• Average shopping cart abandonment across all devices is 72%.
• Most delivery problems originate from a poorly optimised checkout.
• 50% of customers will not shop with you again if you do not deliver on time.

Our top ten essential tips will all be revealed at 5pm on the 16th of May as PushON will be hosting a Webinar with Postcode Anywhere where we will be discussing 10 Essential Tips To Improve Your Checkout.

The webinar will feature Postcode Anywhere’s Senior Account Manager, Tom Gurney and PushON’s Digital Director, Sam Rutley.

Registration for the webinar is free and can be found here.

We hope you can join us for what will be a highly informative webinar!

The post Sign up for our free webinar – ’10 Essential Tips To Improve Your Checkout’ appeared first on PushON Ltd.

We’ve all been there. For the past couple of years it’s been a nightmare for us developers to spend hours either changing our CSS or HTML mark-up just so Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) can render our webpages correctly.  Since the launch of IE7 back in 2006, web technologies and web standards have changed significantly. Whenever I develop websites for clients, I usually don’t have any problems in regards to testing it cross browser, 98% of the time my websites work seamlessly on pretty much all the modern browsers until I’m asked to test it on IE7.

It is understood that most developers (including myself) still optimise websites for IE7, simply because there happens to be a small minority of users who still use that browser. Latest stats as of February 2013 show that usage of IE7 has dropped to less than 4% globally. The question we need to ask is, is it still worth putting in the effort to optimise websites for IE7 for this minority of users?

Based on my previous experience, it takes an enormous amount of time to make a website or web application optimised for IE7. Due to these problems, and the very small percentage of people who even use the browser, it doesn’t make it worthwhile as far as time, effort and money is concerned. Yes, it would be nice to have a website that is compatible with all browsers, but what are the chances of your visitors (target audience) accessing your website using IE7?

Why should we stop optimising for IE7?

Big name websites such as Google and Facebook officially announced last year that they no longer support older browsers like IE7 because they don’t have the capabilities to handle today’s modern web browsing needs. Google has urged people to update their browsers for a better and safer browsing experience. Facebook’s timeline has been completely phased out from IE7. When users visit their Facebook profile page they won’t see the timeline, but instead will be presented with the old profile page.

Some ecommerce websites have even started charging an ‘IE7 tax’. Australian retailer www.kogan.com was one of the first websites to come up with the idea of charging their users with an extra 6.8% tax. The website detects when visitors are using IE7 and issues a pop-up warning about the tax if the users purchasing goods from their website. The purpose of this approach is to encourage their users to upgrade to a modern browser for a better browsing experience of their website, thus avoiding the extra charge at the same time.

Why are people still using IE7?

One of the biggest reasons people are still stuck with IE7 is because some of them are still using Microsoft’s older operating systems. IE7 came pre-installed when Windows Vista was first launched in 2006, an operating system that many PC owners still use. Microsoft has also used several methods in an attempt to get its users to upgrade, but some organisations find it very expensive and time consuming to get all of their PC’s upgraded to modern standards. Most importantly it is our fault as developers as in the past we have spent hours optimising websites for IE7. This has only encouraged IE7 users to continue their browsing experience with IE7.

What can we do encourage users to upgrade their browsers?

• We can use similar tactics like the Australian retailer “Kogan”.
• Create landing pages that can detect if the users are using IE7 and provide them with a warning and upgrade solution.
• Use badges and small banners somewhere on your website to encourage users to upgrade. Last year a website called “The IE7 Countdown” launched to dedicate the countdown of IE7. They provide code snippets that can be easily embedded on your website to display tiny badges and banners. www.theie7countdown.com

I think it is time to stop spending unnecessary time fixing IE7 bugs and instead using that time to do something more productive.

The post Is it time to bury Internet Explorer (IE7) for good? appeared first on PushON Ltd.

PushON have been working with Magento for over three years and in 2011 joined their partner program as a Magento Silver Partners, delivering Magento Enterprise builds to clients, including Bench Clothing.

We have another two Magento developers undergoing the on demand Fundamentals of Magento Development training in preparation for the Magento Certified Developer exam.

The exam consists of 70 questions, and takes approximately 1.5 hours to complete. More information on the certification and resources can be found on the Magento website.

The post Magento Certified Developers in Manchester appeared first on PushON Ltd.

I have been using a new piece of Javascript that seems to have this all covered though. It listens out for changes in your CSS document and then will refresh the page automatically to show these changes. It is a great way to speed up styling a new site as well as for small bug fixes. The plugin has been developed by http://cssrefresh.frebsite.nl/ and is a simple case of copying their code and inserting a link just underneath your css file in the header. It doesn’t rely on having any other framework installed and works straight off.

