In this post, we cover how to display products on the frontpage in Magento 2, how to manage the CMS of Magento 2 and how to use the newsletter in Magento 2. Let's get started.
Further reading:
How to manage sales and promotions in Magento 2
Magento2 extentions, themes and advanced tutorials
Magento2 products and cateories management tutorial
Magento 2 overview, installation and configuration tutorial
Magento 2 maintenance and advanced tutorials
How to Display Products on the Frontpage of Magento 2
Most users find it difficult to display the products they have added on the home page of their store. In this tutorial you will learn how to add a widget for your products and feature them on your home page.
You will have to first login as an administrator to your Magento 2 based store's back end and navigate to Content ? Pages.
Here you will see a list of your store's pages and by clicking on the Select option you will be able to Edit your home page.
In the Page Information tab, you can select a Title, URL, store view and Status of the page.
Click on the Content tab and click on the insert widget button to add a widget for this page.
Now you will be able to choose one of the widget types available. We chose Catalog New product List to feature the newest products from the catalog on the main page. You will also be able to select the number of products on the screen as well as the exact way they are being displayed.
When you are ready get back to the Content tab by clicking on the Insert Widget button and then click the Save Page button to apply the changes to the page.
Further reading:
How to manage sales and promotions in Magento 2
Magento2 extentions, themes and advanced tutorials
Magento2 products and cateories management tutorial
How to use the CMS of Magento 2
The Content Management System (CMS) of your Magento 2 Store is used for creating new pages, blocks and widgets. You can combine those 3 elements to create custom static pages that display parts of your catalog or other useful to the customer information.
To effectively use the Magento 2 CMS, you will need to:
- Step 1: Add a new Page
- Step 2: Add a new Block
- Step 3: Add a new Widget
How Add a new Page
To create a new Page for your Magento 2 Store, you will need to login to your admin area and navigate to the Content>Pages section.
Here you will see all of your Store's pages. Click on the Add New Page button.
Now you can Name the page and set a custom URL for it. You can also choose on which store it can be viewed and set its status to enabled or disabled (hidden).
In the content tab you can add the heading for the page and the content plus any widget you wish to be displayed on this page.
When you are ready with the configuration of the page, click on the Save Page button to create it.
Now you can add this new page on any other by using a link widget. For example if you want to add this page as a link on the home page, you will need to get into your Home Page's edit menu, select the content tab and click on the insert widget button.
After you have configured and inserted the widget, don't forget to also save the page and refresh the page cache if necessary.
Add a new Block
Blocs can be used to separate different categories of your products when featuring them on your home page. To create a new block you will need to navigate to Content ? Blocks.
Let us add a new block by clicking on the Add New Block button and again you will have to configure the new element.
From the options you have, the most important is the identifier as it can be used later for implementing this block into a page via the code of the page. When you are done, click on the Save Block button to create the block.
Add a new Widget
To access the widget management page you will need to navigate to Content ? Widgets from your admin dashboard.
Now you will need to click on the Add Widget button.
Now you will need to select the type of widget and theme for it. Click on the Continue button to proceed to the storefront settings.
Now you can set a Title and Store View for the widget while the Type and Theme are now locked and grayed out from editing.
You can also select a layout for the widget as shown on the storefront.
Congratulations, you can now fully manage your Store's content using the Magento 2 CMS.
Further reading:
How to manage sales and promotions in Magento 2
Magento2 extentions, themes and advanced tutorials
Magento2 products and cateories management tutorial
Magento 2 overview, installation and configuration tutorial
Magento 2 maintenance and advanced tutorials
How to Manage Newsletters in Magento 2
Newsletters are a great marketing tool, as they cost nothing and spread news regarding future promotions on your store, or holiday discounts that can attract more customers.
To manage the Newsletters in Magento 2, you will need to:
- Step 1: Configure Newsletters
- Step 2: Create a Newsletter Template
- Step 3: Send Newsletters
- Step 4: Check Newsletter Report
Configure Newsletters
Before you start sending newsletters to your customers, you might want to check the few configuration settings that come along with the mailing system. For that purpose, login to your admin area and navigate to Stores ? Configuration.
Now access the Customers ? Newsletters section.
