Magento Ecommerce Themes: Replacing An Existing One

In order to simplify this process, you can install a new template without removing the previous one.

Magento 2 eCommerce Themes: How To Replace Existing Themes

In order to do this, it is necessary to upload the folder App, skin and media of the new template into your active Magento directory. As soon as the folders are present on the server, go to System > Design and choose default folder.

Then, select your recently uploaded theme on the server. Go to CMS > Pages > Home page > Content in the newly installed template. In this section, you will find the code which needs to be copied into the same place of the working template.

The same actions need to be done in the “Design” section. It is necessary to copy the corresponding XML content into the working template of Magento.

It is important that the Layout settings of the old and new templates should be identical. The last step would be going to CMS > Static blocks and replacing the code of each block with the code of the new theme. However, this should not be done for block Footer links. After the settings are saved the changes will be applied to the site. If this does not happen all at once, flush the cache and try again.

7 Critical Magento Ecommerce Themes Selection Factors

There are many details that go into picking the right theme for your Magento eCommerce store. Following are 7 that we recommend not missing. Which of the following 7 would you say is most important?

1. Theme Customization

When opting for a new Magento theme, make sure that it offers the bells and whistles that your store really needs. One way to do this is to create a list of 3 to 5 theme finalists. Once done, compare and contrast their similarities and differences until you identify the one that will work best for you.

NOTE: Considering the following factors in the process of theme selection can help you understand which theme will work best beyond topics strictly targeted to customized processes.

2. User-Friendly

Test your theme on the example pages that are provided. Perhaps the Magento theme you are considering will give you some live links to check out. It is a good idea to do so in order to ensure that it is easy to interact with the theme on such topics as navigation, product selection, and purchasing processes as well as other associated factors.

When considering how friendly a particular theme is or is not consider the audience that you will be reaching.  Choosing a very basic theme for a more technically advanced audience may be just as bad as opting into a more sophisticated Magento theme when your core audience has a more basic digital understanding.

The best way to understand who your core audience is would be to create a demographic persona answering questions regarding their occupations, gender, hobbies, socio-economic positions, income, marital status, number of children and more. The more you know your core audience the greater the possibility that you will be able to build your eCommerce store solution directly around them.

3. New Technologies

It is highly recommended to always opt for themes that are offering the latest and greatest technological solutions. The more you do this the more your store will be seen as highly relevant within the buying process.

Potential areas of consideration when it comes to technologies may include marketing opportunities like what is offered by social media platforms or payment gateways such as Paypal. Examples of when to upgrade your eCommerce store solution based on new technological developments may include anything from not updating to HTTPS when Google announced that it was going to now be a ranking factor to not adjusting your site to be responsive when mobile media became all the rage.

As technology makes improved adjustments to new industry standards it is important to stay abreast of the latest greatest news so that you are able to respond accordingly as requirements evolve within the digital marketing sphere.

4. Responsive Design

In today’s world, you need built mobile friendly sites that will work nicely both with traditional (laptop/desktop) means of access and newer mobile media alternatives.

As mentioned above, your Magento eCommerce store solution must be responsive in today’s market for you to gain the best advantage. Gone are the days when responsive design was an optional attribute to offer to your site’s visitors. Today, it is a ranking factor that can keep your site from ranking on major search engines including Google.

5. Theme Speed

Is there anything about this theme that will slow your site down? Google cares about speed as it relates to your Magento eCommerce themes store solution, and so should you. Storefronts that are slow and clunky compared to industry standards are going to result in many people opting for your competitors over you even if you are offering better prices than them.

GTMetrix is an excellent site to uncover exactly how fast or slow your site is performing. Not only does it give you your grade but it also tells you exactly what problems you are having and how to fix them. If this was all that GTMetrix offered it would be an amazing tool, but it can also compare your site speed with that of your competitors so you can see where they are winning the game while setting a course to defeat their success.

6. SEO Optimized

Does your theme make it easy to set up SEO strategies for your project? Here are some excellent questions to research in that regard.

•  Is it easy to enter the meta title and description details?
•  Can I optimize images including adding ALT tags?
•  Does this theme allow me to customize how permalink URL’s display?
•  What processes are in place for implementing internal linking strategies?
•  How do I integrate my social media properties into the theme?
•  Are there added tools and resources to aid in SEO empowerment?
•  Have others left online reviews about the ease of configuring SEO strategies with this theme?

