Signing a contract with a Magento development company?

In today’s competitive market, choosing ecommerce website model has become quite challenging to survive and make profits from a business. However, many businesses have sighted relief. It can reach to a wide market segment at considerably low investments through online portals representing their organisation and products on their behalf.

The online store is the gateway for you to reach out millions of potential customers spread across the globe. It is important for you to have a mutual agreement that could help you in the critical situation during the development of your Magento online store.

In this post, we’re going to explore a few aspects that everyone should keep in mind while signing a contract with a Magento development company.

Things to Observe When Hiring a Magento Web Development Company

Whenever approaching to any Magento development company, make sure you have total control over your eCommerce website including screens, graphics, domain names, content, source code and more. Also, recommended with a “Work for Hire” as per the Copyright Act and the rights in and to the online store are held by you only.

It is possible that the Magento development company utilize programming or code that has been owned by them. In such scenario, the company may often show unwillingness to allow you to assume ownership or control of such code, which would be quite an unfair. Therefore, it is important that you acknowledge that any type of pre-programming or code will be owned by the developer or company.

Are you planning to use third-party contents? If your service provider is not providing you this service, it will be your responsibility. Ensure you ask the firm for its source of content and give you a warranty that they can convey to you the rights required to publish the content online.

Websites are prone to have errors or bugs, such as failed link, broken links, 404 and more. Therefore, you should clearly mention in the contract that it will be the responsibility of the Magento development company to look into such issues which includes the timeframe for such corrections. Many firms often provide a limited period of warranty for their work. In such scenario, having the terms mentioned within a contract would help you a lot to get your work done within a specific period of time.

All the above mentioned points are sure to help you find the right partners to work with. 

PHP MySQL Development Services- Why Business Love This Way

The websites has become an integral part for businesses and development of robust and dynamic websites or web applications using the most powerful tool PHP MYSQL is highly preferred. But, why? Simple! When combined PHP- the server side programming language and MYSQL- an open source relational database management system together, it delivers highly unique solutions.

More than that, here are some of the advantages of PHP MYSQL Web Development to give enough reasons for the selection.

1.       Server Side Scripting Language: PHP helps you create dynamic pages with customized features meanwhile providing a user-friendly and interactive website or web application. This totally enhances a flexible user-engagement.

2.       Ease of Use: Not only that its learning curve is easy as compared to the other programming languages but its syntax can easily be parsed. Its stability is sure to solve many problems with ease.

3.       HTML Embedded Codes: PHP is a cross-platform compatible language and its ability to decode HTML is un-doubtfully a plus point and there is no need to have separate coding for PHP. A few more advantages that follow:

·         Easily be incorporated into a code generated by WYSIWYG editors

·         Cost effective while increasing the efficiency of the websites or web applications

·         No need to rewrite every line of HTML in a programming language

4.       Ideal for Ecommerce Development: Highly customisable because of which it is easily integrated for ecommerce development as per the business specific needs of the clients.

5.       Cost effective: Very cost-effective and never cost an extra dime after developing the website as it has got free license.  It is worth knowing that Apache/PHP/MYSQL combo runs perfectly well on a low cost, low end hardware that you can ever imagine for ISS/ASP/SQL Server

10 Point Checklist to an Effective Conversion Rate Optimization

Have you ever taken this resolution? “I will make my website better.” Yes, it’s seen at the top of many others whiteboard too. The problem is how do you know where to start when jumping into optimization? However, the issue is quite a tricky-tactic, doing it well requires a variety of steps.

In this article, we have broken down our approach into a few parts of developing a successful conversion rate optimization program and the positive impact it can have on your website performance.

Before you can optimize, you need to understand two things.

ü  Firstly, optimization is about getting more of the right kind of customers. Getting more leads doesn't do you any good if the people you're acquiring aren’t the right audience. You need to focus on optimizing as a way to find more customers who will love your product and help you grow by spreading the word.

ü  Secondly, you have to understand the fundamentals: how does your product serve your users that they can't live without? What's the main thing they come to do at your site? Once you know what they're coming for, you can optimize around getting your site visitors to their must-have experience as quickly as possible.

Checklist to Getting Started With Conversion Rate Optimization

1.       Does it have a clear call to action on every page?

2.       Do you have Google Analytics JavaScrip code installed on every page?

3.       Is the Contact number visible on every page?

4.       Is it possible to compress the number of checkout steps?

5.       How many reviews/ customer testimonials are on every product page?

6.       Is there any  “live chat” feature available for visitors with customer service in real-time?

7.       Do you have a form for a “soft conversion” on every page?

8.       Are the goals configured to analyze the checkout funnel in Google Analytics?

9.       do you have AdWords traffic segmented in Google Analytics for PPC?

