Internet Marketing Blog

Static blocks are a Magento feature that makes adding content to your Magento site easy and convenient. Static blocks allow for your Magento site to be updated via the admin panel making it faster than having to “hard-code” every time you need to make a change to your website. Static blocks can be used anywhere on your Magento site to display text, images, & navigation.  Some Magento designs have static blocks already in place for your convenience; however, you might have to install them yourself. Below is a simple tutorial on how to install a static block in the footer of your Magento site

Step One: Create Static Block in Your Magento Admin

Magento Admin Panel—>Static Blocks—>Add New Block

1) Name your Static Block, in this case Custom footer Links

2) Label the Identifier (This is the link you will use to call the block later) in this case, custom-footer-links

3) Choose what store view you would like it to render in

4) Set Status to Enabled

2)Now for the fun part! Add your navigation links to the block.   Make sure to use <style> to make them match your sites color and theme.

Step Two: Inserting Code to Call the Static Block

This part is going to require you to FTP into your Magento site and modify footer.phtml
app—>design—>frontend—->default—>(your template)—>template—>page—>footer.phtml

Find where in the footer you want your navigation links to display and insert:
<?php echo $this->getLayout()->createBlock(‘cms/block’)->setBlockId(‘custom-footer-links’)->toHtml(); ?>

Now most of the time the Static block should display just fine but in some cases you are going to have do some extra steps to have the block display.

1) Instead of inserting:
<?php echo $this->getLayout()->createBlock(‘cms/block’)->setBlockId(‘custom-footer-links’)->toHtml(); ?>

Use:

<reference name=”left”>
<block type=”cms/block” name=”left.permanent.callout”>
<action method=”setBlockId”><block_id>custom-footer-links</block_id>
</action>
</block>
</reference>

2)Modify catalog.xml
app—>design—>frontend—>default—>f002—>layout—>catalog.xml

Add under <!– Mage_Catalog –>

<block type=”cms/block” name=”left.permanent.callout”>
<action method=”setBlockId”><block_id>custom-footer-links</block_id>
</action>
</block>

And voila! Your Static Blocks should be displaying and easily accessible through Your Magento Admin panel. Remember Static Blocks can be inserted just about anywhere in your Magento site and are a great feature to use when content needs to be updated frequently. If you have any comments or suggestions on Magento Static Blocks feel free to leave them below.

One of the most overlooked aspects of a solid internet marketing plan is content. There are many on-site Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies; however, if your website is missing unique, high quality, user friendly content all your work might be in vain. Good content not only will attract and cause search engine robots to scour your site but helps retain viewers and encourages them to take action and increase conversions (ie. phone call, buy a product, fill  out a form, ect.) .

So what is good content? Good content will establish you as an authoritative expert on your product or service. Good content should focus around the products or service you are trying to sell.  Each industry has keywords and phrases unique to that industry and your pages should only be focused on one or two at the maximum.   Your websites home page text should focus on your general services or product and should be linking out to pages of related content.   Each page should be at least a couple paragraphs in text with images that complement the text. Your pages content should also include links to other related pages making site navigation easier.

eCommerce websites are notorious for lack of  unique content. This is the nature of selling hundreds and thousands of items in which entering unique descriptions is nearly impossible and a would take a significant amount of time. A way to combat this is to create pages describing your best selling items or services. If your selling apples for example, publish pages showing your expertise in the apple field. Write about tasty apples, apple types, any apple related news, how to grow apples, apple recipes,  history of apples, apple events, apple nutrition…..you get the idea.  Make your website a expert source on the subject.

Creating unique, high quality, user friendly content for your website will go a long way with your SEO efforts. By making yourself an expert or authoritative figure when it comes to your product or service you can ensure that traffic for your website will increase and with it conversions.

