Main Features

The main feature of Magento is that it is an open source platform. It means that programmers around the world can contribute and you can select the plugins that you want, change it, alter it and customize it according to your requirements. It is a cost effective solution for people who have just entered the field of E- commerce. The programmers can customize templates, plugins and other aspects of the website according to your requirements.

Why Go For It

The platform is simple and websites made using it are easily identified by search engine spiders, which help the website to be visible on the internet. You can expect a cost effective designs, which are visually stunning and easy to navigate. The potential users of the website won’t face a problem navigating the website.

You Can Add Plugins

There are various plugins, which can be added and because there are thousands of templates to choose from, you can create unique websites, which are visually stunning and is easily navigable. The plugins can help expand the functionality of the website, which in these days is required. An online store, which showcases more than 2000 products will require a host of plugins to make the website more navigable.

Thus if you are thinking of building an E-commerce website you can think of using Magento as a platform to have a cost effective solution to your business needs.

• Plan your content – One of the most common reasons for project delay is not having your content planned and laid out from the get go. This is a Project Manager’s worst nightmare, waiting for the client to provide the necessary content. This causes a huge loss in productivity. The important point to remember here is to have at least some information ready for each page of your site, even if it’s not the final draft. Additional content can always be added later when you’ve worked out all the bugs and snags.

• Colours and Fonts – Of course many clients come to the table with various design options and layouts. It is here where the designers will advise accordingly in terms of what “works” and what doesn’t. Although your input is crucial, it is important to understand that what you think looks great, may not necessarily be the right approach. It is advisable to have a basic idea of what you require in terms of web safe fonts and complimenting colour schemes.

• Understand how your business will use the site – For example, if it is a business e-commerce platform, then it’s pretty obvious as to how your business will use the site. However, it is important to understand the process your visitors will take when visiting your site. If you don’t understand your own website, just imagine how your site visitors may feel. You therefore need to go through your site’s information and products and create a flow-chart for your developers to work from. This in turn will shorten the time spent on working on the project and save you costs in the end.

Hopefully you find this information useful, lightening the load on your developer, making the project run as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

• Don’t rely to heavily on Flash – It may look effective but it is rarely the best way to go.

• Internal Links – They are nothing like external links. They must be placed relevantly depending on keyword strength. It does not mean that text should be hyper-linked on every single page throughout the site, however, if there are just a few links for a page then it is a missed opportunity for gaining back-links.

• Images versus Text – A very common mistake is using images rather than text when designing a website. Anchor text is important for SEO. If your site lacks anchor text it will have a negative effect with rankings.

• Unnecessary long code – Long code makes your site load slowly. Keep it clean, eradicate excessive, messy code or your site will be excluded from a Search Engine because it will be unable to index it.

• Too much Java Script – Search Engines will penalise your site for excessive use of Java Script (similar to Flash), if it is not coded properly. Keep it simple and give your website a good ranking.

Most Web Development Companies today use creative and highly effective means to get your website equipped with the right tools to get the best possible rankings. Always remember that SEO is a continuous process and requires a great deal of commitment and skill. Unless you know what you are doing, it’s best to let the professionals do it for you.

Your business website must stand out within your market so it therefore becomes crucial to choose the right Web Development Company. They should be able to explain all the steps they’ll take to help you understand the scope of the project in question. Your website should not look like it was created in the 90′s, so the Web Development Company must help you plan to utilize it’s up to date technology and trends in order to take full advantage of it’s web design services and development.

Let us take a closer look:

Social Media is everywhere: The next time you log onto FaceBook, take a look at the advertisements and postings for local businesses in your area, not to mention other media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and FourSquare, and others. Businesses are using these powerful media tools to market their brands and create awareness everywhere.

Client Exposure: It is yet another place where consumers (new or existing clients) can get updated information and exposure to your services and products. It is nearly the same as placing an ad in the local newspaper or magazine. Although paper advertising is still in use, the power of social media has quickly become the more popular, and less expensive means of brand advertising and is guaranteed to reach a wider audience.

If you are not doing it, your competition is: The market place is a cut-throat arena where businesses wage battle daily. They are spending large amounts of money in their advertising budgets to deploy the right strategic media tactics. Whether your competition is around the next corner or on the other side of the planet, you need to take the necessary steps to bring your products, services or brand to the forefront of the social media world.

