Lightning-fast page loading speed is crucial for the conversion of a successful online store. The longer the customer waits for the page to load the higher are the chances that he’ll abandon your website.

Below are 10 steps that can help you speed up your Magento website:

Clean Database Log

Given that Magento saves logs for around 180 days, your database may grow unnecessarily large, which is why the first step in speeding up your Magento website must be cleaning your database log – it will take only 30 minutes, but the effects will be astonishing.

Latest Version

Make sure that you are running the latest version of Magento. It will include all enhancements in speed and performance, as well as bug fixes.

Content Delivery Network

Among the simplest, yet most effective ways of speeding up your Magento website is utilization of Content Delivery Network (CDN) that will allow your content to be delivered to customers from multiple locations.

Use Magento Compilation

Magento Compilation can boost the speed of your online store by up to 50%. In order to use this feature go to: “System” → “Tools” → “Compilation”

Merge CSS and JavaScript Files

Merging all CSS and JavaScript into one file will reduce HTTP requests and correspondingly will increase the page loading speed.

Enable Flat Catalog

Flat Catalog is particularly useful for extensive catalogues with over 1000 items. It merges products and their categories in one convenient table, boosting speed by answering MySQL requests much quicker.

Compress and Optimize Images

Compression of images via Adobe Photoshop and specification of their dimensions allows simultaneous loading of page and images, which leads to considerable increase in website’s loading speed.

Limit Extensions

The amount of HTTP requests increases with the amount of extensions, which is why it is recommended to use only vital extensions and disable unessential ones.

Use Caching

Caching also helps to speed up your Magento online store. To get excellent results try combining NGINX + APC + Memcache + Varnish caching.

Minimization of Redirects

Reduction of redirects allows your website to load with the lightning speed.

Security of your Magento website is of outmost importance. Although Magento platform offers multitude of integrated security features, you can improve overall protection of your online store by following these tips.

How to keep your Website safe

Regularly Update Your Anti-Virus Software

It is highly recommended to use enterprise-class anti-virus software that provides daily updates. It will help you detect and prevent various hacker attacks.

Use Two-Factor Authentication

Two-factor authentication allows only trusted devices to access backend. Moreover, it requires you to enter randomly generated code that changes every 30 second and is sent to your phone by the app Magento Connect Marketplace

Use Secure FTP

It is important to use secure FTP passwords and SFTP as a Public Key Authentication.

Strong Password

Strong password must be no less than 15 characters long and must not contain any names or birthdays. You can use password generator to find an optimal strong password.

Backup your Magento store regularly

It is highly recommended to save your backup copies regularly, but not on the same server, your website is, because in such case hacker will get access both to your website and to the backup as well.

Install Latest Magento Security Patches

Magento regularly provides security patches that need to be installed to ensue robust protection of your online store. TemplateStudio can help you install latest Security Patch quickly and efficiently.

Use Secure FTP

Using Secured File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) you can boost the security of your website, as it utilizes a private key file for decryption and user authentication.

Get a Magento professional security review

Professional Magento security review, accomplished at least twice a year, can help you find and eliminate weak spots in your security.

Use Only Trusted Magento Extensions

Despite the extensive Magento community and multiple user reviews for every extension, it is highly advisable to use only trusted Magento extensions to protect your online store from hacking.

Utilize Firewall

Firewall usage allows getting additional layers of security by preventing users from accessing your web server.

The long-awaited Magento 2.0 is already here and it is truly impressive! Recently released Magento 2.0 upgrade includes advanced CMS features, as well as performance and scalability improvements that will help Magento website owners to create stunning designs and boost functionality of their online stores.

Why Magento 2 is the right choice for your online store

Customizable File Structure

Magento 2.0 removed all the issues that prevented development of custom themes. With the new Magento version, themes can be tailored for the specific needs of your business. Updated file structure does not have any default themes; they have been transferred to the module structure.

Enhanced User experience

Magento 2.0 offers enhanced user experience for customers and webmasters alike. Customers are now able to enjoy easy navigation, clean and pleasant structure of the pages with clearly seen call-to-action buttons. Webmasters, on the other hand are presented with many features for ROI improvement. For instance, the new drill-downs help to identify customer’s actions on the website, highlighting the areas that require improvement.

Excellent Performance

Due to the fact that Magento 2.0 is integrated Varnish Cache, website pages are loading much faster, which is extremely beneficial for Google speed optimization. New Magento 2.0 is easier to navigate, faster and boasts of improved security.