Magento plug-ins are one of the many reasons to consider a Magento shopping cart for your business’ eCommerce platform. These plug-ins or extensions provide a level of usability and functionality not matched by other shopping cart systems. There are plug-ins to make Magento faster, improve SEO, track email campaigns, improve website search and much more. Here are a few that are not only free but effective, a must for any Magento shopping cart.

Fooman Speedster – This extension takes all JS (JavaScript) and CSS (cascading style sheets) and combines, compresses and caches it, significantly speeding up Magento. It is relatively easy to install and, with speed becoming more important for both web users and search engines, this is one Magento extension not to ignore.

Lazzymonks Twitter – Including social media with marketing efforts is a must today. Lazzymonks Twitter extension allows easy integration of Twitter into Magento. It displays Twitter feeds in your menu and allows you to update your Twitter status from the admin panel.

MailChimp ECommerce360 Reporting – Using email as part of your marketing strategy? MailChimp simplifies measurement of ROI. This Magento extension takes away all the compiling and processing of excel spreadsheets and simplifies it into easy-to-read graphs and charts. It measures email clicks and follows them until a purchase is completed!

Canonical URL’s for Magento – This extension protects your content from duplicate content penalties. By inserting the link rel=”canonical” to the head of all your magento pages you can ensure that your site gets credit for the unique content it provides.

There you have it; some free advice about free Magento extensions & plug-ins from InteractOne, a certified Enterprise-level provider of Magento. For a full list, please visit http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect .  If you have any Magento extensions you feel should be listed, or any questions about installation, feel free to share your comments below.

You have decided to implement a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign to drive traffic to your website, increase conversions and tap into the millions of consumers shopping for what you offer on the internet.  Which keywords or key-phrases should you target? While instinct might tell you to go after the keywords and phrases that best describe your business, it is best to research your competition using those same keywords, variations on keywords, and a cost analysis of the effort and time required to implement your keywords versus the amount of traffic they may generate.

First to give credit where it’s due, your instinct is right - make sure your SEO keywords specifically fit your business.  The key word here is “specific.” If you are a car window repair shop, choosing the keyword “windows” will get you nowhere fast. If you are a local New Holland tractor dealer, trying to rank with the phrase ”New Holland” might put you into unwanted and unprofitable competition with several large cities around the world. If you are a coffee shop, tempting as it might be, you have little chance with the keyword “coffee” alone.

Do you see the trend? Make sure your keywords are on-target, ownable, realistic and not easily mistaken for another subject entirely.

Once you’ve built your list of keywords it is time to analyze how many people are searching the web using those keywords. Two free tools that do a good job of this are Google’s Keyword Traffic Tool and Wordtrackers GTrends Tool. Follow this rule of thumb: if a keyword generates a ton of searches, it will be harder to rank organically through an SEO campaign.  If you find that your keywords have too much competition, try adding the town, city or state name. Also, try longer-tailed keywords; for example instead of  “windshield repair” try “windshield repair Cincinnati” or “window repair shop in Cincinnati.”

Your current rank for a keyword or phrase, the amount of competition for the same keyword and the current state of your website are all important factors in estimating SEO campaign costs. Writing articles and submitting them, optimizing website code, text, images, creating and monitoring social media to support your site, and the creation of new website content all must be taken into account.

Determining the proper keywords for your SEO campaign is an ongoing process. Setting and forgetting just isn’t possible. Constant traffic analysis, keyword position reports, and frequent website updates optimally tune your website for SEO.  Like most things, experience and first-hand knowledge are paramount. Start your SEO campaign on the right track with the proper keywords and you’ll gain the experience to make your website highly competitive by constantly refining your SEO strategy.

Inbound links from credible websites carry considerable weight in Google’s search algorithm and are a critical element for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). For businesses entering the Internet; especially small to medium-sized businesses, getting quality links can prove to be a challenge. Here are some tips to get started on your linking campaign and improve your overall internet marketing efforts.

