May 20, 2013

Google Penguin 2.0: SEO Changes and Importance

Another Google update has been announced by Matt Cutts, head of Google’s web spam team and our face for all Google algorithm information. This one has been lovingly named “Google 2.0″ courtesy of the internal Google team. As always we don’t know how much the changes will affect your rankings, and as always the affects are determined by your SEO practices.

Below is the a short YouTube video by Matt Cutts on Google 2.0. Keep reading for what this all means for SEO, both recovering bad past work, and moving forward with white-hat ethical SEO from here.

For the best of every business, I hope that your employed SEO company is bringing you forward thinking SEM tactics, such that you are not worried at all after watching that video. If you are unsure at all, please contact us and have us evaluate your current tactics and link-profile.

Algorithm Opportunities

With every change there is momentum towards great loss for some, and great opportunity for others.

Too often I am seeing people write about what needs to change to abide by the new “algorithm law” and if great SEO/SEM companies were to focus on what really matters, we might never care about algorithms given our unconditional affection to drive a flawless user experience for your industry.

Authority in Your Industry

To focus on the good before the bad, there is a great opportunity for websites who are an authority in their space to jump in rankings. With the highest of hopes we hope you have moved forward with white-hat link building practices to not deter your authoritative site from jumping.

Matt Cutts said, We’re doing a better job of detecting when someone is more of an authority on a specific space… And try to make sure that those rank a little more highly if you’re some sort of authority or a site, according to the algorithms, we think might be a little more appropriate for users.

Hopefully, that is great news for your business!

Quality, Unique, Authoritative Link-Building

This update is also great news if you have been engaged in good link-building practices, all the websites which are buying into link farms or the “too good to be true” promotions of 10,000 unique links built every month should be greatly affected by this update. No one knows how substantial the effects may be.

Webmasters Evolution

I like that Google has been updating and advancing tools within Google Webmasters.

That being said, more functionality will be added to Google Webmasters:

Detect hacked site
More communication with Google Webmasters to receive info after they have been hacked

Algorithm Regrets

Link-Spamming Engagement

Google is going higher up in the chain and beginning to deny value to link-spammers and companies engaging in these practices.

Google Penguin has always been about link-building and preventing webspam.

Dominating Site Listings

If you dominate a particular keyword, such that you have multiple listings show up on a page which are referred to as “clusters of listings” your website will show up less and less as you go more pages back. For example, it is highly desired to have clusters of listings on the first page because you will more than likely receive more clicks for more of the positions you hold both organic and AdWords.

But, as a user goes back deeper into listings it will become more rare they will see your site.

I assume this is due to creating a better user-experience. For example, you would only be driven to dig deeper into listings on page 2+ if the dominant site you had already visited and they were not helpful for your query.

We are excited to see what the results of this algorithm are. One beacon of hope for many websites Matt Cutts says if you are engaged in high-quality link building practices then this algorithm is not an issue.

If you are concerned with your current SEO company or practices, please contact us and we’d love to help evaluate if you are engaged in white-hat ethical SEO practices with a forward thinking mindset.

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May 13, 2013

Top 10 E-commerce Design Mistakes

At Customer Paradigm, we know what it takes to properly develop and aesthetically pleasing and functional E-commerce website. We have some of the absolute best Magento Programmers and Magento Developers in Colorado, so if you are in need of Magento Programming yourself, give us a call! Beyond website development, we are also a specialized Colorado SEO agency, so for all of your Colorado SEO needs, contact us now!

E-Commerce Design Mistakes To Avoid

E-commerce websites are a relatively new territory for both buyers and sellers, and as a result much traditional retail wisdom does not carryover to the web. Though many business professionals view websites as simple ads for their products, in reality e-commerce sites need to account for essentially all aspects of the real-world shopping experience to successfully attract and engage consumers. To safeguard against the common pitfalls of e-commerce website design, check out the 10 most common design mistakes.

Hard-to-use checkouts

Usability is crucial for e-commerce websites, as it defines how intuitive, convenient and effective a customer’s online experience will be. A poorly designed website that suffers usability issues can easily frustrate customers into giving up on a purchase mid-checkout. Quality e-commerce sites make a point of creating optimal usability during checkout. The best checkout system let customers make purchases with or without having to log in, and they carryover users’ information when they do log in to help them save time and effort. Also, having as many payment options as possible and making shipping rates and policies obvious from the get-go helps improve the user experience and save customers a lot of worry.

Denying customers a good look

When you keep a customer from getting a close-up look of your items, you might as well be redirecting them to the mall from whence they came. E-commerce sites should maximize the interactive experience for users while offering their products apt visual representation. If you can’t find the means to put in multidimensional, rotating views or videos, simply including a series of high-resolution product shots from differing angles can still work wonders. And finally, all products deserve professional-quality photography, whether your goods are on eBay or on American Apparel.

Neglecting search and discovery features

Having an obvious and easy-to-use search feature is expected of just about every website in this day and age, so e-commerce site owners have no excuses when it comes to the search bar. But products should be not only searchable, but also discoverable. Product discovery is akin to the window-shopping experience of a mall. On the web, customers can’t glance to a neighboring aisle and have their attention caught by something different. But product suggestions can absolutely compensate for it. Amazon knows this. Pinterest knows this. And now you know it.

Omitting product details

Trust is absolutely vital to e-commerce. Hoping your customers trust your word regarding product color and quality is one thing. Hoping your customers trust you enough to buy blindly is another. Just like limiting visual product previews to a singular, tiny image hurts the customer’s shopping experience, obscuring or omitting crucial information in written form does it all the same. In order to feel confident in your products, customers want all the information you can give. They want details, details, and more details — both visually and in writing.

Providing cause for insecurity

One of the biggest hindrances to consumer trust in e-commerce is the absence of privacy policies. Obscure and hard-to-find privacy policies are equivalent to entirely absent ones. You can also increase your customers’ security by using reliable and reputable credit-card processing services and making sure to protect their personal information — especially if you intend on asking for a lot of it. Compared to physical stores, there are fewer barriers to setting up an e-commerce site, and that’s why e-commerce sellers need to take all available measures to make customers feel safe and secure from the start.

Forgetting about customer service

In line with combating e-commerce-inherent trust issues, websites should make a big emphasis on customer service, making the online experience easily translate into a personal connection when possible. As such, contact info should be made obvious on e-commerce pages, and customers should be able to get a hold of a real person on the phone or at least have their questions answered caringly and promptly via email or other methods. Good e-customer service is a huge step in bridging the gap between physical and digital stores, so be sure not to neglect your contact information.

Overdoing product categories

While having a lot of product categories might seem like a good way to beef up the perceived size of one’s inventory, it tends to do the opposite when the categories are too specific, ambiguous or overall lacking in products. Worse yet, it can confuse and overwhelm customers and prevent them from finding what they want. A strong category list should be intuitive, helpful and relevant to customers from all backgrounds, especially if you sell niche products.

Underestimating the importance of aesthetics

Website aesthetics give customers their first impression of your company and products. Customers’ perceptions of credibility are established instantaneously, making their trust in your products and services essentially a gut reaction in regard to your appearance. Now more than ever, having an attractive website can really pay off. That’s why e-commerce websites simply cannot afford to be anything but beautiful. Certainly, beauty is subjective, but pairing high-quality, professional images with a clean, organized and logical layout leaves relatively little room for error or complaint.

Trying to fit too much on the homepage

While it is crucial to give customers as much (relevant) information as possible, one common mistake on e-commerce sites is wrapped up in being informationally over-ambitious on the landing page. Think of your landing page as your store window. It should engage potential customers with a glimpse of something desirable, offering visually appealing imagery, catchy and concise writing and an emotional hook. It should not feel like a page out of a catalog, drowning customers in hard-to-decipher details. Landing pages should leave customers wanting more—not leave them scrambling for the door.

Trying to do it all yourself

Finally, the biggest mistake e-commerce professionals can make is trying to save money by doing everything themselves. When cost-cutting measures are taken as far as putting under-qualified individuals behind the wheel of website development, design and marketing efforts, it typically does more harm than good. Tasks that are fast and easy for professionals become costly learning challenges that often result in emotional attachment to subpar work. Worse yet, it can spread you too thin to focus on other important matters. Design may look easy but, like anything else, it’s best left to the professionals.

The author of this piece was Olga Kharitonova, an experienced Magento Project Manager from Customer Paradigm.

Need help with eCommerce design? Call 303.473.4400 or click here to have a real person contact you now >>

May 9, 2013

Apple iTunes – HTML Email Error. Oops!!

Oops! Even the best sometimes fail.

Talk about HTML email errors…

I received this email from Apple, and they messed up the image source reference links:

(double https:// in there)

Oops… Apple sent out an email with the images broken due to a coding error…

May 9, 2013

The Web Turned 20 Years Old Last Week

Last week, the Word Wide Web officially turned 20 years old.

Back on April 30, 1993, CERN issued a statement saying that the World Wide Web was now officially in the public domain. (It wasn’t Al Gore.)

The World Wide Web (that’s why you type in "www" before a domain name to visit a site) was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 on a NeXT computer. The NeXT computer was invented by Steve Jobs, after he was kicked out of Apple. But that’s another story.

Why was the Web created? Back in 1989, Tim Berners-Lee saw a problem: it was really difficult to share documents with other researchers. There were many different types of computer systems (many more than today), and files were often incompatible. Sharing was difficult.

