According to BuiltWith, more than 187,500 live websites use Magento, including giants like Nike, Samsung, Nestle, and many others. There are multiple reasons why ecommerce businesses choose Magento for their websites.
With the Magento platform, retailers can easily adapt and stay ahead of changing client purchasing habits. It allows you to customize and grow your platform to create unique brand experiences.
Read on to learn more benefits of Magento and find an instruction on Magento store creation as well as Magento performance optimization.
Why choose Magento?
Companies must be able to adapt correctly in today’s fast-paced and continually changing ecommerce environment. Here is where Magento can help.
Actually, a quarter of all ecommerce sites in the world are created on the Magento platform, which is logical given that it is currently one of the most adaptable and comprehensive ecommerce software platforms on the market. We’ve compiled a list of other reasons why you should choose Magento for building your ecommerce website.
Scalability
Utilizing a Magento 2 solution provides retailers with a highly scalable and cost-effective infrastructure integrated with a precise ecommerce system. Magento gives its users options and opportunities for growth. It offers a free edition for businesses who are just getting started in the ecommerce market.
After they have grown, developed, and are solidly on their feet, they can upgrade to the Enterprise Edition, which includes certain extra capabilities to further optimize the operation of their business.
Security
The Magento platform incorporates critical security standards to protect ecommerce. Adobe Commerce and its community editions safeguard websites from possible threats and viruses. Owners who use any of these versions can use best practices to handle security concerns, schedule security checks, and get real-time security upgrades.
There is also a Magento security center that can provide all of the information required. Store owners may learn about security patches, upgrades, and best practices. Magento can also help stores get SSL secured and PCI compliant.
Open source
Magento Community Edition is completely free and relatively easy to install and use. You may increase the productivity of your ecommerce store while also advertising it with new features and functionalities by building or installing Magento modules.
The Magento Connect/Marketplace offers a vast module library. These plugins will assist you in improving your performance as a Magento developer while also measuring your progress.
Wide community
Every day, a large Magento community of passionate developers, programmers, webmasters, project managers, product managers, CEOs, and other specialists worldwide support anyone asking for assistance.
These teams offer 24/7 support to help owners improve their online platforms and raise the bar. The Magento Community ensures that everyone is always in the loop. If you have problems with your Magento ecommerce website, you can always ask the community for appropriate solutions and tips.
Multi-store feature
Magento enables you to expand your business globally by managing several store views for different countries, each with its product catalog, from a single admin panel. Aside from that, you may link your business with various marketplaces.
Magento’s multi-channel integration incorporates around 150 languages and all global payment gateways. Moreover, the solution offers all the necessary content management tools for enterprises.
SEO friendly
Magento offers tremendous capabilities for generating an unlimited amount of traffic. While applying Magento for ecommerce, users can generate URLs, meta descriptions, tags, product descriptions, and other components corresponding to particular keywords.
Wide range of extensions and ease of integration
Magento Marketplace was created to help users quickly find relevant Magento extensions. All extensions and service providers in the Magento Marketplace have been meticulously cross-checked for exceptional quality.
Magento websites enable you to swiftly interact with a number of third party services such as payment systems, database apps, shipping, order tracking, and so on. Furthermore, the Magento platform has built-in Google technologies such as Google Analytics, Google Checkout, and Google Base to help you evaluate the performance of your website.
Mobile friendly
According to studies, 46% of consumers who shop on Magento sites use a mobile phone. To succeed with your online business, you need to focus on catering to your mobile-savvy customers. To improve the mobile shopping experience, the Magento platform supports HTML5. It also allows you to change the image size and supports video.
Regarding mobile apps, progressive web applications (PWA) are quickly overtaking native apps in popularity. These provide a better user experience than native apps. The most significant benefit of PWA is its ability to work with a slow internet connection.
They take up less space than native apps and make shopping more convenient for customers. Magento stores have mobile-friendly features like product comparison, push notifications, and multilingual functionality.
Advanced search
Magento supports Advanced Search, a helpful tool that allows users to directly discover goods in the catalog by searching for product properties. To quickly get the required results, the consumer can input several parameters, such as the product’s name, SKU, and other variables.
How to build a Magento store?
When you start building a Magento website, it’s vital to understand the distinctions between its three editions.
- Magento Open Source is a free version that is widely utilized by businesses.
- Magento Commerce includes more features and official Magento support. You should still manage Magento hosting and add the cost of utilizing the platform, which starts at $24,000 a year.
- Magento Commerce Cloud is a cloud-based eCommerce system that includes all of the preceding option’s capabilities and is hosted by Amazon Web Services. Therefore there is no additional hosting cost. Its yearly fee begins at $40,000.
