Website Archives - TODAY INDIA

Website Value Appraisal: How to Evaluate Your Website’s Value

Although there are many tools for calculating a website’s worth online, they may not always be accurate. It is for this reason that you ought to understand how to evaluate the value of your website. For example, some of these websites use only income gained from Google AdSense. This is wrong because numerous websites have many other income streams other than Google AdSense. Secondly, income from Google AdSense cannot be considered the standard of measuring ad income since it’s actually very low.

Another factor that has been wrongly used to measure the value of a website is Alexa ranking. Although this is a widely used measure, it is mainly based on the amount of traffic to a given website. To be considered, users must have an Alexa toolbar installed. This eliminates the count of many other visitors to a given site. Secondly, a high number of visitors to any given site does not necessarily equate to a high income. Income is mainly based on the business model that any site employs.

Accurate Methods of Determining a Website’s Value

Although these methods may appear tedious, they are the best approach in determining how much a website is worth. Another factor to bear in mind is that only a website’s owner can accurately calculate its worth. This is because only he or she has custody of the website’s data.

1. Amount of Revenue Generated

There are numerous ways to monetize a website. The most common include:

Offering ad space – examples include AdSense, Infolinks, and affiliates.
Product sales – examples include eBooks, brand caps, and T-shirts.
Subscription based payments – examples include online courses and membership based resources.

A website that has these, or any other way of generating income can be valued based on the amount of money it generates daily, monthly, or yearly.

2. The Age of a Website

This offers additional value to a website because search engines, especially Google place more value on it. This is based on a number of parameters including:

Brand recognition – the older a site is, the higher the possibility that it has grown into a known brand.
Number of backlinks – older websites have more backlinks that newer ones meaning higher traffic.
Trust – People will definitely place more trust in an older website than one that has just been created.

Although there may not be a definite monetary value, age places an older website at a higher value.

3. Domain Name

The factor you should consider here is the market potential of the domain name. A domain name can determine a brand’s competitiveness, marketability, and SEO. An easily recognizable domain name is easy to find and remember. This automatically translates to higher traffic and therefore higher potential income.

4. SEO Analysis

Websites vary greatly in terms of the way SEO has been applied. A site that has high quality SEO is definitely more visible than one that doesn’t. As such, it will be of higher value.

5. Web Content

There are websites that automatically attract numerous visitors, including unique pageviews due to the quality and the value of their content. One such example is a news site that is well written and has new content every day. Others are educational sites. Such sites will bear higher values owing to the value of their content. This is also an indicator of the amount of work that has been put into building the site.

6. A Website’s Assets

These are all the additional features that a website has in addition to the basic structure. These can include:

An advanced theme
An email list
Professional type plugins
A premium domain name

7. Traffic

A website that attracts a high amount of traffic has a higher potential of business than one that doesn’t. The higher the traffic, the higher the market value.

Top 5 Free Website Worth Calculators

The tools listed below are some of the best free tools for checking a website’s worth, based on the parameters they use.

1. Website Value

Website Value is free website value calculator that helps rank and estimate the value of your website using Alexa and Google rankings. Plus, it is able to estimate how much daily ad revenue your website brings in.

2. Website Outlook

This site evaluates the worth of a website based on Alexa Ranking, Dmoz listing, revenue from ads, daily page views, and so on. It is popular because it also offers suggestions on how to further improve the value of your site.

3. Your Website Value

The Your Website Value team brings 18 years of experience to help you appraise the worth of your website. It shows your web traffic graphically and also gives you a score based on how fast your page loads so you can troubleshoot potential drops in user traffic based on speed performance.

4. Website Value Calculator

Values not only scores your website but also gives you the name and value of the top websites online so you’d have an idea of how your site compares to more famous names like Google or Twitter.

5. Site Price

This is a free tool that uses an assortment of factors to calculate the worth of a given website. Its key pricing parameters include:

Number of daily visitors
Backlinks available
Visibility within search engines

Which Is More Important For Website Promotion – SEO Or SMO?

SEO and SMO are faces of same coin i.e. website promotion. Both are equally important to rank your website in well-known search engines because now the trends are changing.

What Is SEO And How It Works?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. It has many aspects of creating meta tags, backlinks, page speed, site structure, error pages, domain name, structured data, image optimization and URL structure. One of the most important parts of the SEO is creating unique content with proper keywords. Content is the blood of SEO. So, nowadays persons are focussing more on quality contents to promote their business. Google changes its content quality parameters very fast. So, you need to be updated with latest changes. Also, the content of your website should be updated regularly.

How SEO Helps In Making Your Page Land On The First Page Of The Search Engines?

Content of any website have keywords that are related to search by the user. So, when people search for anything, the particular page that contained the keywords searched by the user comes on the front page of the search engine.

What Is SMO And How It Works?

SMO stands for social media optimization. Since most of the people are nowadays using social media platforms for their daily interactions. So, promoting your website through the platforms can help you get more searches. SMO is a speedy way to become popular to the masses.

Which Are Most Popular Social Media Platforms?

Top 5 most popular Social Media Platforms are as following:

Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram
Pinterest

Which Is Best To Choose -SEO Or SMO?

SEO has more aspects related to your problem and it also helps you know drawbacks of your website, so, promoting through SEO will not only help you land on first pages of Search Engines like Google, but it also lets you the find the defects on your website that further helps in removing them.

While promoting page through social media is good to come in searches by the people-that improve the search outcomes, but overall it doesn’t let you eliminate the defects of your website.

Nowadays, due to increasing awareness and technological advancements, the parameters of SEO and SMO are continuously changing. So, to improve your site ranking and gain visibility over search engines you need to be updated to the trend. If you still have any question or not sure about your decision, do take professional consultation.

Creating an Ecommerce Website

Selling products on-line requires a very different setup from your run-of-the-mill blogging site. Lets look at the things you’ll need to think about when setting up an eCommerce website and help to explain why they cost more to design.

First let me tell you what we’re not going to cover in this article.

We’re not assuming that an eCommerce website is a single web page with some PayPal button codes inserted onto it.

The PayPal buttons are great and work very well for those selling a handful of items, but we’re taking eCommerce to the next level and giving the customer a better on-line shopping experience.

Most modern eCommerce website are applications. They have a user interface, administration settings, store data in a database and follow a work-flow of processes. We’re going to touch on some of these areas.

The Basics

An eCommerce website can be thought of as a play with actors performing it’s scenes.

