So don’t be afraid! Not only is Prestashop an easy install made especially fast through Softaculous, but I’m glad to see a plethora of supporting documentation and templates to continue optimizing to your heart’s content.

I will guide you through my firsthand experience of installing Prestashop, including some little errors to be aware of and what they mean.

Preparation To Install Prestashop:

Make sure you have enough allocated MySQL databases. Depending on your hosting package, if you already have a CMS website like WordPress installed, you may need to check your available allocation. One install of Prestashop will take up one additional database if you have that in your allowance. You can check this under your cPanel left-hand sidebar for Database allowances.

Add a subdomain if you want to separate your shopping area from your main URL. For example, shop.domain.com. You can do this through cPanel in the Domains Module; select Subdomains, and complete the form prompts in the frame when you click through.

How To Install Prestashop:

In your cPanel, open Softaculous, which you’ll find in the Software/Services module near the bottom.

In Softaculous, select the Prestashop application. Prestashop is one of the more popular applications, so it will likely appear in the homepage of your Softaculous. In case you don’t recognize their logo, it should also be filed from the left-hand sidebar of categories under eCommerce.

Once you click Install, you’ll be prompted with a single page input form. Check each form field. Make sure you check where you want Prestashop installed; it will give you subdomain or folder options. You do not need to create a folder, Softaculous will create one for you if you choose. Make sure you update your Admin Account settings to your correct email.

<h2style=”margin-top: 10px;=”” height:=”” 15px;”=””>Now Let The Self-Install Commence:

If you tried and failed once, Softaculous will prompt you with a list of existing files that are duplicated with the following error message:

“Installation cannot proceed because the following files already exist in the target folder :”

Simply scroll to the end of the list of files, and check the box that says “Overwrite Files.”

It is likely that your first attempt to install may have failed if you didn’t have any remaining MySQL database allocation. If this is the case, you will see “The MySQL databases could not be selected” come up as an error message.

Hopefully the installation should go smoothly and all within 4 minutes. Softaculous will display a completion message and send you an email of your installation notes.

How To Administrate Prestashop:

To access your “Back Office,” go to yourdomain.com/admin123 as prompted by your Softaculous installation notes. Upon your first visit to the back-end, Prestashop will prompt you to change folder names for security reasons. To do this, leave the Softaculous application and return to cPanel Home; then go to your File Manager in your cPanel, which is located under the File module.

Once in the File Manager, finding the correct file is easy under the visual folder tree. Renaming a folder is as simple as right-clicking to bring up a drop down menu.

Your new Prestashop install should now give you “Back Office” access with these momentary security precautions in place. Simply go to yourdomain.com/admin123XXX, and upon completing the password prompts you will now have access to the Prestashop admin:

That’s it! You’re done. The back-end access is full of intuitive modules to add and navigate around. Honestly speaking, it probably would have taken you longer to read this article than complete the install itself! I managed to run through this install myself in just about 10 minutes with Softaculous and cPanel running. It’s more likely that you’ll manage a smooth install without bumping into any database errors as long as you follow the checkpoints I made at the beginning.

The post How To Install Prestashop appeared first on Host Town USA.

If you want to get the most of of WordPress, and keep system resources, costs, and your visitors’ page load times low, you will need to build and maintain that site as efficiently as possible. In this post, we will show you some ways to ensure that your WordPress site is running in top shape at all times.

Keep your WordPress installation updated at all times

WordPress, just like any other widely used and open source content management system is subject to bugs and security flaws. The majority of issues that I see on a daily basis are simply due to out of date WordPress installations.

WordPress now includes the ability to automatically update itself for any maintenance releases. While this does not apply to major releases such as 3.9 to 4.0, it will update your site automatically for minor and maintenance releases such as security issues.

Clean out those themes and plugins

Often, users will simply deactivate plugins and themes instead of fully removing them. Although deactivated, the files are still there and can lead to various bugs and security issues.

When not using a plugin or theme, be sure to fully remove it. You can always reinstall it if you find a need for it in the future.

