Website Design and Development

In this information age when online shopping has become a norm; businesses intending to command competitive edge over their rivals must have a well designed and functional Ecommerce website. An Ecommerce website is different than any other informational website in the sense that a user can make a purchase from these websites.

An Ecommerce website has to be viewed as important marketing tool as any other. The design, layout and ease of navigation can make all the difference in converting a visitor into a buyer. Few tips while designing Ecommerce website development, if kept in mind can give the business a winning streak over its competitors:

Website design: A customer typically does not like to spend more than 30 sec in evaluating a website. If within these 30 sec the customer gets the information he/she is searching for then chances are they would stay and explore the website and possibly even make a purchase. A good Ecommerce website design in terms of navigability, content, layout and graphics can give your business that advantage over others.

* Entice your customers into wanting to stay longer on your Ecommerce website, furnish as much information as possible and tell them what is in it for them?
* Testimonials are an important component that can make a lot of difference. A well written testimonial from other customers wins the confidence of the buyer in your product. Money back guarantee also reinforces customer’s faith into your product.
* Give the potential buyers variety of choices to pickup from when they are ordering a product. Offer them option of calling to place an order besides being able to place the order online.

The merchant account: For having a winning Ecommerce web design, have a merchant account with a reliable service provider. This will allow you to accept major credit cards. Accepting all the major credit cards would not just broaden your option and help you in getting business but would also enhances the ease of use for an increased customer base.

Setting up shopping cart: In a virtual shopping cart on an Ecommerce website the customers will be able to see the total of their purchases inclusive the shipping and taxes. This is a very useful application and increases the ease of use for the customers multifold. Having a shopping cart on your Ecommerce website design is a must if you want to win over your customers.

Server and payment gateways: The server that hosts the Ecommerce website should not only be reliable for handling heavy traffic load but should be secure as well. A secure server is required to safeguard customer account information from hackers. To win the trust of your customers safeguarding their information is the first and far most step.

Payment gateways are the link between the Ecommerce website and credit card companies. Reliable payment gateway ensures that only valid and verified transactions can be made through your Ecommerce website.

These four areas if paid attention to can give the business a head start that none of your rival can match

By Kat Delacruz

There are many ways to get an affordable website design. There are few software which can create a website for you within fractions of time but you cannot take help of such software because you want unique and well functioning website not bunch of problems. You can get website development based on templates but it again is not unique in nature so only one best way is left for you and that is custom design. Always attempt to build website from the scratch and according to your specific needs of your business.

But here question is that how to make it affordable. How to reduce the cost? If you do it with proper planning you can save lots of money. See, time is an important factor in costing of any web development therefore, select the language which takes the shortest time for the development yet gives you ample satisfaction at other fronts. You can use opensource languages like PHP or proprietary languages like ASP.NET as both take minimum development time and give rapid results. Their codes are compact so you can get your project done within shortest time.

Apart from language selection you can achieve speed by some preparations. Prepare needed materials like images, audios, videos, text, etc. in advance and save time of your developer. Keep the content ready and other files and save time of your developer. Another cost saving thing is cost of content. If you are going to develop your website using Flash then naturally it becomes decent but it costs you dearly so try to minimize usage of Flash. Flash is again harmful in SEO therefore use it judiciously. Flash also increases the downloading time for your website so count this factor too. In the same way avoid excessive use of audio and video too. Although, they are good, but both reduce the performance of your website in terms of processing means they take more time and resources.

Timely response to your developer plays an important part in reduction of development time hence in cost too. Always keep your communication instruments ready like telephone system, voice over Internet protocol, live chat software like Skype and Gtalk, etc. Give prompt response of any query from your developer it will solve his or her ambiguity on the particular topic and he will do rapid development. In short, your constant communication with your developer is a must. Finally, select a reputed web development company instead of a freelance developer because they will give you the best quotes in comparison to others and will do quality work.

By Abhimanyu Sharma