The main actors in an eCommerce website are:

* The Customer – buys products

* The Website Owner – ships bought products & gets paid

* The eCommerce Application – interface between all the actors

* The Payment Gateway – handles payment transactions (more on this later)

* The Merchant/Business Bank Account – Website owner’s business bank account (more on this later)

The main buying process of an eCommerce website (‘the play’) happens as follows:

1. Customer browses product catalogue

2. Customer adds product to basket

3. Customer buys product and enters check-out process

4. eCommerce Application contacts a Payment Gateway

5. Payment Gateway provides secure customer shipping and payment details entry form

6. Customer securely enters shipping and payment information

7. Payment Gateway contacts Website Owners’ Merchant Bank Account

8. Merchant Bank Account processes payment transaction and returns control to Payment Gateway

9. Payment Gateway returns Customer to eCommerce Application

10. eCommerce Application notifies Customer of successful (or failed) payment

11. eCommerce Application notifies Website Owner of purchase

12. Website Owner ships product to Customer

Of course there’s a lot more detail going on in each step, but hopefully you get the general idea that setting up an eCommerce application is a tad more complicated than your regular blog-style website.

Where Do You Start?

Sounds silly right, but the first step you need to do is think about the types of things you’ll be selling on-line.

Are these products?, i.e. physical items that require packaging and posting or services provided by yourself or another provider e.g. Professional Yak Grooming.

How may products or types of services are you going to offer? Local or International? Are some seasonal? Do you have a finite stock level for particular items? Do you plan to use special offers & discounts? Do you even like yaks?

This leads to customer and payment questions.

Who are your customers? Where are they? How are they going to pay; credit card, cheque, PayPal? Which bank account will I need to set up?

And then there are the support questions.

How do you handle returned goods? How do you refund payments? How do you handle complaints?

Having a think about the products and services you’re going to offer is vital because the first thing a web designer is going to ask you when you’re requesting a quote is “How many things are you selling and to whom?”

The reason is of course time and costs.

Selling 50 products to a UK only customer base using PayPal requires a very different setup and hence costs, to one selling 1000+ products internationally and taking credit card payments.

Lets look closer at some of the important eCommerce application areas.

The eCommerce Application

Essentially, an eCommerce application is a bespoke Content Management System (CMS). So as well as updating posts and blogs it specialises in updating products and services and supporting commerce functions.

Like any CMS, the application splits the eCommerce website into two major parts; the front-end or shop-front where the customer can browse and buy goods and the back-end where you login to an administration dashboard and manage the website options, including the product catalogue.

The Product Catalogue

This will likely be your most important concern and is central to any eCommerce website design.

The product catalogue is where all your goods-for-sale data lives. The product name, description, cost, stock level, pictures etc. are all stored in here.

We sometimes get people asking which files their products are stored in and they get in bit of a tizzy when they can’t find them on the server.

Usually, product catalogues are stored in a database, but don’t worry – you don’t have to know how to use a database. The eCommerce application does that for you through the product catalogue interface in the Administration Dashboard.

Being able to manage this yourself is vital, otherwise you’ll be going back and forward to the web developer and the costs will rack up.

Thankfully, the eCommerce applications that we use, Magento and WordPress e-Commerce, once installed, allow you to manage your own product catalogue from within the web browser.

The Magento product catalogue has advanced options and allows for things like adding discount codes, customer reviews, product videos etc., whereas the WordPress e-Commerce catalogue offers a simpler solution while still covering the essential requirements you’ll need to sell stuff on-line.

So how do you go about entering and updating all this product information?

The Admin Dashboard

Accessing a special web page on your site and entering a username and password will take you to the options part of your eCommerce website. This is commonly known as the Admin Dashboard.

Here, you will be able to update almost every aspect of the website including accessing the product catalogue, shipping costs, currency exchange rates, payment gateways, sales reports etc.

Whichever eCommerce solution you choose from us, we’ll setup some or all of your product catalogue and make sure that customers can purchase items and that you get paid through a payment gateway (more on that late

The Shop Design

Of course your shop will need a look and feel to fit in with your business brand.

Again, just like other CMS’s a web designer will be needed to develop a theme or template which will transform the default shop-front into whatever design you have in mind for your customers.

Themes can be bought off-the-shelf for both WordPress e-Commere and Magento and you can apply these yourself, however, you may prefer to have a design exactly the way you imagined it and different from any of your competitors.

Themes are applied from the Administration Dashboard. You may be able to change a few aspects of the theme, such as your logo, background colour, text colour, however, you’re not going to be able to move parts of the theme around to different areas of the screen. A web designer will need to do this by updating the theme’s code.

Domain Name and Website Hosting

You will of course need a domain name to trade with and a hosting plan to store the website files and databases.

It’s usually best not to purchase a hosting plan until you’ve spoken to a web designer and they have given you an idea of the best solution to implement.

Many of the cheaper hosting plans that are offered to you when purchasing a domain name, do not support databases or database applications. They may charge an extra setup and yearly fee for setting this up.

So try to avoid buying a hosting plan until you talk to a web designer and have an idea of the type of eCommerce solution you’ll need to implement your ideas.

Merchant Bank Accounts vs Business Bank Accounts

Certainly in the UK, you must have a business bank account to legally trade as a business.

Business bank accounts can be used just fine with an eCommerce application but you will need to setup a Payment Gateway service to handle the payment transactions and get the customers money into your bank account.

If you’re opening up a business bank account and your account manager knows you’re going to be running an eCommerce website you may be offered a merchant bank account which is a specialised version of the business account.

The merchant account gives you a Merchant ID number and access to a Payment Gateway service that the bank uses or owns.

It’s likely you’ll need to pay for the setup of a merchant account and it will incur fees, usually on a per-transaction basis.

If you have already setup a merchant account then you will need to make sure your eCommerce application can support the particular payment gateway your bank has given you access to, otherwise you won’t get your money.

e.g. Lloyds TSB uses the Cardnet merchant payment gateway. Royal Bank of Scotland uses the WorldPay merchant payment gateway.

If you were a Royal Bank of Scotland business customer with a merchant account, you would need to make sure your eCommerce application supported the WorldPay gateway.

You don’t need to use the particular merchant account that your business bank offers to trade on-line, but you do need a payment gateway of some sort to handle payments.

That leads us nicely onto payment gateways.

Payment Gateways

We’ve touched on this in the previous section. Essentially, a merchant bank account will give you a payment gateway to use, but you’re limited to just the one that your business bank is affiliated with.

A payment gateway is a service offered by a company.

It handles the payment part of the eCommerce application when a customer proceeds to the checkout to purchase an item.

