Grow your eCommerce Business with the Help of a Blog As an eCommerce business owner, you have to compete with millions of other eCommerce businesses on the net. You probably spend a large portion of your time building up an email list, advertising and contacting customers in an attempt to get more paying customers. Everyone knows blogging, but not many businesses leverage blogging effectively as a potential marketing tool that can help convert customers. Even infrequent blog posts can be very beneficial to eCommerce businesses. Here are some ways you can expand your eCommerce business with the help of a blog: Blogs make search engines sit up and take notice There are several reasons why blogs get you noticed by search engines. First, blogs add more quality pages to your website, which is always a good thing. Second, they signal that your website is getting updated with some regularity, which automatically ranks you over websites that don’t get updated. Blogs written with the right keywords in mind will also attract a lot of traffic back to your website. And, finally, any of your blogs that get shared by people on their social media feeds or other platforms generate more links back to your website. Blogs are better than social media when it comes to promoting products Blogs are much better than social media when it comes to promoting a new product or business. There is more room to talk about your product, for one. You can also use some high-quality images to tell a story. Blogs help you provide valuable information to your customers If you tend to get a lot of questions about some aspects of your business or products from customers, you can write blog posts dealing with each question. Your blog thus helps you answer a customer’s questions in more detail. You will also be able to customers who search for answers to their questions online. Of course, it’s not enough to simply have a blog if you don’t have a website that customers will find attractive. If you’re new at website development, you should consider hiring Openwave professionals to make changes to your website or to help you migrate to a better eCommerce platform like Magento.
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5 Ways in Which a Mobile App Can Help a Restaurant Business Grow Restaurant owners often have to deal with fluctuating customer attendance, especially during holidays or the weekends. Sometimes customer numbers can be very high, outnumbering staff members and making it very hard for the servers to keep up with orders. Mobile technology can help in such cases. Not only is it easy to implement, but it also provides a range of advantages like streamlined service and reduced waiting time for both customers and restaurant staff. Almost everyone carries a smartphone these days. In fact, over by the year 2020, over 6 billion smartphones are expected to be active in the world. Here are 5 ways why getting a mobile app developed for a restaurant is good for business: 1) Reservations at the touch of a button: Instead of calling ahead, customers can instead use the restaurant app to check for places and reserve places accordingly. 2) Automated advertising to lure more customers: It was typical for restaurant flyers and coupons to make their way to a potential client’s mailbox. These days, a significant amount of this promotion is carried out through apps and online social media instead. It is convenient for customers and cost-effective for restaurants. 3) Convenient billing options for fast service: Restaurant Billing is a very complex process, as commonly there are at least a dozen tables occupied at one time by a moderately popular restaurant and each table places a unique order. Last minute additions to a bill are also very common. A restaurant app takes out a lot of the hassle involved in billing by making the process semi-automated. It can also calculate a tip to make things even easier for customers. 4) Ramp up online orders and home delivery: Customers can place orders for their favorite foods through their smartphones, remotely and conveniently. 5) Drive business growth: A well-designed restaurant mobileapp made by a competent developer can give a significant edge to any restaurant business. A restaurant app not only helps with the running of a restaurant business, but it can also be utilized for promotion and distribution of a product. Apart from that, it is a good way for a typical restaurant business to keep a tab on its competitors. Best Practices to Follow for the .NET Framework The .NET framework is powerful, flexible software framework built by Microsoft. Web-based applications form an integral part of a business’ marketing strategy these days. Web-based applications are used by businesses to net more customers and to provide services and updates to them. The .NET framework is capable of creating secure, highly effective and efficient web based applications. Here are some best practices to follow while using Microsoft's.NET Framework: Be consistent and follow coding conventions You should follow standard coding conventions while building your app, making it easy to modify and reuse later. You should use variables that are easy to understand and follow a strict code layout and name scheme, which makes your code easy to troubleshoot – and you can incorporate new code from other sources into it too. Remove performance bottlenecks You should constantly seek to improve performance by modifying your code and removing performance bottlenecks. You can use an analyzing tool to help with this task. A