They do also have a Bookmarklet that you can install in your browser too that will work in the same way, but personally I would prefer to include it myself.

The post Using Javascript to speed up CSS changes appeared first on PushON Ltd.

To often I see themes that have the template css and javascripts as HTML includes in the header file. In fact, even twentyeleven does it this way (not that I like a single thing about twentyeleven, but it’s what a lot of people use as a starting point).

Not only is this bad practice as WordPress has hooks that are there to be used, but these hooks work well, and there’s no reason not to use them. In fact, by using these, we can safely minify code, and avoid nasty conflicts (and we all know how annoying they can be!)

Ok, here is the code that you need:

functions.php – stylesheet hook

This is all you need to do, the function can be named to whatever you want, but this name needs to be reflected in the add_action call

UPDATE: I’ve now included a full set of media query style sheets too, so all you have to do is create the empty files and style away. 

FUNCTIONS.PHP – JAVASCRIPT HOOK

This very similar to the scripts, you’ll notice the subtle change to the enqueue function.

So… go forth, and include your scripts and styles the correct way! Banish old habits, and embrace this wonderful functionality!

The post How to include stylesheets and javascript files in wordpress, the correct way! (now including Media Queries) appeared first on PushON Ltd.

So without further adieu, I present to you the PushON Konami Easter Egg – go ahead (if you haven’t done already) and enter the Konami Code
to find our little suprise on the site:

Of course, if you’re a long time PushON fan, you may have had the pleasure already. If you haven’t had the pleasure of our Creative Directors sense of humor, I highly recommend trying the cheat out for yourself!

Spread the word!

Add the Konami Code to your own site!

    if (window.addEventListener) {
        // create the keys and konami variables
        var keys = [],
            konami = "38,38,40,40,37,39,37,39,66,65";

        // bind the keydown event to the Konami function
        window.addEventListener("keydown", function(e){
            // push the keycode to the 'keys' array
            keys.push(e.keyCode);

            // and check to see if the user has entered the Konami code
            if (keys.toString().indexOf(konami) >= 0) {
                // do something such as:
                // alert('c-c-c-c-combo breaker!');

                // and finally clean up the keys array
                keys = [];
            };
        }, true);
    };

The post Konami Code now on the PushON site appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Although WordPress blogs often already appear on Facebook, the simplicity and effortlessness of the new upload link is expected to further encourage integration of two of the world’s most powerful communications platforms.

Whilst still operating in their WordPress account, users of the content management and publishing platform will also be able to use the Facebook link function to provide comments or tag their friends.

An additional new facility, employing Facebook algorithms, also generates for each reader a tailored list of recommended further reading when they visit a WordPress-enabled website.

Meanwhile, Facebook has also introduced a facility to help generate traffic to the uploaded blogs whereby search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques are deployed, drawing on comments entered in a newly expanded commenting area.

The enhanced integration between the two platforms, it is believed, could consequently lead to a rise in the number of WordPress blogs and articles featuring on the Facebook site; and, by the same token, could also see a potential rise in the number of new Facebook users, encouraged to join up in order to use the facility to widen the reach of their blogs.

Facebook claims that an estimated 17% of all internet content worldwide is created using the WordPress platform.

According to WordPress the new facility is just as compatible with uploads from mobile phones as it is with desktop devices.

The post Facebook introduces new input portal for WordPress content appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Magento Go

Magento is the first and the most powerful e-commerce development platform with a plethora of features and functionalities. Within this amazing growth, they have introduced several products such as Enterprise, the deployed solution.

In February 2011, Magento launched a hosted solution, Magento Go. It is a SaaS (software as a service) which supports cloud technology. With this feature, Magento has become an even more feasible option for online sellers to beat their competitors. Within days of its first release, thousands of merchants were registered to test drive the turnkey servers for building and running their online stores.

In Magento Go, you can build your powerful store on your own to sell your products and services online quickly and easily. Magento Go provides the robust setup tools to manage your store such as customisable designs and out of the box professionally designed themes, attention and loyalty tools, customer engagement tools to increase the interaction for the best customer experience and product variations such as bundles and group products. It offers an impulsive navigation system so people with limited knowledge of the web can also handle it very well. Magento Go makes it a lot easier to edit the site through the CMS.

M2E extension flow

Recently people have built their confidence in online buying and have become more sophisticated in how they use it. They have started looking for products through different online channels such as eBay, Amazon, Facebook, etc. From seller point of view, they are more tempted to synchronise their online store with eBay or Amazon stores to control the inventory in one place.