The payment gateway collects the customers details and payment information securely and contacts your business bank account to complete the money transaction.

This is great for security too as your customers banking details aren’t kept on your eCommerce website, so that’s one less thing to worry about securing.

There are many different payment gateway services with different features and options. As a supplied service they all charge a fee for their use. The fees can include a setup charge and a % commission of the total price of a transaction.

Some payment gateways allow you to pay a monthly or annual fee if your number of transactions are high. This can work out more cost effective for you if your single transactions are high volume but low individual cost.

You’ve probably heard of some of the more well known gateway service providers and not known what they. You’ve also likely used them without even realising they are there. Some of the popular payment gateways are:

PayPal, Google Checkout, SagePay, WorldPay and ChronoPay.

It’s great that you have a choice and the services are very competitively priced so take some time to check out which is best for your business model. If you need some help, we’d be happy to meet up and walk you through the options.

Some payment gateways offer two types of general services; hosted and inclusive.

Hosted Payment Gateways

These options usually don’t require a set-up or monthly fee, however, transaction costs can be higher than an inclusive service.

The PayPal Website Payments Standard service is a good example of this.

Essentially, it limits your customers to having a PayPal account (they must register with the PayPal site) and when it comes to check-out, the customers are transferred from your eCommerce website to the PayPal website for the information gathering and payment transaction, then upon completion redirected back to your eCommerce website.

The downside of this method is really from a branding point of view. You have very limited control of how the payment gateway service, PayPal in this case, looks and operates before it redirects back to your website.

Some customers can be put off by redirecting to another site as confidence in security can be questioned (although PayPal in this instance has a very good reputation).

You’re also limiting the payment method to just those customers who are willing to use the payment gateway’s choice of payment. In this case, the customer must have a registered PayPal account.

A similar process happens if you use the Google Checkout payment gateway.

So what’s the other option?

Inclusive Payment Gateways

Inclusive payment gateways will allow your customers to go through the whole checkout process without (the appearance of) leaving your branded eCommerce website.

I added in “the appearance of” because in some cases your customers will actually leave your website and use the payment gateway service, however, the way it is implemented and embedded makes it looks as if it’s all part of your website and business brand.

So what’s the catch?

There’s usually a setup fee, a minimum subscription period (say 12 months), a monthly fee and of course a whole heap of conditions that apply.

Some particular conditions to look out for are thresholds on the number of transactions per month, or total monthly funds transferred. Payment gateway services can charge extra or insist you upgrade your service if these thresholds are exceeded in a similar way that mobile phone companies will charge you extra if you use up all your inclusive talk or SMS time.

The best benefit of using an inclusive payment gateway is that the whole customer experience from browsing to payment is hosted on your own website. This gives the customer a greater sense of confidence that their data will be kept safe and makes your whole business look and feel more professional.

A good example of this type of service is the PayPal Web Payments Pro.

Securing The Data

If you’re using a payment gateway then the good news is it’s unlikely you’ll be storing sensitive customer payment details on your eCommerce website.

Those types of data will be kept securely in your payment gateway account.

Of course you will be collecting a whole lot of other important and confidential customer information such as name, email, perhaps address, likes, dislikes, a username and password for your site.

All this information needs to be kept secure and your eCommerce application will help with that. The Administration Dashboard will have lots of sections that control who and what can see parts of the collected data.

But that’s not the only security you’ll have to think about. Do you know what happens when you fill out a form on a website and click on submit?

If you have a look at the top of the web browser in the address bar you’ll see the website’s URL address. Most sites will start with http://

(For those that want to know, URL stands for Uniform Resource Location and HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol)

Any web page starting with http:// is transferring data to and from a web server in Plain Text.

This means, that the web page contents, code, images, text, form data are all sent in a format that’s readable to humans. OK, it may not be that readable, but in essence all the information is there in English characters (or whatever language character set your website uses).

Now for some more techie stuff.

When your web page is sent to or received from a web server, there isn’t a 1-to-1 direct connection between your website and the server. The web page data is transferred through hundreds of networks across different countries and through thousands of routing computers and other network devices before arriving at your computer.

This means that at any point during it’s travel, your web page data has the potential to be intercepted and read by whomever.

There isn’t much you can do about the interception part but there is something you can do to make it a darn lot harder for somebody to read and use your eCommerce web page data.

SSL Certificates

Now we’re talking.

Let’s skip the techie bit and quickly tell you what these are and what they do.

You buy an SSL certificate from a web hosting company (annual renewal most likely), install it into your eCommerce website and it encrypts your web page data. Hooorah!

You’ll now notice that parts of your website, likely those that require personal form data to be collected and sent, now start with https://

The addition of that little “s” letter, standing for “Secure”, means that the web page data is encrypted when sent and decoded only at the two end-points; your computer and a web server.

Anyone reading the page in between will see garbled non-readable characters.

You may also see additional signs of a secured web page such as a closed padlock icon.

We would strongly advise you buy an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate and get this installed and configured for use with your hosting account and eCommerce website.

In Summary

Creating an eCommerce website requires a fair amount of planning.

You’ll need a good web design and web development team to implement your business venture.

It will cost you more and take longer to create than a regular blog or brochure-ware website because of all the design and setup.

You’ll make money – and that’s what’s it’s all about after all…

We hope this helps you start your eCommerce website journey. Of course there’s a heap of things we just didn’t have the time to cover.

Learn more about eCommerce at our website.

Traffic Generation Beginner Guide # 3 – How to Use Viral Marketing to Generate More Website Traffic

Viral marketing is a marketing strategy that spreads like a virus to get website traffic. It works by asking a current subscriber to pass on your information to another person. Because it works based on the willingness of people, it goes straight to the inbox of potential buyers and not to the trash or spam folder. If you run an online business and you have not yet tried the power of viral marketing, this article will help to guide you in increasing traffic to your site by taking advantage of the power provided by internet promotion.

Incentives

Providing incentives are one of the greatest motivating factors for a client to forward your ideas to a friend. By receiving incentives, a buyer will guide other potential customers to you and thereby increasing traffic to your site. Incentives may come in the form of discounts or bonuses, free subscription to newsletters, e-books, or free article reprinting or publishing. With these freebies in mind, your visitors will want to help increase your email list and spread your news like a virus.

Informative

Even with the best incentives, your visitors will not risk their reputation by referring useless information. Because people are innately social, they will want to refer information that is highly substantial, relevant and attractive to their email list. Since after all, they act like an endorser by putting their credibility on the line. If you want to guide traffic to your site, you need to create a marketing plan that is compelling and worth sharing. If your plan makes noise or creates a buzz, your idea will spread quickly like gossip in the internet world. The commotion you produce will guide online searchers to your website and generate huge traffic for you.

