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Magento is one of the world’s most popular eCommerce platforms. It’s estimated to power a third of all e-commerce websites on the internet. Magento is great for both web developers and business owners as an open source system with built-in e-commerce tools and fantastic official support.

Magento 1 has been continuously updated and upgraded over the years, with numerous patches and updates. These updates have enabled website owners to keep their version of the software up to date with the latest functionality whilst maintaining a secure site.

In November 2015, Magento 2 was released as an upgraded Magento platform with some major changes and fantastic new features.

What makes Magento 2 different?

Magento 2 isn’t just an upgrade: it’s a completely new piece of software. Think of it as a rebuild of the entire Magento platform from the ground up. If you want to find out more about new M2 features, we’ve already written about the differences between Magento 1 and 2

This means that moving to Magento 2 involves a complete website rebuild, which isn’t as straightforward as applying a patch or an upgrade.

When will support for Magento 1 end?

After announcing the release of version 2, Magento announced that support for version 1 would be ending. This allows Magento developers to focus on developing the new version of Magento, ensuring that it offers the best possible functionality, new features and security.

Initially, Magento provided a cut-off date of November 2018. Every store running on Magento 1 would need to have been upgraded by November 2018.

This was the original date at which Magento would stop releasing security updates. Merchants with a v.1 Magento site would be left susceptible to hacking and security breaches.

The announcement of this cut-off date created panic in the Magento community, as suddenly Magento developers were in short supply.

Magento finally acknowledged that this was an impossible task for Magento developers and website owners, as there simply weren’t enough Magento developers to cope with building the number of sites required within the original timeframe.

Thankfully, Magento decided the original the cut-off date was to be abandoned.

As long as version 1 security updates are applied as they are received, your site will remain secure and up-to-date for the time being.

Whilst this is reassuring for site owners who are yet to upgrade to Magento 2, it’s important to remember that this is just an extension of the deadline and that the end of support for Magento 1 sites is fast approaching.

Latest Magento Update

Magento announced in September that the cut-off date for Magento 1 support will be June 2020.

Magento will not support Enterprise or Community Edition customers after this deadline. The only support will be unofficial support from within the Magento community. This would leave any Magento 1 site owner vulnerable, therefore we urge all Magento 1 merchants who haven’t moved over yet to do so now.

If you are the owner of a Magento 1 site and are reading this, you should seriously think about upgrading to Magento 2 ASAP.

What steps should your business be taking now?

The upgrade process isn’t simple and could take a few months to complete, even for the simplest sites. It’s important to have a plan of action now to ease your transition. It’s also important to make sure that upgrading to Magento 2 doesn’t affect your site’s SEO, which could lead to a drop in traffic and sales. Setting your Magento 2 website up for good SEO is very important and needs to be done with a full understanding of how your specific site is set up. It also needs to be done before your new site goes live or you will likely be causing significant crawl problems and your websites ongoing SEO will suffer.

Our skilled Magento developers and digital marketing team are well equipped to deal with any e-commerce transition over to Magento 2. We aim to support our clients throughout this transition, ensuring that everything runs smoothly throughout the process. We especially focus on your SEO, researching all your current rankings and popular pages to ensure your rankings are moving over with your new site in a structured and planned way.

There is high demand for Magento developers right now, so it’s vital to book your slot before it’s too late!

Need some advice from Magento experts?

Web-Feet is a full-service digital agency based near Southampton in Hampshire, UK. We specialise in e-commerce website development, with an in-house team of experienced Magento developers. We are also specialists in data-driven SEO with a focus on actionable data and strategies.

If you’d like any further advice on upgrading from Magento 1 to Magento 2, feel free to get in touch.

Blogging shouldn’t really be optional if you’re running a business. It’s a fantastic way to generate leads, drive traffic to your site, establish authority and can produce long term results. The only thing blogging costs you is your time – and a blog is constantly generating leads even when you’re not working. Hopefully this post will convince you that you’re missing out by not having a blog on your site!

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WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system (CMS), powering over 25% of the world’s ten million largest websites and almost 60% of all websites using a CMS – but that doesn’t mean it is the best. We’ve had a few people come in with concerns over WordPress’ security and reliability – so in this post we’ll discuss some of the common problems with WordPress and show your our solution – Coaster.

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A content management system is vital for ensuring your website runs smoothly and is easy to maintain – so it’s vital you choose the CMS best suited to your business. There are endless different platforms available, so here we will go through some of the most popular and explain the basics, to help you make the right choice.

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It’s not uncommon for a business to come to us and say they want a WordPress website. This is interesting because they aren’t coming to us and saying they want a content managed (CMS) website or a WordPress blog but a WordPress website, which suggests that perhaps they don’t actually know why they want a WordPress website in the first place. First of all, by way of a disclaimer, we have built our own CMS (Content Management System) platform from the ground up, so yes we are biased, however, if you are interested in having a website work for your business rather than work your business around your website, then read on. Also, we built our own CMS for a reason, if WordPress really was the best CMS solution out there, and it’s free, why would we bother? WordPress is essentially a blogging platform, written using open source code, that has thousands of plug-ins to do everything from e-commerce to search engine optimisation. It also has a database sitting behind it so to use it to manage content (i.e. a CMS) is technically, fairly straight forward. Herein however, lies the rub. For WordPress to do anything other than blogging, it needs plug-ins. These plug-ins slow it down and create potential security issues. They also create an admin headache because each and every plug-in is it’s own entity. Even a basic WordPress installation needs at least five plug-ins, this along with regular WordPress updates makes for a bit of an admin headache. Equally, if you ignore all the updates, you risk creating security issues. This is where the potential for your website to stop being an asset to your business and more like a headache becomes very real. Also, you have to work your business around how WordPress or it’s plug-ins work, not how you want to work. For instance, even getting a page laid out exactly how you want it can sometimes be a headache and very frustrating, leading to much wasted time or a poorly formatted web page. There’s also no guarantee that it will work or be displayed consistently across all platforms and devices, what if it doesn’t? Who’s going to fix this for you? If you run a business, you’ve probably got bigger fish to fry, not waste valuable time evaluating WordPress plug-ins. Trying, installing, evaluating and uninstalling plug-ins takes time. Our approach is to listen to you about how your business works, what systems you are using and how you are using them, and also, how your website can make your business work more efficiently and underpin your brand and it’s values. We take this information and build a website, with a content management system that is tailored to how you want to run your business, and if you want to add functionality, you can without having to search for a plug-in that might fit the bill. Now, in the short term this might mean making a slightly bigger investment in your website, but in the long term, you win in every way. So, if someone is trying to sell you a WordPress website because it’s what everyone else uses, perhaps you should question their motives – are they trying to make life easier for you, or themselves? Oh, and finally, don’t think we are anti WordPress, we’re not, in actual fact this blog uses WordPress, because it’s great at that (and that’s also why we haven’t built our own blogging platform).