magentoliverpool

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Magento Checkout Customisation

A list of extensions and resources in relation to customisation the default Magento checkout flow:

Extensions

Prime Checkout

One Step Checkout

Resources

Official Magento training $500

Custom Checkout Examples

Dreams.co.uk - Magento Enterprise

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Magento Warrington, SEO test

After a bit of banter in the office this morning I'm creating this post to prove to Stacey that I'm much better at SEO than she is and I'm also much better at Magento Warrington web development.

I'm also going to use this post to assess how Google handles my blatant plagiarism of the Wikipedia content below.

Magento

Magento is an open source ecommerce web application that was launched on March 31, 2008. It was developed by Varien (now Magento Inc) with help from the programmers within the open source community but is owned solely by Magento Inc.. Magento was built using the Zend Framework.[1][2] It uses the Entity-attribute-value (EAV) database model to store data.

Warrington

Warrington is a town, borough and unitary authority area of Cheshire, England. Historically part of Lancashire, it stands on the banks of the River Mersey, which is tidal to the west of the weir at Howley. It lies 16 miles east of Liverpool, 19 miles west of Manchester and 8 miles south of St Helens. The population of the borough is 202,200.[2] Its population has more than doubled since its designation as a New Town in 1968.

So here we go, it's 9:10am on Thursday 20th September 2012 let's see how long before we're ranking for "Magento Warrington".

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E-Commerce & Magento UKFast Round Table Part 2

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E-Commerce & Magento UKFast Round Table Part 1

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If you work in search marketing, unless you have been living under a rock, you’ll be no doubt aware of the hundreds of thousands of webmaster messages that Google sent out basically telling people Google knows about your crap links and it’s going to do something about it. Well, a lot of chatter in webmaster […] Check out - Is Your Website Sinking Like The Titanic in Google? http://bit.ly/wDOjb9 No related posts. Source: Hobo Search Engine Optimisation.

Is Your Website Sinking Like The Titanic in Google? http://bit.ly/HWNdEH (via hoboweb)

Very good article on all the new stuff going down with Google's approach to link building for SEO.

[magentoliverpool]

The Champagne Company Review

Just a quick post with some thoughts on the ecommerce user experience of The Champagne Company website after a Christmas present purchase today.

Positive

Discovered via a Google Shopping product search

Trusted reviews / social proof on Google Shopping Seller rating: 5.0 / 5 - Based on 14 reviews

Modern, fresh, elegant branding

UK local rate number for customer service clearly visible in the header

Secure SSL at basket

Instant order confirmation emails

Negative

On-site search box hidden in the lower left column

On-site search failed to return the product I'd found via Google Shopping

Product page didn't include enough product information i.e. size, reviews

No delivery information displayed at the product page

No stock levels displayed at the product page

About Us page has a picture of shed in vineyard. As this was my first time using the company I'd prefer to see some images of a physical bricks and mortar presence and people in the business to re-assure any fears of a dodgy internet business. This is essential for independent online retailers who don't have the benefit of offline / TV trust building marketing strategies.

Missed opportunity to display number of Facebook fans and Twitter followers using a live feed. Currently requires a click away from the site.

Non-integrated payment processor page. Although the site uses the highly trusted SagePay gateway, some shoppers will abandon basket as card/debit card details are entered on a different URL.

The same product was available with free delivery using my Amazon Prime account from another retailer. I chose The Champagne Company as they included a free gift box for the same price with delivery.

I decided to bash through the frustrations highlighted above as my day job involves understanding why customers do and don't but from on-line retailers. I could see some trust-able signs such as SagePay, SSL certificate and 1100+ Facebook fans but consumers who are less experienced with on-line shopping would likely abandon basket and find another retailer. 

Now, I'm just waiting for the package to arrive.

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Magento training Liverpool

Again here's another test blog post to see how long it takes to appear on google for Magento training Liverpool.

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Magento London, POD1 Administration

It took just two days for my post titled "Magento Widnes" to appear in second place on Google UK. The aim of this post is to monitor how long we'll be waiting for Google's algorithms to decide how relevant the content is when people are typing in the phrase "Magento London". I'll use the SEO Ranking App on my iPhone to track progress. Considering there's about 2.2 million results for the phrase "Magento London" it could bit longer than the two days we waited for "Magento Widnes". POD1 Administration I'm writing this post a couple of days after confirmation of the rumours on POD1's administration. Unfortunate news for those who've lost their jobs at the London Magento agency and surprising to see a firm with a great reputation in the rapidly growing industry of ecommerce go under.

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What is social commerce?

Content coming soon.

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Magento Widnes

Writing this post for a laugh to see how long it will take to appear in Google's first 10 positions when searching for "magento widnes".

