Are you a beginner, enthusiastic to enter the vast world of Magento but don’t know where to start?
We know that the platform can be overwhelming at the outset, whether you’re a developer, merchant or a marketer. Scavenging for resources online can be time-consuming, and being a newbie in the industry, you won’t know if your sources are trustworthy or not.
I’ve compiled this blog post to give you an idea of what your learning journey will look like (whether you’re a developer, a merchant, or any other professional related to Magento 2). I’ve also added relevant and authority resources everywhere, so let’s begin!
Table of Content:
- Learn Magento 2 Basics
- Learn Magento 2: for Merchants
- Learn Magento 2 for Developers
- Important resources and people to follow (for all professionals)
Learn Magento 2
1. Basics
Let’s break down this process into steps. Please note that the following steps are going to be common for all Magento professionals.
1.1 Magento’s history and definition.
Whether you’re a developer, a merchant, or just anybody interested in knowing the platform, you have to thoroughly understand its background and workings as a first step.
Some basic facts about Magento you should know:
- It is an Open Source eCommerce software built on PHP and Zend framework.
- Its first version was released in 2007 by Varien, and its 2nd version, Magento 2 was released in 2015.
- It works on three main components- Plugins, themes, and modules.
- Currently, around 250,000 websites work on Magento.
If you want to dig a little deeper, you can visit Magento’s Wikipedia page and/or this Quora thread. These two resources should suffice in giving you not just a brief introduction, but also the terms and technologies associated with the platform.
1.2 Read how it compares with other popular platforms like OpenCart, Shopify, etc.
This step is essential, because it will give you a holistic view of the industry, and you’ll understand where Magento shines and where it falls short. You can use this knowledge for your benefit when you start working on the platform.
Here are some resources:
The above two blogs will give you the advantages and disadvantages of using Magento, along with areas where it outperforms its competitors.
Some major takeaways you should know:
- Magento is an industry leader when it comes to SEO, customizations, scalability and its feature set.
- It offers superior performance provided you follow best practices and choose the right hosting service.
- It doesn’t rank very high on ease of use. You need technical knowledge and a development team to work and maintain it.
- It works best for medium to large scale businesses and businesses that have expansion plans in the foreseeable future.
- The software is Open Source, but the overall cost of running a store on Magento is high.
1.3 Learn Magento 2 features and functionalities
Magento has around 350+ inbuilt features, with thousand plus extensions for both its versions. You can add plugins for store maintenance, SEO enhancements, marketing campaigns, customer experience optimization, payment gateways, performance improvement, security, shipment methods and much more!
Magento also offers a lot of third-party prebuilt themes that you can either customize or use as they come. Moreover, you can build your own themes and extensions too!
Mentioning Magento’s entire feature palette is beyond the scope of this article. Here is a feature list released by Magento. It talks about all the additional functionalities you can add to your Magento store. You can also visit the Magento marketplace to take a look at all themes, plugins, and partners.
Additionally, if you’re looking to make a decision on what plugins and themes to add, these two resources should help you:
2. Learn Magento 2: for Merchants
As a Magento store owner, you probably have a lot of questions in your mind. The first things you should know is:
2.1 Cost: How much does building a website on Magento cost?
Magento has 2 plans:
i) Magento Open Source: You can download the Magento 2 software for free from their website. However, you will have to pay for hosting services, development services, plugins, and themes, etc.
ii) Magento Commerce: Magento Commerce is a paid solution. It includes hosting and other features like priority support and premium themes & plugins.
If we take a rough estimate, running a store on Magento could cost you anything between $20,000 p.a to $150,000 p.a, depending on your needs. Here’s a short breakdown of the cost:
- Extensions and themes can cost $0 – $2200. The cost will be zero if you download free themes or hire developers to make one from scratch. Please note that developers will cost you money too.
- Hosting can cost anywhere between $120-$2400 per year depending on the type of hosting you’ve chosen. With Magento- Cloud-based, fully managed hosting is advised due to the heavy nature of its software.
- Development cost also depends on whether you choose to hire an agency, an in-house team, or freelancers.
For a full guide on Magento pricing, you can visit this blog: Magento 2 Pricing: How Much You’ll Have to Pay
2.2 Magento U Courses
Magento, as a brand, is big on making its customer’s overall experience with the platform as hassle-free as possible. It has designed courses for all professionals that are in some way related to Magento. Be it store owners, developers, marketers, admins, or business analysts.
For merchants, you can find the relevant courses here. The courses include both paid and free options.
Through these courses, you can get an intro on the Magento platform, how to manage your store, how to edit content using page builder, and so on.