10.   Do you have IP Address filters configured to segregate internal traffic to the website?

Get started from the basics. Improving the conversion rate of your website is one of the easiest things you can do to boost incremental sales. 

Drupal’s SEO Benefits for Global Businesses- in and out Secrets

In early days, it was easier to achieve high rankings in search engines just by building or buying links from low quality sites. With the recent updates the Panda and Penguin namely, the SEO environment has changed significantly. It requires a more holistic approach which not only focuses on quality content but requires a technical perfection.

One solution is Drupal Content Management System- the perfect fit that is flexible enough to become a SEO-perfect platform. Let’s take a look at how global businesses that are targeting multiple languages can optimize their Drupal websites and gain the advantages of great search engine rankings.

Drupal’s SEO Benefits for Global Businesses

Setting up a Default Language

This is a very important setting for your website. Decide which will be your default language and make sure it matches your business needs (audience)

Multi Language Translators

Be sure that the translations are perfect when targeting multiple languages and multiple locations for online store. Many a times, owners prefer for the automated translation available free of cost. Bear in mind, not only they generate poor quality content but eventually don’t add any value to your website content. Don’t worry. Drupal plug-ins resolves this.

Use Images with Text or Cultural References

Usage of localized images means each translation of your website should have a separate customized image. Means, you cannot separate SEO from Drupal web development or design. It has to be built in the site, right from the beginning.

Domain Names

If you have a multiple language site, it is important to have different domain names. Thanks to Drupal for supporting this feature. Localized domain names could mean good marketing opportunities for you. Plus, use Drupal modules development or a completely new website for each language translation.

Over all, multiple language support is a very strong feature of Drupal and using it right with these SEO points will help you at the time of development itself to avoid rework and re-configurations.

How Drupal 8 Website Development Is Expected To Triumph Drupal 7

Over the years Drupal has proven to be the most advanced, scalable, and secure open source content management system in the web world. Its version Drupal 7 has the ability to accommodate future changes in terms of your business growth.

Having that in mind, the new version Drupal 8 comes with more than 200 new features and improvements to customize and deploy your content to the web. It has rooted with a whole new world of powerful content customization features, simpler configuration tools, increased efficiency and lots more new capabilities for mobile devices.

Responsive

Drupal 8 is not merely mobile friendly but it has responsive design. The new version comes with admin pages that snap to the size of mobile devices too. It offers a new administration experience which is lightweight, mobile first and has features like “back to the site” button to go to the front end page.

Multi Lingual

Businesses who target a global audience can take advantage of the Multi Lingual. It applies well to all including installation screens, translating views and more updates directly from the community.

Efficient Configuration Management

Drupal 8 has a file system like structure and logic for configuration management system making it easy to migrate the changes to production environment for new content types, fields, or views. That’s the beauty of this new and efficient configuration management system.

Built in Web Services

Drupal 8 facilitates to create mobile apps besides implementing Hypertext Application Language (HAL), authenticate a client with HTTP authentication or expose views-generated lists as services and lots more.

Effortless Authoring

Drupal 8 has improved editor functionality with a CKEditor WYSIWYG editor that includes in place editing of the content and saving as draft made easy too.

Built for Fast Theming

Drupal 8 introduces to twig a new theme engine which is flexible, fast and secure.

Drupal development is a growing and it’s important that you select the right content management system for your business. Hiring Drupal developers help you set it up for you or upgrade your existing systems!

Amazing Key Info’s About Responsive Web Design

Highly recommended by Google, a responsive website design comes to enhance your website optimization process. It is an important aspect for online merchants who consider enhancing a website user interface as highly adaptive to all screen sizes for major devices like tablets, laptops and desktop viewing.


The Future Of Web

Over 65% of users say they are more-likely to purchase from a responsive/mobile friendly website which means it clearly offers a great competitive advantage for businesses. Whether it is purchase or to make an enquiry, a well designed responsive website makes it intuitive and user friendly, keep them engaged increasing the chance of them taking your desired action.

This is the right time to jump into responsiveness for mobiles and tablets or else you will find your bounce rate increased, resulting in Google less likely to rank your website for mobile.

Better Search Ranking For Your Website

The ease of indexing the URL of every web page and on the same HTML platform even on different device viewing by the search engine which benefits the efforts of any SEO services.