So why has it become so critical now? The simple fact is that the consumer has evolved and become more educated. With so many businesses listed online today, the consumer also has the freedom to chose exactly what they want in the comfort of their own homes at their own time. They have become more technically proficient and a whole lot smarter. Also note that consumers nowadays no longer trust the old-school salesman, they have become more reliant on word of mouth advertising to encourage them into a buying decision. The fact is that consumers have educated themselves on products they themselves have chosen and no longer what’s being sold. It has really become all about understanding what they are buying and getting the best possible deal and support. Most businesses today are adapting their models in this particular way so as to gain the trust of the consumer. Now is the time to adapt your business, get ahead of the competition and ultimately remould your brand in such a way so that consumers are getting exactly what they are looking for.

In short, flash website design consists of animated logos, moving presentations, 2D & 3D animations and flash introductions. We have the ability and tools to use anything depending upon the website and its specific needs.

We are all very aware that the internet has become a happening marketplace, competition is very high and everyone is trying new ways and techniques to construct a website and maintain it. Online advertising is also witnessing a design revolution where improved creativity and techniques are utilized to represent a company’s line of products or services to targeted customers. Website designers and developers have therefore started using flash banners for product promotion to attract higher volumes of web traffic.

More and more website owners now want to include flash elements in their sites. The result is that newer flash designing companies have come into existence and have ample of choices for website owners to select the best flash designers for their business. Dynamic flash presentations give your company information an eye catching and attention grabbing appeal which ultimately brings in the visitors and transforms them into customers.

Websites using flash animation have more than doubled in last few years in different perspectives and purposes. Business presentations, online game designing, branding, catalogue designing, logo designing, and more, are just some work specimens that can be done using flash animation techniques. Therefore, if you feel that your website needs a fresh and dynamic look, you may want to consider flash and hire the services of a skilled flash designer to do it for you. As an example, one of the latest technologies is rotating logo’s that leave an everlasting impression. It is important, however, to note that one should always limit the use of flash in a website, never over do it.

Firstly it is important to get the right type of PayPal account: Personal, Business, and Premier. With Personal accounts there are no transaction fees for payments through eChecks, Instant Transfer, or PayPal Balance – however, the transaction fees are higher when receiving payments through credit and debit cards. There is also limited support to PayPal Merchant Services.

With a Premier account, e-Commerce sellers with a higher transaction volume will pay transaction fees when receiving payments, but may accept unlimited credit card payments. Premier accounts can also enjoy full service support from PayPal and apply for PayPal Debit Cards.

Although the Business Account is more suited for business owners, there are transaction fees for receiving payments. In addition, there are unlimited credit card payments with lower fees if payments are accepted from credit and debit cards. Business Accounts can also enjoy full merchant support, may apply for a PayPal Debit Card, and integrated multi-user access is supported.

Safety and Security with online transactions:

One of the most common questions relates to the safety and security of making or receiving online payments. It is important to know that valuable information is required when setting up the online merchant accounts. More so, account information is collected when browsers enter their details on order forms and submit payment authority instructions online. No system is 100% foolproof. PayPal has designed many checks and balances into its system thereby keeping errors and fraud to a bare minimum. There is no other online financial institution that is better at protecting its customers. PayPal uses the very latest in security technology and employs a large team of experts in all areas of online safety, and continues to be a leader in safe online payments around the world. It is guaranteed against fraud and identity theft with 100% protection against unauthorized payments from your account. Every transaction is confirmed by email to the account holder. Any disputed transaction allows you access to a 24/7 support team of analysts who will assist you in sorting out your query. eBay purchases can also be insured up to $1000 through PayPal. Another service is called “PayPal Buyer Protection” – this is another way that PayPal will certify that sellers are trustworthy. The Anti-Fraud Team works 24/7 using sophisticated risk models and advanced technology. They are able to detect, and often predict, suspicious activity to help eliminate identity theft. The anti-fraud team’s sole job is to make every PayPal transaction as safe and seamless as possible.

• Always avoid using a hyphen in your domain name.

• Try finding a catchy domain name which is easy to write down (great for offline marketing).

