search results page of a search engine (Google, Bing, etc).

In the e-world, users turn towards search engines to find solutions, look for answers, or locate e-stores. It’s important to rank above your competition to get noticed.

It is important to note that SEO is not a simple task, especially when it comes to optimizing it for big e-commerce platforms like Magento.

Magento & SEO

Among all e-commerce platforms, Magento is the most powerful when it comes to SEO. And Magento 2- the latest version of Magento has been totally revamped and geared up to improve the default SEO capabilities thus greatly reducing the burden of SEO functionality.

Let me walk you through how you can apply proven on-page and on-site SEO principles like title tag and Google sitemap optimization to your Magento store.

When put into practice you’ll get more high-converting traffic landing on your Magento product and category pages.

Let’s start!

#1. Product Page Optimization

Magento 1.X, as you might have already seen, offers robust product page optimization. Every product page has the meta tag settings with the ability to set up standard tags such as: meta title, description, and keywords.

Although, Google has devalued the importance of metadata to some extent, it still remains important to have unique meta-product descriptions and meta keywords.

Magento 2 has a few additions.

One of the additional features to have been incorporated in Magento 2 is Product Field Auto Generation that creates a product meta-text based on the product attributes. But as it uses only one template, the meta-text for all the products gets changed.

You can find the Auto-Generation feature under Stores >Configuration >Catalog.

Product Image labels

Another crucial Magento 2 feature is the ability to use product labels, using which you can not only draw a customer’s attention but also improve SEO by applying labels to the products that too without the need of any third-party extension.

#2. Category Page Optimization

While optimizing the category pages, you must make sure that the canonical URLs are set properly to avoid any duplication caused by layered navigation.

The canonical URL is the preferred version of a web page. Sometimes when the same page content can be access with different URLs (for example, the product category pages), specifying the canonical URL helps search engines understand that the content is not duplicated but rather the same, and point to the preferred version.

This layered navigation feature in Magento gives customers an easy and effective way to search a store catalogue.

URL Preservation

Another useful enhancement in Magento 2 is the URL preservation feature. This feature gets rid of the query parameter URLs. So you can keep the same URL while updating any filter or sorting options for category pages and won’t include URL parameters like limit, sort or mode.

#3. Rich Snippets

Addition of rich snippets is one of the huge improvements in Magento 2. It shows structured markup data from e-commerce websites in Google results.

With snippets it’s now possible to make your pages stand out in search results by displaying attributes like rating stars, price, currency and even the product image (which is quite rare). Enabled by default in Magento 2, it helps to improve both SEO and CTR.

#4. Site Indexing

Robots.txt

This tells the search engine bots which information to index.

Magento 2 makes it possible for you to edit the robots.txt file right from the admin’s section, under Stores > General > Design

XML sitemap

XML sitemap is a roadmap of the site to the search engine crawlers.

In Magento 2, lots of enhancements have been observed in XML Sitemap. You can now set the priority and frequency for Product, CMS, Category and other pages individually.

Apart from them, Magento 2 facilitates the addition of XML Sitemap to a robots.txt file automatically. This feature is located in Store > Configuration > Catalog > Catalog > XML Sitemap.

Schemas.org Integration

Schema.org is added by default to the Magento 2 template. The main usage of Schema.org is improving the website rankings and marking up your Magento website content with metadata about itself.

#5. Universal Google Analytics, Ecommerce tracking and Adwords Conversions

This is another major improvement in Magento 2 that organizes and collects the data of the customers to track their behaviour. To allow Google Analytics to track Magento store activity, first you will have to enable e-commerce tracking which is easier in Magento 2. What’s more? It even finds keyword to build your site conversion.

This feature is located in Stores >configuraton > sales >Google API

#6. Google Tag Manager

Along with the integration of Universal Google Analytics, e-commerce tracking and Adwords conversion, a new feature called Google Tag Manager has been integrated.

It provides the ability to create and update tags for Magento 2 anytime, whenever needed thus creating more SEO opportunities. This feature is available only in the Enterprise Edition.

