Magento Extensions to transform your eCommerce store
Elementary Digital, a London and Leeds based digital agency specialising in WordPress and Magento websites share the top Magento extensions that can be used to transform your Magento experience.
Magento is our choice for most of the medium to large e-commerce properties we design and build. It’s a great system as-is, but today I’m going to discuss how, with a few choice extensions, you can turn a vanilla install into an eCommerce beast.
M2E Pro
Some of our clients come to us wanting to make the jump from eBay/Amazon stores to a full website of their own. None of them want to abandon these revenue streams, nor run around managing the stock levels between channels. Neither do they want to pay extra fees for a channel management system. Luckily, thanks to the M2E Pro extension they don’t have to do any of these things.
This powerful free extension is great for an eBay/Amazon merchant moving up to their own Magento store. Once installed you can set up channels including eBay, Amazon & Rakuten – more will probably be added as this extension matures. Any sale on one of these channels will modify your Magento stock levels accordingly – so Magento becomes the stock management system for all you do.
There are unfortunately a few disadvantages to this extension. The upgrade process between versions – which you sometimes can’t ignore if Amazon decide to alter their listing requirements drastically enough – can be rocky at best. There’s also somewhat of a learning curve to figuring out how to get listings a) working and b) exactly as you want them. However, the level of free support from the M2E Pro team during upgrades is outstanding and once you learn the listing process it’s definitely the best way of Magento store management in combination with eBay & Amazon.
Blog Pro
Perhaps one of the most notably ‘missing’ features from Magento is the provision of even a basic blogging system. A blog is a great way of showcasing new products, offers, competitions, guides, tips – in other words loads of great fresh content that search engines love and that can help to bring in new customers.
So adding an extension such as Blog Pro into the mix can help you deliver all this fresh new content with ease. Unfortunately it’s not free, but for your $119 (approx £76) you get a solidly tested extension with over 3 years in the connect marketplace, 5000+ users and a stack of great reviews.
Photo Gallery & Product Gallery from FME Extensions
In certain cases just having product images on the product pages is not enough. If your products can be customised or you need to demonstrate them in some way having the facility to do so will really help convert customers.
The Photo Gallery & Product Gallery from FME Extensions allows you to create multiple galleries, supports multi store arrangements and has a few settings handy for SEO, which brings me to…
CreareSEO
Magento isn’t bad at SEO out of the box, but it could certainly be better. Here’s where the CreareSEO extension comes in. Power up your speed by editing your .htaccess file directly. Get your structured data in place with breadcrumbs schema, Twitter & other social media card markup & product data. Control duplication issues with canonical url redirects, noindexing category filters and unique category headings.
Need further convincing? This is another highly rated, free extension with a basic level of support available. You can’t go far wrong with that!
Verified Reviews Integration
Want to know a powerful psychological technique for boosting sales? It works on the basis that what others do affects us more than we might initially believe. It’s called social proof and you can harness it by including reviews with products.
This free extension (yes, another one!) will email your customers after a user-specified delay to request a review on the website and/or products. You can then display your feedback publically. It could even help you improve your reach on Facebook as it offers social sharing opportunities.
I hope this post has given you some ideas to improve Magento eCommerce performance. You don’t even have to be using Magento – these techniques transfer in various ways to other platforms. Wield multichannel, blogging (content), rich media displays, technical improvements and social proof to drive e-commerce sales.
Post written by Owen, the online marketing manager Elementary Digital, a London and Leeds based digital agency specialising in WordPress and Magento websites.
