If you’re not familiar, Magento is a fresh and promising ecommerce solution. A leading feature of the software is the core is 100% open source. Of course there are many plugins, themes and other customization features which range in price from the altruistic ‘free’ to the enterprising ‘thousands of dollars’. But in the end, if you’re looking for a robust ecommerce solution and aren’t afraid to get your hands dirty, look no further than Magento Commerce.

This is a hefty book, weighing in at 300 pages. I’ve read the official Magento User Guide, and although it is informative, I feel that it is somewhat dry. I’m eager to flip through the ebook they sent me to see if there are any ‘between the lines’ tips and tricks to liven up a Magento project I’m working on.

At first glance, the table of contents definitely seems to focus on the GTD side of things. For instance, the first chapter is all about installing Magento.

This chapter is written especially for you, if you are:

• Installing Magento on your own
• Using a low-cost, commonly available hosting service
• Familiar with putting files up on a web server, but that is the limit of your technical knowledge
• Willing to ask your hosting service’s technical support some simple and specific “Yes/No” questions about their setup
• Eager to get your store up and running as fast as possible

Even if you own a server, or are very technical, this chapter is still worth reading. It can
save you time by helping you to avoid problems while installing Magento.

Sidenote: I highly suggest getting familiar with how Magento works. This isn’t WordPress.

So I’ll be reading the book and applying the knowledge within. Eventually I’ll gather my notes into coherent form and publish them as an official review right here. Until then, your homework is to read about how Magento can work for your business. If you’re wanting to sell online, I really do recommend it.

Page Division Benefits for Visitors to Your Web Site

This is great news for both sides of the SEO table. The search engine user can click directly to the desired information instead of wandering around the page once they’re directed to a site by the SERP. The old way was sort of like getting directions to a house party that left you at the entrance of a neighborhood. This new way leads you to the right driveway.

Page Division Benefits for Web Developers

For the web professional, proper SEO techniques will allow you more granularity and specificity in your SERP presence. A few choice placements of the correct anchor tags (and possibly usage of the obligatory ID tags) can net great returns and more ‘good’ traffic to your sites. When I say ‘good’ traffic, I mean people who won’t end up in the bounced column in your analytics.

For a more in-depth look at how the new algorithm works, please jump over to Site Booster’s article entitled New Strategy to Increase Search Engine Visibility.

What Comes Next?

I’m more interested in if IDs will be included in the Google SERPs. I’d rather give IDs double duty than have to insert <a> tags into my code. Most well-written pages employ header tags, <h1> and so on.

The example Google gives on their blog uses:

<a id=”HDL” name=”HDL”>

Now I’m not sure if the Google algorithm is triggering on the anchor name or the ID. Big points to the big G if they use both. I’m using different methods in different areas of this article to see how things turn out.

Your Turn

Let me know what you’re thinking about this new avenue of Search Engine Optimization and how you plan to implement it. I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments.

Competition breeds innovation, proof that capitalism works.

This week, Google released their new sandbox search engine, nicknamed ‘Caffeine’. In my initial tests, it seems Caffeine results are focused more on articles and web pages, not video or news results. Youtube and news items are typically still on the first page, but they are further down instead of always sticking to the top.

It seems you can’t saturate your Youtube video description with keywords anymore. Content is king.

I have had pretty good results on SERPs by using the WordPress platform, which in cooperation with the All-In-One SEO plugin, makes META info maintenance a breeze. You have control of each page’s data, as well as the overall site’s META keywords and description. And well, content is king. Write a good article and you should see good results.

My best performing article here at Mesmer Lab is about how I add custom fonts to my WordPress installation. I wanted an easy solution for having a unique look, but flexible enough to only require regular text, not opening Photoshop every time I need a new header image.

So to that end, when you search for ‘add custom font wordpress’ right now you’ll find the following results:

• Google (current): http://tr.im/wi30
• Google Sandbox: http://tr.im/wi2Q
• Bing: http://tr.im/wi53

First off, let me explain how good tr.im is as a URL shortener. Create an account with them and you can track clicks. That alone should give you enough incentive to use them exclusively. Add that they use unique URLs and you’ll never use another URL shortener again.

Now there are some interesting differences here. The current Google SERP has my article at #4, including an indented link for a related article on my site. Indented results are a function of Google’s algorithm and are typically seen as having more authority. I was pretty jazzed when I noticed I had one.

The Caffeine SERP shows the same article at #3, pushing ahead of the result from Digg. Hmm, what does that mean? Google is giving less weight to bookmarking sites? I never really got into Digg, but I use Del.icio.us pretty regularly. And although I see their merit, I’d rather find actual articles in my SERPs rather than a middleman.

And well, Microsoft hates my site it seems. Where’s Mesmer Lab on Bing? Not sure. I went through the first 10 pages and couldn’t find a trace. I gave up digging deeper into the SERP pages when I started seeing results that weren’t even related to WordPress or fonts.

So what does this mean to you? Well if you’re a typical web user you should start seeing more direct links rather than having to click through a bookmark aggregator. Less clicks, less bandwidth, more efficiency. If you’re a web developer, your SEO prowess should shine through much easier. Using Caffeine could possibly give your expertise a 10% boost in authority. Content writers should also see similar results. Just keep writing good content and your analytics and AdSense results should validate your worth.

The people over at Facesaerch have developed a side-by-side comparison of the current Google engine and Caffeine. Test it out at http://www.facesaerch.com/caffeine/.

Usability is key. You can have the best information and product, but if there’s a problem with catching your visitors’ attention on how they can benefit, then you need to rethink your design. David describes how your wording, the positioning of your call to action links, and even the size, will help you convert your visitors into users.

To begin…

First off, this is how to put it on your site. Add this in the <HEAD> section of your pages.

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.yoursite.com/favicon.ico" />

Make sure you put the correct location of the file, of course. Next I’ll tell you what is involved in creating a favicon.

Create your own favicon, online!

The nice folks over at favicon.cc have developed a spiffy flash application where you can create your own favicon right in your browser. You have pixel precision while creating a full-color icon. They even include animation options with their icon generator.

If you’ve used any type of image editor, the controls are very easy to use. Either upload an image or draw one pixel by pixel. Get creative with a full color picker, transparent ink (eraser), review and use existing colors and move the image around. Once you’re happy with your work, you can download the icon for your site. When you create an account, you can save your icons at their site and make them public for anyone to use. You can even add a title, description and tags when you publish it under the Creative Commons license. Top rated and recently created icons can be browsed with ease.

Bright green adornment in Firefox 3

Ever wonder why some sites like PayPal and GoDaddy have a bright green background on their favicon in Firefox 3? This assures the visitor that the site has a valid SSL certificate.

Thank you Firefox for a welcome addition to help prevent identity theft. Click on the glowing green graphic to view the certificate. Check out more info over at Drivelocity.com.