If not, you are going to be fighting an uphill and losing battle. People search for products on Google today. That’s why you want your products and services to show up within the scope of there platform as well as other related search engine alternatives.

7. Social Integration

Does your theme make it easy to integrate into social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others? If not, seriously consider another alternative for your theme. Social media marketing is an important aspect of your entire foundation when it comes to promotions in today’s world.

When integrating social media into your eCommerce theme there are two things to keep in mind. First, you need to provide buttons allowing your visitors the ability to visit these properties. Many sites offer these options from the top, but it is an incorrect decision.  Top buttons are clicked more. When your social media icon is clicked your visitor moves away from your site and toward your social media property.

It’s good that they are still connected to you but bad that they are headed the wrong way within your funnel. At least in the majority of cases, this is the wrong direction for your traffic to be funneling. That’s why we recommend that these options be offered from the footer of your site where they are more of an afterthought though still available for accessing if and when desired.

The second consideration with social media icons is providing share or live button options.  This gives your audience the ability to engage your site and increase your rankings accordingly. When using these icons consider carefully if you will be sharing viewer count details or not. It isn’t such a big deal when you have a large number of engagements or even a few. But what message are you sending your audience when you have 0 engagements? Bottom line, it isn’t a good one.

Magento 2 eCommerce Themes: Image Configuration

The subject for the theme is the file etc / view.xml (if it is not defined in the parent theme), which contains property values for product images, such as height, width, transparency, background color, etc. This file must be completely copied from the base theme (values are not inherited). Image properties are set by identifier and type attributes within the element:

<images module=”Magento_Catalog”>

…

<images/>

The category_page_grid identifier is unique within the theme. The type small_image corresponds to the Small Image Role in the administrative part. Valid values for image types are image, small_image, swatch_image, swatch_thumb, and thumbnail.

After saving the goods, all the images are cached. After resizing, you can run the php (M2_root) / bin / magento catalog command: images: resize to regenerate images.

Skins

Skins in the Magento theme – this is what “makes” the theme look the way it looks.

Skins indicate colors, fonts, and some rules of location, the privilege of CSS files and images. Your Magento skin theme can also include javascript files to change the behavior of your store. Magento skins include files that affect the color schemes of your store and logos.

Layouts and blocks

The layout of various types in Magento, such as the shopping cart, product information pages, and product results page, controls the location of files. Magento layout files are written in Extensible Markup Language (XML). Layouts are also used to add, delete, and manage items in your Magento store images. By manipulating the layout files, you can:

• Include javascript files in certain pages
• Include additional CSS files
• Remove the contents of blocks, such as a basket or callouts from individual pages

Magento has two types of blocks:

1. Content blocks produce code in each structural block, and they use Magento template files to obtain the relevant information that is required for each block.
2. Structural blocks indicate the structure of the page, for example, the header, content (content) areas and footers. The layout uses both types of blocks, as do templates in Magento.

Magento Templates

As mentioned earlier, Magento templates define what will be displayed in each block of content in the form of block content. Template files are built in Phtml.

PHP in these template files is intended solely for the presentation logic node, that is, PHP is used only to create visual changes to your store in the template files. However, this does not affect the operation of the store itself, for example, calculating the cost of items in the basket.

In the standard Magento theme, the structural unit includes an element of your store, for example, a cart, survey, or main content of the page.

Templates in Magento are divided into two types.

• The first type is skeleton templates, which provide a general structure for the page, for example, templates from one column, two columns and three.
• The second type is templates that provide HTML for content blocks for each of the functions that were highlighted earlier.

By working with templates in this way, Magento further separates the contents of the templates from the store layout, which makes it easier to change both the template and the layout without having to worry about the affected friend.

Concluding Thoughts About Ecommerce Themes for Magento

From replacing your Magento theme to finding out key strategies to include in selecting your theme we have looked at a variety of aspects that should be considered for the success of your online store solution.

Which points do you personally believe are of most import when it comes to Magento eCommerce themes? Did we leave something out? Feel free to share your thoughts, views, and opinions in the comments below. We look forward to hearing from you.

Do you need to change a Magento eCommerce Theme? 

GoMage team has 9+ years of experience working with Magento and knows how to ensure that the process of changing an eCommerce theme will run smoothly.

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