Magento CMS installation procedure

You should begin with downloading the latest Magento package. Magento version 1.3.2.3 is now available for download on http://www.magentocommerce.com/download/noregister. Download it and then extract the files. The next necessary step is to upload extracted files to server through FTP.

Pay attention that you follow all server requirements. You may also do it through cPannel -> File Manager.
Set file permissions: navigate to the directory with your FTP client. Then locate the function “Change Permissions” or “Change Mode” in your FTP client and select it. Change mode to writable.

You may do the same via cPannel: login to the cPanel for your domain and click on the File Manager icon under the Files Selection. Make sure a Show Hidden file is selected. Then check the checkboxes next to files and folders to set the permissions.

I should say if you feel difficulties in customization process, you may take the opportunity of Template Tuning services. Here you can order the template customization at an affordable price. Their web developers will easily and skillfully do all the necessary changes for you. But if you are not afraid of difficulties, then let’s go on!

Magento template installation procedure

Magento template is really the easiest way to change the layout and design of your online store. Using Magento theme you save time and money getting attractive and well looking web store.

When you start searching for a site template, you will come upon many web page designs. But as usual, I recommend you to review website templates provided by TemplatedBusiness. It offers high quality design products that can be easily customized to meet your project needs. Here you will find both Magento static templates and Magento Flash templates that correspond to the main web standards and concentrate on the customers’ core requirements both in terms of usability and information. Well, my choice is 25073.

Let’s start the Magento template installation.

1. Open a hosting control panel.
2. Get to a database management tool (usually phpMyAdmin is used).
3. Create a new database.
4. Import the dump.sql file from the template sources>sample data folder.
5. Run your website beginning the installation procedure.
6. Enter all required data (host name, database name, user name, and password).
7. Go through all installation steps.
8. Upload the “app” and “skin” folders from the template theme_name folder to your Magento root folder (accept the replacement).
9. Upload the media folder from the Magento template sources>sample data folder to the Magento root folder on your server.
10. Refresh the page (CTRL+F5).

Sometimes it’s required to clean the Magento cache:

1. Go to your_domain_name.com/index.php/admin
2. Select System>Cache Management.
3. In Cache Control box check all options and in All Cache dropdown select Refresh.
4. Click Save Cache Settings in the top right corner.
Open your website and refresh the page (CTRL+F5).
Well, we have approached to the most interesting part of our web store creating.
Now you can proceed with the configuration of your web site.
Web store customization procedure

1. Configuration settings
Log into Magento admin panel on www.your_domain_name.com/admin using the login and password you specified earlier.

Then navigate to System -> Configuration. Here you can configure the script options per your personal needs. Most options are self-explanatory:

2. Changing your store’s name and Home page texts

At this stage you will need Adobe Photoshop CS+ to make all necessary modifications.
But before you start you should install the fonts (usually they are placed in “sources/fonts” folder- in this tutorial you’ll find more detailed description). After that open.psd file in Photoshop and let’s learn how to change your jewelry store’s name and Home page texts.

Choose Horizontal Type Tool and enter your store name replacing the default one. If your site title goes out of the slice limits, you may easily resize it with the help of Slice Select Tool. Highlight the logo (mouse left click + CTRL) and stretch the slice borders by mouse left clicking.

After customizing the name we need to save the updated logo. While the slice is still selected, go to “File” -> “Save for Web and Devices”. Make certain that your logo image file is in .gif format and has the same name as the default one. Use an ftp file manager or the ftp tools provided by your hosting provider to upload the image to the server and replace the default one.

Using the same method modify the Home page banners and then re-save them and upload to the server.

3. Customizing HTML Title and Meta Data.

To proceed your web store customization you need to come back to the Magento admin panel.
After you logged in, go to CMS section and click on the Manage Pages link.

Here you can find all existing pages including the Home page we are going to modify on this step. So, select the Home page to edit it.

After that edit the page title. Remember that all of Magento’s built-in pages have their own title.

Now pass to the Meta Data section by clicking the link at the left vertical menu. Fill in the fields with your keywords and description. I recommend you to write an attractive description, that increases your website chances to be visited by search engines users.
Save changes.

4. Static blocks and Poll Manager

Also there are two options which can be useful for your web store.
The first is Static Blocks. In our case we can use this option to modify the links at the bottom of our web site.

The second is Poll Manager. This option allows you to create polls to know an opinion of your web store visitors.

Well, the Home page is ready.

5. Categories and Products

On this step I will teach you how to add and manage products of your web store.
So, we will start with creating a new category. Go to the Catalog section -> Manage Categories and create a category. “Name” is the only required field but don’t forget to choose “Yes” on “Is Active” field to activate the created category.