The World Wide Web project was "based on the philosophy that much academic information should be freely available to anyone."

Berners-Lee came up with a way that someone could post a page on a Web server, and easily link to other pages on that site, or to pages on another site. He invented HTML (hyper text markup language) to display information, including text and links. He put together the www protocol, and lots of other technical information, including the first Web server.

CERN recently re-built the very first website on the Web: You can view it here >>

The very first Website ever, recently re-built and re-released. The First Website ever. Not much in the way of flashy graphics, but all modern Websites still use this basic structure.

In 1993, I was an intern at the White House, and like all good interns, I helped read and answer the mail. At the time, we were talking about the Information Superhighway, which would allow job seekers to go to a public library and connect with employers.

I was already into computers and technology. I purchased a 300 baud modem for my Apple IIe, and convinced my parents we needed a second phone line so I could dial into bulletin boards (this was pre-AOL). Text literally scrolled character-by-character across the screen.

How the world has changed since then:

These days, my eight-year-old daughter finds out the weather by talking to her iPod touch.
We control the heat and air conditioning of our home and office through an app on my iPad and iPhone. Temperature too hot in the middle of the night? No need to get out of bed.
I’ve always been a news junkie, and can read the news from around the world on an iPad.
I interact with friends around the world via Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and more.
Gone are the days of film. I can take photographs in the Middle East, and upload them while I’m still away.
My entire company, Customer Paradigm, is focused on helping businesses and organizations acquire, retain and interact with people via the Web, and employs 25 people.
Most of those employees we’ve found via Craigslist or other web-based means as well.

Six percent of retail purchases in the US are now made online. In the UK, it’s now 12%.

In the next few years, you’ll see:

Same day shipping on products from eCommerce websites, further eroding your desire to drive across town to pick something up now.
Mobile, Mobile, Mobile. Desktop and laptop purchases are in decline; tablets and smart phones are what people want to buy now.
More devices than people connected to the Web. You can already purchase light bulbs for your home that you can control from a mobile device as far as turning them on and off, setting them up on schedules and even changing their colors.

… and lots of things that are now in the realm of science fiction, that will become reality soon.

For example, the computer from Star Trek? Google is actually working on making that a reality. Same thing with self-driving cars.

Until next week,

Jeff FinkelsteinFounder, Customer Paradigm
Jeff Finkelstein
Founder, Customer Paradigm
303.473.4400

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Customer Paradigm
5353 Manhattan Circle, Suite 103
Boulder, Colorado 80303

Visit our Website

direct		303.499.9318
fax		303.374.6104
toll free		888.772.0777

Web & Print Design • Programming • Email Newsletters • Search Engine Marketing • eCommerce

Apr 17, 2013

Magento Programming: Adding a “Home” link to the top menu (Magento Way)

So, in this article I’ll give you a handy script to add a home link to the top menu.

In magento 1.7, the menu is now created via an *event* (page_block_html_topmenu_gethtml_before)

The catalog observer hooks into this and adds menu items as Varien_Data_Tree_Node objects.

I have some samples here to show you how to add a link at the beginning of this menu.

config.xml portion:

Copy The Code:


===============================
<pre>
<config>
....
	  <frontend>
	  	 <events>
            <page_block_html_topmenu_gethtml_before>
                <observers>
                    <catalog_add_topmenu_items>
                        <class>cp_layout/observer</class>
                        <method>addTopMenuItems</method>
                    </catalog_add_topmenu_items>
                </observers>
            </page_block_html_topmenu_gethtml_before>
        </events>	  	
	  </frontend>
</config>

</pre>

observer portion:
=================================
<pre>
<?php
Class Cp_Layout_Model_Observer
{
    /**
     * Adds additional links to the top menu
     *
     * @param Varien_Event_Observer $observer
     */
    public function addTopMenuItems(Varien_Event_Observer $observer)
    {
        $nodeId = "home";
        $menu   = $observer->getMenu();
        $tree   = $observer->getMenu()->getTree();
        
        $data   = array(
            "name" => "Home",
            "id"   => $nodeId,
            "url"  => Mage::getBaseUrl(),
            "is_active" => Mage::getSingleton('cms/page')->getIdentifier() == 'home'  && Mage::app()->getFrontController()->getRequest()->getRouteName() == 'cms' 
        );
        $homeNode = new Varien_Data_Tree_Node($data, 'id', $tree, $menu);
        $this->_prependNode($homeNode, $menu);
        
    }

    protected function _prependNode($node, $menu)
    {
        $menu->addChild($node);
        $nodeId = $node->getId();
        $readded = array();
        foreach($menu->getChildren()->getNodes() as $n)
        {
           if ($n->getId() != $nodeId)
           {
               $readded[] = $n;
               $menu->getChildren()->delete($n); 
           }
        }
        foreach($readded as $r)
        {
            $menu->getChildren()->add($r); 
        }        
    }
}
</pre>

===============================
<pre>
<config>
….
<frontend>
<events>
<page_block_html_topmenu_gethtml_before>
<observers>
<catalog_add_topmenu_items>
<class>cp_layout/observer</class>
<method>addTopMenuItems</method>
</catalog_add_topmenu_items>
</observers>
</page_block_html_topmenu_gethtml_before>
</events>
</frontend>
</config>

</pre>

observer portion:
=================================
<pre>
<?php
Class Cp_Layout_Model_Observer
{
/**
* Adds additional links to the top menu
*
* @param Varien_Event_Observer $observer
*/
public function addTopMenuItems(Varien_Event_Observer $observer)
{
$nodeId = “home”;
$menu = $observer->getMenu();
$tree = $observer->getMenu()->getTree();

$data = array(
“name” => “Home”,
“id” => $nodeId,
“url” => Mage::getBaseUrl(),
“is_active” => Mage::getSingleton(‘cms/page’)->getIdentifier() == ‘home’ && Mage::app()->getFrontController()->getRequest()->getRouteName() == ‘cms’
);
$homeNode = new Varien_Data_Tree_Node($data, ‘id’, $tree, $menu);
$this->_prependNode($homeNode, $menu);

}

protected function _prependNode($node, $menu)
{
$menu->addChild($node);
$nodeId = $node->getId();
$readded = array();
foreach($menu->getChildren()->getNodes() as $n)
{
if ($n->getId() != $nodeId)
{
$readded[] = $n;
$menu->getChildren()->delete($n);
}
}
foreach($readded as $r)
{
$menu->getChildren()->add($r);
}
}
}
</pre>

Apr 15, 2013

Magento Imagine 2013 – Recap in Photos

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303.473.4400

It was so wonderful to see so many people at the Magento Imagine conference last week.

You might have seen me walking around with a camera during the conference; I’ve put together a summary of what I learned at the conference, using photos to help me remember it all…

Enterprise 1.13 Released

The biggest news was the release of Enterprise version 1.13, announced by Magento founder, Roy Rubin (below):

Magento’s CTO, Matthew Mengerink

Magento’s Matthew Mengerink spoke about what to expect with Magento’s new Enterprise 1.13, including faster indexing:

Magento CTO

For merchants with large catalogs (i.e. 50,000 products or more), Magento Enterprise 1.13 offers an 83% faster re-indexing time. And the ability to instantly have products displayed on the site, instead of a twelve-minute delay for version 1.12.

Faster Full Reindexing for Magento Enterprise 1.13

What Magento Enterprise 1.13 means is that with the same hardware, you can accept 33% more orders per day:

Magento Enterprise New Stats

Magento Has 26% Marketshare:

Magento has gained marketshare, and more than 150,000 websites run their eCommerce systems on Magento.

Magento has 26% of the eCommerce sites in the Alexa 1 million most trafficked sites, worldwide:

Magento - 26% Marketshare in Alexa top 1 million sites

Magento Community 1.8 To Be Released Soon

Magento will be releasing Magento Community 1.8, and for anyone worried about the Magento acquisition by eBay, there were many, many assurances that the community platform would continue to be updated.

It’s clear that Magento knows that the open source, Community version, was the springboard that propelled them forward, and allowed the premium version of Enterprise.

Magento Community Edition - 1.8

Our MC, Gary Forman, Director of Marketing for Magento:

Gary kept the keynote presenters rolling:

Mgento keynote moderator

… unless he was tied up:

Magento - Gary Tied Up

Mobile, Mobile, Mobile. And Responsive Design.

Other than the launch of Enterprise 1.13, the biggest theme of the Imagine conference was the focus on mobile. Mobile payments, mobile options, how PayPal is seeing exponential growth in mobile payments through their system.

James Barrese, the CTO of PayPal, spoke about new innovations from PayPal, and the shift in the market:

Pay Pal Director

According to James, the average US consumer’s phone is never more than 3 feet away from them:

Mobile is big

96% of mobile users search for product information from their mobile device.

Mobile - phone within reach

And 80% use their device in-store.

80% of Mobile Users use their device in-store

People are clearly using their smart phones to buy stuff. In 2009, PayPal handled only $141 million mobile transactions. In 2013, PayPal is expecting $20 billion in mobile transactions:

Mobile Payments Skyrocketing

One reason people turn to PayPal: they can checkout quickly and easily, with just an email address and a password. It’s tough to type in a long credit card number, billing and shipping information, on a small credit card-sized screen.

A new innovation is "Order Ahead" by PayPal. It allows you to use a mobile website, hooked into your Magento store, to allow customers to place an order, and have it ready at the store for pickup.