Avoid bloated themes and plugins

Many users will go for a single plugin that does everything but the problem with that is that there are a lot of other options within the plugin or theme that they will never use. Avoid plugins or themes that are an “all in one” solution and instead of going for something that does everything. For example, if you just need to display a small Twitter widget, go for a widget that does just that, not something that includes various other things such as extra share buttons in your post or an entire page of Twitter posts. While those elements are not being shown, the code itself will usually use more system resources.

Some themes and plugins may also be poorly coded in which they will use up more resources than necessary. Although they may be attractive, there is most likely a theme or plugin that will look just as good, but use half the resources of a poorly coded theme. A good starting point in this would be to only purchase themes from reputable sources.

More and more caching

Caching can be critical in improving the performance of your site. Caching simply allows dynamic elements to be run a single time and then serve static elements to all of the users allowing for less system resources, and a quicker page load time for all visitors.

Plugins such as W3 Total Cache can easily configure caching for you with just a few simple clicks.

Use a CDN for all static content

A CDN will allow you to serve your static files from various locations depending on your visitor which will allow much quicker page load times. Aside from the user’s perspective, your server will also be able to offload those resources to another service that is specifically tuned to do exactly that, allowing a lower effect on server resources.

Services such as MaxCDN are able to cheaply boost the performance of your site, and are very easy to set up within plugins such as W3 Total Cache.

Make regular backups

Ensure that you always have backups ready to go if anything were to happen to your site. If something happened to cause you to lose all of your data, or you made a change that completely breaks your site, you will have a backup ready to go.

Most users don’t understand the need for backups until they need them, so proactively make backups when changes are made, as well as incremental backups every week, month, year, etc. Several plugins such as BackUpWordPress will be able to easily back up your WordPress site with just a couple clicks.

In addition to making regular backups, be sure that you are also storing them off of the server. Many times when a user is compromised, it will also affect the backups as well. Storing the backups in a location such as Google Drive or Dropbox will ensure that your backups are always readily available.

Maintain like a madman

Of course, once you have everything set up, be sure to continuously maintain your site at all times. Even if the site is a purely informational site that isn’t updated much, keep checking up on it to ensure that everything is running smoothly often. Sometimes you may notice a small issue that if discovered early, can drastically affect whether that small issue turns into a big one later down the road.

Running a website is much more than simply tossing it up and leaving it there. Treat it like a pet that continuously needs love and care.

The post Efficiently Hosting a WordPress site appeared first on Host Town USA.

According to data from Eisenberg Holdings, for every $92 the average company spends to get customers to their site, they spend just $1 to convert them. So much attention is paid to driving traffic, to getting attention, that what really matters – getting people to convert – is ignored.

If you have a website, boosting sales is no rocket science. In fact, simple little tweaks – that can sometimes take minutes to implement – can double your revenue. Here are 5 little tweaks you can implement today that are proven to give you a sales boost:

1. Give Your Website a Speed Boost: The speed of your website can make or break your business. Research shows that a one second delay in site speed results in a 7% loss in conversion. For perspective, a one second delay in site speed could cost Amazon $1.6 billion in sales annually.

There are several ways to go about giving your website a speed boost, but having a good web host is the most important; for that, with a rating of 10/10 when they underwent our rigorous checks, Host Town USA is definitely unrivaled!

2. Use Trust Seals to Increase Your Website Trust Factor: Many people are not buying from you because they don’t trust you, and a simple tweak can change that. Research conducted by Econsultancy/Toluna shows that a whopping 48% of people look for trust seals on a website to determine if it can be trusted before they pay online.

With the increasing threat of viruses, hackers, and online scammers, it’s understandable that many people won’t just pull out their credit cards. Fix this by using trust seals on your website, and watch your sales soar. The Norton trust seal is the most-regarded, followed by the McAfee and TRUSTe trust seals.

3. Use Elements of Social Proof: Nobody wants to be a lone wolf. If people perceive that others are not interested in your brand, they are less likely to be interested as well.

Research reveals that 88% of consumers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations and nearly 9 in 10 consumers read reviews to determine the quality of a business.