A great place to find links is simply to reach out to your business networking contacts. These can be clients (use discretion here), distributors, neighborhood businesses, charities or events your business takes part in, and related businesses. Just remember, do not be afraid to ask. The worst thing they can say is no and the benefit of obtaining quality links is well worth it.

Another great way to garner links is to go out and be part of the online community of blogs and forums. Make sure your comments are meaningful and on topic. Avoid spamming techniques like putting keywords where your name should be and filling the comments field with meaningless keyphrase babble. If you have content on your website that is relevant to the discussion make sure you offer a link back to that page of your website.

While searching for links, consider what I call “off the web links.” These links are your business’ URL printed on traditional media such as stationary, billing, business cards, and any form of advertising. To leave your URL off any form of media your business uses is simply giving yourself an unnecessary handicap.

Obtaining links can be challenging; however, it is a must when building your credibility with the major search engines and potential customers.

Having landing pages that are oriented around the keywords of your Pay-per-Click (PPC ) campaign is a must. Many times companies point all the keywords in their PPC ads towards their home page essentially making their customers do two or more searches after they arrive at the website. These extra searches often discourage the customers, leading them elsewhere to do their shopping.  Any Internet marketer will tell you that the first few seconds a person is on a website is critical. In those seconds he or she is going to decide “is this the right place for me or should I go back to search…?”.

Another critical aspect that is often left out of the PPC campaign and off the landing page is a call to action.  A call to action should be prominently displayed on the landing page encouraging and giving instructions on how to initiate the transaction. A common rule of thumb for any type of business – online or not – is “If you don’t ask, you don’t sell”.

Pay-per-Click campaigns are a great promotional tool and a great way to garner instant traffic to your website; however, poorly set-up campaigns can prove to be a waste of money. By ensuring that that you are pointing your customers to the products and services they want and encouraging them to make a purchase you are on the right track to a successful Pay-per-Click campaign.

When potential customers search for your business online what are the results? The best case scenario would be a link to your website at the top of the first results page with links to positive reviews and content you control on the rest of the page. Worst case scenario is your competitor’s website or negative reviews at the top of the first results page with a link to your website nowhere to be found.

No matter where you are in the above scenario there are steps you can take to ensure that the results for a search of your of your business’ name are positive and bring customers to you instead of scaring them away.

1) Create a Static Website or Blog for your Business. This is not as intimidating as it sounds. Today you can set up a simple website or blog that will provide your business with an online presence for less than $20.oo a month. Keep in mind that this type of website won’t be winning any awards in design but will provide search engines with content on your business that you control. Blogging platforms such as Wordpress are edging out static websites in popularity because of its ease of of use, functionality, and the ability to update text and design with little or no coding skills.

2) Get involved in Social Media. The great thing about social media is that it is free! The three top social media sites I recommend are Twitter, facebook, and LinkedIn. Facebook and Twitter are great internet marketing tool that allow you to engage your target market. You can use these platforms to update customers on your products and services, changes in hours, industry news and any other sources of information that might appeal to them.

3) Set up Local Listing Accounts. This also a great way to put your business on the web for free. Yahoo, Bing, and Google all have local listings/maps that allow you to post a summary, images, video, contact info and hours of your business.

4) Be Pro-Active. Search the internet for blogs, websites, forums, online news outlets and any other type of website that is related to your business or industry. On many of these sites you can make a profile for your business and leave comments and respond to questions.  If you see any negative reviews or postings about your business make sure you reach out immediately to resolve these issues.

Creating an online presence for your business that attracts customers instead of repels them only takes a few hours to setup and a few hours a week to manage. As more and more people log-on to the internet to find a business or to learn more about a business they plan on working with, you can bet your online reputation is going to play an ever more important role.

Website loading speed is a major factor when it comes to search engine rankings, retaining viewer interest and turning viewers into customers.   Although Magento is a fast loading Ecommerce website out of the box but there are many ways to tweak it for more speed. Increased speed can easily translate into more sales and better rankings in the  search engine result pages (SERPS).