Publish in Blogs and Social Networks

Blogs and social networks are the lifelines for the interacting online community. By posting your ads in these sites, you can be certain that traffic will go straight to your website. Interacting with people is contagious especially if you have established a brand to your name. Once you make yourself an authority in the field, visitors will be coming to you and you guide others as well to increase your traffic.

Viral marketing employs the idea of spreading word of mouth marketing of your products or services. Like a real virus, it creates noise in the online community and makes your product known. With the generation of more traffic, you then guide your clients through your site. If they land on a compelling website, your enormous traffic can easily turn into sales.

Owning Your Very Own Disneyland Turnkey Website

Have you ever wanted to own your very own website but weren’t quite sure what one you wanted? This is very understandable, as there are so many different types of websites to choose from. When deciding what kind of website to buy, you will want to make sure that it has a niche that many people are interested in. You will also want to be sure that it is about something that you are interested in.

How does owning a Disneyland website sound to you? Everyone in the world loves Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto, Goofy and the rest of the Disney characters that we have all grown up to love. It would be real difficult to find a person that is not familiar with Disneyland or Disney characters. That is why owning a Disneyland website will be a great choice for someone who is on the hunt to buy a website. When people are familiar with what is on the website, they tend to stay. What niche is there that is more popular than Disney!

Visitors to your website will include those who may thinking about visiting Disneyland or Disney World, people who are looking to purchase some of the latest Disney merchandise, or people who are just looking to learn about some of the current Disney news and events. Tourist and Disney enthusiast will love the fact that they can visit a website that is focused on just what they love – Disney!

If you are a person who currently owns other websites, owning this Disney website will positively add to your current website ownership portfolio. For those who are just looking to break into website ownership, there could be no other better website niche to start with than Disney. No matter what type of business or line of work you are in, adding that you are the owner of a popular Disneyland website will surely benefit you. It will show your colleagues and others that you do business with that you are professional about your work and care about keeping a professional image.

You will also be able to make a little extra money from your new website. You can add popular pay-per-click ads on your site, as well as affiliate ads, you will be able to earn as much as your marketing efforts and strategies take you. There are many website owners who make a living from pay-per-click ads and affiliate ads. Others earn extra money to supplement their current income.

Zero Cost Methods To Boost Your Business Marketing And Cut Your Costs Using Your Website

I Offer These Ideas As A Business Website Owner Who Uses Them

Think of this article as a letter from a friend who maintains a website for his own business, and wants to share with you some time/cost-saving methods he employs – at zero cost – to get more value from his website.

The Following Tools/Methods Can Make Using Your Site Easier/Less Expensive

In considering the resources featured here, you should keep in mind the fact that your ability to use them on your website may be determined to some extent by the type of web hosting package/functions you have purchased from your host. For those whose web hosting packages do not permit the easy use of these tools, I describe the very useful alternative of Remotely Hosted CGI Scripts and Resources towards the end of this article.

DISCLAIMER: Please note that I provide descriptions of the resources featured in this article for your information only. I cannot guarantee they will meet your requirements in any way.

There are many other scripts that do similar work available on the net. I have only described these ones because they are the ones I use – or have used.

If you choose to download and use them on your website, you will be doing so at your own risk. I have however used them all at least once, and currently use most of them/have done so for over 2 years – which is why I can recommend them.

1. Automated Website Membership Subscription Management

Resource: Membership Manager LITE

Source: [http://www.membership-manager.biz]

Membership is a feature that allows visitors to your website become members by completing a simple registration web form. Registered visitors will subsequently be able log in to restricted areas of your website using login details they would have specificed when signing up. You can even have two or more levels of membership(for instance Free/Basic and Paid/Premium).

Using this feature, you can enable your website provide member specific content like special offers, articles, email newsletters, and other interactive content. Offering membership on your website will definitely set it apart from many others which do not.

One nifty CGI script I have found quite useful to easily and securely offer membership on my websites is called Membership Manager. This programs uses HTACESS browser based login authentication(regarded as the most secure form of password protection on the Internet) to protect your restricted members-only directories from unauthorised access.

Membership Manager, comes in two variants – LITE(Free) and PRO.

A. It allows the owner to use a control panel to administer user accounts of members (who will also be on their automated newsletter mailing list).

B. The members have login ID and Password of their choice automatically used in creating a website membership account for them when they signup.

C. Paid Subscription Management is possible. If someone has paid for one year access, you can setup a 1 year member account access to a password restricted members area on your website where some premium content may be accessed.

D. Also, the system at the expiration of the 1 year subscription period, automatically disables the appropriate member’s account – and notifies the member and the owner.

E. In the PRO version, members can automatically retrieve lost passwords using a link provided on the site.

You can download the 30kb zipped folder containing the LITE version of the script from [http://www.membership-manager.biz] and follow the very useful installation instructions provided in the accompanying “Setup Instructions” HTML file.

2. Dynamic Website Contact Forms

Resource: All Purpose Form Handler

Source: http://www.BigNoseBird.Com

This is an amazingly flexible/customisable script that allows a user to quickly implement HTML based forms on different parts of a website. It is configured by information you provide in the form itself, giving the user a unique advantage of making the script handle data submitted in the web forms in a variety of ways without changing knowing ANY Perl programming or having to change the code/script.

The following can be done in any combination using forms that call the SAME script:

A. Web form completed by the user submits an e-mail to a specified person(s) – say the website owner – and CC to say other employees(e.g. marketing manager), or even another email address used by the owner.

B. The EXACT text of the title that appears in the subject line of the email the script sends to the site owner, can be specified in the code for the web form. This makes it very easy for you to know which contact form on your website was used to send you EACH message you receive.

C. The script sends the data submitted via the web form to a file for easy import into a database program. You, the owner will be able to locate the file(s) on your server in the cgi-bin.

D. The script automatically sends a response to the person who submitted the form. The content of the response can be varied for each web form. This is made possible by creating a text file(given a unique filename extension) to contain your message whose name you then place in the form code, so it is used by the script.

E. The order in which the data submitted via the web form appears in the email received by the website owner can be specified in the code for EACH web form.

F. The completion of required fields can be enforced by specifying such fields in the code for individual forms.

G. To increase user-friendliness, code for each form can be modified to call a unique “Thank you” or an “Oops!” page after the form is submitted.

