5 Mistakes That A Magento Developer Should Avoid

With tons of exclusive features and impressive functionality, Magento stands as one of the largest platforms for eCommerce website solutions. It offers users with all essentials features and solutions that are needed to build and maintain a powerful e-commerce website.

For this and more other reasons, it has become a highly preferred platform among e-commerce website owners. But, over the course of time, Magento developer and experts tend to make some mistakes while adapting to the latest techniques and procedures of this platform. So, if you are a Magento expert and want to make most out of it, then make sure you avoid the 5 common bottlenecks mentioned in the post.

1. Transforming the Default Theme

There is a default design theme offered by Magento. Might be, you may not find it appealing for your website. So, as a Magento developer, you may tend to make a common mistake of modifying the default design theme instantly. But this is a big mistake that can cost you much time and problem.

You can enhance the design of your website by opting for any other solution. One way is to copy the skins and designs to your theme directory just from the front end. This can help you avail a unique and attractive theme for your e-commerce website. Also, you can customize it according to your personal preferences and likes.

2. Forgetting to Create a Google Sitemap

The sitemap in Magento implies Google Sitemaps. Such sitemaps are supported by Google as well as other search engines. Most of the times Magento expert forget to include sitemaps in their e-commerce store. In other cases, if they include a sitemap, then they forgot to update or refresh it at regular intervals. Lastly, few developers build sitemap by including sample categories and products, and they don’t cross check it again before going live.

A great solution to combat this mistake is to include a sitemap by preparing one from the sitemap directory in the web root with other writable authorizations. The other way is to set up a store that automatically refreshes the sitemap at timely intervals. For this, you can make few changes in the admin and functionality. Last but not the least, you can download any sitemap extensions.

3. Improper Use of Layered Navigation

Most of the Magento expert prefers using layered navigation. But they may tend to make a big mistake here by not using the layered navigation mechanism properly. As a result, this may lead to duplicate content. But if you do not include it on your website, then your customers would not be able to find the desired results. So, disable indexing of your layered navigation pages by Google. But this is slightly hard to achieve, and you have to do it efficiently.

4. Unwanted Data Set Collection

The primary use of the collection is to retrieve one single item or returning the first item on the primary iteration of the loop. Most of the Magento developer makes the mistake of not placing any limitation on the query result of the collection.

It is not mandatory that the method adopted in this regard will modify the query results from the collection. Even, it is not essential that it will place a restriction. Hence, if no restriction is placed in prior, then it will load all the products of the collection.

Therefore, it is important to place the limitation in the case where the query result is a collection of more than one product. This will not just improve the performance, but will also enhance the scalability.

5. Using Shared Server or Resources

There is a good and bad thing about this point. The good thing is that technically, Magento based e-commerce stores can share resources or server with other online website and e-commerce store. But if you consider the practical aspect then the results are exceedingly poor and would not be on par with your expectations. So, even though, technically Magento powered websites can share a platform with other websites. Still, it must be avoided at all costs.

An efficient way is to conveniently configure an e-commerce store on any server supporting the MySQL and PHP technologies. You need to comprehend that Magento is a huge application utilizing numerous resources, which is not the case with WordPress powered sites or blogs. So, if you share the server with other sites, then this will result in poor experience and affect the success of your website.

Conclusion:

Magento offers a competitive edge to an online e-commerce business over its competitors. Gaining success in this competitive world is difficult, but crucial. For this reason, seamless and error-free Magento store development is imperative. So, hire Magento developer who is well-versed on this subject and can create a website that is robust and error-free.

5 Important Tips For Beginner Web Developer

The Internet now is at the core of our lives. There are thousands of websites out there which we regularly use. The work of website development following the intricate pattern of website design requires patience, knowledge and hence certainly is no joke.

Every business today has a website named for itself. Individuals too, build websites to showcase their talents and this is where website development knowledge comes in handy. Even if we overlook the multiple unused websites, still there are over a billion working.

Web development lays the foundation for those who aim to take up more complex programming later. It makes users comfortable with factors like syntax and gives a fair idea about the logic required in writing complicated programs.

Formal education is not mandatory for this work. Website designing largely depends on individual skills, and trial and error basis before a person can make out how to solve programming problems. The tools that are available to people enable them to start developing websites at any point in time.

Above everything, as a web developer, one needs to be focused and have a specific goal. One needs to be creative in their approach as well. How many times have you thought about a certain app that does not exist but would have released your work load immensely? This app could be the solution to various users, just like you, and one needs to be focused to ascertain that.

5 Tips for the Beginners

Below are five most critical tips for the beginner web developers, essential as more and more people are taking up Website development as their career choice.

1. Giving up is never an option

Just imagine if every time a developer gave up the first time they tried and failed in their projects there wouldn’t be any website at all.

Probably the internet would not even exist. Truth is, as a developer you are going to fail a million times before you get it correct. The way to your website is a series of problems and fixing them at the first try may not necessarily happen.

2. Simple easy way to the top

It’s a very common thing to fall into a trap where you take an unplanned leap. The web pages have an assortment of things which look very simple on the outside but the transition from learning body tags in HTML to complex working in JavaScript does not happen overnight.