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Magento Enterprise

Stacking Up Against Other Ecommerce Platforms:

Flexibility

Time to Market

Total Cost of Ownership

Feature / Functionality Set

Community

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Social Commerce Video

fbmarketingtalks on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

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Different forms of online presence

In chapter 1 of ‘Internet Marketing, Strategy, Implementation and Practice’. Chaffey et al, 2009, 4th Edition discusses different forms of online presence. Depending on the objectives of the organisation and it’s target market online presence can be categorised into five main categories: For each of type of site below I have noted projects I have been involved with over the past few years in my roles at YOMA and 360-Systems.com. 1. Transactional e-commerce www.outdoorworld.co.uk www.sundaybestonline.com www.anchorpumps.com www.lemononline.com www.theplumbstore.co.uk www.pauls-hair-world.com 2. Service-oriented relationship-building website 3. Brand-building site 4. Portal or media site 5. Social network or community site **Note: I’m creating this post via the Tumblr iPhone App. It’s proving to be quite cumbersome for writing a post of a couple of paragraphs or more. So far I’ve not found the options to un-publish a post after accidentally hitting the ‘Post’ button in the top right.

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Web Traffic Growth!

Okay so since my last post the unique visitors numbers are up by a whopping 250%. This is fantastic growth in a short space of time. 

Of the 3 new uniques landing here after the data was previously analysed - I've managed to identify @knade as one of the readers. How do I know this? He told me as he passed my desk on his way to make a cup of tea.

Traffic Sources - Keywords

As Jakob Nielsen has found in his various eye tracking studies web users like headings and bullet lists when reading copy on screens. So here's a list of keywords people have typed into Google to discover this blog:

magento liverpool (5 visits) - probably me testing and @knade being nosey

seo liverpool (2 visits) - wasn't expecting this

"@yoma.co.uk" alex ormandy (1 visit) - could be a stalker?

liverpool magento (1 visit) -a rebel? 

So hello to all the new visitors spending an average of 3 minutes and 41 seconds on the site. Please feel free to post a reply or ask me anything.

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Magento Liverpool's Google Search Ranking

Wow! The numbers are incredible. Since installing Google Analytics I can now track the traffic visiting this blog.

Get ready...

Since GA went live just over 10 days ago there's has been two unique visitors! Once of which is me and the other probably me as well via a different device. There's practically no search volume for the phrase "magento liverpool" so I wasn't expecting many visitors.

At the time of writing this post, www.magentoliverpool.com occupies organic position 4 which is just out of sight of the golden position 1 spot, so lets see if the clicks increase as we get closer to the summit.

I'll report back on visitors numbers when the blog begins to climb the rankings for "magento liverpool". (Apologies if there's overuse of the phrase magento liverpool in this post, I'm just playing a game to make Google think this is the most relevant domain.)

Magento Ecommerce 

(Cheeky <h2> tag above for relevancy points.)

Over At Yoma we're noticing increased enquiries for our digital marketing and ecommerce services since we're ranking on Google page 1 for the phrase Magento Ecommerce. (Another cheeky little anchor text back link there.)

Right then... SEO spam style post over. I'll get back to thinking about "writing for the user's experience"  or Google won't be happy.

Magento Liverpool

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Social Commerce & Magento

The world has gone social, be part of the conversation...

An interesting tag line at the end of the short video promoting Facebook's recently launched step-by-step guide to help small business connect with existing and reach new customers via the social network.

As Gary Vaynerchuk said earlier in 2011 word of mouth is the currency; Facebook's services provide an excellent platform to help business spread the word, improve customer service and develop long lasting relationships with their customers.

In addition to the standard business profile pages, targeted Ads and deals the guide provides insight into their 10 social plugins designed to push the Facebook brand and allow users to share content with existing connections.

At the Yoma studio/office/lab (whatever takes your fancy) in Liverpool we're busy applying the final touches to a couple of exciting Social Ecommerce projects built on Magento.

By integrating the social plugins and feeds from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Flickr we expect this will lead to:

Increased time on site

Deeper pages views

More returns visits 

Higher revenue for our clients

In my research for social commerce projects I discovered an implementation from Buy.com - which I've yet to see working. The Shop Together/Shop With Your Friends appears to allows users to connect and chat online with contacts after logging in with their Facebook account. I've tried a number of times but it seems very sluggish and does't allow me to virtually shop with friends.

Maybe that money could've been better spent on PPC?

Now that's a question.

Step into the unknown with social commerce developments or rely on what you know already works with Google AdWords.

As they say in war... "he who dares wins"

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Google Search with Instant Pages. Only available for Google Chrome users.