well-optimized application is a treat for users. Make an application secure While the.NET framework offers some standard safety features; you should add custom safety features to make your application more secure. A common mistake is to allow users to write or inject SQL scripts into an application. Make exceptions specific instead of generic While writing code to capture specific exceptions is more difficult, it is more rewarding in the long run when it comes to optimizing and debugging an app. An app also runs better when exceptions caught are specific. Use inheritance to promote code reuse Using inheritance feature offers a certain structure to your code. You can inherit classes later and not have to write new code. It’s also useful while troubleshooting code. The best practices given here are something every good .NET developer should follow to produce error-free, efficient content. If you’re planning to get a .NET based application built for your business, it may be worthwhile to hire an experienced developer to do it for you instead of doing it yourself. Openwave has a team of experienced .NET developers that will be able to plan and create a .NET application exactly the way you want. Which eCommerce Platform Should You Choose for your eStore? Are you planning on building an eStore for your business soon? There are a lot of platforms you can choose to help you build your eStore, and choosing the right platform for your business can be a confusing proposition at the best of times. Here are some tips that should help you choose the right platform for your budding eStore: Should you go for a Hosted platform or a Self-hosted platform? A hosted platform is where the company gives you both the software to create your online store as well as hosting space on a server for it. A self-hosted platform, on the other hand, only gives you the software to help you create your online store. There are benefits and drawbacks to both options. A hosted platform is more stable and easier to manage in the long run, but it is usually more expensive too. A self-hosted platform is much cheaper than a hosted platform. Most Popular eCommerce Platform Choices If you’re planning on choosing a hosted platform, there are three platforms with the market lead at present: Shopify, BigCommerce, and Volusion. Shopify has a great user interface and add-on apps. It is very easy to customize, and you can get your store up-and-running in no time. The downside is that you can’t customize it beyond a certain extent. Volusion has even fewer customization options than Shopify, though it is very cheap to use and makes putting up your store effortless. Volusion is suited for businesses on a tight budget. BigCommerce is not as customizable as Shopify, though it gives you access to a lot of features. The winner – Magento: If there’s one platform that surpasses the functionality offered by all the three fore mentioned platforms, it’s Magento. Magento is a very complex self-hosted platform that has a lot of customization options and packs quite a punch. The downside is that it is very hard to handle if you don’t have any programming knowledge – it’s almost a given that you will need expert help at some point. It’s important that you choose the right eCommerce platform to maximize your conversion rates. Still confused on which platform to choose for your eStore? An eCommerce expert will be able to analyze your business requirements and recommend you the right one. Top Reasons to Use WordPress for your Business Website Your website is the virtual face of your business. It is where customers will go to, to learn about your business as well as to take a look at your products and services. An informative, engaging and attractive website will help you make a better impression on visitors and potentially improve your conversion rate. If you’re planning to build a new business website, you can choose one of the many free CMS tools out there for it like WordPress or Drupal. WordPress is, at the moment, the most popular CMS in the market and is the perfect choice for any fledgling business. Here are some irrefutable reasons why WordPress is the best bet for your business: WordPress is an open source WordPress is a fully open source platform, meaning you don’t have to pay to use it. A large number of developers offer free themes and plugins for WordPress, which you can use to spruce up your website and give it added functionality without having to pay for custom features. You also get access to a variety of updates for free, which keeps your website secure. WordPress has been around for a very long time, now, and is almost bug-free. WordPress gives you an SEO boost WordPress is very SEO friendly. Not only is the code streamlined, but you also get access to plugins that help you organize your content in a way to make it easy for search engines to index. Some of the biggest names on the internet use WordPress for the websites, like Mashable and the New York Times. Every competent developer knows WordPress You will need to update your website every once in a while. If you ever need professional help, you will always be able to hire a WordPress developer at a reasonable price. With lesser known CMSs, you may have to pay extra for a specialist. Your WordPress website doubles as a blog Every website should have a blog – it makes for a great marketing tool. WordPress has a built-in blog feature, so you don’t have to work harder to set up a separate blog on another domain. Setting up a business website using WordPress is very easy, and there are