Conclusion

Magento is designed to be SEO-friendly by default and the SEO capabilities of the platform have vastly improved in Magento 2. These SEO functionality improvements only make it better to optimize any e-commerce website for search engine rankings making it more powerful than its precursor. And in case the default Magento 2 SEO options are not enough to satisfy your needs, then you can tweak it using various third party solutions available.

There are many more things that you can do to make your site rank higher using both the traditional as well as methods specifically catered to Magento needs. I hope with this article you get a fairly solid starting point for your own store.

Did I miss out on anything? Let me know in the comments below!

Top 7 Magento 2 Premium and Free Themes

September 9, 2016 by Shehnaz Jabbar Leave a Comment

A website is more than just a promotional tool.

You can turn it into a virtual store with Magento, and sell almost anything online.

This eCommerce platform can transform your plain website or portfolio into an online store. And with the release of the much anticipated Magento 2, be ready to take your store to a whole new level.

For a start, you can add stunning product pages to your site, display product images, descriptions, specifications, and prices. Visitors to your website can then add these products to a virtual shopping cart, and, when they’re ready, head over to the checkout page to make a purchase.

Before all of this. You need to set up your store. And part of this is picking the right theme that integrates well with the Magento 2 framework. There are several themes available- some free & some premium. We understand that it’s hard to find a perfect one. So we did this for you! 😀

Below we’ve listed some of the best and stunning Magento themes of 2016.

Here goes!

#1 Porto – Configurable Magento Theme

VIEW DEMO

With Porto, we have started our list with a bang.

Porto is one of the most popular and stunning Magento templates on themeforest bundled with great features to play around with.

It is designed with multiple concept layouts and brings multiple Magento store pre-demos for your selection. All the layouts have retina-ready photos that add a vibe to the overall look of the layout and work as strong visual triggers.

Intuitive in navigation, it provides a number of configuration options, which allow you to tweak the design just the way you wish. Moreover, you don’t need to know coding to modify this theme.

Key Features:

Fast and Easily customizable
Unlimited layout options
Revolution slider
RTL compatible
Mobile optimized
AJAX- fully working Ajax theme

And a lot more..

Compatibility:

Supports Magento 1.7.x, 1.9.x, 2.0

Price: $99

Porto is priced @ $99; but considering the sheer versatility offered by the theme, it’s clearly worth all the moolah!

#2 Ultimo – Fluid Multipurpose Magento Theme

VIEW DEMO

Ultimo is a beautiful multipurpose theme based on fluid based responsive theme which will enable you to run store in any type of resolution without any issue.

Packed with useful extensions, an attractive, fresh design and over eight general demos to choose from, there is bound to be a solution for your online business needs in this theme, regardless of what those may be.

Key features:

Custom sub-themes
Brand logo for each product
Unlimited colors
Mobile-friendly mega menu
Fluid grid system
Multistore ready

Compatibility:

1.7.x – 2.1.0

Price: $99

#3 Market – Premium Responsive Magento Theme

VIEW DEMO

Want an all-in-one theme that meshes Magento with a unique design that is user-friendly? Well, the Market theme does it and manages to do it very well.

A multi-purpose theme, it includes a limitless range of responsive design so your user’s navigation is unhindered, regardless of viewing device. Also, SEO optimization is built right into the theme, allowing for better indexing. With Market, you can build sites of any complexity- from a digital store to a fashion store.

Key Features:

Highly customizable and flexible
8+ homepage layouts
Built-in mega menu
Ajax layer navigation
Built on BootStrap 3
Rich snippets
Google fonts
Color swatches

Compatibility:

1.9x, 2.0x, 2.1x

Price: $89

#4 Molly – Elegant & Clean Magento Theme

VIEW DEMO

Molly is another hot seller and a great multipurpose theme to check out. It has a modern yet a simple and sophisticated design.

It comes with tons of extensions, an integrated blog and other cool built-in features like a powerful admin panel,an integrated Front-end builder, many predefined layouts and a lot of other stuff sure to make more than a few happy.

Key Features:

Fully responsive and retina ready
Super Mega Menu
Vertical mega menu
One step checkout option
Multiple header and footer options
Mobile optimised
Google rich snippets

Compatibility:

Supports Magento 1.7.x – 1.9.x , 2.0.x

Price: $84

#5 Maxshop – Extension Packed Magento Theme

VIEW DEMO

Maxshop is a multipurpose Magento theme with a majestic and professional look with clean store layouts. It is built on Bootstrap 3 hence is 100% responsive. It is flexible, user-friendly, offers an easy navigation and comes with 5 different homepage layouts and unlimited color styles.