Additionally, you can check out this beginner course on Udemy, which has a 4/5 rating.
2.3 How to hire developers and hosting services?
Your developers and hosting service could make or break your online store, so it’s important to hire these services after careful deliberation.
A). Developers
In order to hire developers, you need to be clear on the following things:
- Your budget
- Your requirements ( whether you need somebody full-time or on a project basis, etc.)
- The level of skillset you want
- The experience and certifications you want
This guide shall give you all the information on what you need to look for in your ideal candidate and where you can find them:
How to Hire Magento 2 Developer: Guide to Get the Best Talent [2020]
B). Hosting service
A hosting service is responsible for:
- The speed and uptime of your website
- All the data related to your store
- The security and scalability of your website
You need to evaluate your hosts on the basis following criteria:
- What type of hosting are they providing? (cloud-based, shared, dedicated, etc)
- Are they offering any add-ons like free SSL certificates, DNS, or daily backups?
- How good is their customer support?
- Are they transparent in their pricing?
- What features do they have to improve the performance and speed of the website?
- What kind of reviews do they have on review sites like Hostadvice, WHtop, etc?
Some suggestions: Magento is a resource taxing platform. I would advice strictly against shared hosting because it leaves your site vulnerable to hacking attacks, slowdowns during traffic spike, domain blocking, etc. If you were on some other platform like WooCommerce shared hosting could work without any hiccups. But when it comes to Magento, it just doesn’t meet the demands.
It’s best to go for either dedicated hosting or cloud hosting. Look for hosts that provide a fully managed solution along with 24×7 support. Also, don’t be discouraged by a higher price. Analyze the features being offered and see if the cost is justified. In the case of Magento, a relatively higher cost mostly is.
Check out this blog for more information about this: Choosing the Best Magento Hosting: The Ultimate Guide
Webscoot.io provides fully managed Cloud hosting powered by AWS. We’ve been catering to Magento clients for 7+ years now. Do check out our services.
3. Learn Magento 2 for Developers
3.1 How to learn Magento 2 from scratch?
- Apart from knowing Magento’s architecture, you should know basic coding languages and technologies like HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, MySQL, XML, etc.
- Then there are of course, the Magento U courses we talked about eariler. There are trainings for both backend and frontend developers. The following image shows the learning path for backend developers.
- Fortunately for deveopers, Magento is well documented. You can find all the technical information you’ll need on their DevDocs, from installation to file configuration to module development and so on.
- You can follow Magento Devchannel on Youtube and follow their blogs regularly to get updates and guides.
3.2 What certifications can you get?
Getting Magento 2 certifications will instantly establish your expertise in the field. There are courses and study guides available for every certification on their respective pages. The prerequisite knowledge and level of experience required are also clearly mentioned.
All you need to do is see if your meet the requirements and take the online test!
4. Important resources and people to follow (for all professionals)
A). Important people to follow
1.Ben marks
He is a Magento evangelist at Adobe. He is one of the most experienced professionals in the Magento industry and is an active representative of the Magento community. You can find him giving advice on everything Magento related, from new releases to the future of the platform.
2. Alan Kent
Alan Kent was the VP of architecture for Magento Commerce for two years. He has vast knowledge on all Magento’s product ranges and features. He has been working in the eCommerce industry for years now. You can find a lot of Magento and eCommerce related articles on his blog.
3. Anton Kril
He is the current Director of Architecture at Magento Commerce. His skills and knowledge come highly recommended, and you can find a lot videos on Magento development on his YouTube channel.
B.) Magento Events
Meet Magento events are organized all across the globe. They’re the perfect place to be if you’re new to the industry. By attending these events you can:
- Network with potential clients and industry veterans.
- Attend speeches and presentations by noted speakers and gain knowledge.
- Find out emminent personalities in the Magento community you should be following.
Read the following blog to get an exact idea of what happens in Meet Magento events: Meet Magento India 2020- Highlights
C). Important resources
I’ve already mentioned a lot of resources above, but I’ll mention them once more just for convenience’s sake.
- Magento’s Blog
- Magento’s Devchannel and Devdocs
- Magento U courses and certifications
- Blogs, speeches, and videos released by industry leaders
- Github, stack exchange, and Magento community forums
Additionally, you can also follow Webscoot’s blog for all Magento-related information. We provide all essential guides, best practices, and industry updates related to Magento.
If you any other queries regarding learn Magento 2, do contact us or mention in the comments below. We’d love to have a chat!
Divya loves writing and is passionate about marketing. When not trying to hone her skills, you’ll find her either reading or binging on TV shows.
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