Website visitors of a site tend to enjoy a better viewing experience when there is an ease of transition of the website according to the kind of device used by them. The search engine is able to index and rank a responsive website with better accuracy

Advantages of Responsive Website Design

• Living in a 24/7 environment, responsive website design accommodates everyone to finish an assignment to the busy city professional. It requires no resizing or scrolling which means visitors can access your website- whenever and wherever.

• For merchant, there is no need to have two websites- one for mobile and one for desktop. Instead, one responsive web design enhances your SEO efforts.

• With the growing number of mobile phone and tablet users, making your site responsive helps you stay ahead of your competition.

Your website is the hub of your dealership expansion. According to 2014 U.S. Digital Consumer Report, 80% of working class Americans now own approximately four digital devices and consumer spends 60 hours a week consuming content across devices. So why not go responsive?

How Website Maintenance Impact Performance Tuning- Insightful Feeds

In today’s digital age a business website has become a MUST to help you grow in business, name it any. CMS like Joomla, Drupal and WordPress make website development quick and trouble free however, it becomes necessary to keep your website updated and secure from hackers, for a long run.

This is when website maintenance comes in to play. Better yet, here are a few more reasons why as a business owner you should go for comprehensive website maintenance.

Your Website Needs Maintenance – Know Why?

• To keep your website updated with latest info’s with respect to new product or services.

• To let major search engines like Google index your website and for higher page ranking.

• To provide an improved security from hacker attacks and web spiders

• To increase website traffic and thus improve your online presence

• Website maintenance actually saves you money in the long run

• Helps you to back-up your data so that in case of hacking or server crash it is easier to retrieve data

Prefer Outsourcing Than A In-House Team

And Why You Should Prefer Outsourcing Than A In-House Team

Quick Service

The people working on your website are experts and therefore can quickly resolve the issues.

Affordability

Extremely affordable with a sack of different plans that you can choose from to meet the needs of all types of customers.



Accountability

They send regular updates for customers and allow them to purchase online sitting in the comfort of one’s home.

Summing up, Website optimization greatly impacts tuning your performance making it more relevant and dynamic and offers improved user experience. Plus, removing unwanted extensions or plug-ins greatly enhances your website load speed that eventually shows up in overall performance.

Drupal Vs. Joomla- Which One Is The Best For Online Business

Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal are the 3 most popular Content Management Systems (CMS) online. Though WordPress is basically the best suit for blogs all these three are open source and built on PHP + MySQL.

Comparing Joomla and Drupal, they vary significantly in terms of features, capability, flexibility and ease of use. This post will showcase some of the advantages and disadvantages of each of these CMS solutions to help you make a better decision.

Drupal: Pros And Cons

Drupal is considered the developer-friendly CMS and therefore data-intensive websites like Whitehouse.gov and Data.gov.uk makes it a popular choice.

Advantages

Extreme Flexibility: From simple blog site to a powerful backend that can support hundreds of thousands of pages and millions of users every month- well, Drupal can handle that. The software is all powerful and flexible.

Strong SEO Capabilities: Designed from the ground-up to be search engine friendly.

Enterprise Friendly: no wonder, as it can handle hundreds of thousands of pages of content with ease make Drupal the choice for enterprise customers.

Disadvantages

Lack of Free Plugins: In Drupal, we name them ‘modules ‘because of its enterprise-first roots and most of them are not free.

Joomla: Pros And Cons

Joomla is one of the most popular CMS solutions in the world and boasts over 30m downloads to date.

Advantages

User-Friendly: Joomla isn’t WordPress but relatively easy to use- UI polished, flexible and powerful.

Strong Developer Community: With a ton of free to use, open source plug-in library called ‘extensions’ Joomla has a strong developer community.

Content Management Capabilities: Originally designed as an enterprise-grade CMS, it’s far more capable at handling a large volume of articles.

Disadvantages Of Joomla

Learning Involved: Hoping in and installing Joomla doesn’t work if you’re not familiar with the software. It requires a steep learning curve.

Drupal is recommended for large projects where stability, scalability and power are prioritized over aesthetics. Joomla lets you to build a website with more structural stability and fairly intuitive interface. The latter one is a good option for small to mid-tier e-commerce stores but if you require more powerful for enterprise use, consider Drupal.

How Can You Extend Your Ecommerce Development Services, Globally

One of the benefits of running an ecommerce business is the ability to reach new customer bases but unfortunately most of us don’t reach a large number of clients with limited resources alone.