Now we can add some products under the category. This can be done through the Catalog -> Manage Products section. Click on the “Add Products” button. “New Product” page will open. Configure product settings: product attribute set to “default”, product type – “simple”.

By pressing the “Continue” button open the next page and specify the following mandatory fields: product name, product description, short description, a stock keeping unit (or SKU), product weight and product visibility.

Then click on the “Create New Attribute” button and add attributes to your product. Once you are ready with the product details, click on the “Save” button.

You will be transferred to the “Prices” page where you can specify the default product price, a special price and its validity, the cost and whether it is taxable.

Well, click the “Save” button. The new product has been added to your web store. Let’s assign the product to the category. Follow the “Categories” link in the Product Information section on the left and check the categories your product has to belong to.

After that follow the “Inventory” link to define the available quantity of the product and whether it is in the stock.

You can also fill in Meta information, upload product images, and check product reviews, product tags and the other options. Once you are ready, click on the “Save” button.

6. Promotions

“Promotions” is another useful section where you can set promotions, define the rules for them and the customers’ groups for which the promotions are valid:

7. Managing reports

You should know Magento CMS allows you to get multiple comprehensive statistics and reports.
Just go to the “Reports” section and choose the type of report you want to analyze.
I recommend you to monitor your sales, products, customers, shopping cart, reviews, tags and search terms.

Choosing a hosting provider

When choosing the hosting services you should be guided first of all by other people reviews, prices and quality. On this basis I recommend you webhostingbuzz.com.
If you experience any troubles with registering a domain name or hosting you can always contact TemplateTuning.com professionals.

Website Promotion

You may find a lot of website promotion services all over the Internet. But probably, one of the most reliable among them is website promotion services from Web Design Library. It offers:

- Search Engines Inclusion
- Website Analysis Report
- Keyword Research Report
- Link Building Campaign
- Link Analysis Report
- Search Engine Optimization Report
- Search Engine Rankings Report.

There are two packages:

- Standard package: it would be great for new websites
- Pro package: a complex approach to website promotion.
There is no monthly fee. And by ordering a pro package you will get a 30% discount. Moreover, if you purchase a website template from TemplateMonster.com or TemplatedBusiness, you will get 50% off on the SEO services provided by Webdesign.org. You don’t need to learn the secrets of search engines algorithms in order to increase your ranking, because everything will be performed by qualified SEO specialists.

You can try live demo of the template to see how your jewelry store will look like.

Well done!

Source: templatedbusiness.com

Recently Magento Commerce updated its Enterprise Edition Page. Magento Enterprise Edition is the commercially licensed premium grade Magento product, offering enterprise-only features, guarantees and full product support. On the page you will find a lot of useful video and information necessary to know while building your own Magento store.

Check this page and you’ll definitely find something worthwhile and helpful.

The guys from Magento Commerce continue to work hard delivering the best products. So now the online store owners may upgrade their  Magento software to version 1.3.2.2. It is available for download here.

The new Magento version fixes resolution issues  for Magento version 1.3.x. About other changes you may read by following this link.

Before upgrading, make sure that the Magento Compilation Module is disabled. After upgrading is completed, enable it again by clicking on “Run Compilation Process”.

Please note: do not upgrade Magento directly. Backup database and all files first. Also make sure to check file permissions before trying to upgrade through your Magento Connect Manager.

At first glance, the creation of an ecommerce site, such as Marysbikeshop.com, may seem complicated. You’ll have to locate a company to host your website and another company to process your customers’ credit card payments. You’ll have to decide how the site will actually look, how the products will be displayed and how they will be shipped once a customer purchases them. You’ll have to enact steps to prevent the acceptance of stolen credit card numbers and steps to prevent thieves from stealing your customers’ legitimate credit card numbers. You’ll also have to develop systems to respond to queries quickly and efficiently. And you’ll need to market your website: You’ll want to make certain the major search engines can locate your site (so prospective customers who search for your products can find them), and you’ll likely want to email your past customers when you’ve acquired new products or services.

In spite of this complexity, thousands of entrepreneurs have established successful ecommerce businesses without any related experience. And with Getting Started in eCommerce, we hope to help you launch an ecommerce business, too.

Follow this link to read the Guide.

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Just a couple of words about Practical eCommerce. It was launched in July 2005 by Kerry and Joy Murdock in Grand Junction, Colorado, USA. Its mission from the start has been to provide down-to-earth articles and advice to help smaller businesses succeed online. This editorial content was originally delivered primarily through a monthly, printed magazine, but it now (2009) includes this website, three podcasts, two email newsletters, but no printed magazine.

But why is the Magento software so popular? It managed to outbid such established companies as osCommerce, Zen Cart and CRE Loaded leaving them much behind. Due to the great diversity of Magento templates, this software becomes even more asked-for.