One of the easiest ways to improve Magento’s speed is to add the Fooman Speedster extension. This extension is free and can be found here.  Load time after this extension is installed is vastly improved and is a must for streamlining your online store.

Another easy way to speed up Magento is to take out this line of code php_value memory_limit 128M which is found in the root .htaccess file. Eliminating this line of code gives magento more memory to work with which will improve page load times greatly.

Enabling Gzip on your server is another great way to speed up your Magento eCommerce site.  You can do this by updateing your .htacess file. First find “enable apache served files” in the file. Next change that code to the following:

############################################
## enable apache served files compression
## http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#gzip

# Insert filter
SetOutputFilter DEFLATE

# Netscape 4.x has some problems…
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html

# Netscape 4.06-4.08 have some more problems
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip

# MSIE masquerades as Netscape, but it is fine
BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
# Don’t compress images
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:gif|jpe?g|png)$ no-gzip dont-vary

# Make sure proxies don’t deliver the wrong content
Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary

Hold on to your hats!! Off you go! These  modifications and updates are sure to improve the performance of your Magento eCommerce website, convert into better standings in the SERPS, and result in happier customers and more visitors.

Local web developer InteractOne recently announced it has qualified as enterprise-level partner and certified developer with Magento, an elite e-commerce package. As a Magento Certified Developer, InteractOne can market and promote itself as a Magento Enterprise Partner to pursue and capture the growing market demand for Magento.

InteractOne, located in Blue Ash, Ohio, is one of the region’s largest developers of websites for small and medium-sized business. Magento, developed by Varien, Inc., is the fastest-growing open source e-commerce software, with more than 750,000 downloads.

Unlike the open source (free) version, Magento Enterprise is fee-based for businesses requiring a high level of support and sophisticated e-commerce features.

As a Magento Enterprise Partner, InteractOne receives support and backing from Varien in pursuing new business only available to partners focused on and committed to the Enterprise Edition.

“This opens doors for InteractOne to the larger e-commerce clients that may have been out of reach for us in the past,” said InteractOne President Brian Dwyer. “We have had the programming talent in place for some time, but Magento Enterprise puts a market-recognized tool in our hands.”

InteractOne has provided web development and Internet services to medium and small business since 1998. As the world goes online, we’ve helped many companies develop and establish very successful internet strategies, websites, and e-commerce sites. We focus on providing in-person, one-to-one service to businesses and organizations and are committed to ensuring that our clients receive careful attention and the highest quality when we plan, develop, design, and construct a website. Helping our clients succeed on the Internet is InteractOne’s primary objective. More information can be found at www.InteractOne.com.

Read more about Magento at:
http://www.magentocommerce.com/product/compare
and
http://www.magentocommerce.com/product/enterprise-community-faqs

Where is your target market online? Sounds like a simple question, but many online marketers endeavor to sell online without knowing if, where or when their target market is online.

Lets take a step back and define “target market online”. Target Market Online (TMO) – defines when and where your customers and prospective clients are using the World Wide Web.

For example, is your TMO heavy Google users, do they frequent the news sites, read blogs, watch YouTube, do social networking, hang out on online forums, the list goes on and on….

The reason it’s import to answer the question “where is my TMO” is because it has, and will have profound ramifications on the scope and cost of ones online marketing efforts.

Marketers that know where their TMO is are able to much better server their customers and prospects with precisely targeted information and advertisement creating value in their marketing efforts and bolstering their brand as a “Gold Standard” in the online marketplace. To market any other way online relegates marketers to the masses of spam who eventually fade away as more end more online marketers “get it right” and tailor their efforts to precisely meet the needs of their TMO.

At InteractOne we specialize is helping our clients find out exactly if, where and when their Target Market is Online, ensuring our clients take the appropriate steps needed to deliver a precisely targeted and appropriate online marketing message.