Imagine going to Jamba Juice (this is the example that James used), and bypassing the line, because you placed an order online. It’s ready for you, with your name on it. And you don’t have to do anything other than pick it up.

PayPal - Order Ahead Extension

PayPal also released an extension for Magento that allows "In-Aisle Selling."

If you’ve ever been to an Apple store, this is the same functionality of someone who comes up to you with a mobile device (i.e. an iPhone, iPad, Droid, or other tablet), and swipes your credit card with a credit card reader.

There is no checkout counter.

If you want to give this experience to retail customers, it’s now available via a free PayPal extension in Magento.

In Aisle Selling for Magento - PayPal

Responsive Design:

Because so many people are using mobile devices, including iPhones, iPads, Droid Devices, and various-sized tablets, many of the speakers focused on Responsive Design.

For those who partied a bit too much and didn’t attend the various breakout sessions, responsive design allows you to come up with one single design for your site, and have the layout shift and change, depending on the size of the device.

Responsive Design Layouts

For a traditional PC or laptop, you might offer a three column layout, appropriate for a screen that’s 1000 pixels wide, as pictured above on the left.

For a tablet using touchscreen technology, the site might shift to two columns, or just have a smaller overall footprint, as pictured above, second from the left. For an oversized phone (i.e. Galaxy), a wider look, like the layout second from the right.

For an iPhone, a small, one-column feel, like the one all the way on the right.

Responsive design adds a bit of complexity to the design process, but allows you to have one website across multiple devices, regardless of screen size: Mobile Screen Sizes

Mobile User Stats (US):

50% of US Smartphone users use their mobile device to look up restaurants and bars.
31% to research or book travel
76% watch videos on their mobile devices
80% visit social networks (But really, who are they kidding. It’s Facebook.)
46% use their phones to research future purchases.

(Source: Google 2012)

Responsive Design – Good For SEO.

One of the problems with separate mobiles sites (m.dot sites, they’re called), is that Google has to index that site, and treats it as a completely separate site, with a different URL structure, and often its own subdomain.

Responsive sites often have better search rankings, because Google can index one site, not worry about duplicate content and the end user experience on different browsing platforms.

Apps Are Out. Responsive Design is In.

With more than 800,000 apps available for the iPad, iPhone and Droid, consumers are increasingly not downloading dedicated shopping apps. And if they do, they are logging in once or twice, and then deleting them. This is great news. Rather than spend a ton of time, money and energy trying to

What this means is that companies can focus their resources on their Magento site, instead of trying to keep a main website, a mobile site, and apps for the iPhone, iPad and Droid devices.

Measure What Mobile Devices Matter For You.

Skinny Ties found that iPhone users spent 5.3x more than Android shoppers. While this might not be true for your site, this means that more resources will go to supporting iPhones vs. Androids for Skinny Ties:

Skinny Ties

Year Over Year (YOY), Skinny Ties found a 57.8% increase in transactions. Revenue from iPhones (after they implemented a responsive design) was up 473%. Android devices were only up by 187%.

Magento is Used By A Lot of Fashion Sites:

Magento is used by many of the largest names in fashion. Just don’t ask me to tell you all of them.

But one I did recognize was Christian Louboutin. Probably because I read about their quest to trademark the red soles of their high heels in the Wall Street Journal.

Sharon Meers, head of Enterprise Strategy for Magento, introduced a surprise fashion show, featuring products by Magento fashion eCommerce sites:

Magento used in Fashion eCommerce

As a photographer, it’s always fun to have a surprise fashion show to shoot! Here are a few images from the models, wearing clothes, shoes and handbags from high-fashion Magento stores. All of these images were shot on the Canon 5D Mark III, using the 70-200 mm f/2.8 lens, handheld, without flash. Settings were 1/200 second, ISO 3,200, f/3.5, with manual exposure.

Magento used in Fashion eCommerce

Wow… those are some crazy shoes:

Magento used in Fashion eCommerce

Gary, striking a pose at the end of the fashion show:

Magento used in Fashion eCommerce

Steve Levitt, Author of Freakonomics Spoke:

Steve was one of the better and entertaining speakers at the conference. I’ve been a big fan of his books, and he said that his success in economics was based on finding a unique niche (i.e. studying call girls or drug dealers), and finding results that change conventional wisdom:

Steven Levitt

Jane McGonigal Spoke About the Value of Gaming:

According to Jane, more than 1 billion people around the world play electronic games. And after her talk, I’m convinced it’s not such a bad thing:

Gamers

According to Jane, 71% of US workers are not engaged.
(Although I’m sure 100% of my team is

Unengaged Workers in US

Gamers play games as a way to express their creativity, curiosity, and create a sense of contentment, awe and wonder:

Top Ten Emotions Solved by Gaming

And in clinical trials, casual gamers outperformed pharmaceuticals for anxiety and depression:

Gaming Outperforms ADHD Medication

I don’t have any images of the massive, multi-player thumb wresting session, as I was a participant, and put the camera down…

Why Upgrade to Magento Enterprise 1.13?

Magento’s creative partners created a couple of videos to show current Enterprise customers why they should upgrade.

Doom and Gloom:

Magento - Upgrade or Die

And rainbows and unicorns… featuring Roy Rubin:

Magento - Riding Unicorns

And Magento CTO, Matthew Mengerink:

Magento - CTO Riding a Unicorn

Campy Song

Taylor McFerrin, Music Entertainment:

Music sets the mood, the tone, and the vibe.

Instead of a "Hey you guys, quiet down and listen to a boring speaker," the Magento Imagine conference featured the amazing music of Taylor McFerrin.

Taylor started and ended much of the show, and I was able to capture some fun images of him performing from my seat in the front row:

Taylor McFerrin

Parting Shot:

Here’s a parting shot of the Las Vegas strip at night from the M Resort, taken from my 6th floor window:

I know I didn’t cover everything…
I know I didn’t mention everyone who spoke.

I didn’t take images of eBay’s CEO, John Donahoe. (He sat in a place where it was tough to shoot.) He’s clearly worried about competition from Amazon.com.

I also didn’t take images of Jeff Jordan, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Jeff was funny, and talked about the eventual demise of big box retailers as more and more eCommerce shifts to the Web. He was teriffic.

Jamie Clarke told a great story of adventures on Everest (he climbed with a friend of mine, Wally Berg, on one expedition), and crossing a huge desert on camels. He knows gear, so he’s started an eCommerce website, using Magento. Very entertaining guy.

There was another panel or two of Magento Enterprise retailers from around the world (interesting stories), and lots of breakout sessions that I wasn’t able to attend.

My apologies for anything I missed, left out, or omitted.

See you at Imagine next year…

Thanks,

Jeff FinkelsteinFounder, Customer Paradigm
Jeff Finkelstein
Founder, Customer Paradigm
303.473.4400

Connect Via Facebook >>
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P.S. All of the images above were taken with the Canon 5D Mark III, with either the 50mm f/1.4 lens or the 70-200 f/2.8L lens, handheld, without flash.

Customer Paradigm
5353 Manhattan Circle, Suite 103
Boulder, Colorado 80303

Visit our Website

direct		303.473.4400
fax		303.374.6104
toll free		888.772.0777

Web & Print Design • Programming • Email Newsletters • Search Engine Marketing • eCommerce

Apr 10, 2013

Upgrading to Magento Enterprise 1.13 – Introduced by Roy Rubin

At the Magento Imagine Conference today, Tuesday, April 9, 2013, Roy Rubin announced the release of Magento Enterprise Edition version 1.13

Magento Enterprise 1.13 Announced by Roy Rubin, founder of Magento

The biggest benefits to Magento Enterprise Edition (EE) 1.13 are all performance related. These improvements are the hardest to describe to a customer, but for large accounts, are the area that Magento has been most lacking in.

We have received a lot of inquiries over the past 2 years of customers trying to squeeze the most out of Magento We always have some way or another to help them, but the truth is just that Magento is somewhat clunky. The improvements I’ve seen in 1.13 indicate that Magento feels the same way, and the core team is making every effort to remedy that issue (an effort that I hope will come to full fruition in 2.0)

==================================================================

Redis Support

Magento EE 1.13 now support Redis NoSQL as a cacheing session storage solution. I’m not yet sure of the specifics, but this could provide an advantage over memcached — and Magento now recommends using redis on new deployments. It’s not that redis is “faster” in terms of storing cached values, but it has more support for storing objects (I’m getting into some pretty technical stuff here, but the point is, this could be a better cacheing solution assuming the Magento core team implements it correctly). However, I’m not sure how long it will take for hosting solutions like pier1/nexcess to support Redis.

Reindexing

As many of you may have encountered, re-indexing is a pain in the @$$. Especially on sites with large (10,000+ SKUs) catalogs. EE 1.13 supports mysql database triggers as a means of keeping the indexes up to date, and it makes re-indexing an incremental process rather than an en masse process. The Magento core team has also limited the number of instances where a full re-index is required (hopefully never once the store is setup)

From the Magento article:

In Magento Enterprise Edition 1.12, any change to a product would result in a full re-index. Magento Enterprise Edition 1.13 introduces a new feature–incremental re-indexing. With incremental re-indexing, only those items that were changed or added will be re-indexed, reducing the processing time to a fraction of what was required before.

This is huge—I’ve seen stores where store owners are crippled if they update their product data, as reindexing 10,000+ products can take hours. So, this is a big plus. No longer will a store owner need to have a once-a-day product update regiment.