How I Use It: I have found this script extremely useful in determining quite accurately what people who visit my website are interested in. For instance, on my website, I created a separate contact form(all outwardly similar) for EACH of the different services I offer, providing links to each web form from the body of text/web copy where the service is described. This way, I am able to quickly establish, from the title of the email sent by the script, exactly which service the enquirer was considering when s/he decided to contact me.

3. Tell-A-Friend Automated Website Referral Form

Resource: BigNoseBird.com’s Birdcast Site Recommendation Script

Source: http://www.BigNoseBird.Com

This is a very simple, yet powerful script that you can use to help promote your site. Easy to install, and to customize. It has a number of very useful features including the following:

1. Name/Email Address fields that can be duplicated for an unlimited number of target recipients per recommended page.

2. A multi line text entry area for the user to send a personal note with the e-mail.

3. Automatic page recognition (i.e. the script inserts the full url of the page being recommended in the e-mail that is sent).

4. Automatic Return to sending page (i.e. the script returns the user to the recommended page when upon successful submission of the form’s contents.

4. Domain validation. An editable line of code in the script allows the website owner specify whether this feature is enabled or disabled on installation. You would enable it to prevent it being used from any other website/domain other than yours i.e. protection against off-site abuse (Also available in the all purpose form handler script described above).

5. E-mail address and page capture log. Once the script is in use, you will be able to periodically check a log file of date/time, calling page and e-mail information automatically generated and updated by the script on your server. This can be quite useful if you want to know who is referring what page on your site and to whom.

4. Form For File Upload From Web page To Server

Resource: Upload Lite

Source: http://www.perlscriptsjavascripts.com/perl/upload_lite/index.html

This script works via a file upload form to allow anyone upload files to a folder on the website server. When this happens, the owner of the site automatically gets an “Upload Notification” email with a download link(s) which can be clicked to instantly download the file(s). The website visitor, who uploaded the document is in turn taken to an upload success confirmation page that you can customise. For instance, on my website the confirmation page displays a “Thank You – Your submission has been accepted” message.

Possible uses: The owner can invite job applicants to upload their applications and resumes using this form. A magazine publisher could have contributors/writers send in their write-ups(in various possible electronic formats(.pdf, .doc, .rtf etc) from any location in the world so long as Internet PCs are available.

How I Use It: On my Excel Heaven Custom Workbook Automation Mini-site, an upload form is provided to enable clients upload workbooks they want me to automate for them using Excel Visual Basic.

5. File Mailing (Alternative to direct downloading)

Resource: MailFile

Original Source: http://www.command-o.com

Latest Version Available At: http://www.FreeScripts.com

MailFile lets you require visitors to submit their name and email address in order to retrieve a file(s) from your site. It is a CGI script that works via a form which allows visitors to choose(by clicking checkboxes) specific documents from your site to be sent to the email address they specify in the email address field of the form.

When the form is submitted, the visitor is taken to a “File(s) sent!” page while the selected file(s) is sent to the visitor via the email address s/he provided. Apart from the fact that this method prevents third-party linking of your files, you also get to use the retained names/email addresses to build a mailing list with which you can follow up visitors for possible sales.

The script can also be useful when you want to give your busy visitors a time saving alternative to downloading.

Corporate visitors to your site, whose mails are stored on the company mail servers will find this particularly useful.

Here’s why. Assume a busy executive – with only 5 minutes left to attend an important meeting – discovers your site’s offering of five interesting PDF reports totaling 13 MB in size.

S/he can easily choose to use the MailFile web form’s checkboxes to select the files and click the “Send File(s) To Me” button. All the selected files will be delivered to his/her mail box on the company’s servers, and s/he would be able to return to view them without going back online at a later time or date.

There is no limit to the number of files that can be sent using this form. Additional checkboxes only need to be added to the form, and the appropriate filenames included in the form code.

Similar Resource: File Mailer

Source:
http://www.downloadfreetrial.com/scripts/php/file_upload_&_download4.html

Related Resource: Attachment Mailer
Source: http://www.perlscriptsjavascripts.com/perl/attachment/index.html

6. Get Your Target Audience Discussing On Your Site – Discussion Boards/WebLogs

You can install a discussion board(where people can register and discuss various topics in “discussion forums”) on your website. You can also use it to provide first level user support/problem solving services to customers.

For instance an IT/Telecoms company can invite customers to post questions or requests for help regarding problems they have with specific products/services supplied or supported. Answers will then be provided by the appropriate personnel online saving time/cost of going out – until it becomes absolutely necessary to visit the client physically to resolve the problem.

Some web hosts offer a discussion board as part of their hosting package. Most of the popular ones are however FREE to download/install, (being open source), two good examples being: PHPBB at http://www.phpbb.com and YaBB(Yet another Bulletin Board) at http://www.yabbforum.com . I have successfully installed and used phpbb in the past, and found it quite user-friendly.

Web Logs: My website host offers an easy-to-install phpbb board in my control panel, which I intend to install on my website in future. I however do not currently use a discussion board on my website, due to my decision earlier this year to discontinue its use, in line with a modified strategy. In its stead, what I use is a web log. I like to think of a Web LOG as a dynamic website which functions as an online diary allowing the owner make postings on any subject of interest, which her visitors can in turn read, and post comments on/responses to.

My personal web log facility is provided as part of my website hosting package. In hunting for a web host, you might look out for a similar feature, if you consider it relevant to your purpose. You can however get a more or less equally functional but FREE blog to use at http://www.blogger.com.

7. Automated Business Marketing CDROM Promos

CDROM promos are a one-time expense, and they cost a fraction of what a decent newspaper advert does, while offering more targeted impact to the “right” prospect for a longer period. They are less expensive and you can mass produce them. I personally recommend the use of auto-run business marketing CD ROMs as an offline complement to other business marketing efforts/resources.

You can get excellent software for creating auto run business marketing CDROM presentations from a variety of sources on the net. One that I have used, and can heartily recommend that you try is CRE:8 MULTIMEDIA. This software enables you to create very impressive auto-run business marketing CDROM presentations quickly and easily. It has a very user-friendly visual interface, and easy-to-understand HELP documentation that enables users begin producing professional looking presentations in minutes. You can download a FREE 21 day trial from http://www.presentware.com.

8. Article Syndication

Article syndication is an excellent way to attract new visitors to your website, while at the same time boosting your credibility as an authority in your area(s) of expertise.

One place you can post your articles and be reasonably sure(if they offer useful real-world relevant information and are well written) of widespread syndication is http://www.ezinearticles.com.