Here you will see the templates used in different situations regarding subscription and unsubscription. But the more interesting options are:
- Need to Confirm - If you wish customers to confirm before signing up for the subscription set this to Yes
- Confirmation Email Sender - The "From" in the confirmation email the customer will receive after subscribing
- Allow Guest Subscription - If you set this option to yes, Guests will be able to Subscribe to your Newsletters
Click on the Save Config and refresh the Configuration and Page Cache afterwards if needed.
Create a Newsletter Template
To create a new Newsletter Template you will first have to navigate to the Marketing ? Newsletter Template section from your main admin dashboard.
Click on the Add New Template button to proceed with the configuration of the template.
In the Template Content field, write about the promotion you want to market and then click on the Save Template button.
Send Newsletters
Now you can click the back button to return to the Newsletter Templates manager page. Click on the newly added template and from the drop-down menu select the Newsletter Queue option.
You will be directed to the queue where you can click on the calendar icon next to Queue Date Start to setup the time the newsletter will be sent.
Use the sliders and calendar to precisely setup the send time and press the Save Newsletter button.
Check Newsletter Report
If you think there are issues with your Newsletters or your customers are complaining that some of them haven't received their emails, you can check for issues in the report located in Reports ? Newsletter Problems Report.
Here you will be able to see a detailed report with date/time and exact error number/text for the mails that have failed to send.
Congratulations, you can now fully manage the Newsletter section of your Store and provide your customers with the latest news and promotions available.
Further reading:
How to manage sales and promotions in Magento 2
Magento2 extentions, themes and advanced tutorials
Magento2 products and cateories management tutorial
Overview of Magento2
Magento 2 is the technological continuation of the Magento platform. After a several years of development, Magento 2 shows an impressive advancement in the e-commerce field by bringing some key features and making more efficient resource use of the current generation of Servers. Here are a few of the improvements we mentioned:
- Increased Speed -The full page caching provides an immense boost in loading speed on sequential page visits while the optimized code makes Magento 2 25% faster right after installation compared to version 1.9
- Increased Security - The strengthened hashing algorithms (SHA-256) help in password management while the X-Frame-Options HTTP request header provides protection against clickjacking attacks. There are also new settings regarding mode switching (developer/production) that restrict permissions on application files.
- Improved Scaling Potential - Database separation allows for dedicated databases servicing specific store features thus increasing the potential load the platform can take. On another note, the overall Scalability of the Catalog has been improved by more than 1800%
- Simpler and Faster Checkout Process - During our tests, we managed to checkout from Magento 2 via a credit card in around 40 seconds from start to finish plus the loading times which is extremely fast. This was possible due to a few tweaks in the form fields and the removal of the credit card type menu which is obsolete nowadays. Making the checkout process seamless, is a great improvement that will surely increase the usage of the application.
Magento's ever growing market share, is a sign that the platform is heading in the right direction. The newest installment of the application comes with all new system requirements which must be met in order for it to work.
Further reading:
How to manage sales and promotions in Magento 2
Magento2 extentions, themes and advanced tutorials
Magento2 products and cateories management tutorial
Magento 2 overview, installation and configuration tutorial
Magento 2 maintenance and advanced tutorials
System requirements:
Operating systems (Linux x86-64) - Linux distributions such as RedHat Enterprice Linux (RHEL), CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian etc
Composer (latest stable version) - Composer is required for developers who wish to contribute to the Magento 2 codebase or anyone who wishes to develop Magento extensions
Web servers
- Apache 2.2 or 2.4 with mod_rewrite enabled.
- nginx 1.8 (or latest stable version)
Database
- MySQL 5.6
- MySQL 5.7
PHP
- 5.5.x
- 5.6.x
- Magento 2.3.1 has been tested up to PHP 7.2.11 and support for PHP 7.2 is scheduled for releases 2.3.x+
* Magento no longer supports PHP 5.4.
Required PHP extensions:
- PDO/MySQL
- mbstring
- mcrypt
- hash
- SimpleXML
- curl
- xsl
- dom
- ctype
- iconv
- spl
- zip
- libxml
- gd, ImageMagick 6.3.7 (or later)
- soap
- intl
- bc-math (enterprice edition only)
- openssl
Requirements
Our Magento 2 Hosting is fully compatible with Magento 2 and our plans meet all additional recommendations. Furthermore, our servers are running on SSD disks for the best Magento 2 experience.
Useful Resources for Magento 2 users:
- Magento 2 Hosting
- Official Magento 2 Website
- Magento 2 Documentation
- Official Magento 2 Forum
- Official Magento 2 Blog