Also, if you look on the bench marking page: http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/ee113-performance-and-scalability-white-paper you will see significant improvement in the time required to make a full re-index (53% improvement on 500,000 SKUs!)

Onepage Checkout Speeds

So, whenever a user enters the checkout, Magento can’t rely on all the fancy cacheing layers. And, it’s a known problem that onepage checkout is slow; this is the whole reason onestepcheckout exists. But, even that (I’ve noticed) has problems related to the amount of time it takes to return shipping rates, payment methods, and order review steps.

See this link: http://www.magentocommerce.com/images/uploads/2184-1.13_Benchmark_Report_Checkout_Flow_r1v1.png

You will notice the checkout has been extremely optimized in terms of the amount of time it takes to perform one of these operations. As to the effect that has on the core code, I’m not yet sure. I’m really hopeful this feature will be in CE 1.8 as well.

From the benchmark page:

During our testing, which simulated a storefront running at peak hours, EE 1.13 executed 33% more orders and 31% more page views than Magento Enterprise Edition 1.12 on the multi-node benchmarking configuration. Notably, Magento Enterprise Edition 1.13 served 47K pages during the test run (10 minutes).

This is also a big improvement…once again, it’s only targeted at high volume sites, but I can think of several customers that would benefit from this.

MySQL Performance

I’d like to highlight one of the observations made in the bench marking article:

The MySQL instance did not show any significant signs of CPU or I/O load during the tests.
- The CPU was under 10% and no queries exceeded a 2-second threshold.

I’ve noticed that MySQL seems to be a memory and CPU hog on some instances of Magento This observation (specifically the no queries beyond 2-second threshold) shows an improvement in the scalability of Magento from a database perspective. Now, I don’t know what Magento’s benchmark for 1.12 was, but I’ve definitely seen stores not getting near the volume that the benchmark took place with, having MySQL performance issues.

Improved Tax Calculations:

There had been problems with tax calculations, especially with rounding up to the one-cent and when using multiple types of currency. The tax calculation algorithm was updated to get rid of errors with rounding offsets when displayed on purchasing screens. Additional support has also been given for various nationalities, primarily Canadian.

Increased Overall Functionality:

A whole slew of over 350 functional improvements for the web store, shopping cart, web API, payment options, import and export functionality, and admin order creation. All of these minor improvements add up to a big difference in the end, which will drastically increase user experience, and make it easier for admins to make changes without worrying over slowing down the whole site.

Customer Paradigm //
No Comments //
Blog, Magento, Magento eCommerce, Magento Upgrade

Mar 14, 2013

Best contract Magento Programming I’ve ever had

This review for a custom Magento Enterprise reporting project just came through to us:

“Amazing job guys, best contract Magento programming I’ve ever had. Customer service was awesome and the communication was perfect. Thank you!”

We’re here to help!

Mar 13, 2013

Major Google Update to Search Rankings

This Friday or Monday, Google will be significantly updating their search algorithm to decrease web spam and increase the quality of search results for end users. Will you be affected? Read More Below >>

Major Google Update to Search Rankings

According to Google`s Distinguished Engineer, Matt Cutts, this will be a major update to Panda. During remarks at the SMX West conference, Cutts said, “The update will be significant and one of the most talked about Google algorithm updates this year.”

Panda.
Panda was first released in February 2011, and was designed to punish websites that have unnatural inbound link profiles and spammy web content. For some sites, the Panda update created a 98% drop in inbound traffic to their site.

The Surge.
But before they dropped off the cliff in search rankings, there was a surge in traffic to their site. What was going on? Google was testing the site by sending traffic there, and watching for people bouncing off the pages. When people bounce, it means your site isn`t relevant.

Bounce.
A bounce is when someone clicks from a Google search results page to a site like yours, and then uses the “Back” button within a few seconds, because they didn`t find what they were looking for. Bounces are bad — it means that the search result that Google displayed wasn`t relevant. Some bounces are normal. Too many though, and Google will move you down in the rankings.

Maybe Nothing To Worry About?
If you have well-written content on your site, high-quality websites that link to your website, and HTML code on your site that doesn`t confuse search engines, you`ll likely be okay. It`s even possible that you`ll benefit from this update.

Shady SEO? Worry.
But if you have a site that has a bad inbound link profile or you`re using shady SEO tactics, you may want to pay attention to your site, and do this quickly.

Examine Your Bounces.
The place I would recommend starting: look at your Google Analytics, and find the pages with the highest bounce rates. Change these pages to add well-written content, more engaging calls to action, and additional internal links to get a site visitor to explore more of your site. Create pages with “need to know” information instead of pages with “nice to know” information. Need to know content includes things that will make someone`s life better, faster, cheaper, easier, help them save money or time, and avoid pain and embarrassment.

The Summary:
Until the new update is released, there`s no way to know what will happen. But we`ll be watching…

I will be heading out of the country on Saturday for the next two weeks. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to call our office (303.473.4400) and ask for John.

Thanks,

Jeff
FinkelsteinFounder, Customer Paradigm
Jeff Finkelstein
Founder, Customer Paradigm
303.473.4400

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5353 Manhattan Circle, Suite 103
Boulder, Colorado 80303

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direct		303.499.9318
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toll free		888.772.0777

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Mar 12, 2013

Customer Paradigm Adds Three New Magento Certified Developers

Last Friday, Customer Paradigm has three more developers successfully complete the Magento Certified Developers exam:

Three more programmers from Customer Paradigm passed the Magento Certified Developer exam.

What does does a Magento Certified Developer Mean?

It means our developers have gone through the process of learning the Magento commerce system – inside and out. Need a Magento Certified Developer? Call Customer Paradigm – 303.473.4400 or visit here >>

But don’t take our word for it.
Our developers know Magento’s 150,000 lines of code inside and out, and have been tested directly by Magento and certified to work on Magento Websites.

Mar 6, 2013

SEO Myths Debunked #7: Top #1 Position on Google

This week`s SEO Myth Debunked article discusses one of the most common myths: We`ll get you to the #1 position on Google. Read More Below >>

SEO Myths Debunked #7:
Top #1 Position on Google

The Myth:
“We guarantee that you will get the top #1 ranking on Google.”

The Dodge:
“The ranking will be for a keyword term that we choose.”

The Facts:
It`s not difficult to rank for an obscure term that nobody searches for and nobody cares about.

It`s much more difficult to rank in competitive industries, where inbound search-related traffic to sites is the engine driving eCommerce websites.

Keyword terms are categorized in two ways:
– Search Volume (how many people are searching for the term each month)
– Competition (how many sites are competing for these keywords)

For example, Customer Paradigm ranks fairly well for the competitive keyword term, “Magento Programmer.”

Search Volume>>

Global: 12,100 monthly searches around the world

US: 2,900 monthly searches in the US

Competition: High. This means a lot of people are trying to rank for this word. Our site is relevant, so we rank high.

For us, this is a great result. Out of 2,900 people who search in the US, our #2 ranking generates approximately 348 clickthroughs to our site each month (approximately 12% of the people searching for the term). Based on a 3% conversion rate on our site, that means 10 new contacts each month for that keyword phrase.

This keyword takes quite a bit of work to rank for. And in Google`s eyes, we have a lot of relevant content and inbound links on your site.

Instead, contrast it to the keyword term, “Magento Upgrade 1.5″

This keyword term has a low competition rate, and only 1,000 global searches per month. Only 210 people in the US search for the term each month.

With low competition, and low search volume, it`s easy to create a page or two that ranks well for this keyword phrase.

Another search term, “Magento RDFa” has only 12 Global searches per month. The search volume is so low that it doesn`t even have a competition score. (But yes, we rank for this term as well.)

The Summary:
If someone tells you they can guarantee your site will come up #1 in Google, ask them for the specific keywords they will guarantee.

Let me know if you`d like us to analyze your keyword list.

Thanks,

Jeff FinkelsteinFounder, Customer Paradigm
Jeff Finkelstein
Founder, Customer Paradigm
303.473.4400

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We love referrals! Our Referral Promise >>

Customer Paradigm
5353 Manhattan Circle, Suite 103
Boulder, Colorado 80303

Visit our Website

direct		303.499.9318
fax		303.374.6104
toll free		888.772.0777

Web & Print Design • Programming • Email Newsletters • Search Engine Marketing • eCommerce

Mar 5, 2013

Choosing Between Magento Enterprise and Community Edition

The Difference Between Magento Enterprise and Community Edition

History is littered with the ghosts of corporations who, out of ignorance, folly, or through plain stupidity failed to choose solutions that best fit their company. Just ask your local Blockbuster franchise. Picking the right solution for your business requires a realistic and honest assessment of your resources, finances, and goals. While choosing between Magento Enterprise and Magento Community Edition ranks somewhere between ordering lunch and naming your firstborn, it’s closer to that kicking and screaming bundle of joy than you might think.

Another way to look at it is to see the choice as choosing between college and Wikipedia: Two very different beasts, with different applications. With plans starting at $14,420 annually, Magento Enterprise costs about as much as a year of college, although it includes considerably fewer all-nighters, dive bars, and student loans. Magento Community edition, however, is free open source software. Similar to Wikipedia, anyone can make changes (for better or worse) to modify and optimize Community Edition for their business or industry. You wouldn’t put down a tuition deposit at culinary school to find a good recipe, and your doctor hopefully wouldn’t have learned the difference between hair loss and hepatitis through Wikipedia. Similarly, picking the right version of Magento can help you keep your hair, and keep your business in the black.