Other options you can pursue of course exist, such as visiting and manually posting articles to different websites offering related content to yours or using automated article submission services – some of which are FREE.

You can also contact publishers of e-zines and online newsletters, who deal with target audiences similar to yours, offering your FREE articles for publication in their media or on their websites, in exchange for exposure.

9. Website RSS Feeds

RSS, stands for “Really Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Summary”. It is an XML standard that is used by content owners(e.g. newsletter/website publishers) to distribute content to their target audience. Many companies today have RSS feeds that announce latest content updates made to their websites.

Visitors to your site can use either the content aggregator built into their My Yahoo! Page, or other RSS news reader software to retrieve and read the feeds.

Important Notes About CGI/Perl Scripts

Some of the tools I have described in this article are third party CGI/Perl scripts(files with .cgi and .pl filename extensions), which you may need to clear with your web host before using on their servers. The installation of these scripts requires some basic familiarity with server types, setting of file permissions(via CHMOD’ING), Perl scripting among others.

CGI Scripts Installation : Usually, to run CGI/Perl scripts, all you need is any executable folder ( cgi-bin ). Some of the scripts can even run in any folder. I suggest however, for ease of management, that you use a cgi-bin.

CGI Scripts Configuration : All the scripts require you to configure them before uploading to your server, though some have additional settings that will have to be specified AFTER uploading usually via a control/admin interface or panel. You can re-configure, re-upload and overwrite the scripts as may be necessary.

Typically you would open the script in a text editor(I use notepad, and sometimes wordpad, when text wrapping is a problem in the former). If an edit facility is provided in your web host’s control panel/file manager interface, you can also use this to make /save changes you want online post-installation. This latter option makes it unnecessary to re-upload the modified script.

CGI Scripts Upload: If your host has provided you a file manager interface in your control panel, you will be able to use that to upload the scripts. Alternatively there are a good number of nifty FTP – File Transfer Protocol – tools like CuteFTP(http://www.cuteftp.com), and SmartFTP (http://www.smartftp.com)

These FTP clients work in “auto” mode by default, making it unnecessary for you to have to set them to upload your scripts in ASCII mode, and your images or pre-complied programs in Binary mode. I suggest you refrain from changing their default settings except you know what you are doing.

Keep in mind however that whatever manner of upload you employ, you will still need to set file permissions(via CHMOD’ING) for the scripts and the files/folders they will be located in or working with.

Find Someone To Do It – If Necessary

Even if you cannot spare the time to learn to do it yourself, you can easily find someone appropriately skilled to do it for you. Also, your website host should be willing to provide you any information you may be required to verify/obtain in order to successfully install the scripts.

Can’t Run CGI/Perl Scripts On Your Site? Here’s An Alternative That Works!

Remotely hosted CGI scripts/resources(some of which are FREE) are available for those who may find they cannot use some of the tools described here directly on their websites. One very good service, that I used for over a year prior to purchasing a complete hosting package, is offered by Black Fire Networks at http://www.bfndevelopment.com.

Not only do they provide you access to free, customisable, remotely hosted scripts, but they actually do so with ZERO advertising. So, if you have designed you website, but lack access to a cgi-bin via your web hosting package, this service might just be for you. Among other things, you will be able to make your website dynamic, so it has a more professional”feel” to it, without spending any additional money.

Summary – Use A Combination Of Methods On Your New Or Existing Website

The best part of all the tools, features and strategies/methods described here is that you can have them integrated – at ZERO cost – into an existing site or added to a new site from the start. Either way, you get to maximise the potential value you expect from the website.

To get the best results in today’s marketing, one will often need to use a combination of methods. Using your business website in conjunction with a well thought out marketing strategy, facilitated in implementation by custom, value adding automation/features will increase your chances of marketing success, while ensuring you do not spend more than you need to.

This article’s recommendations can be summarised in form of the points outlined below.

a. Ensure “action-inducing”/”response-generating” web copy is written on your website, to effectively communicate the unique benefits you offer.

b. Develop and implement a web marketing strategy to ensure you maximize returns on your investment, by (i) making more of the right kinds of people visit your site (ii) seamlessly integrating your offline and online marketing efforts in such a way that they complement one another.

c. Make it easy to implement your web strategy for the long term, by incorporating zero/low cost automation tools on your website, and adopting value-adding features/methods. Examples include email marketing, article syndication, and information product publishing(ebooks etc).

Do the above, by adopting a suitable mix of the specific tools, methods and strategies featured in this article, and you should be able to clearly achieve one or more of the following: INCREASED sales and/or REDUCED expenses on marketing/advertising – which in turn will help you record reasonably stable or INCREASING profits.

28 Ways to Drive Traffic To Your Website

Generating traffic to a site is one of the biggest challenges most marketers and businesses face today. The internet has changed the way businesses market their products. Gone are the days when customers were local. The entire world has opened up in the search for customers. Today, Internet traffic means money and it is the lifeblood for every internet business. Every online business needs to know how to generate good traffic to be productive and competitive.

Suppose only 1 in 100 visitors buy, then to be successful you must focus on increasing your list and generating more traffic consistently. There are multiple ways to generate traffic. Some of the ideas may only work for a week or a month, so it is a good idea to search for traffic from every source available.

I have accumulated a variety of ways to build traffic for your site. Some may be familiar to you, some may be new. Take the time to research the topics so you can utilize each tool.

Drive Traffic from A to Z

1. Ad swapping

An advertisement swap is an agreement with another websites to exchange ads. It is a quick way to generate traffic to your site. There are pros and cons to ad swapping. The advantage is that you can build your lists quickly. A disadvantage is you don’t want to give away your best subscribers by ad swapping incorrectly. Ad swapping is a quick and simple way to generate traffic to your site. If it is done properly it can be a free way to generate traffic. Take the time to learn all you can about it before trying this technique.

2. Advertising

Advertising is necessary when building a business. The possibilities are endless. Business must buy customers with money and hard work, which is the bottom line to sales. Consider the following:

· Purchase advertising: There are a variety of ways you can purchase advertisement space such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo, T.V., newspaper, and magazine ads, as well as online local advertising. You can submit your site to every directory, to yellow pages both online and off. Submit your site to everything you can find.

· Employees, friends, and family: Encourage them to advertise your product as they surf the web. Ask them to make comments on forums, blogs, Facebook and the like.

· Your URL: Consider the power of your own URL. Put it on everything you do. Add it to letters, email signatures, flyers, phone books, brochures. Add it to company letterhead, business cards, put it on your building or door to your office, in newsletters, and on products.