Improved Scalability

Full page caching translates into considerable boost in performance, as well as decreased server loading time. Apart from that, Magento 2.0 allows faultless and simultaneous management of products by multiple admins.

Impeccable Security

Given that Magento takes security seriously, it’s no wonder that new version was cleared of all potential security vulnerabilities and is a lot safer, especially with a new directory (- ‘pub’) that safeguards source code from various hacker attacks.

Responsive Web design (RWD) is a Web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from mobile phones to desktop computer monitors)......

Responsive Web design (RWD) is a Web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from mobile phones to desktop computer monitors).

Responsive Web design (RWD) is a Web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from mobile phones to desktop computer monitors).

Nowadays, there are a lot of different devices, and when it comes to complicated, heavy websites, it’s never “one size fits all”… Or is it? Basically, this is what Responsive Design is trying to achieve, and, quite frankly, is succeeding at its goals. A site designed with RWD adapts the layout to the viewing environment by using fluid, proportion-based grids, flexible images, etc. iPhones, BlackBerry, Kindle, iPad, Samsung, personal computers, laptops, they all have different resolutions and screen settings. Well mobile stores designed with responsive web can easily adapt to any of these devices, without troubling the user, or forcing him to scroll over and over again to find the information that he needs, or cutting his images in half…

According to SmashingMagazine.com, Responsive Web design is the approach that suggests that design and development should respond to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation. The practice consists of a mix of flexible grids and layouts, images and an intelligent use of CSS media queries. As the user switches from their laptop to iPad, the website should automatically switch to accommodate for resolution, image size and scripting abilities. In other words, the website should have the technology to automatically respond to the user’s preferences. This would eliminate the need for a different design and development phase for each new gadget on the market. Ethan Marcotte likes to call this “responsive architectural design”.

A few years ago, when flexible layouts were almost a “luxury” for websites, the only things that were flexible in a design were the layout columns (structural elements) and the text. Images could easily break layouts, and even flexible structural elements broke a layout’s form when pushed enough. Flexible designs weren’t really that flexible; they could give or take a few hundred pixels, but they often couldn’t adjust from a large computer screen to a netbook.

Halloween, America’s most beloved and fun autumn holiday, for both adults and children, but most importantly, for Halloween stores all over the country.....

Halloween is a Large Market. According to About.com, the size of the market is one reason that Halloween is a solid business opportunity. Halloween has become a true retail bonanza. In 2009, U.S. consumers spent approximately $5.8 billion on Halloween. In Canada, Halloween spending has also been increasing; $331 million was spent on candy alone in 2009 according to Statistics Canada. Here’s why you should invest with confidence.

The Halloween Market is Growing

The Halloween market is growing in two ways that make it very attractive for business opportunities. First, Halloween is becoming an increasingly universal celebration. According to a survey by the National Retail Federation, nearly two-thirds (63.8%) of American consumers were planning to celebrate Halloween in 2006, up from 52.5 percent in 2005. Canadians are even keener Halloween celebrants; 68% of Canadians planned to participate in at least one Halloween-related activity in 2007, according to a survey conducted for the Retail Council of Canada. Although children's trick or treating is still a Halloween mainstay, but it's adults who are spending the money on celebrating, embracing Halloween as a chance to let their inner child get out and party. Large parties with participants wearing elaborate costumes are becoming increasingly popular - excellent news for people looking for niche business opportunities.

Costumes make up the largest portion of Halloween spending. Of all the money consumers spend at Halloween, 36% of it is spent on costumes. The rest is spent on candy and, of course, decorations.

Some well-known online stores are http://www.buycostumes.com/ and http://www.halloweencostumedepot.com/. These stores rely on drop shipping. Drop shipping is a supply chain management technique in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock, but instead transfers customer orders and shipment details to either the manufacturer or a wholesaler, who then ships the goods directly to the customer. This way you won’t ever have to worry about storing your goods or finding places for new shipments.

Don’t wait any longer, start today! Here’s a simple guide about how to start your own online Halloween store. You can do it yourself, without having to hire programmers or technicians. Just follow the steps below:

1. Get a domain. Your site needs to have its own home address, just like you do. (Like godaddy.com)

2. Get a Hosting. Your site has to pay taxes for its home, just like you.

3. Choose and E-Commerce Platform. Magento Ecommerce is the perfect start. Reliable and trustworthy, it’s the most efficient ecommerce solution on the market.