The decision is especially tough because Magento Community and Enterprise have the same fundamental core. Enterprise offers a whole host of valuable features, as well as support and security. However, much like the decision to rent a Corvette over a Corolla, you need to determine if the added features justify the price tag when it comes to your needs and wants.

At Customer Paradigm, we recommend that you base your decision off revenue. If your site is making less than $150,000 a year, you should be fine with the free community version. In addition to saving you tens of thousands of dollars a year in licensing fees, the community version also offers extensions and customization’s developed by other businesses, as well as the ability to contract or hire a developer to further customize it to your needs. If your business has big plans for growth, you can always upgrade to Magento Enterprise. A good developer is key to any upgrade, and no place to save a few bucks. A more experienced developer can deliver a smoother transition and a more polished final product.

If your site is already bringing in $150,000 or more in revenue, and you are serious about having a state-of-the-art eCommerce platform, Magento Enterprise can be a serious asset to your business. While the price tag may seem steep, it’s an investment, and one that will deliver (and is 100% guaranteed to not be run by Bernie Madoff). If you are on the bubble or below our recommended cutoff, it is important to note that the additional features like targeted offerings, call center software with assisted shopping, and PCI compliance can significantly grow your business by helping you reach and retain customers.

Putting a V8 on a bike does not make it a sports car, and licensing Magento Enterprise for your small eCommerce business is certainly overkill. Similarly, putting standard unleaded fuel in an F1 car is a recipe for disaster, and trying to save a few bucks by using Magento Community for your large eCommerce business can put you miles behind your competitors, and cause headaches for your customers and yourself.

A final, but very important point to consider is security. The Internet is the kind of neighborhood where you roll up the windows and lock the car doors. A few extra security features can’t hurt, and can save you money in the long run. Magento Enterprise offers credit card tokenization and highly secured payment bridges, features required by credit card companies and banks. Your customers aren’t likely to have the desire (or the funds) to keep buying from you if their identities keep getting stolen. That reminds me, I have to run to the airport and pick up the crown princess of Nigeria. I hope I wired her enough for the flight this time, wish me luck!

Breakdown Between Magento Community and Enterprise Versions

	Magento Community	Magento Enterprise
Cost	Free	From $14,420 Annually
Customizable	Yes	Yes
Technical Support	No	Yes
Additional Security	No	Yes
PCI Compliance	No	Yes
Gift Registry	No	Yes
Private Sales, Events, and Invitations	No	Yes
Reward Points	No	Yes
Call Center with Assisted Shopping	No	Yes
SOLR Search	No	Yes
Customer Segmentation and Targeting	No	Yes
Recommended For:	Small companies with revenue <$150,000, and those with experienced developers	Large, medium, and growing companies looking for the ultimate in customization, security, and adaptability.

If you are looking for an experienced and skilled Magento Developer, be sure to contact us. We are Magento Silver Partners and know our way around the 150,000+ lines of code, we’ve been trusted many times to deliver the best looking and functioning Megento website for numerous companies. Just check out our portfolio…

Mar 1, 2013

SEO Guide: 301 Redirects Explained

What Are 301 Redirects and Why Do They Matter

301 Redirects are the most important action that can be taken when moving content from one URL to another while maintaining PageRank as well as search rankings. If done properly, the value will be transferred over slowly, meaning the value from the old URL will not be apparent immediately after the redirect has occurred. Through the slow transfer of old value to a new URL, bots are able to determine if the new page correlates in context with that of the old URL. If the context between the two URLs is not the same, the value should not be switched over since they are not, in fact, the same.

Proper use of 301 redirects increases user experience by not showing a 404 error when attempting to land on a page that is not available. A 404 error page for a user essentially means they’ve found a dead end and need to choose a new path. It is also important for your overall site health to fix any 404 errors. This can be done by either setting the Robots.txt file to no-follow for that URL, or implementing 301 redirects to the correct functioning URL the user would have intended to land on.

301’s, beyond increasing the user experience and overall site health, tells search engines that any link juice being given to the old URL should now be given to the new URL. In essence, it makes it so you don’t have to do the work of building up PageRank for a URL from the start, since some previous value of the old URL will be transferred over to the new one.

There is no limit to the number of 301’s that can be done for a website, however, Google does limit the number of “steps” it will take down a 301 path. For instance, let’s say you want site A to redirect to site G. It’s best if you simply redirect A to G, and Google bots will even follow you if you redirect site A to B to G. However, Google bots will not follow site A to B to C to D to E to F before finally reaching G. Google bots understand this is excessive and will simply end the silly goose chase. These excessive redirects gives warning that something fishy or Black Hat is occurring since rarely is there a need to redirect a site 2 or 3 times before reaching the actual intended URL.

How To Do 301 Redirects in WordPress

Considering that there are different ways to do 301 redirects for different development programs, we are just going to focus on one, that being WordPress. Essentially, the two methods that are used for WordPress to do redirects are the Redirection WordPress Plugin, or manually redirecting from the .htaccess files.

WordPress Plugin Redirection: This plugin found on the wordpress.org site is one that manages 301 redirections and tracks any 404 errors that may be present on your site. This plugin is especially useful when attempting to migrate pages from an older site or when changing the directory location of your WordPress installation files. The WordPress Plugin redirection can be found Here.

If you view the features included in the plugin, you will soon realize its awesome versatility and how it makes 301 redirects quick and easy. It also gathers information that would otherwise need to be done manually, such as giving statistics on how many times a redirection of a specific URL has taken place, the dates and times when those redirects occurred, who issued the redirect, and where that URL is being found which generates the traffic to your site. Overall, it’s a rather useful and crafty tool, one where if you have a WordPress website, it would behoove you to install the Redirection plugin. The only word of warning for the plugin is that if there is a WordPress update, and the plugin was not updated by the developer along with it, the plugin may very well fail you. In that case you would have to do the redirects through the .htaccess file manually, which is what we will get into next.

.htaccess File For Static Redirects: For those of you who would rather do it manually, perhaps for the sake of thoroughness, perhaps so as not to rely on plugins, but either way, it is definitely a bit more difficult to write them all in by hand as well as time consuming. With that said, let’s jump right into it by first discussing a few important aspects of using .htaccess to do redirects.

Before editing begins, make a backup of your .htaccess file. You don’t want to make any mistakes that couldn’t be undone.
On a single line, you are able to insert as many redirect statements that are necessary, but it’s easier to discern them individually if you write them on separate lines.
500 internal server errors frequently occur when the code written for redirects is wrong or incorrectly stated. A 500 internal server error is essentially a generic message that is given when no other message to be given was specified. Essentially being the error message for an error message.
Ensure that after you have completed your redirect, that the URL was indeed redirected properly.

Once these above points have been recognized, it’s time to do the redirects themselves. To start you open up the .htaccess file. At the end of the file, or next to other redirects if they are present, you write in exactly how it is written below, so as an example:

redirect 301 /(error URL)/ /www.url.com/(redirected URL)/

Notice the space between /(error URL)/ and /www.url.com/(redirected URL)/, without that space, you would essentially be saying the URL you want redirected is /(error URL)//(redirected URL)/ and did not state the where it is to be redirected. Without including the space, you will certainly receive a 500 error.

You then continue through all of the errors that are coming up in this manner, going through them one by one, and checking to make sure each has been redirected properly. It’s simple enough, but can become a large hassle the more errors there are to deal with.

If you need help with 301 redirects, improving your site health, or any other SEO concern that may arise, and are looking for an SEO consulting firm to assist you, be sure to contact CustomerParadigm.com right now! We’ll be able to help you whether you’re an old and/or established website looking for improvements, or a fresh and brand new one looking to start things off on the right foot. We have the experience and knowledge necessary to deal with any and all SEO problems, helping you to rank better for specific keywords, receive more traffic, increase brand awareness, and allow for better opportunities to increase conversions.

Feb 25, 2013

Apparently Microsoft Didn’t Read My Article About Checking SSL Certificate Expiration Dates

Apparently Microsoft didn’t read my article, Check your SSL certificate and domain name for expiration date: http://www.customerparadigm.com/7-tips-to-get-your-website-ready-for-the-holidays-3-check-your-ssl-certificate-and-domain-name-for-expiration-date/ (Their entire cloud system crashed due to an expired SSL certificate.) Here’s the Wired Article: Microsoft’s Cloud Goes Dark Across the Globe http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/02/microsoft-cloud-goes-poof/

Feb 21, 2013

SEO Myths Debunked #6: We`ll Get Thousands of Links To Your Site

This week`s SEO Myth Debunked article is about link farms, and how they can actually do more harm than good for a website. Read More Below >>

SEO Myths Debunked #6:
We`ll Get Thousands of Links To Your Site

The Myth:
“The most important thing to Google is inbound links. Through our network, we can get thousands of links pointed to your site.”

The Dodge:
“The more links you have, the better. And you don`t have nearly enough to rank well.”

The Facts:
Google and other search engines do, in fact, use inbound links to your site as a clue to determine how relevant your site is compared to others in your industry.

It`s like a high school popularity contest. If 500 people point to one particular person (let`s call her “Amy”) to say she is the most popular person, while only two people point to “Susan,” a social network analysis would indicate that Amy is more popular than Susan.

