[iSenseLabs Weekly 85] New OpenCart Features & Fixes, Video Tutorials and Latest E-Commerce News

One of the last Fridays of 2017 has almost passed.

We hope you’ve had a productive year, so that your holiday gifts are well deserved.

The highlights of our week were the new version of SEO Backpack which adds a lot of new features to the extension, as well as the latest fixes in NitroPack which had significant improvements to the PageSpeed score in our latest tests.

So, here are the updates. Make sure to download the latest versions of your OpenCart modules!

SEO Backpack 2.7 (OC 2.0.1.x - 2.3.x)

New feature: Added language folder prefixes for the SEO URLs. For example: https://www.yoursite.com/de/iphone5. The feature can be managed from Admin Panel -> Extensions -> SEO Backpack -> URLs & Linking -> Advanced Settings

New feature: Added automatic SEO URL generation for products. Can be managed from Admin Panel -> Extensions -> SEO Backpack -> URLs & Linking -> Advanced Settings

New feature: Added automatic SEO URL generation for categories

New feature: Added automatic SEO URL generation for manufacturers

New feature: Added automatic SEO URL generation for information pages

New feature: Added Facebook App ID as a meta property tag

New feature: Added filter in '404 Detected Pages' report

New feature: Added filter in the '404 Redirects' list

Improvement: Added support for non-ASCII characters in the 'Page Crawler'

Improvement: Multi-lingual support for H1 and H2 tags editing for the product page

Improvement: URL transliteration support for Greek characters

Improvement: URL transliteration support for Bulgarian characters

Bug fix: Fixed incorrect query, used for managing the manufacturer's data

Bug fix: Fixed issues in the 'Advanced Editor' if the fields contain single or double quotes

Bug fix: Compatibility fixes with other third-party modules

Bug fix: Minor fixes & code refactoring

NitroPack 1.8.13 (OC 1.5.2.x - 1.5.6.x), 2.5.13 (OC 2.0.x - 2.3.x) & 3.5.13 (OC 3.0.x)

Bug fix: Fix an issue with detecting import statements in CSS when combining

Bug fix: Fix the non-render-blocking loading of CSS and JavaScript under Safari when browser cache is present

Bug fix: Fix the window.onload event when site is loading primarily from browser cache

Bug fix: Displaying of errors is now disabled whenever NitroPack is active. This is to ensure there will be no compression issues.

AskForQuote 1.1.5 (OC 1.5.4.x - 1.5.6.x), 2.5.0 (OC 2.0.x - 2.3.x), 3.5.0 (OC 3.0.x)

Bug fix: Fixed layout issue on mobile devices

Favorite Articles of the Week

3 Simple Ways to Overcome Surprising Challenges of Working from Home

By Copyblogger

A big part of owning an E-Commerce site is connected with doing work from your home. But this can create challenges such as distractions and lack of productivity. This post can show you a few ways to start overcoming those hurdles and get some work done from the comfort of your home.

3 SEO Problems You’re Probably Not Monitoring

By Alexa Blog

You’ve been hearing a lot about good and recommended SEO practices to increase your ranking, but you’ve probably not heard of these 3 problems. Ignoring tactics that get punished by Google penalties or “keyword cannibalization” can prevent your site from getting those higher positions, so check this post to see how to handle them.

7 Ways to Increase Ecommerce Sales (Without Discounting)

By The Good

Promotions and discounts are among the most popular ways to spike sales, but can you get the same result without leaving some of the money on the table? The methods suggested by The Good are nothing new, but it’s the way you can combine them that will make a difference for your sales without diminishing your products’ value.

How to Fix the Product Return Email Notifications in OpenCart 2.2.0.0 - 3.0.2.0

By iSenseLabs

The emails customers should get for their product return updates might not work as expected in some OpenCart versions. In this tutorial, we have prepared a fix that you can implement and resolve any possible issues you may have with your store not sending the emails or sending them only from the main store email address.

iSenseLabs Videos

OpenCart 3.x System Settings Configuration PART 5 (Server)

Pick Of the Week

A free UX / UI Icon Collection by inVision is available for you to use for any kind of project you have. They are available in PNG and SVG format.