Just take a look at the most attractive Magento templates:

It’s hardly possible to overestimate all advantages of Magento CMS. And this time I want to point out one of the most useful features of this software that can greatly work for the multiple store owners. So, if you run a couple of online stores based on Magento, you may use a single checkout process for all stores. Yes, with Magento CMS it’s possible. You will have many store fronts all come back to a single checkout using only one ssl for the whole process. Isn’t it very convenient?

This is a great feature and the community has long ago taken advantage of this functionality.

Magento and Joomla! are the two leading open source applications widely used for online store creation. They are very similar to each other, hovewer some features of Magento look more functional and easy-to-use, whereas Joomla! is a time-tested software. Magento is the perfect tool for setting up a successful e-commerce site. Joomla! on the other hand is the right choice for FAQ, blogs, forums, whitepapers and so on.

What if to create a multipurpose application that would implement all the best features of Magento and Joomla? The guys from Yireo (Netherlands) hit upon integrating these two content management systems.

Yireo is is part of Jira ICT. It’s a group of enthusiastic developers whose aim is to create stuff with open source and educate people about all aspects of it: “With our software and tutorials you can become an expert yourself and explore the endless opportunities of these Web 2.0 applications.”

In July 2009 Yireo developers will launch MageBridge – a solution to use the Magento e-commerce system within Joomla!. With MageBridge you can setup a complete webshop while also serving your customers with interesting content. The main webshop interface is used as a Joomla! component, while there are also modules displaying menu’s, the latest products, a random product or just a plain Magento-block. Also, Joomla! plugins are used for authentication, user synchronization and searching the Magento product-catalog. MageBridge is therefore much more than just a wrapper-solution, but a complete integration of Magento inside Joomla!.

Besides MageBridge, Yireo will also launch a lot of tutorials on how to Magento, Joomla! and MageBridge itself.

Using MageBridge you can combine Joomla! with Magento with ease!

But let’s look at the Magento development rather closely. In spite of the fact that Magento is only at an early version 1 stage, it managed to take the lead over ZenCart and eCommerce software. The Magento name is being searched heavily worldwide now. And Google Trends proves it clearly.

Compare the Magento trend to ZenCart and eCommerce.

I admit, Magento had a good start. And it’s not a limit. It gradually gains more and more developers’ and designers’ support.

Magento comes in two flavors: Light and Full. Full version is much larger and includes sample data like stores, categories, products, images and others, whereas Light version doesn’t. This installation guide will show how to install Magento with simple data.

Step 1. Download the latest Magento package from their official website.

Pay attention that you follow all server requirements. For example, Magento is not compatible with MySQL 4; it needs MySQL 5 to run properly.

Step 2. Upload the Magento web files to your web server via FTP. You may also do it through cPannel -> File Manager.

You can either put Magento file under the public_html folder or a sub folder. In the first case your website will be accessible directly through your domain. Once you have uploaded the package, extract it using cPannel.

Step 3. Set file permissions. As it is a full version of Magento, we need to set the following folders and the directories in the folder “media” to writable mode. To do so, navigate to the directory with your FTP client. Then locate the function “Change Permissions” or “Change Mode” in your FTP client and select it.

You may do the same via cPannel: login to the cPanel for your domain and click on the File Manager icon under the Files Selection. Make sure that a Show Hidden file is selected. Then check the checkboxes next to files and folders to set the permissions.

Step 4. Create a MySQL database and user/password for Magento. (cPanel -> MySQL Databases. Remember the database details, since you will need them during the script installation.)

Step 5. Use your web browser to surf to the Magento installation wizard.

Step 6. Configure the database connection. Enter the database details: Database Name, User Name and User Password. You can leave the other options intact.
Click on the check box next to “Skip Base URL validation before next step”.

Step 7. After clicking the “Continue” button, enter the personal information and the admin login details you want to use. You can leave the encryption key field empty. The script will generate one for you.

Step 8. Sample data installation.
- open your database with the PhpMyAdmin tool or some other database management tool and drop all tables (sometimes there could be some errors and you’ll need to drop some tables manually one by one)
- then import the dump.sql file from the “sources/sample_data” folder of your template package
- then access the magento root on your server, go to “app/etc” folder and delete local.xml file
- then open your magento website in your browser and you’ll see the initial Magento installation page – reinstall the Magento website once again.

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The installation is completed. Well done!

Flash Magento templates from TemplateMonster combine theme-based graphics, course-plotting scheme, action effects, tune and sound effects. They serve as one of the best means of designing a professional quality animated online store. Flash effects are used as an animated captivating introduction to the company. Flash headers are not only attractive but also contain original navigation menu, cool buttons that change as you make choices.

Let’s take a look at a couple of Flash Magento templates.

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These Flash Magento templates really grab visitors’ attention; they are vivid, captivating, appealing and eye-catching.