4. Choose your own Custom Design or Halloween Magento Theme. No matter if you’re on a budget, or you’re investing generously, there you’ll find exactly what you need.

5. Apply for a BuySeasons account. This is the drop shipper we were talking about earlier.

6. Upload your desired products.

7. Get a Payment Gateway (Authorize.net, PayPal, etc.), so people can actually buy your stuff.

8. Start promoting your website and get ready for Halloween season!

Since the appearance and evolution of the touch-generation smartphones, the use of mobile internet has skyrocketed indubitably. Of course, home internet along home computers is still the most used, but we can notice a yearly remarkable growth in mobile users.....

People nowadays are almost always on the move.

We’re not in the early 2000’s, when a person was unavailable on the internet until they got home/at the office and checked their emails. GPS services, satellite localization, wireless fiber have made it possible so that today, people are keeping track of their information every second, and they are constantly receiving and sending data, since they no longer need solely a computer to use the internet. Since smartphones are evolving rapidly in the same direction, web site owners and developers also must adapt to the needs of the customers; and this means creating mobile versions of their official websites, which load a lot faster on mobile devices, and also are much more comfortable to view on a smaller screen.

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, is a type of industry where the buying and selling of products or services is conducted over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. As for mobile e-commerce, things are becoming more adapted and more convenient for the user, day by day. The best part is that things are evolving naturally, nobody is forcing people to use mobile internet. This means that the future of mobile e-commerce is blindingly bright. As a matter of fact, the future is now! As you are reading this, thousands of transactions through mobile are being made; people are ordering food, participating in auctions, comparing prices!

As for 2014, there is no turning back. The mobile use of e-commerce will continue to grow, and in a few years it will reach ginormous proportions, maybe even surpass the good old home/office use, because it is obviously more convenient and more practical to access your information the second you feel the need to, instead of waiting to reach your computer, or even finding a Wi-Fi hotspot with your laptop.

Nowadays mobile electronic commerce is not only becoming more popular, but also easier and user-friendly. Templates are highly responsive, no matter what device you are on. You can be sure that all the information you need is always on the page with you, without having to mess with pesky widths. I suggest you take a look at this info graphic, which shows the existing tendencies in mobile shopping, as well as proof about what I previously said regarding the geometrical growth of mobile e-commerce.

Some stats:

56% of American adults are now smartphone owners. Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2013)

Mobile now accounts for 12 percent of Americans’ media consumption time, triple its share in 2009. (Source: Digiday, 2013)

Of the 70 percent of shoppers who used a mobile phone while in a retail store during the holidays, 62 percent accessed that store’s site or app and only 37 percent of respondents accessed a competitor’s site or app.. (Source: ForeSee, 2013)

48% use or would like to use a smartphone to shop while in-store or on the go. (Source: Cisco, 2013)

80% of smartphone owners want more mobile-optimized product information while they’re shopping in stores. (Source: Moosylvania, 2013)

Within five years, half of today’s smartphone users will be using mobile wallets as their preferred payments method. (Source: Carlisle & Gallagher Consulting Group, 2012)

The Magento eCommerce Platform, developed by Varien, is a feature-rich, professional Open Source eCommerce platform solution...

The Magento eCommerce Platform, developed by Varien, is a feature-rich, professional Open Source eCommerce platform solution that offers merchants complete flexibility and control over the presentation, content, and functionality of their online channel. Its modular architecture, industry-leading features and powerful marketing and merchandising tools have quickly made the Magento eCommerce Platform the fastest-growing ecommerce platform on the market.

Magento runs in three editions, two of which are paid for, these being The Magento Enterprise Edition and Magento Professional Edition. The Magento Community Edition is the only free version of Magento available at this moment. Varien, the company owning Magento, formerly worked with osCommerce. They originally planned to fork osCommerce but later decided to rewrite it as Magento. Magento officially started development in early 2007. Seven months later, on August 31, 2007, the first public beta version was released. On May 30, 2010, Magento mobile was released; it allows store owners to create native mobile storefront apps. Magento’s intuitive administration interface features powerful marketing tools, a catalog-management engine and is SEO optimized to give merchants the power to create sites that provide an unrivaled and rich online shopping experience for their customers, tailored to their unique business needs.

Designed to be completely scalable and backed by an extensive support network, possibly the best one existing at the moment Magento is the ultimate eCommerce solution. For further and more detailed information, take your time and visit www.magentocommerce.com!