Links work the same way. If you have a website, the last thing you want to do is send people away to another site with a link. That`s why links are important. It means that the content that you want to link to matters enough to you that you`re willing to share your visitors with another site.

But not all links are created equally.

Strong links, from important domains matter a lot more than spammy links from non-ranked domains.

In the world of SEO, Domain Authority is what matters. Only a handful of sites have a Domain Authority of 100 (the best). Very few, like CNN.com, NYTimes.com are in the high 90s.

An inbound link from a site like CNN is worth literally hundreds of links from sites that have a lower domain authority.

But inbound links from really spammy sites (ones that don`t even have a Domain Authority) can actually hurt your site.

Sites that exist only to create links to other sites are generally known as link farms. SEO scammers will often add some additional spammy links to your website, so that they can keep the scheme going. Having suspect outbound links on your site can harm your site, too.

The Summary:
If you are promised thousands of inbound links, ask what types of domains they will be from (as well as their domain authority). Make sure they don`t force you to add links to your site as part of their “agreement.”

Let me know if you`d like us to analyze your inbound link profile (free of charge).

Thanks,

Jeff FinkelsteinFounder, Customer Paradigm
Jeff Finkelstein
Founder, Customer Paradigm
303.473.4400

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Customer Paradigm
5353 Manhattan Circle, Suite 103
Boulder, Colorado 80303

Visit our Website

direct		303.499.9318
fax		303.374.6104
toll free		888.772.0777

Web & Print Design • Programming • Email Newsletters • Search Engine Marketing • eCommerce

Feb 18, 2013

Emergency Magento Fix: Customer Feedback

Last week, we had someone call in for an emergency fix to their Magento Commerce website.

Here’s a quick note a couple of days later:

Hi Allison,

I just wanted to let you know that everything is still working fine. My
bosses are extremely happy with how promptly and quickly you guys were
able to help us out. I’m hoping that as we continue to progress with the
site, that I will be able to work with your team again.

Thank you.

Landon

Feb 15, 2013

Magento 1.7.0.2: How to Select Both PayPal Express Checkout and PayPal Standard

In Magento Community version 1.7.0.2, many of our clients have complained that they have not been able to select more than one PayPal method at the same time.

For example, if you are running Magento Community 1.7.0.2, and want to enable both PayPal Express Checkout, as well as PayPal Website Payments Standard, the system throws an error like this:

Magento Community 1.7.0.2 Admin Error Message:
There is already another PayPal solution enabled. Enable this solution instead?

This happens when you are in the Magento admin area of the site, under the PayPal Payment Solutions:

Magento Admin Community 1.7.0.2 Screenshot – PayPal Payment Solutions Options

If you attempt to add both the first option (PayPal Website Payments Standard) and the fourth option (PayPal Express Checkout) at the same time, you’re not able to add both at the same time.

A big reason to add both is that a customer will often choose the PayPal Express Checkout option on the shopping cart page (and thereby bypass the checkout page). Mobile users are a huge reason why a website should enable PayPal Express Checkout. Instead of having to find and then type your credit card information into a form on an iPhone, iPad or other mobile device or tablet, you merely have to enter in an email address and a password, and you can check out. Without having to create a new profile on the site, etc.

It’s important to have PayPal as a payment option on the checkout page, so if someone wants to pay via PayPal instead of a credit card, they can do this easily. I do this all the time when I’m trying to place an order, and don’t have my credit card handy.

PayPal Express Checkout is an altogether different customer experience than PayPal Standard, and that’s why so many Magento Community version 1.7.0.2 users have been frustrated.

Our Magento Certified Developers at Customer Paradigm have developed a quick fix to allow you to enable both PayPal Standard and PayPal Express Checkout, and can usually apply this patch to your site in about an hour. Want more information? Call 303.473.4400 or visit here to have a real person contact you now.

Jeff Finkelstein //
No Comments //
Blog, Magento, Technical Articles by Customer Paradigm

Feb 14, 2013

How Companies Track You On The Web

For today’s guest lecture by Jeff Finkelstein about how Companies Track You on the Web, the presentation is posted here:

How Companies Track You on the Web

Click Here To View Presentation: How Companies Track You On The Web by Jeff Finkelstein, CustomerParadigm

Feb 13, 2013

Chapped with Your Magento Developer? Try Customer Paradigm (Lip Balm Promo Product)

A few of us are going to the upcoming Magento Imagine Conference, and we just ordered a fun giveaway promo lip balm:

The reasoning behind using lip balm, and the tie-in, is that many people who run Magento websites are often burned by developers who don’t know what they’re doing, when it comes to a complicated system like Magento. (Customer Paradigm is a Magento Silver Solutions Partner with 5 Magento Certified Developers on our team.)

Plus, Las Vegas (where the conference will be held) is a very dry place. Here’s what Jesse on our team designed:

Chapped with your Magento Developer? Try Customer Paradigm

Feb 13, 2013

Cupcake Sponsorship of Women Who Code

Customer Paradigm was thrilled to sponsor the Boulder-based Meetup, Women Who Code in Denver / Boulder.

We’re doing what we can to help bring support to all women in their coding aspirations… and this time with tasty cupcakes.

Here are a few images from the event, taken by Lonny on his phone:

Women Who Code – Boulder Meetup

Feeding Cupcakes to Women Who Code

Katie with the PHP Cupcakes

Women Who Code – Posing With Cupcakes

Closeup of PHP Cupcakes

Feb 12, 2013

SEO Myths Debunked #5: Unsolicited SEO Offers Via Web Contact Forms

I`ve had a lot of positive feedback from website owners who are happy to know the truth when it comes to SEO myths.

This week, I`ll tackle a constant trend: Unsolicited SEO offers via your website`s contact form.

SEO Myths Debunked #5:
Unsolicited SEO Offers Via Web Contact Forms




	Example of email sent to Customer Paradigm this morning

The Myth:
“Your site doesn`t rank very well, but we`re contacting you because we can help.”

The Dodge:
“We just stumbled across your site, even though it doesn`t rank that well.”

The Facts:
The irony is that they found your site because you do actually rank in the search engines.

Perhaps not as well as you might like. There`s always room to improve.

In cycling for example, you can always go faster (that`s why doping has been such an issue in the sport today).

In search rankings, there is always another keyword you could rank higher for.

But the fact is, they probably found you via a search on Google.

Why fill out a contact form? Because at most companies, contact form submissions are usually read – often by the owners or managers of a Website.

Just like last week`s topic, SEO Myths Debunked #4: We took a look at your site, and there are some things in the HTML code that are not optimized for search engines… the unsolicited SEO offer via your contact form is trying to trade on fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Even our company`s website, Customer Paradigm, gets form submissions like these from time to time.

I know our domain authority, and how many inbound links we have to our site (10,684 at last count).

But just for fun, I`ve played along and responded back on the phone. Partly out of morbid curiosity, like when you see a car crash on the side of the road… you just have to look. And partly out of research to find out how they are trying to instill fear and doubt into many of our clients.

Here`s the transcript of a recent phone call:
Me: “It sounds like you can help get our site ranking better.”
Them: “What is the name of your website? We send a lot of emails to people.”

Me: “CustomerParadigm.com”
Them: “(Fumbles, not quite sure how to spell `Paradigm`) Oh. I can see your site now. I like the colors!”

Me: “Can you tell me what you can do to help my site rank better? I don`t know a lot about SEO.” (Wink, wink!)
Them: “Yes. SEO is hard to do.”

Me: “Hmmmmmmm. (I`m not saying much, because half of the site he`s supposedly looking at talks about how we are SEO experts.)
Them: “It looks like your site has some coding issues that are preventing Google from being able to rank your site.”

Me: “Can you tell me what`s wrong with our site?” (I happen to know there`s nothing wrong, unless you`re trying to access the site from a Windows 95 computer on dial-up acoustic-coupler modem.)
Them: “It looks like your title tags are not set up properly, and there`s some other technical things that aren`t working well.”

Me: “Okay… can you fix these things for us?” (I am never going to give them access to our website.)
Them: “Sure. That is easy. Plus, our SEO experts we will hand-submit your site to search engines, and get thousands of inbound links through our network. We also do other things, but I can`t tell you exactly what we do, because it`s a trade secret.”

Me: “Oh… I understand. You can`t share your secret ways, or other people would be able to do what you do.”
Them: “Yes, we`ve cracked the Google code – so we know how to make sites rank higher. We can`t share this for obvious reasons.”

Me: “Will I be able to work directly with an SEO expert to make sure I know what keywords they are emphasizing?”
Them: “You`ll be able to submit tickets through our customer portal. We also run monthly reports!”

Me: “How much will it cost?”
Them: “We have monthly packages that start at $450.”

Me: “Great… can you send me a proposal?”
Them: “No, just please visit our website and sign up for one of the packages and we`ll get started right away! I`ll send you a link.”

The Summary:
If someone contacts you through your website telling you that you don`t rank well – chances are that they found you through a Google, Bing or Yahoo search. Ironically, they are contacting you because you rank in the search engines.

I hope you enjoyed this SEO Myth Debunked… Stay tuned for more next week.

