Open the relevant .phtml template file which contains the code you want to show on the Home page. Then add the code below depending on which version of Magento you are using…

In Magento version 1.4.x you need to run a check to see if the current URL matches the Home page URL. This piece of code is called a conditional. Our conditional to check if we are on the Home page would look like this…

<?php if( $this->getUrl('') == $this->getUrl('*/*/*', array('_current'=>true, '_use_rewrite'=>true)) ):?>
Your HTML here...
<?php endif; ?>

In version 1.5, the Magento developers were kind enough to include a new global function…

$this->getIsHomePage();

So if you use Magento 1.5.x or newer, can use this conditional in our .phtml file…

<?php if( $this->getIsHomePage() ):?>
Your HTML here...
<?php endif; ?>

Much neater!

Billy, one of the developers here at Optimise Web, wrote this small, yet effective script to add a class of “active” to all links on the page which link to the current page in the browser…

jQuery(document).ready(function($){
 var url = window.location; // get current URL
 $('a[href="'+url+'"]').addClass('active'); // add class of 'active' to selected links matching current url
});

In this state any link will get the “active” class added. It would be better to be more specific with the jQuery slector. This would make the javascript more efficient as it is not having to search the entire page for links. So, as an example, I wanted this script to only target links in my menu. So I changed…

$('a[href="'+url+'"]').addClass('active');

to…

$('nav ul a[href="'+url+'"]').addClass('active');

Say you wanted to highlight the current page’s link in your menu with red text, in your CSS you can add styling to your links like this…

nav ul a.active {color:#900000;}

And that’s it. Simple!

When reading through the internet I found a fix for this issue. Very simple!

Add the following to your css and the bottom margin / white space will be gone…

img {display: block;}

Original Source

Seth Godin is a popular marketing guru and he writes some really interesting articles on his blog. I spotted his new article – ‘Things to ask before you redo your website’. The article is spot on and a must read. The web design business has been around for a decent while and only now are businesses finally grasping the true value of a well planned web strategy. I would like to highlight a few important facts before you head on to Seth Godin’s blog.

Public relations face of your business – Visitors, potentials, and customers would want to find information about your company, products, and services. Your website creates the perception of your brand in the minds of the visitors. What they see on the website is what they perceive.

Hits / Visitors / Conversions – Thanks to all those SEO (search engine optimisation) conmen, the entire purpose of websites have been misunderstood to be a war of competitors that take place on Google. Websites require a lot of hits (number of page views). Some of those hits will qualify as a quality visitor (someone who is interested in your products). The visitor will convert to a customer if you can convince them that you can provide the products they are looking for; at the right price; and to the expected quality of service. Conversions have nothing to do with search engines, even though SEO helps you get noticed. If your website’s strategy is not precise, you can get a million hits but end up with no conversions!

Time is money. Act fast – The web is a fast changing medium. For every minute you waste, you are allowing thousands of other businesses / web entrepreneurs to win over you. Set aside some time for your website and PR. What might be surprising is that businesses spend thousands on print and TV advertising and fail to invest similar time and money into their websites. After seeing your print advertisement your potential customers will want to head to your website. You don’t really want to waste the effort and investment that you put into your print campaign to be ruined by a website that couldn’t live up to the expectations of the customer.

Rather than me trying to regurgitate the checklist all over again, I thought it would be a good idea to post a link to his article. Click here to read it.