One should consider starting with some basic online courses that teach HTML5 and CSS. This will prepare individuals to start adding features like incorporating PHP or JavaScript or interacting with CMS.

While one learns to code online the difficulty may occur while deciding which tool to use, how to deploy, understand GIT etc. Web development demands more than just tutorial classes, and hence, learners need the support and expertise of someone who has been there.

3. Learning new things should not scare you

The world of web designing and internet is a rapidly changing one. One needs to adapt with every passing moment to what new emerges.

As a developer, you will always learn new things. Every moment you will come across a new process or a new codebase that has a lot of new features. To keep up with that change one needs to be an expert at searching things on Google or any other search engine like a pro. Answers to all the questions are available on the internet but how and where to extract them is the real trick. One needs to know exactly the correct terms that will produce the exact result.

4. Search and use new resources

When it comes to coding there is nothing completely original. The main motive is to get the problem solved and for the same reason, there are complete libraries of commands, filters, and functions which are also very easily available online.

For example, while working on WordPress, if one wants to develop their own theme there are documentations for that. To do this, documentation from several resources can be helpful.  Dash, for instance, is one app which makes command specific searches easy. One could experiment by copying things found on the internet like widgets, videos, parallax images etc. and add them to the code.

This will give an idea about what exactly they do.  Websites like TryRuby are great for practicing what is learned directly on the browser without having to download any software.

5. Setting up own development server

One should not hesitate before doing some professional web development work. It certainly requires patience and a lot of practice but one’s level of perfection can be achieved by practicing on their own system. This personal server which is usually developed from the same system you are using to code will also enable you to see your results without having to appear on the internet.

Web development is a creative field. Websites are innovative in their styles which reflect the developer’s skill and mindset. This field of work does not require certificates but projects are important to detail upon. Hence it is important to create a portfolio of works, codes, and apps to show in interviews. Moreover, it is always better to possess a little know-how about the technical part of web development.

Conclusion

Website development comes with an assortment of fun and challenge. It is an endeavor which when accomplished generates success and money and this article describes the true mindset required to become successful in this job.

About Ncode Technologies:

NCode Technologies, Inc. is into the business of website design and development services, and offers its customers with high quality web services. The services of the company are based on advanced technologies, innovation and offered by a highly dedicated team of Web Developers.

Things to Consider Before Hiring PHP Developers

In this era of Information Technology, any business cannot sustain without any kind of online presence. To have a smooth running business with quite a considerable number of customers, it is an intelligent step to have a well-designed website. Once you are online and have created your business presence online, you would never be just satisfied with the look of your website just saying about your company. Your website is the first outlook that you are going to present before your target group. So, innovations and intelligent designing is the one mantra to attract your target audience. Having a business idea and designing a brilliant website is completely different and much tough. Here it is wiser to hire PHP developer who could design effective websites for your business.

According to different statistics, around 82.5% of all websites use PHP and most of them use PHP 5. Choosing the right PHP developer for your company is a very crucial job since he is the only one who is going to translate your dream into reality. Here are few tips that would proof handy in your task to hire PHP programmer for your business. These few tips would be beneficial in hiring the developers from anywhere around the globe.

Expertise and experience

The first and foremost thing that you need to check before you plunge into the decision of hiring a PHP developer is his credentials as a PHP programmer. An experienced developer will have all the adequate qualities that are required to handle your website necessities. There are generally three levels of PHP experts for hire: beginners, mid-level and advanced level.

Ability to Adapt and Gather Information

It should be always checked with the PHP developer if he has the right ability to adapt to the business environment which is always different in different businesses and is also able to gather requirements for every project. One of the most important needs for the developer in the United States today is that he understands the requirements, deliverables and customer needs for every different client very well.

Equally Skilled in Other Software

Side by side to PHP software and PHP app development, you need to know the developer’s experience level in other software like MySQL, SEO, AJAX, Semantic HTML Coding, Javascript, and XML. If you are proposing via advertisement you should not forget to post your requirements with the software mentioned.

Testing & QA Skills

To check the QA of the application a separate team of quality analysts is sometimes required. But for small or medium-sized businesses it may not be always possible for hiring such teams. So, it is advisable to check with the developer only for having such Testing and QA skills. This would drastically reduce the overall cost of the application development.

Communication skills

Behind the success of every project communication is one most important factor. You need to be very sure while you hire your PHP developer that he is well conversant in using different forms of communication like phone, video chat and not only depends on lengthy emails. So, if you are a good communicator and prefer to talk to your  developer right away then you must pick one who is well used to different kinds of communication channels.

Availability of The Developer

The availability of the developer is also one factor if you require successful projects. Your developer should be reachable whenever you are in his/her requirement to solve different issues related to the application.

Every business, may it be small, medium or big, looks for the maximum return on their investments. They look for smart ways to get a return on every cent they invest. In this midst, they ignore these small points mentioned in the article and land up in an overall loss.

If you required any assitance for your PHP Web Development project, you can contact PHP experts from NCode Technologies, Inc. for professional solutions.