4. Introduce Elements of Scarcity: One of the most powerful techniques for boosting sales on a website is to introduce elements of scarcity. A study by WhichTestWon revealed that a countdown timer on a product page led to a 9% increase in conversion, and the right introduction of scarcity to sales campaigns have always led to increased sales.

Whether it is in form of limited offers, countdown timers, or special bonuses for people who act fast, introducing elements of scarcity can give your business a much needed sales boost.

5. Make it Clear and Focused: Data from Nielsen Norman Group shows that the average web user leaves a web page within 10 – 20 seconds, but pages with a clear value proposition can get people to stay longer.

If people can’t stay on your website, they won’t buy. Work on having a clear and focused website, and ensure that your offer is properly presented. This will result in a sales boost for you.

The post Boost Sales from Your Website appeared first on Host Town USA.

Step 1: Work out how your redesign is going to build trust between yourself and your audience.

Any website relaunch must focus on how it is going to make your audience trust your brand. There are two real ways you can build trust on your website and I discuss them both below.

The first thing you need to do if you want your website to be considered credible and trustworthy is to continually up-date it with original, high quality content. This is because clients read your websites content to determine if they want to do business with you.

Original content helps clients find you in the first place and establishes you as a leader in your chosen industry. You don’t just want your visitors to see you just as a website which sells something, you want your visitors to trust your website as an authority. The content can’t simply be released all at once either, it needs be released organically every few days for the whole year.

The other way you can build trust with your customers is to have an active social media presence. Customers now expect a certain amount of engagement and interactivity before they will be prepared to hand over their money. By communicating with customers via sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram you give your business a human face and and give off the perception that you are interested in hearing your customers feedback. In the weeks leading up to your redesign it is highly recommended that you review the way your business uses social media and make a real attempt to engage with your customers across various platforms.

Step 2: Study your current analytics to work out which parts are worth keeping and what needs changing.

Most websites have analytics installed but very few business know how to leverage the data that they provide to increase traffic and sales. If the only number you focus on when you look at your website’s stats is the total number of hits then you need to change your approach.

When analyzing your websites data, focus on which pages are attracting the most hits and which ones are keeping visitors around for the longest. Then try and isolate what is making those pages more successful than others. Focus too on where your traffic is coming from and which of your marketing strategies is being the most successful. Don’t be afraid to change things up and experiment to see what provides the best results. What you learn should ultimately influence your redesign.

Analytics metrics to look for:

• High bounce rate
• Low time on page
• High exit rate

Step 3: Plan out what you want, when you want it and how you plan on getting there.

When thinking about your new design, a really good exercise is to list what you like about other websites and then consider how you might integrate their strengths into your own website. Often while scrolling through other websites you will start to get a feel for what your site does well, and what it does poorly. Pay close attention to how other websites approach design, functionality and user engagement and then use what you learn to make your new design as good as it possibly can be.

Before you can begin, you have to work out what is it exactly, that you want your website to do? What do you want your website to achieve? Your goals should be specific and realistic. Make your goals too vague and you won’t know what you’re doing, make them to lofty and you will just set yourself up for failure.

The key question you need to ask yourself is what is my website for?

• Is it to build brand awareness?
• Is a means to communicate with your customers?
• Is it to act as a sales funnel?

Every website has a slightly different purpose so you need to figure out what your website’s purpose is. For example if you decided your websites purpose was to increase customer engagement you might say one way it could do that would be by having social media apps integrated into the website itself.

Setting time limits on when you want different aspects of your design completed is also really important. At the start of the process you should map out a timetable which sets out what needs to be done and by when. The timetable should also include who is accountable for what parts of the build. The deadlines should be optimistic but not unreasonable.

Put your redesign plan into action using the new BoldGrid.

Once you have completed the above three steps, the only thing left to do is to put your plan into action. One of the best ways to do just that is to use the new BoldGrid WordPress Website Builder. BoldGrid uses a drag-and-drop editing system making it perfect for beginners and those who don’t want to work with code. BoldGrid also comes with free premium themes which will allow you to build a high quality, custom site in minutes. It comes fully supported and makes full use of the WordPress content management system meaning that anyone who has used WordPress before won’t face any sort of learning curve. So if you do plan on redesigning your website we highly recommend you use BoldGrid, you won’t be disappointed.