Thanks,

Jeff FinkelsteinFounder, Customer Paradigm
Jeff Finkelstein
Founder, Customer Paradigm
303.473.4400

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Boulder, Colorado 80303

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direct		303.499.9318
fax		303.374.6104
toll free		888.772.0777

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Feb 8, 2013

Quick Professional Headshot in Boulder, Colorado

When a classically-trained Opera singer needed a professional headshot done quickly, she called Customer Paradigm. Here’s a quick look at one of the first images:

Quick Professional Headshot in Boulder, Colorado

Feb 8, 2013

iPhone Photography – it’s all about the lighting

A fun iPhone photo of three ski patrollers on the chair in front of me at Copper Mountain, Colorado.

Tech Specs: iPhone 4S, f/2.4, 4.28mm, ISO 50, 1/2400 per second exposure.

iPhone Photo Skiing at Copper

Feb 5, 2013

SEO Myths Debunked #4: We took a look at your site, and there are some things in the HTML code that are not optimized for search engines

We had a great response to last week`s SEO Myth concerning hand-submission to Google.

This week`s SEO Myth Debunked looks at one of the most common tactics people use to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt with Website owners.

SEO Myths Debunked #4:
We took a look at your site, and there are some things in the HTML code that are not optimized for search engines.

The Myth:

We took a look at the code on your site, and there are some problems with it. It`s not optimized as well as it could be.

The Dodge:
Do you know how to write code in HTML? If not, it`s too technical to explain.

The Facts:
A well coded site may in fact rank higher than a site that has confusing code.

But most website owners don`t have the technical skills to look at the HTML source code and determine what might be wrong.

This SEO Myth is a tactic that is meant to prey on the uncertainty, fear and doubt a Website owner might feel.

It`s not much different than going into an oil change place, and they tell you that you need a new air filter. How many people these days really change their own air filter? Do you know how often it needs to be changed? Every 3,000 miles? Some experts say once a year or every 50,000 miles. Shake it out, but no need to replace it every time you change your oil. However, if you don`t know that much about cars, and the guy in the uniform tells you to replace it for $29.99, you don`t want your expensive car to be choked by bad stuff, so it`s easier just to say yes and have them replace it.

The reality is that some sites do, in fact, have code that is tough for search engines to understand.

Here are things that are legitimately difficult for Google and other search engines to crawl through and understand:

• Lots of Graphics. Graphic designers (by design) like to design graphics. Search engines aren`t very good at reading text inside graphics. Sometimes important words (such as the name of your organization) might be locked in graphics that are just named something generic like “logo.gif.”

• Flash. Some sites still use flash, which is opaque to search engines and doesn`t work on the iPad and iPhone.

• Non-Standard Navigation. Some sites have navigation systems that are confusing to a search engine, use graphics, flash or can`t be indexed easily.

• Not using standard layout system. Some sites don`t use a Heading 1 (H1), Heading 2 (H2) and paragraph layout system that search engines understand easily.

• Frames. Not many sites use these anymore, but a few are still out there.

• Store finder Search Box. If the only way someone can find a store location is to enter in their zip code into a box, then a search engine isn`t going to be able to find all of those pages. Instead, have a list of stores by state, with text links that allow a person to click (and a search engine to follow).

• No sitemap. Most search engines will only crawl a couple of layers deep onto a site. A sitemap is a way to have a link to every page of the site from one page, so you can make sure that content doesn`t live 7-10 layers deep.

• No Content. If there`s not much content on your site, and it merely has a few fluffy marketing statements about what you do – “We provide the best solutions in the industry” – there`s really not much for a search engine to know about your company.

• No-index / no-follow. Some sites have this tag turned on by mistake. It basically tells search engines to go away and not index your site. This is so important that we do a daily check on all of our customer`s sites to ensure that this isn`t turned on.

• No title tags. That`s a big one. You can read about what they are and why they matter here:
www.customerparadigm.com/seo-tip-3-title-tags-why-they-matter

• Not optimized for human interaction. The other issue is that what is highly optimized for a search engine (lots of text, few graphics and whiz-bang functionality) may not be well optimized for the end user`s experience. Google uses a feedback mechanism for this as well: they measure how many people come to a website and then “bounce” back to the search results page. If people go to your site, but don`t stay, Google will often adjust the rankings down (automatically, though… there`s no person sitting there dragging your site higher and lower in a windowless room somewhere).

So, if someone tells you that your website has problems that prevent search engines from ranking your site, make them give you a list.

If they can`t give you 2-3 things that are concrete, they`re most likely not being straightforward with you.

The Summary:
Well coded sites do tend to rank better, because the sites are built in a way that Google and other search engines understand. However, telling a Website owner that their site has structural problems – but can`t give them any real information why – is a suspect tactic.

I hope you found this SEO Myth debunked article helpful. Let us know if we can help with anything!

Thanks,

Jeff FinkelsteinFounder, Customer Paradigm
Jeff Finkelstein
Founder, Customer Paradigm
303.473.4400

Connect Via Facebook >>
Connect Via Google+ >>
Connect Via Linked In >>
Connect Via Twitter >>

We love referrals! Our Referral Promise >>

Customer Paradigm
5353 Manhattan Circle, Suite 103
Boulder, Colorado 80303

Visit our Website

direct		303.499.9318
fax		303.374.6104
toll free		888.772.0777

Web & Print Design • Programming • Email Newsletters • Search Engine Marketing • eCommerce

Feb 1, 2013

USPS Shipping Quotes Patch for ALL Magento Sites – Community and Enterprise

A quick note:

If you’re having trouble with USPS shipping quotes on your Magento site, there’s a reason why:

The United States Postal Service just changed their system (effective today), and it changes the way that USPS works with Magento. Beyond the API changes, they also renamed: • Parcel Post is now renamed to “Standard Post.” • First-Class Mail International Parcel has been renamed “First-Class Package International Service.”

There are patches available for Magento Enterprise Edition, as well as Magento Community.

If you’re using USPS as a shipping method or shipping quote on your Website, and you’re having trouble with USPS shipping rates on Magento, it’s likely because you need to apply the patch.

Let us know if you need assistance with this – our team of Certified Magento Developers is here to help get your site back up and running quickly. Call 303.473.4400 or visit here to have someone contact you now. This is something we can take care of quickly for you.

Jan 31, 2013

SEO Myths Debunked #3: We’ll Hand-Submit Your Site to Search Engines

I hope you enjoyed last week`s SEO Myth debunked. I`ve posted them here on our redesigned Customer Paradigm website: www.customerparadigm.com/articles-media/

This week`s SEO Myth we hear quite a bit: we`ll hand-submit your site. Read more below >>

SEO Myths Debunked #3:
We`ll Hand-Submit Your Site to Search Engines.

The Myth:

We will hand-submit your site to the search engines so you`ll be indexed right away.

The Dodge:
Trust us. If you don`t hand-submit your site, you`ll never be indexed. And if you don`t have us keep submitting to the search engines each month, you`ll drop in rankings.

The Facts:
Google and other search engines mostly ignore sites that are submitted through the forms on their site.

Google will often completely ignore new sites, placing them in a “sandbox.” This helps prevent fly-by-night companies from being indexed, and gives preference to companies that have stood the test of time (at least half a year).

Relevant inbound links are what matter, and will get your site indexed and out of the Google Sandbox.

Google spiders through other sites, and looks for links pointing to your site. If enough relevant sites link to your site, chances are good that Google will pay attention.

If your site is remarkable enough for someone to write a blog post, twitter post or Facebook comment, your site will be indexed. That person is staking their personal reputation to link their friends and site visitors to your site.

Here`s what Google says about how sites are added to their search index:
“Inclusion in Google`s search results is free and easy; you don`t even need to submit your site to Google. Google is a fully automated search engine that uses software known as “spiders” to crawl the web on a regular basis and find sites to add to our index. In fact, the vast majority of sites listed in our results aren`t manually submitted for inclusion, but found and added automatically when our spiders crawl the web.”

More info, read here:
support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1352276

The Summary:
Google and other search engines will automatically find your site without the need for any site submissions. To get indexed, your time will be better spent focusing on obtaining links from other sites.

I hope you found this SEO Myth debunked article helpful. Let us know if we can help with your search engine optimization needs.

Thanks,

Jeff FinkelsteinFounder, Customer Paradigm
Jeff Finkelstein
Founder, Customer Paradigm
303.473.4400

Connect Via Facebook >>
Connect Via Google+ >>
Connect Via Linked In >>
Connect Via Twitter >>

We love referrals! Our Referral Promise >>

Customer Paradigm
5353 Manhattan Circle, Suite 103
Boulder, Colorado 80303

Visit our Website

direct		303.499.9318
fax		303.374.6104
toll free		888.772.0777

Web & Print Design • Programming • Email Newsletters • Search Engine Marketing • eCommerce

Jan 29, 2013

January 2012-January 2013 SEO Review

It’s nice to look back twelve months and take a look at the numbers.

For one of our SEO clients, here’s a quick snapshot of the increase in traffic:

Here is an overview of the increase in traffic year over year, for January 2012 – January 2013:

72.05% increase in overall traffic
72.11% increase in unique visitors

Jan 25, 2013

Magento Tutorial: Building Products in Magento With Multiple Options

In Magento Commerce, the question of how do you best build products with multiple options isn’t straightforward.

Lonny Burgos - Developer, Customer Paradigm In this tutorial, Lonny Burgos, a Magento Certified Developer, guides you through the process.

