matthewmorek

Guys, I would greatly appreciate if you could let me know if the module works with version 1.5.x of Prestashop. I'd like to update the codebase to support the upcoming new releases. In case of issues, please report them on the GitHub page: https://github.com/m...ule-boilerplate

I've been working this week on something special that I wanted to share with all of you. Since there are a lot of developers out there who like me, have to always start from a clean PHP file to create a module for Prestashop, I decided to write and package a boilerplate, much like it is with HTML5, but for Prestashop. The package is a working module skeleton/framework, which you can use as a base to create your own modules. Please feel free to download, modify and redistribute the package as you please. I hope it's going to be useful for someone. If you have any comments, recommendations or found a bug (nobody's perfect), feel free to drop me a line here, or report the issue on GitHub. https://github.com/m...ule-boilerplate

OK, few things here. I know it might sound blunt and offensive, but it's just a friendly advice on how to get your business some revenue, as to me you seem to be a person who has read few things here and there and is trying to make an e-commerce business anyways. 1. SEO basics: Content is king! Choose your keywords properly, think about what people might type to get to your products in search engines and put some relevant content wrapping it around some basic HTML structure (H1, H2, tags and anchor text). Enable Google Analytics, create an account and track your site properly! Also you can (if you wish) invest in Google AdWords (not AdSense!) to gain some paid search traffic to your site. Get a Google Webmaster Tools account, verify your site and set it up, decide what kind of canonicalization method you want to use for your address (http://www.yoursite.com or http://yoursite.com) and stick to it! Create SEO friendly url, rewrites and if required redirects. These are all basics! 2. User Interface: Get rid of AdSense as you may be loosing prospects, there is no need for it unless you want to advertise some other retailers. Put yourself in an average visitor's position. You want to find something. You want to find it quickly. Visitors don't like to wait! Put a search bar somewhere visible and maybe put a focus on it using JavaScript so user could type straight away. Whatever you do always try to direct your traffic to the homepage. Yu can use it to steer user's attention and point them to specific products using simple methods, like CTA's. 2.1. Less is More: You think that your interface is maybe cool, cause it's clear - but it's not that clear. You've got too much stuff to choose from, there is not enough whitespace to rest your eyes on, so visitor is bombarded with stuff. It hurts his/her eyes. They don't like it. You loose business. Don't try to fill every available space with content. Give it some space. Generally users won't even look beyond the fold if they see something interesting up in front. so don't put 16 different items on the homepage cause the more you give them, the more you distract them. 2.2. Don't even compare yourself to Amazon or eBay. These guys WILL ALWAYS have traffic as they have already established their brands. Start small, and grow. As every business does. Put relevant and important links to FAQs, About pages or Delivery T&C;'s. This is all important. If they know where you are and how to contact you besides your website, you are already earning rep. 3. Homepage: This is where you unfortunately fail if it comes to a business model. You push too hard. Use your homepage as a road sign for your prospects, tell them where to go, make it clear and easy, and they will follow. 4. Checkout & security: Get SSL! Nothing is generating more bounces than a lack of security in front of your store. Get good SSL cert and tell users about it. Tell them it's secure. Tell them about the security of paying through your gateways. It all matters. This is it for now folks. Don't give up on your businesses. It's a tough piece of life. But we can all make it. Now about the previous post from Netman. 5.1 General site SEO must be always the most important one, unless you just want to have sales and no brand at all. You want to generate conversions not visits! 5.2 Google Base (or Google Products) is a good thing, but only if you have already good traffic to your homepage and want to promote your products directly through Google Search. It's a tricky thing to get there though. It's not necessary to get it straight away. 5.3 Google AdWords. If you know how to create your advertising campaign, know how to select keywords etc this will generate a lot of traffic, but there is a catch. If you use it in the beginning when the site is barely recognizable for Search Engines than you loose money. You don't have to spend a lot there. And you pay for clicks not on a daily basis, so only if somebody clicks on your link Google takes a piece of money. That's how we call it: PPC Campaigns. And if you didn't know - Google's not the only one doing it. 5.4 Link exchange can be deadly. If a relevant page has some nice matching content and a good PR factor, than it's cool. But remember that if the link is coming from the URL you are pointing to as well Google will ignore both of them respectively. Large businesses are paying for links thousands of pounds every year to increase their PR's and position in Google. I don't think you have that budget. 6. It seems that you don't have an idea of what product optimisation is at all. You have to make it stand out, be presentable and have clear call to actions. On the product pages there is nothing that could say anything special for your item. Nothing that would indicate to your prospective customer: "hey, I'm here, buy me now!". There is no CTA's as all of them are blurred by the use of the same colors EVERYWHERE. Make it stand out. Prices: Including prices in title tags or heading tags is a waste of keyword space. Nobody is searching for "wii for 80 quid". They search for "wii bargains" etc. If Google sees that that the price is relevant to users search it will be displayed within the summary, don't you worry! Sorry for showing no mercy, but it's better to get your mind in the right directions before you will start "educating" other people about something that is not very helpful or can even ruin their businesses. I'm not saying you are 100% wrong, cause you're getting there, but there are things that could be improved. If you want to know more about things that I've mentioned look here: www.smashingmagazine.com www.sixrevisions.com www.uxbooth.com www.usabilitypost.com http://designreviver.com/ One more thing: one month it's definitely not enough to start a successful e-commerce business. It's an ongoing thing. Always. Hope I've helped few people. If you have any questions - I'm here. Matt

Yeah, I had this error for about a year now. There is a class defined within Prestashop that should take care of any PNGs, but it seems that it's not working at all. It has to be the image processor that does not recognize the file at all.

Hi, you're missing this piece of code: $currentIndex .= "&id_category=".$id_category."&token=".$this->token; from function display() in the file AdminCatalog.php in admin/tabs after this: if (!$id_category) $id_category = 1; This should work for sure!