• Create a domain name using keywords with reference to the products and services you are offering.

• If your online business is targeting a global audience, it is best to use a .com or other extension that people are familiar with.

• You can even consider multiple domain names for the same website.

• Never use numbers or words which sound like numbers as people may be confused as to how to type them out when searching for your website.

• Keep your domain name short and simple, but get to the point so people can easily recognise your business.

These are just a few simple points to consider and may seem logical enough, but often we forget that it’s the simple things which are always the most effective. Most of all be creative and take some time before settling on a new domain name, after all it will “stick” with your business for a long time.

If integrated with Google AdWords, users can easily review online campaigns by tracking landing page quality and social conversations. This may include sales, lead generation, viewing a specific site pages, or downloading a particular files. Through the use of Google Analytics Analysis, poor performing pages can be identified using techniques such as funnel visualization. This information shows where visitors came from, how long they stayed, and where they are located. Further features include custom visitor segmentation.

If you are selling products or services online, Google Analytics e-Commerce Reporting helps you track sales activity and performance. The e-Commerce Report shows you your website’s transactions, revenue earned, and other related metrics. Users are able to add up to 50 site profiles, each generally corresponding to a particular website. It is, however, limited to websites with traffic fewer than 5 million page views per month, unless the website is linked to an AdWords Campaign.

Google acquired Urchin Software Corporation in April 2005, and the service was developed from Urchin On Demand. Google continued to sell the installable standalone Urchin WebAnalytics Software service through a network of resellers until it was discontinued in March, 2012. The Google-branded version was launched in November 2005 and was aimed at anyone wishing to sign up, however, with an extremely high demand for the service, new users were suspended only a week later. As the system capacity grew, Google started using a lottery type invitation-code model. Google then began sending out batches of invitations as server availability allowed. From mid August 2006, the service has been fully available to all new users, regardless if they use Google for advertising purposes or not.

The latest version of Google Analytics tracking code is known as the asynchronous tracking code. Google claims it is significantly more sensitive and accurate, and is able to track even very short activities on the website. In contrast, the earlier version delayed page loading. For performance reasons, it was generally placed just before the </body> body close HTML tag. The new code can be placed between the <head>...</head> HTML head tags, once triggered, it runs in parallel with page loading.

In April 2011, the announcement arrived with the availability of a new version of Google Analytics. It featured multiple dashboards, plenty more options for custom reports and a completely new interface design. It was later updated with some additional features such as real-time analytics and goal flow charts. Google Analytics is implemented by including what is known as a “page tag”, referred to as the Google Analytics Tracking Code. It is a snippet of JavaScript that the user adds onto every page of the website. It then collects data and sends it to a Google Data Collection Server.

To function properly it loads a larger JavaScript file from the Google web server and sets variables with the user’s account information. The larger file is only downloaded once at the start of the visit and is cached for the duration of the session. Because all websites implementing Google Analytics with the ga.js code use the same master file from Google, a previous visitor will also have the file cached on their computer. The result – the GATC on web pages is kept to a minimum. In addition to the transmitted information, the GATC sets first party cookies on each visitor’s computer. The JavaScript-based client-side version of Google Analytics is also able to work with websites browsed from mobile phones by using the Mobile Package. It contains server-side tracking code for mobile sites using PHP, JSP, ASP.NET, or Perl as their server-side language.

It is important to note that many ad filtering programs and extensions (for example Firefox’s AdBlock and NoScript) can block the service. This in turn prevents some traffic and users from being tracked. In addition, privacy networks like Tor, masks the user’s physical geographic locational data. Furthermore, some users don’t have JavaScript enabled browsers, or simply disable the feature. The largest impact on data accuracy is when users delete or block Google Analytics cookies. Without this GA is unable to collect the data.

There are numerous online forums and discussions about the impact on Google Analytics on site performance, however, Google launched Asynchronous JavaScript Code in December 2009, reducing the risk of slowing the loading of pages tagged with the ga.js script. Google Analytics has introduced newer user interfaces in the 2011- 2012 period. Unfortunately the new interface lacked functions such as analysing data by search engines which is critical for SEO, and was rejected outright by users. Hence Google Analytics were unable to withdraw the old version even though they announced that old user interface will be removed January 2012.