Questions? Need help with your Magento site? Call us – 303.473.4400 or visit here to have a real person contact you now >>

Four Main Steps to Building Configurable Products with Multiple Options

Build the Attributes – these are the options that will show up as dropdowns on the product page.
Add the Attributes to an Attribute Set – the attribute set will provide an easy way to reuse the attributes for other products.
Create Simple Products – these are the individual products for each option.
Create Main Configurable Product – this main product will house all the simple products.

To better understand the relationship between the Main Configurable Product and the simple products, I will outline a simple scenario:

I have a product called Crispy Tee:

This product is manufactured in 2 sizes (small and medium), and 2 colors, red and white.
I will have to build out a total of 5 products:
- 1 Main Configurable Product
- 1 Simple Product – small/white
- 1 Simple Product – small/red
- 1 Simple Product – medium/white
- 1 Simple Product – medium/red
I intend for the customer to pick out the size and color of my Crispy Tee product before they add it to the cart.

Step 1 – Build the Attributes (aka the options size and color)

Lets begin by building out the new attributes for our Crispy Tee. I am going to use the following attributes names:

crispyshirtsize
crispyshirtcolor

In the admin, navigate to Catalog->Attributes->Manage Attributes. Notice the Add New Attribute button to the right and click on it. (Right Side of screen)

Magento - New product attribute for attribute code, scope, catalog input type for store, values required.
Be sure to set the following for each attribute:

Attribute Code – the internal name of the attribute must be lowercase.
Scope - set to Global otherwise the attribute will not be visible throughout the site
Catalog Input Type Store – set to Dropdown, this setting will come into play later when we are setting up the Main Configurable Product.
Values Required – set to Yes so that the customer will be forced to pick both a size and color for the shirt.
Use to Create Configurable Product - set to Yes so that this attribute will be included in the list of options for the Main Configurable Product.

After these options are set. Click on Manage Labels on the right-hand side.

Magento - Edit Product Attribute - Default Size - Manage Options

Set the titles:

Admin - Uppercase name that will show in the Manage Admin screen under Attribute Label
Default Store View – Lowercase label that will show on the frontend product page.

Manage Options:
Since we selected this option as a dropdown, the options need to be defined by clicking on the Add Option button. The options cannot be empty

Admin - Uppercase name that will show in the backend.
Default Store View – Lowercase dropdown option that will show on the frontend product page.
Position - Sort the dropdown. In this case small will show up before medium in the dropdown.
Is Default – Select the dropdown option that dropdown will automatically default to the selected option.

Now Click on the Save the Attribute button.

Repeat Step One for each attribute. In this case, I will repeat for the crispyshirtcolor attribute.

The new attributes should now be visible in the Manage Attribute screen. Now it is time to move onto Step 2 – Add the Attributes to an Attribute Set.
Magento - Manage Attributes for color, size, attribute code and label

Step 2 – Add the Attributes to an Attribute Set

Navigate to Catalog->Attributes->Manage Attribute Sets and click on the Add New Set Button in the top right corner.

In the next screen, add a new name and base this attribute off of Default.

Magento - Add the attributes to an attribute set in Magento for editing set name

Now Click on the Save the Attribute Set button.

At this point, the newly created attributes need to be added to the attribute set. The new attributes are located under Unassigned Attributes.

Click and drag the newly created attributes from Unassigned Attributes and place into Groups. See screenshot below.

Click and drag attributes from unassigned attributes to groups

Now Click on the Save the Attribute Set button.

At this point, the new Attribute Set should appear in the Manage Attribute Sets screen. The next steps are to add the products and attach the attributes along with attribute sets.

Step – 3 Create Simple Products

Navigate to Catalog->Manage Products and locate the Add Product button.

Magento - Create new simple products by navigating to catalog and create product settings for attribute set and product type
Create Product Settings:

Attribute Set – Set this option to the new attribute set that we created in Step 2, Crispy Tee Shirts.
Product Type – Set this option to Simple Product.

Click on the Continue button.

Now, the product’s configuration will be need to be setup in the General, Prices, Inventory, Categories sections in the left sidebar menu.

General Product Configuration Screenshot for Magento

Set the General Settings:

Name - the product name that will be used for all the Simple Products and the Main Configuration Product
Crispy Shirt Color and Crispy Size – each simple product will have a different option enabled. For the first simple product we will use the default dropdown options: white and medium.
Description – Enter a description of the product.
Short Description – Enter a short description of the product.
SKU – Enter a unique value for the SKU.
Weight – Enter a weight value
Status – Set this option to Enabled.
Visibility – Set to Not Visible Individually. This option is important so that the simple product does not show on the frontend. The product will hide inside the Main Configuration Product.

Next move onto the Prices section.
Prices section screenshot for Magento admin to add new product with prices

Set the Prices Settings:

Price – Set a price for the simple product.
Tax Class – Set this value to the desired Tax Class, cannot leave blank in order to save the product.

Manage Inventory Screenshot for Magento commerce - quantity and stock availability

Setup Inventory Settings:

Qty – Set a number of available products in stock.
Stock Availability – Set to In Stock so that the product is available.

Click on the Save button to save the product.
The product should now be added to the Manage Product screen.

So now, the other simple products need to be setup with the alternate options:

1 Simple Product – small/white
1 Simple Product – small/red
1 Simple Product – medium/white – Created
1 Simple Product – medium/red

In order to easily setup the alternate simple products. Click on the first simple product and in the Product Information screen, locate the Duplicate button.

A duplicate of the medium/white option will be created. Change the attribute options to medium/red and change the Status to Enabled. Keep everything the same, except for Description, Short Description, and SKU in the General Settings. Go through the Prices, Inventory, and Categories Setting to configure the product correctly.

Price Settings:
Be sure that a price and tax class are entered.

Inventory:
Be sure that a value is assigned to Qty and set the Stock Availability to In Stock.

Categories:
Add the product to the correct categories.

At this point, if everything is setup. Click on the Save button.
Repeat the duplication process for each attribute option.

All the following Simple Products should be created:

1 Simple Product – small/white – Created
1 Simple Product – small/red – Created
1 Simple Product – medium/white – Created
1 Simple Product – medium/red – Created

The last step is to create the Main Configurable Product. This product will be visible on the frontend and will contain all of the simple products.

Step 4 – Create Main Configurable Product

First, copy the name of the product from the simple products that we created. In this scenario all 5 products will have the name Nash Shirt.

Add a new product from the Manage Product screen.

Magento Screenshot - Create Main Configurable Product - attribute set and product type
Configure the Create Product Settings:

Attribute Set – Set to the same attribute set as the simple products, in this case, Crispy Tee Shirts.
Product Type – Set to Configurable Product. This option is setting up the Main Configurable Product.

Click Continue.

New Product Settings in Magento - Attribute Set and Product Type

Since we setup our attributes to Global, Dropdown, and to use with the Main Configurable Product, the options/attributes will be available. Enable both attributes.

Magento Screenshot - set new product general infomation, including name, description SKU and status

Set the General Settings:

Name - the product name that will be used for Main Configuration Product.
Description – Enter a description of the product.
Short Description – Enter a short description of the product.
SKU – Enter a unique value for the SKU.
Weight – Enter a weight value.
Status – Set this to Enabled.
Visibility- Set this to Catalog, Search so that it is visible in the frontend and included in the search.

Next move onto the Prices section.
Magento Screenshot - Set Price in New Product Screen

Set the Prices Settings:

Price – Set a price for the simple product.
Tax Class – Set this value to the desired Tax Class, cannot leave blank in order to save the product.

Next Add the images for the main configurable product

Price and Tax Class - Thumbnails for Magento Product - Magento Screenshot

Use the Browse Files and Upload Files buttons to add the image.
Set an image Base Image, Small Image, and Thumbnail.
In this case, I only added one image, however multiple images can be added.

Next set the Inventory Settings:
New Product - Set Inventory Settings
Stock Availability - Set the Main Configurable Product to In Stock.

Next set the Categories for the Main Configurable Product.
Magento - New Product Category

Now the Simple Products need to be added to the Main Configurable Product. To assign the Simple Products, navigate to the Associated Products in the left sidebar Product Information menu.

Magento Configurable Product - Simple Product with Associated Product Information Screenshot

Use the top portion to add a different price for specific options.
Add all of the Simple Products.
Click Save.

Navigate to the Main Configurable Product in a web browser.

See the Main Configurable Product in the Web Browser - Screenshot of Magento Storefront

The attributes/options will now be required before the customer adds the product to the cart.

Conclusion – Magento Configurable Products:

Once the entire is process has been completed. Magento makes it very easy for you to reuse attribute sets. In the scenario above, assume that the Crispy Tee now comes in blue and xsmall.

To accommodate for this change, the blue and xsmall features would be added to the dropdown for each existing attribute as follows: (Step 1)
1. crispyshirtsize – xsmall
2. crispyshirtcolor – blue

Next a simple product would need to be added similar to Step 3. Finally, the simple product would need to be included in the Associated Products in the Main Configurable Product.

Alternately, if you did not want to offer a small/white any longer. Then you would disassociate that simple product from the Associated Products in the Main Configurable Product.

Questions? Need help with your Magento site? Call us – 303.473.4400 or visit here to have a real person contact you now >>

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Copy The Code:

The Difference Between Magento Enterprise and Community Edition

Four Main Steps to Building Configurable Products with Multiple Options

Step 1 – Build the Attributes (aka the options size and color)

Step 2 – Add the Attributes to an Attribute Set

Step – 3 Create Simple Products

Step 4 – Create Main Configurable Product

Conclusion – Magento Configurable Products:

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