What sets Maxshop apart is its in-built extension- SM deal which enables you to show sales, promotions and upcoming events.

Key Features:

Responsive Design
Highly customizable
Mega menu and CSS menu
Unique header styles
Supports rich snippets
Multilingual and supports RTL
Built-in SM Cart Pro extension

Compatibility:

Magento 1.9.x – 2.1.x

Price: $84

#6 Topshop – Premium Multipurpose Magento Theme

VIEW DEMO

Topshop is a professional theme for building an up-to-date site for selling any kind of products. It has a crisp and elegant layout. Being responsive, it works splendidly on any screen.

It is equipped with a vast ensemble of marvellously designed, heavily manicured and polished demo websites and page templates, which you can readily import with a single click.

Key Features:

Built-in powerful mega menu
5+ homepage layouts
Easily customizable
Built on Bootstrap 3
Upsell related products
Ajax layer navigation

Compatibility:

Supports Magento 1.9.x, 2.0.x

Price: $84

#7 F2 – FREE Magento Theme

VIEW DEMO

Do you like free? I know I do. But free gets even better when it happens to be totally awesome.

I should say this. I really like the look and feel of this theme- F2 and i just can’t believe that it’s absolutely free! Powered by Magento 2 framework, F2 has a modern design with a catchy product showcase and can be easily adapted to build any kind of website.

Key Features:

Image slider
Responsive
Custom page design
Unique Catalog and Product page
Drop down menu
Cross browser compatibility
Configurable swatches

Compatibility:

Magento 2.0

So, do YOU have a favourite Magento theme or design that you’d like to recommend? Share your favorites in the comment box below.

How to Add Social Sharing Links for a Product in Magento 2.0

July 15, 2016 by Kumar Rajpurohit Leave a Comment

In the e-commerce space, you’re always looking at multiple avenues to drive traffic. And when doing so, you simply can’t ignore the importance of social media.

Social media is part of ye olde WOM marketing, where peers act as primary influencers. A simple and easy technique to be a part of this game, is to create a social sharing option for products on your e-commerce store.

This works great for you for two reasons:

Shoppers can share products they like on their timeline
Shoppers can recommend products to others using social networks.

Did you know? Facebook is a leading source of social e-commerce traffic and sales; and has the highest conversion rate!

Adding Social Sharing Options in Magento 2.0

Now, in order to show social sharing links on your Magento 2.0 product pages, you need to follow simple steps. There are two routes you can take here:

you can either create a new module, or
you can create a new theme (or extend a parent theme’s page layout by creating a child theme)

In this post, I’m going to tell you how to add social sharing options using a child theme.

Step #1 Creating a Child Theme

Since the process of creating a child theme has been explained under Magento Documentation: Creating a theme, I won’t be repeating it here. You can follow the steps mentioned in the documentation to create a child theme.

Step #2 Identifying the Layout Template

Once you’ve created a child theme, you need to find the product page layout and add an additional block in it.

Here’s where we can then add social icons.

Now, our earlier post, Override Default Magento 2.0 Templates To Redesign Your Store, mentions how to locate a needed template file. For quick reference, I’ll summarize the steps here:

Under Stores -> Configuration -> Advanced -> Developer -> Debug set the ‘Enabled Template Path Hints for Storefront‘ to “Yes“, and click on ‘Save Config‘
Refresh the cache and head over to a single product page on the front-end of your store
You should notice highlighted statements on the page, which indicate the paths to the templates responsible for various UI elements

Make note of the template file that renders the ‘Add to Wish List’ or ‘Add to Compare’ element. We’ll be adding social icons on the product page below these buttons.

Step #3 Overriding the Layout Template

You should notice that the layout file responsible for rendering is:

<Magento_Catalog_module_dir>/view/frontend/layout/catalog_product_view.xml

And to override this layout file, we need to copy the file to the following location in the child theme:

<child_theme_dir>/Magento_Catalog/layout/catalog_product_view.xml

Now, in this file, locate the product.info.social container.