The post Planning For Your Website’s Redesign appeared first on Host Town USA.

Don’t be like me.  Don’t live in regret.

I, too, was convinced that I could never learn to use Joomla!.  But, then again, I was intimidated by all content management systems (CMS) before I started really trying to learn them.  I didn’t think it was something I could figure out much less something I could excel at and even become a resource from which others could learn.  Then, a friend of mine, Christi, taught me WordPress.  (Christi’s currently the Technical Team Lead in our Design Department, so she’s an awesome source from which to learn.)

It was a snowball effect from there.  I built a lot of sites with WordPress and loved it.  But, I wanted to learn more, so I ventured into some of the other free software we offer through Softaculous.  I was still intimidated by Joomla! though.  Everything I read about it made it something I wanted to learn, but it is so different from other CMS software I had been working with, I was convinced it was beyond me.  The truth of the matter is, of course, that I didn’t put in the time and effort to learn something new.

But, a few months ago, I decided to install Joomla! on two of my personal blogs and give it a try.  From that moment on, I was challenged to change my perspective.  But, more importantly, I discovered something:  Joomla! is actually very easy to use.  It also comes with a lot options that aren’t available in other CMS software.

I think the most confusing part of Joomla! for most people is the lingo.  It’s different from other sources, but the meaning behind the words is the same.  Once you have a firm grasp of what everything means, it all starts to click into place.  So, in order to help get you started in using Joomla!, we are going to explain what Articles are and how they are used in Joomla!. This will help demystify the software and afford you a bit more comfort when reading up on what Joomla! is and how to use it.  So, study up, there will be a quiz at the end. (Probably. But, probably not.)

Articles = Web pages. 

Don’t be confused because it says “articles”.  The truth of the matter is that articles are both static pages and individual posts or listed posts (if you are going for a blog).  They are all referred to as Articles in Joomla!

When using Articles as static pages, you first need to create an article.  This tells Joomla! that you are going to have a page based on that title.  I always start my Joomla! designs by brainstorming on paper (Yep, pen and paper.  Call me old fashioned, but it really helps me see what I’m doing) the pages I would like to see on the site.  Joomla! is easiest when you have an idea of the content you will want on your website.  While you can of course make changes and update the information, it is best to have an idea of where you want the site to go before starting to build the site.

If your intention is to have the article act as a static page, you will need to take one more step when creating the article.  You will need to go into the “Article Options” (either while you are creating the article, or by clicking on the article title in “Article Manager”.  Everything that is set to “Use Global” should be changed to “Hide” or “No”.  This will prevent odd information, like the article title, creation date, and author from showing up on the pages you create.  While this is perfect for a blog page, it can be confusing on a static page.

My suggestion is to create blank Articles for the pages you want to see on your site.  So, for example, if you want a page on your site titled “Reviews” you would first create an article (Content – Article Manager – Add New Article) make the title “Reviews” and then leave the content area blank.  You can then add this to the menu (Menus – Main Menu – Add New Menu Item) and select “Single Article” (Menu Item Type – Articles – Single Article) for the Menu Item Type.  This will allow you to select the article you just created and will generate the blank webpage on your site.  You can then add modules to customize the appearance of the page.

If you are looking for a blog look, you can go through the same process of adding the page to the menu, but instead of selecting “Single Article” you have a few options to have a page of posts.  You can select featured articles, which will pull up articles that you label as “featured”.  This, however, may be a problem if you are using an image rotator or another module that pulls from the featured articles.  Then everything you want in your blog would also be pulled by that module.  A better option would be to select “Category List” which will pull from a selected category.  If you are only having one blog page, you can create a category called “Blog” or something to that effect and use the “Blog” category when selecting which category that page should pull from.   Choosing “Category List” will also allow you to have multiple blog pages by selecting a different category for each page.  You will just need to create a category for each of those topics.  (Content – Category Manager – Add New Category).

So, remember, when working with Joomla! an article is a web page.  You can set up any article in any manner through the use of the menu options and modules.  This will help get you started in the world of Joomla!

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