Generally, if you own a small to medium-sized company, Magento Open Source will be enough for your requirements. The platform allows extensive customization and provides a high level of flexibility, allowing you to install new features via modules and extensions.
Choose a web hosting provider and a domain name
The first step you should take is to choose a reliable Magento hosting provider. Initially, review the Magento 2 system requirements to determine what powers are required for the website to function properly. If you intend to link your store with payment engines, be sure to install an SSL certificate.
Pick a domain name that is self-explanatory for your online store. If your business already operates offline, using your company’s name in a domain name may be a good idea. The easier to remember the name, the better..
Some hosting companies provide domain name registration as part of your hosting service. If your selected plan doesn’t, you need to search elsewhere to complete this step.
Download and install Magento
Navigate to Magento Tech Resources and download the version you need. You should first register in order to do so. Installing the engine entails uploading its files to the server and creating a database.
Then, enter your future website URL into your browser’s address bar, and you’ll see the Magento Installation Assistant. It will walk you through the essential installation procedures, including:
- Checking for Server Readiness;
- Adding a Database;
- Web Configuration;
- Store Customization;
- Creating an Admin Account.
Manage the appearance
Go to the Content section to customize the layout of your store. Pages, Blocks, Widgets, Posts, and Comments are all available under the sub-menu. These components let you alter and add pages, blocks, widgets, etc.
The Configure option can also be found under the Content menu tab. Here, you may customize your store’s header, footer, scrolling display, product watermark information, and other elements.
Install and customize the theme of your store
Now, it’s time to customize your store’s theme.
Current Magento themes provide more than just ready-made user interfaces. Leading Magento themes from well-known vendors deliver excellent user experiences through various niche-related extensions and UX boosters. While selecting a suitable business Magento theme, look for the following features:
- Responsiveness;
- Compatibility with multiple browsers;
- Pre-made layouts;
- Proper navigation;
- RTL support (if required);
- Blog functionality.
When you’ve installed your new theme, navigate to Content > Configuration. You may begin adjusting its parameters by selecting the website setup you wish to alter. This is the interface for modifying or uploading your online store’s logo and other features. You may also use the Content > Elements menu to update your website’s pages, widgets, and blocks.
Add extensions
At the Magento Marketplace, you can also add extensions to enhance your store’s functionality. Everything from Instagram Wwdgets to checkout choices are included.
You can filter the extensions in the marketplace by various characteristics, including price. You will be able to install one as soon as you check out. Make sure to check out the following categories:
- Security;
- Marketing;
- Analytics and reporting;
- Shipping;
- Payment.
Set up product pages
Good product page architecture is one of the key factors of your online success. When you navigate to Catalog > Products, you’ll find a list of your current items as well as the Add Product option. After you click it, you’ll be able to choose the kind of item you wish to add from a dropdown menu. The options are:
- Simple products;
- Configurable products;
- Grouped products;
- Virtual products;
- Bundle products;
- Downloadable products.
Your product type will determine the template you’ll need to choose. A name, price, and stock-keeping unit number are always required. Then, you may add a picture or video of your product.
After you’re done, click the save button. Once you’re ready for your product to go live on your site, ensure the Product Online button is also toggled on. It is better to wait until all of your things are available before releasing them.
Choose your shipping and payment options
These options can be found by heading to Stores > Settings > Configurations. Payment options will then be shown.
Here is where you can customize the payment methods included in Magento. If you decide to employ extensions to provide your clients with more alternatives, the procedure may take some time because you will need to set up several systems.
Each payment gateway will have a Configure button that you can click to see its full set of options. You’ll have to enter some information like which card types you’ll accept and whether you want to save credit card information for future purchases.
Launch your website
Modifying a live site might be perplexing for visitors who come across it while it’s still in the process of development. For this reason, it’s preferable to use a staging environment or develop locally before pushing the changes to your web server.
If you’ve been working on your Magento site locally, the final step is to upload all of your Magento files to your webserver. This may be accomplished using your local development program or a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) client. This will make your website available on the internet.
Final words
Magento has set the standard for future ecommerce platforms since it provides crucial functionalities that can propel your business to rapid success. It gives you a powerful engine, great security, and the capacity to scale your company.
Building a Magento website is a multi-stage process that includes research, website release, and continuous development. This necessitates detailed knowledge of how to design a Magento website and familiarity with current trends and best development practices. So if you don’t feel confident about creating a Magento online store and don’t have a relevant specialist on your team, consider turning to Magento experts.