several freely available tools you can use to speed up the process. WordPress also has a gigantic, helpful community that you can turn to for help. Alternatively, you can also get a professional developer from Openwave to build a custom website for you. How is a Successful Business Website Made? Your website is the calling card of your business. It is where a lot of prospective clients will go to get a feel for your business and, as such, you need to put your best foot forward to improve conversion rates. Here are some steps to follow while building a website for your business: What is your website going to do for your business? First, you need to decide what your website is going to do for your business. Is it supposed to help you net clients or is it where you’re going to sell products and services? Design your website accordingly. Picking the right CMS There are several CMSs out there that can help you build a content and feature-rich website. However, each content management software solution has its drawbacks and strengths. WordPress is free, for example, but not suitable for eCommerce businesses. Magento, on the other hand, is very well suited to eStores. Getting your website hosted Choose a web host depending on the amount of traffic you think you’ll get. If you’re unsure, you can sign up for shared web hosting with an option to get dedicated hosting in the event your business takes off. Use templates and plugins to make it attractive WordPress offers a large number of free templates that can help you build a clean, gorgeous website. Plug-ins, both paid and free, will help you add functionality to it. Organize and Create Content for your website Finally, you need to organize your website and create content for it. Organization involves writing or placing content in such a way as to make it search engine friendly. Regular updates are vital Unique content and constant updates are what will keep your visitors engaged. A dead website makes a bad impression and isn’t very useful either. The process may sound complicated, but it is quite simple. You can have a decent website up and running in no more than a couple of days if you do everything yourself. It takes a lot of industry experience and technical knowledge, though, to make an outstanding website – it may be worthwhile for you to hire the web developer to work on yours. Learning How to Manage Your Virtual Reputation A single word out of place can destroy reputations – or relationships – that were years in the making. In this digital age, customers expect businesses to be completely transparent with their business processes and to be responsive to their complaints or requests. Failure to do so can hamper a company’s reputation, as customers will more-than-likely vent on their favorite social media accounts, where their opinions are visible to the rest of the world. For businesses, reputation is everything. Here are some ways you can build and maintain a spotless business reputation in this digital age: Always be open and available to customers Not having business social media accounts can kill your brand value these days. Having a social media presence allows you to listen to social chatter about your brand and nip problems, if any, in the bud before they become too big an issue. You should always be available to redress their grievances, by offering social media or other customer support tools. Give your customers your word and stick to it Customers will be happy to wait if you assure them you will handle their problem within a given timeframe, but they are likely to get angry if you keep them waiting. If you make promises, make sure you deliver. It doesn’t hurt to be polite Never get angry with your replies to posts. Be thoughtful and considerate when dealing with customers – remember, keeping your customers happy is what will keep your business healthy. Consider hiring a customer relations team Consider hiring a person or a team, if your business is big, to handle customers on your behalf. You should also limit the number of people who have access to the business social media accounts – there have been cases where wayward employees have ruined a business’ reputation by posting inappropriate content through company accounts. Getting a professionally made app or business website can help automate several business processes and make handling customers even easier. Several professionals are more than happy to make affordable apps at a fair price. You have to remember, though – it’s impossible to make everyone happy all the time. But if you give it your best, your business’ reputation is sure to thrive. Benefits of Choosing PHP Web Development for your Website PHP is the most popular web development server-side scripting language at the moment. Millions of servers run PHP, and over 800 million websites are based on it. However, PHP is by no means the only web development solution out there – there are some other powerful ones like ASP.NET, Python, and Java. So should you choose PHP web development for your individual or business needs? Here are the top advantages of choosing PHP web development: PHP is open source PHP is fully open source. It doesn’t cost you any money to use it or to customize it to suit your particular needs. It is also regularly maintained and updated by a worldwide developer community, so you don’t have to pay for upgrades or updates. PHP is easy to implement PHP has a logical, easy-to-understand syntax that is based on C code. PHP can be used to design all kinds of websites and it can handle a huge load of