This container is responsible for rendering the ‘Add to Wish List’ and ‘Add to Compare’ buttons. Add a new block as shown in the snippet below to render the social icons:

<container name="product.info.social" label="Product social links container" htmlTag="div" htmlClass="product-social-links" after="product.info.overview">
<block class="Magento\Catalog\Block\Product\View" name="product.info.addto" as="addto" template="product/view/addto.phtml"/>

<!-- adding social sharing block -->
<block class="Magento\Catalog\Block\Product\View" name="product.info.wdm" template="product/view/wdm-social.phtml"/>

<block class="Magento\Catalog\Block\Product\View" name="product.info.mailto" template="product/view/mailto.phtml"/>
</container>

Let’s walk through the above block that we’ve added. We’ve specified three main attributes namely, class, name and template.

Class: Every block should have a unique class name and it is a required parameter to instantiate a block.
Name: A name is used to address the block to which this attribute is assigned. If a name is not specified, it is set to ANONYMOUS_n. This attribute is case sensitive
Template: The file path which represents the functionality of the block

Now, after adding this block in the page layout file, we will need to create its corresponding template file i.e., wdm-social.phtml to perform the functionality of adding social icons.

Creating the Template File

We now have to create a new file in the following location:

<child_theme_dir>/Magento_Catalog/templates/product/view/wdm-social.phtml

Since we’ll be using some images to display social sharing links, we need to first add some image icons before we head towards editing our template file.

You can download images from relevant sources, or create your own. Make sure that you store the images under the following directory: <child_theme_dir>/web/images/

Now, let’s head to our newly created wdm-social.phtml file, to render these social icons. Add the below code to your file (we’ll be adding Facebook and Twitter sharing links. You can use this idea to add links to other social networking websites):

<?php
$_product = $block->getProduct(); // GET THE PRODUCT
?>

<div class="wdm-social-icons" data-role="wdm-social-icons">

<!-- FACEBOOK -->
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=<?php echo urlencode($_product->getProductUrl());?>&t=<?php echo urlencode($_product->getName())?>" onclick='javascript:window.open(this.href,"","width=640,height=480,left=0,top=0,location=no,status=yes,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes");return false' title="Share on FaceBook">
<img src="<?php echo $this->getViewFileUrl('images/fb-med.png'); ?>" alt="FaceBook" width="5%">
</a>

<!-- TWITTER -->
<a href="http://twitter.com/home/?status=<?php echo urlencode($_product->getProductUrl());?>(<?php echo urlencode($_product->getName())?>)" onclick='javascript:window.open(this.href,"","width=640,height=480,left=0,top=0,location=no,status=yes,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes");return false' title="Share on Twitter">
<img src="<?php echo $this->getViewFileUrl('images/tw.png'); ?>" alt="Twitter" width="5%">
</a>

</div>

Make sure you modify the name of the images specified as per image names you’ve uploaded.

And that’s it! now all you have to do flush all the cache from cache management and refresh any product page.

You should be able to see the social image icons below the ‘Add to Wish List’ button!

Note: If you get any errors before flushing the cache, you might want to check the permission of Magento root and the child theme created.

Well, hope you were able to follow the steps and add social sharing icons for products on your Magento store.

Got questions?

The comment section is open for discussion!

Magento & SEO

#1. Product Page Optimization

Product Image labels

#2. Category Page Optimization

URL Preservation

#3. Rich Snippets

#4. Site Indexing

Robots.txt

XML sitemap

Schemas.org Integration

#5. Universal Google Analytics, Ecommerce tracking and Adwords Conversions

#6. Google Tag Manager

Conclusion

Key Features:

Compatibility:

Price: $99

Key features:

Compatibility:

Price: $99

Key Features:

Compatibility:

Price: $89

Key Features:

Compatibility:

Price: $84

Key Features:

Compatibility:

Price: $84

Key Features:

Compatibility:

Price: $84

Key Features:

Compatibility:

Adding Social Sharing Options in Magento 2.0

Step #1 Creating a Child Theme

Step #2 Identifying the Layout Template

Step #3 Overriding the Layout Template

Creating the Template File

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