M2E extension

Recently Magento partnered with ESS-UA to create an impressive M2E extension for which enables Magento Go stores to seamlessly connect to eBay platform. M2E is a single data entry management point with full control over inventory across different channels. You can connect multiple eBay accounts to multiple Magento stores, which provides the user a flexible data synchronization for prices, products information and stock levels. Also eBay orders get imported into Magento and treated as native Magento orders.

The part I liked the most is you can create and list products from Magento Go with M2E extension. Basically you don’t even need to login to your eBay store account anymore.

The best part is, it is completely FREE and includes full technical support, I think it is worth a try. There is similar extension scheduled to come out for Amazon in spring 2012.

The post Go: The Power of Magento appeared first on PushON Ltd.

ERROR 1064 (42000) at line 1: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘Usage: mysqldump [OPTIONS] database [tables] OR mysqldump [OPTIONS] –databa’ at line 1

To fix this, simply open the sql file in a text editor and remove the first four lines, namely:

Usage: mysqldump [OPTIONS] database [tables]
OR     mysqldump [OPTIONS] –databases [OPTIONS] DB1 [DB2 DB3...]
OR     mysqldump [OPTIONS] –all-databases [OPTIONS]
For more options, use mysqldump –help

Once these had been removed the database imported just fine. Happy days!

The post Easy fix for "the right syntax to use near ‘Usage: mysqldump" appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Does Google consider SEO to be spam?

Matt Cutt’s breaks it down for us in his video:
“SEO stands for Search engine optimisation and essentially just means trying to make sure your webpages are well represented within search engines”.

And consider the honest to goodness SEO measures (as Cutts does here) taken by righteous and idealistic optimisers – such as:
1. Making sure your pages are ‘crawlable’, or in other words, accessible to SEs.
2. Including the right search terms.
3. Improving usability through good design and internal linking structure.
One Youtube commenter had this to say:

And Matt’s final thoughts….
“There are many, many valid ways in which people can make the world better with SEO”
So the answer is no then. Cheers Matt.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS75vhGO-kk

Google real-time analytics beta:

A new addition to Google Analytics (beta) will allow you to see real-time traffic data for your site. These new metrics include number of users on your site right now, which pages they are reading and referrals. The behaviour of potential customers coming at you live. Knowledge like this could be put to good marketing use.

Source: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2011/09/whats-happening-on-your-site-right-now.html

Useful Takeaways from Day 1 of the SearchLove 2011 conference:

Joost de Valk, Tom Critchlow and Rand Fishkin are just a handful of names from the list of SEO aristocracy who gave speeches at the conference.

Here are some of the best bits:
http://www.koozai.com/blog/events/135-takeaways-from-searchlove-day-1-searchlove/

Adwords ceases to support Internet Explorer 6 and introduces ‘bid-per-call’:

This is a notice to Google Adwords users who browse with IE6. Get yourself a new version by the end of the year.
In addition – Adwords is rolling out a phone call bidding scheme for its users.
Sources: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/10/retiring-support-for-internet-explorer_27.html and http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/10/introducing-bid-per-call-in-adwords.html

Broken link checker plugin for WordPress:

This new WordPress plugin will check all of the content on your site for broken links, redirects and missing images. It will then notify you on your dashboard or by email.
Site: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/broken-link-checker/

Google Maps allows you to see inside a shop!

Now, through the power Google, we can look inside a shop whilst exploring a Google map. The next generation of Street View. It just gets better and better.
I managed to get this far inside the comic store –

That shelf at the back looks a bit overloaded to me.

Site: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.742568,-117.820365&spn=0.004853,0.013561&sll=33.742814,-117.816672&layer=c&cid=7704649002191693046&panoid=qHPoNvOZOYBaFsE0vGCa5A&cbp=13,127.37,,0,11.85&gl=us&hq=comic+book+store+orange+county&t=h&vpsrc=0&cbll=33.742848,-117.816622&z=17

Insights into Google’s rating guidelines:

Dr. (SEOmoz) Pete lays down a few snippets of the recently leaked Google guidelines document; for those of you who missed it.
Source: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/16-insights-into-googles-rating-guidelines

And finally…

Many of you will have heard or seen ‘Take this Lollipop’. No more needs to be said – just go to the link here if you haven’t already and then check out this NY Times review (in that order).
Site: http://www.takethislollipop.com/

* A reference to the film – ‘Withnail and I‘

The post SEO Weekly Round-Up #13 appeared first on PushON Ltd.