traffic. Top websites like Facebook and Wikipedia use PHP. It runs on all the major platforms PHP is compatible with all the major operating systems being used in the world today like Windows, Linux, Mac OS and UNIX. You don’t have to code separately for these platforms. All the major web servers and databases support PHP PHP supports all the major web servers in the world like Netscape and Apache, so you don’t to worry about hosting. You can also use most major databases on it right out of the box, including MySQL, IBM DB2, and ODBC. PHP runs fast and is very secure PHP has an independent memory space that lets you rely less on servers for processing. Also, PHP is very secure because of its multi-layered coding. PHP has been around for more than two decades now and has proven its mettle time and again. If you are planning on building a PHP based website, you can attempt to do it yourself or hire a professional developer to do it for you. There are some very competent developers that offer their services short-term and work remotely, so hiring a developer doesn’t have to be an expensive option. Get in touch with top developers in Malaysia! How PHP Can Help You Create the Website of Your Dreams There are, at present, well over a billion websites on the internet. More than 80% of these websites use PHP for their server-side operations. PHP, which is an abbreviation of Hypertext Preprocessor, is a server-side programming language which is used for website building. PHP is especially useful when building dynamic websites because of its various capabilities. PHP is, by no means, the only server-side scripting language out there. Ruby and ASP.NET, to name a few, are also very good scripting languages. So what makes PHP so special and why should you use it for your website? Here is why: You Don’t Have to Break the Bank when Using PHP PHP is an open-source language. Its open-source nature means that it is completely free to use. What’s more, its open source status means it’s easy to modify it to suit your needs too, if necessary. Unlike other languages, you don’t have to pay anything to use PHP or modify it. PHP is easy to learn and even easier to implement The PHP language syntax is very easy to learn because it is based on the two of the most popular programming languages out there: C and Perl. Also, PHP is a clean and well-organized language. It is easy to develop robust applications using PHP without the code ever getting out of hand. Many flashy websites on the net today use PHP. PHP offers great compatibility PHP is very compatible with a range of other languages like HTML and CSS. This compatibility means that you can intersperse PHP with HTML and CSS without a problem and give added features to your website. PHP gives you access to a huge, friendly community PHP, being open-source, is developed and modified by an active, helpful user base. It is also very popular, so a large number of intelligent coders continuously tweak the language in one way or another – and many of them are very helpful and don’t mind going out of their way to answer your questions. For you, this translates into customer support that you might have had to pay for otherwise if you were using any other language. Are you planning on making a website with PHP and don’t know where to get started? You can hire an experienced PHP development team to handle your website building for you. Not only is this easier for you, but it is also cost effective and will net you an outstanding website. 4 Common mistakes to remember when laying out a quality Website Many people have a wrong assumption that the website isn’t important for their business success. What they focus on is the informative content. Although, “Content is king,” imagine if you put a doll in an ugly box, would you bother to open it up? This post explores some of the common mistaken beliefs among entrepreneurs about web design. Building a Website is easy to do: Creating a simple website might be child’s play, but developing a seamless one takes hours of coding. It’s more than just understanding the color patterns, keeping up on the latest trends and correctly using white space. So, if you want a unique website, your design process must involve complex programming. Fill every inch of the Website: Don’t ever clutter up your site with too much stuff. If you cover every inch of your site with messy content, visitors will be overwhelmed. So, please leave some white space on your site. Developed a website! Traffic will increase automatically: Don’t indulge in the illusion that you have just developed a website, so thousands of visitors will come flooding in. This thought is like you are conducting a party and not inviting anyone, but still expect people to pay a visit to your home. How can it? To make the website go viral, use effective digital marketing and SEO tactics. Build once, run forever: Many people have this silly assumption! They think that once their site is completed, it never needs to be updated. The web is always changing, so website needs to be regularly updated to remain compliant with best practices and emerging trends. If you are serious about designing a quality site for your business, you have to consider engaging a professional web designer. It not only saves your valuable time but also improves your business processes and product sales. |
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AuthorAm a Senior Business Analyst @ OpenWave Computing (M) Sdn Bhd in Malaysia. Archives
September 2019
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