Magento ®, as well as many other platforms for creating websites, has its own features in design and work.
Let us review how themes for Magento ® are designed, what they consist of and what terms are used for them.
Free Magento Themes Structure
The theme is a general view of an online store, its shell, and design. They are also called templates. It sets the framework for how your eCommerce store solution will look in the eyes of your viewers. Not all themes are created equal which is why there are requirements to pay for some themes while others are free.
Free themes typically offer the base level resources while bypassing more advanced concepts that you would pay for in a theme that you invested in. Even so, there are many reasons to opt into free themes over other more expensive ones.
One of the biggest reasons is that you save money. If you are just getting started this can be an important game changer. Once you are confident in what you are bringing to the market and hopefully bringing forth a steady cash flow, you can always upgrade to a paid theme should you find it necessary.
Another reason to use a free theme even long-term would be in the event of your Magento ® project is more of a hobby than a business. Even if it is a business, perhaps you are doing it on the side while continuing your day job. In such a case, cutting as many expenses as possible is an important ingredient to your success.
Can you think of other reasons you might opt for a free theme over one that you would pay for? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, we look forward to reading them.
As it relates to finding your own Magento theme it is important to note that there are two ways to make your site design unique – create your own theme or secure it from another resource. In either case, let’s take a look at how to proceed.
6 Must-Have Features Of Free Magento Themes
Responsive Design: Integrates mobile media functionality. Given that this is a key ranking factor in today’s market and the fact of how many people search via mobile media, having a responsive design is critical.
Browser Compatibility: Does the theme you are looking to provide support for all of today’s browser interfaces. If your user is connecting from a browser that your site doesn’t support the result will be a lost sale even before it began.
SEO Optimized: A beautiful site that doesn’t allow for organic ranking is little more than a digital paperweight. You need to make sure that SEO strategies can be easily integrated into your eCommerce theme before you launch it.
Social Integration: Another must have in your Magento ® theme is social integration. Themes that make it easy to connect socially increase the ability for you to get the word of your site out to the world.
Payment Processing: Even if you get everything else correct if your potential buyer does not have the ability to use the payment gateways that you have established you will lose the sale. Not because of a lack of interest on their part, but because your eCommerce store has become more of a burden than a blessing in their lives.
Multilingual: The perfect site with the best message which can’t be read by the viewing visitor is a lost sale even before it has a chance to get started.
When it comes to launching your own Magento ® theme what other attributes would you want to have included? Share your ideas in the comments below as these are just 6 of the many important ingredients of the best Magento ® theme attributes.
Themes for Magento ® consist of:
1. Standard XML template files. The principal theme construction depends on these ‘details’;
2. Phtml templates. These files are responsible for what specific parts of the general layout would look like, e.g. ‘My account’ page or a checkout page;
3. Skins or CSS – your store design styles.
The themes can also be distinguished by the following parameters:
1. Standard and custom (non-standard);
2. Multilanguage, regional or designed to work for one country only.
Let us review their differences, and begin with standard themes. They are classic variants of a Magento ® store design. The standard or default theme is visible to both customers and administrators. These templates are the most popular because they do not require any programming skills. They have in-built pages and options that your customers may need and all you have to do is to enable or disable them when necessary.
At the same time, custom themes are very convenient if you need to change your store design occasionally. You can configure the style tables according to your wish, add or remove some options without harming your store functionality, change the layout of the page according to the season and many other things. Another key feature of these templates is that you can place products which cannot be added to the cart by customers, e.g. those out of stock or coming soon.
The themes for Magento ® even have their own hierarchy. Remember that a custom theme will always be higher than a standard one.
As we have mentioned above, each theme has skins – this is what you see in a web store. They indicate the font and its color, the presence of some blocks and options, theme shell, background images, product images and many others. Beside that, in some themes, skins may include JavaScript files. Thanks to such variety of skins you can even modify a standard theme to look unusual and more convenient from the point of view of usability – you will only need to work on it in the editor.
Layouts are the most complicated files in themes for Magento ®. They are written in XML which makes them highly flexible when you need to add new functions and styles or remove those that are unnecessary. Particularly, you can:
1. Forbid using JavaScript on some web store pages;
2. Add some CSS templates;
3. Fully remove certain blocks to free some space for others. For example, if you have a three-column theme you can make it two-columns instead.
But when you edit separate blocks remember that there are two types of them in Magento ®:
1. Content blocks which are fully dependable on a theme for Magento ®, they can include product descriptions, images, and reviews;
2. Structural blocks are parts of the page. Header, sidebar and other page zones are in those blocks.
In many cases, you will not need to edit the whole theme since you can modify some design or functionality of your store using extensions for Magento ® developed by GoMage. But if you do edit your theme, remember the possible consequences of doing so. If you choose to modify your theme for Magento ® and do not have enough programming skills, the best decision would be to consult with specialists or use their help for that work. In the process you can determine if paid or free Magento themes would be the best choice for your own individual requirements.