3. Article Writing

Write articles for publication in e-zines and e-reports, and then submit them to as many websites as possible. Try to write a minimum of 2 short articles per week. If you are consistent, you can generate many readers to your site weekly.

You can also offer your articles to other website owners and article directories where other website owners can publish it. Make sure it has your author resource box at the end with your URL. They can publish them on their website, blogs, or in their newsletters. Then other website owners will consider you an expert in your field and may contact you for interviews or joint ventures. It also creates more search engine opportunities.

4. Awards

Posting awards you have earned gains customer trust. You can actually research and find organizations that offer awards. Apply for these awards and make the most of the publicity. If you are an affiliate, you can post the awards of the company you are selling for with their product.

5. Blogging

Don’t underestimate the power of blogging. In Wikipedia it said that as of 16 February 2011, there were over 156 million public blogs in existence and don’t discount the millions of personal blogs. Blogging is becoming a daily part of life for millions of people. That does not count the number of blog readers, but if only 10 people read those 156 million blogs in existence, imagine the number of readers. Be creative and find ways to tap into this incredible phenomenon. Create your own blog, and keep it up to date, add content consistently. Comment on other blogs in a professional way to establish yourself as an expert in your field but be careful about sounding like an advertisement for your product.

6. Business Cards and Coupons

Even though business cards and coupons were used way before the internet, they are still a good method of advertising. Use them to bring traffic to your website. Be sure they have all the important information on them particularly your website address. Give people a reason to keep your card. Add important information to your card such as schedules, calendars or personal notes.

7. Build Your Own List

Everyone has the ability to teach people something they have learned. Experience is marketable. Search the internet and find out what questions people are asking in your area of expertise. Write the answers down in a professional style, and then offer them in exchange for their email address.

8. Columnist for another website

Everyone is looking for content to add to their blog or website. Search the internet, find websites in your field and offer to write a column for them. This will get your name out there.

9. Coupons, Free Items, and Sales

Don’t underestimate the power of the word “free” to attract new customers. Businesses spent a lot of money on advertising to entice customers to their site. Use some of that budget to buy customers with a great deal. I don’t know of anything that works as well as a ‘real’ sale. Something a consumer can’t pass up. It can’t be a sale that will always be there, or procrastination sets in. “First time customer offers” is a great way to buy new customers.

10. Customer Relations

Never underestimate the power of word of mouth, for good or for bad. Treat your customers with the utmost respect and give them the best service you have available. Customers will be one of your biggest advertisement resources. One customer has multiple friends, and will often post their satisfaction or frustration on Facebook, blogs, or other social networking devices.

11. Donate Prizes to Contests

Find someone who is offering a contest and offer something free. You will have free advertising space to all who join the contest. Or host your own contest for a quick burst of traffic.

12. Ecourses

An ecourse can be anything from a simple educational series to yearlong in depth study. They can include how to videos, photos, or plain text. You write “How To” courses in step by step intervals and send them out to customers on a specified schedule.

13. Email Signature Files

At the end of all your emails, add a little advertisement with your URL. Also, everyone reads the P.S. at the end of an email so add a coupon or free merchandise.

14. Forums

Comment on forums. You can establish yourself as an expert in your field by answering questions and posting knowledgeable comments. Do your research; find the forums that will benefit from your expertise. Make sure you read the rules of each forum and follow them.

15. Invite Guest Bloggers

Compliment a well-known personality in your field by asking them to contribute a blog to your own blog.

16. Hub Pages

You can share your expertise and post them on hubs. Writers read and comment on each others work. This is another way to get search engines to find you and it’s free. With hubs you can use text, insert photos, maps, poles, videos, and links to your site.

17. Logo

Create a logo and post it on everything you do. People will begin to associate your business with your logo.

18. Newsletters

A regular newsletter is one of the best ways to get repeat traffic. Newsletters keep customers informed and bring them back for more. Make your newsletter more than just an advertisement. Offer valuable information. Include coupons and free offers.

19. Optimize Search Engines

This is the number one most important thing you can do for your website. Getting your site listed on the first page of search engines is an important goal. You can purchase a spot. But you should also work hard to use the correct keywords that will make it easy for search engines to find you. Many of the suggestions in this article will open new opportunities for search engines to find you and your work.

20. Radio, Podcast, News via Internet

These are becoming very popular on the web and they are always looking for guests. Go to these sites and you will usually see a link where you can register to become a guest. If you become a guest, many of these hosts will link to your website from the front page of their site.

21. PR Firm

You can always pay for professional advertising.

22. Social Networking

Almost everyone who uses a computer is connected to some type of social network. Get involved with Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.

23. Sticky Website

After all the work you do to entice a visitor to your site, keep them. Make sure you have good information and a professional site that makes people stay and return.

24. TV Ads

TV time is actually less expensive than people think. With so many programs and channels now days there are more options for advertising space.

25. Video and Audio

This is a very powerful tool. Create a great “how to” video and post it on YouTube. Interview someone or vice versa. YouTube is the dictionary of video; use it for your benefit.

26. Webinars

Webinars are becoming very popular. You can sponsor a lecture, a workshop, or any type of training and transmit it over the Web.

27. Web Directories

Don’t forget to post your site in a Web directory. There are several available on line.

28. Word of Mouth

This cannot be over emphasized. Happy customers tell their friends and family. Provide excellent customer service and let your customers advertise for you. Make sure all your employees are kind and helpful to your customers. Poor customer service cannot sell the best product on the market. Awesome customer service can sell a poor product. Think about it.

As long as this list is, it is not complete. There are multiple ways to drive traffic to your site. Be creative and come up with your own ideas. The bottom line as always is hard work and determination. Good luck.

Finding the Best Website Design Company in India

India is the hotspot for website designing presently and it does not disappoint! The web design firms in the country are some of the best on the internet and deliver quality work at the lowest of prices. It is no wonder then, that a majority of people are contacting Indian website design companies to either design or re-design their websites. The result is always satisfactory and attracts huge amounts of internet traffic, much to the benefit of the site’s owner.

But, with the plethora of website designers present in India, how can you find out which ones are good and which are not? The answer is simple – research it! The large number of website design companies and the tedious task might seem daunting at first, but it pays rich dividends in the long run. In this day and age, researching can be done online, especially for a web design firm. Here are a few tips that might come in handy when you go looking for those who will design your website.