However, ecommerce business owners must first assess their product or service to ensure it's a good fit for global customers. Besides, their product or service must be something that translates well to other cultures. If you are one who are looking to expand internationally, six ways to achieve a successful launch.

Steps To Take Your E-Commerce Business In Various Regions

G-Localizing: Adapting your global marketing strategy to target each local market isn’t as simple as applying an existing strategy to new regions. This requires on re-thinking on shopping experience strategy for each local market and adapts their approach to accommodate regional expectations. This help you build the credibility and brand trust needed to succeed on a global scale.

Designing A Scalable E-Commerce Infrastructure
This generally involves a step-by-step e-commerce rollout which will be much easier to accomplish at every stage. One way is to find a cloud-based infrastructure and secured methodologies that are designed to make expansion quick and easy. The more flexible it is more easier is to develop your ecommerce website.

Creating A Regional Rollout Plan

A replicable approach is required to adapt to each market, starting from a comprehensive plan that can be used to create a local sales presence makes it broad enough to to each region targeted for expansion. The plan should also identify the market characteristics and customer preferences that will be included in the "globalization" plan.

Developing A Pricing And Tax-Compliance Strategy

Local tax-collection regulations must be followed to have an accounting infrastructure in place. Besides attending to the tax issue, the prices need to reflect local market realities that should need to be displayed in the local currency.

There is no doubt that innumerable businessmen have reaped its benefits. And if you want to stand out among competitors, hire a web development company that serves with quality CMS development service. It simply means that this tool is simple and consumes less time than any traditional ways.

3 Terrible Blockages When Creating A Responsive Web Design

Gone are the days when mobile website was an optional for growing in online business but now- it is a compulsion. Well, as many designers are turning to responsive web design, the fact that it is much more complex than a standard site or a dedicated mobile site is undeniable.

In order to ensure that the site is properly optimized regardless of the device, listed below are the 3 major obstacles that designers face and some tips on how to overcome them.

Website Loading Time

The main objective behind responsive websites is to provide convenience for mobile users. Yet many of which fails. A recent study tested over 300 sites and found that regardless of the site being tested, the page size and load time results were nearly the same. All you need to do is:

• Avoid using larger Image Files and Videos

• Avoid using JavaScript as it is usually the largest asset on a web page.

• Use of unnecessary Links and personal comment icons

• Ads and Social Media Pop-Ups

• Including too many Widgets

Over-Resourcing

Responsive web designs rely on multiple image sizes and CSS scripts in order to get a customized layout matching varied screen sizes. At times, this might leverage a user to download all the images which is not required.

This is when you should use conditional loading. If you want your web design to run on desktops as well as a dedicated mobile website, double and triple check the coding to ensure that it’s fully optimized and running smoothly.

Poor User Interface

Even though your eCommerce website functions well on desktops, it needn’t be mobile friendly. Don’t only think about aesthetics when creating a mobile web design but rather consider the differences between user needs when visiting your site from different places.

Above all these, get to know your customer’s feedback on what they want to do on a mobile device vs. their desktop, and make sure your responsive design meet those needs.

With Magento GO Shutting Down – What’s Up For Small Businesses

Aimed at offering support to small enterprises Magento Go is a cloud-based e-commerce initiative that focuses on the use of built-in modules and additional extensions. However, the sad news is that the Magento Go is going to shut down for good and only full customer support will be provided to all businesses till Feb 1st 2015.

So, what’s next? This is a sceptical situation for most of us who are being affected. For clients looking to stay on the Magento platform but upon more power and flexibility, then you might be tempted two powerful ecommerce platforms:

• Magento Community and

• Magento Enterprise

Community Edition: An open source ecommerce platform that supports outstanding mobility, functions and outcomes, suitably for small to medium businesses.

Enterprise Edition: This is a vibrant annually paid eCommerce solution mainly favorable for large enterprises

Migrating To Magento

Migrating to these platforms entirely depend on your store size with an existing database and site usage. Both editions comprise a few dominant benefits with a variety of features and adaptable solutions such as modules, themes and customer support in an advanced manner. Another important aspect of migrating between Magento versions is that you won’t lose any content due to the data being re-mapped. All of the fields available can be set up within Community. There are a number of things to remember when you’re looking to move your site from Go to Community. Thanks to ‘Magento Community’ equipped with sufficient flexibility, customizability and scalability making way for us to migrate to better, improved and feature-rich platform for ecommerce website.

Be it any versions, both of these require to deal with some technical aspects and that’s why working closely with an ecommerce development company means that we can take the headache out of the transition.