First of all, check out the location of the company, whether it is in a metropolitan area or not. Website designers are more likely to opt for firms based in metros and major cities due to the presence of better opportunities. Therefore, location means better talent for your business in this field. But, if a website design company you like is not located in one of the metros of India, it still will not hurt to check out its work. There might be a little difference between the charges being levied by the website design firms in metros and non-metros, but the difference is nominal, and completely affordable.

Also, check the previous websites designed by the company, so that you can get a better idea regarding what kind of sites the website designer possesses experience in. Most designers do put up links of the companies that have done work for, so it will not be difficult to get hold of their work. If you like a certain web design company, ask it for the statistics of the number of visitors received for any particular website it developed. Footfall, obviously, will let you determine the effectiveness of the site as well as the web design India.

If you are offering prospective clients certain products or willing to render services, and aim to grow your business, then your website must be searchable. This means that the website designer should be proficient in making the site search engine friendly. If your site comes in among the first few pages of the searches carried out by Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask.com and other search engines, then promoting your business would become a piece of cake.

The thousands of Indian web design organizations offer variegated packages to prospective clients to develop or re-design their site. The charges are just a fraction of what it might have cost for the same job in USA or elsewhere, but checking out the nominal rate is advisable. Think about the job you want the website designer to do exactly, the number of pages, graphics, links etc. you want on the site and check out the packages being offered by the companies for your requirements.

But making your website rank among the most searched ones is no walk in the park; it requires relevant content and attractive designing, along with superlative SEO skills. All website design companies offer SEO services and quite a few sites designed by these companies come up on the first pages of popular search engines. So hire a web designer in India who has some pages ranked in the top engines, namely Google, Yahoo and Ask.com.

All in all, a web design firm should exercise strategic planning, business promotion techniques, creativity, application development as well as solution maintenance while creating a site. These are the points you need to keep in mind while thinking of getting your website designed in India. With the help of these useful tips, you are bound to zero in upon the most apt designer for your website.

Web Development – The Unavoidable Aspect of a Website

Though online business is in trend these days, yet it is not that much easy as we think. As the fierce competition is increasing day by day because of everyone’s effort to draw huge income with quite ease and comfort through World Wide Web, Web Development has become a base for all this. The people who are into online business must be having idea that today the world is taking the turn away from investing physical efforts to rely and be dependent on internet and PC. Let’s now focus on details about Web Development, though there are lots of people who consider it an exercise just of writing codes, yet Web Development is all about creating a website and the aspects of Web Development could be explained as building, creating content as well as embedding social features.

Well, mainly there are two types of coding including client side coding and server side coding. If we talk about client side coding, it is something that is done by the web developers so that users can go through while using website for example, they can experience a software called Adobe Flash Player to view animation and movies. Moreover, a browser plug-in namely Microsoft Silverlight can also be experienced for Microsoft, which is capable for animation, vector graphics as well as video playback of high-definition. Let’s now talk about server side coding, it is practiced for server and the coding includes ASP, PHP, CSP, ColdFusion and so forth. These are the types of codes, which are understandable for the server only not by the users.

The process of Web Development includes analyzing requirements, proper planning, implementation and testing. Analyzing Requirements- To analyze about the requirement is the first step of this process. An experienced web developer focuses on detailed study to analyze the actual requirement of the client and plans well for providing best possible outcome.

Proper Planning- A qualified developer makes sure to bring the end result satisfactory by doing proper planning on the basic points including conceptualizing various development areas and deciding the best possible technology to be undertaken. After planning as well as time management, a website is developed by applying best features along with proper techniques. Implementation- Next to planning and analyzing of a website, process of implementation is done and this process applies several techniques of programming to bring a website, which is particularly designed as per the products and services of clients.

Testing- Last but not least, testing is the final step of the process of Web Development and websites are tested properly after being developed to make sure that the developed website is easy to load and extremely functional without any trouble.

Things You Need To Consider During E-Commerce Website Development

Web development is complicated. In any project, there are a multitude of aspects to consider, from user experience to performance.

Here are a few other aspects of an E-Commerce site that developers will want to be sure to consider during the development process.

Things to consider during E-Commerce Development are:

1. Responsive Web Design:

For the most part, more customers are shopping whenever they choose and in the most convenient manner for them. However, if customers are able to, they will access your store via their tablet PC’s or smart phones which are where responsive web design India comes into play. Responsive design is going to make your site more accessible on a variety of platforms and devices. This will make the site usable to more people and that could potentially increase your sales.

2. Adding Guest Checkouts Options:

To be honest, people don’t always want to create accounts with every site they make a purchase from. The biggest reason is because of the amount of spam and junk emails they get through to their email accounts each week and it can become very much an annoyance. However, if you are able to offer a guest check-out feature, that may prove to be a hit with more customers. Custom web development can be varied but who’s to say you can’t add a guest check-out? This will attract more people and make them feel at ease shopping at your store too.

3. Site search is important:

it’s important to make sure the search functionality is available and easy to use. In addition, it’s a good idea to utilize features like autocomplete to help users find popular products or items related to their searches.

Faceted search is another important way to help users find products. This functionality allows them to narrow their search in a variety of ways, including by department, size, price range, manufacturer, etc. Providing this functionality gives users more power to find what they need, letting them limit their searches to exactly what they are looking for.

4. Security is essential:

This is especially true for credit card and payment information, but also any customer information like address, phone number, email, etc. Customers have an expectation that their personal information will remain secure when they make a purchase online, so ensuring that SSL is implemented is not just a good idea, but something that is absolutely essential for ensuring that your customers trust that their information will remain secure. In addition, security is required to meet PCI compliance for any business which accepts credit card payments.

5. Optimize Site Performance and Speed:

Have you ever been stuck on a website waiting for the page to load? For most, they switch off after a few seconds because it’s a waste of their time. However, if this happens on your site you’re essentially losing business and that isn’t good. Your E-Commerce web development really must deal with the site’s performance and speed issues. If these things are not optimized then users will look elsewhere.

6. Develop Wisely:

Too many website owners think development means getting more customers or expanding the site’s product pages but in truth, it’s so much more. The above are just five simple things to consider when you are developing your E-Commerce website. When you develop well, you get more customers. E-Commerce website development can be simple; don’t let it catch you out.

Keeping these aspects of an E-Commerce site in mind during development will help you ensure that you are providing the best experience for your customers, but there are many more elements to consider when developing your site. Almost every business owner has to deal with the challenge of E-Commerce web development. This is not easy no matter how experienced you are with the internet or how great your business ideas are. Since users will be coming to the site to learn about and purchase products, developers will want to do everything they can to make this process easy and intuitive. But alongside the considerations of usability.