An ecommerce website is a site that sells something online. A number of products and services can be sold online and there are several ways of doing so. If you are having an ecommerce website built then you need to consider what payment gateway system you would like to use. Probably the easiest one to integrate is Paypal which does not require a merchant ID just a PayPal account. Although this is the easiest in terms of integration (which also means the cheapest) the costs incurred from PayPal themselves can be quite high compared to other payment gateways.

Security is vital when it comes to ecommerce websites as if the site does become victim to a cyber-attack, you need to make sure that sensitive data such as payment details etc cannot be accessed. This is why it is essential that you get a highly experienced web programmer to build the site for you and thoroughly text it prior to setting it live to the public.

If your website was designed a number of years ago then it may well be time for an update. You will need to consider advances in your industry and compare your competitor’s websites to see what they are offering. It may be that you need to add downloadable forms, online calculators or simply images of your new products / services.

When updating a website, sometimes it is cheaper and quicker to start a new website rather than trying to amend an existing one. Speak to your current web design agency to find out which is the best option for you. If you do not have a mobile version of your website, then now is definitely the time to do it as Google is favouring sites that are mobile friendly.

Costs vary for updating a website, if you are only adding in a few additions you may be charged per hour for the work. If it is a larger project you may be quoted a lump sum for all the work in terms of design and programming.

A sub domain site is a website that is created on as part of the same domain name as a current site. In the eyes of the search engines, a sub domain website is a totally standalone site. A normal domain would be example.co.uk where as a sub domain would be xxx.example.co.uk with the xxx’s being replaced with the name of the site.

So when would you need a subdomain? If you have a large amount of content on your main website that is cluttering it up you may want to move it to a sub domain and create a mini website. This site will need to be SEO’ed as with the main site but once live and indexed you can actually gain better results by having a site that is completely tailored to a specific subject. You can also link this site to your main site in order to create a backlink.

As a web developer you will never stop learning. There is always new and improved techniques coming out that will mean you can build safer and faster websites that offer a wide range of functionality.

With mobile devices now being used frequently to view websites, it is vital that any site you build is compatible. Some mobile websites actually contain more functionality than the desktop version.

Businesses are getting more technology friendly and want to offer their customers a stress free ordering process, and with many wanting their customers to be able to complete their whole order online, pay for it and track its delivery progress.

If you are a web developer then I would suggest going on a development refresher course every 6 -12 months to ensure you stay on top of your game and offer your customers the best service you can. The more services you can offer the more money you can make!

If you have a particular product or service that you wish to highlight, then you may consider building a mini site. This allows you to tailor all the content, images and Search Engine Optimisation on the site to be very specific to the product / service.

Many people link the navigation button off their current site to a mini 3 or 4 page site to allow an easy link between the two. If you are looking at doing this then speak to a online marketing agency that will be able to come up with a strategy as to how to create this, as if done incorrectly can have a negative effect.

This is also a very good way to improve your quality score on Google Adwords as you can link the ads through to a page that is highly relevant to what you are selling. If you improve your quality score it will be cheaper for you to compete on those keywords.

A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a coder, is a person who writes the backend instructions for what a website or computer program needs to display.

Through using pieces of coding they can change things such as navigation panels, hyperlinks and the overall look of the program.

It is a highly skilled job as programming a computer is almost like speaking another language and therefore if you require complex programming to be done it’s important to understand that it may take the programmer some time therefore could be costly.

Usually if you have a web site built for you the web designer will come up with the ideas of how the page should look, colours, fonts and content along with any additions such as feeds to other websites that would need to be included, they would then hand this information to a programmer who would in effect translate this to the computer instructing it to display what’s required.

With coding being so complex a very small change to the page such as changing the way an image appears could take quite a complicated bit of coding to correct so again may not be able to be done instantly. Understanding what a programmer does will always make it easier to work together and ultimately more productive for everyone.

Online security is a massive concern for many people and also businesses that use it as part of their every day procedures. People using the internet for online banking and other personal practices that require sensitive data to be passed across need to ensure that not only their PC or device is secure but also their internet connection and the website they are using. You cannot guarantee that the website that you are using is safe and secure but having a good antivirus software installed and being aware of scams etc will help.

If you are a website programmer then you should be aware of any current security comprises that are being found and and how you can try and protect your customer’s websites from them being affected.

If you have a business that sells products online also known as an e-commerce website, then you need to be particularly vigilant as often these are the ones that are most likely to be compromised. E-commerce websites often pass sensitive data such as card details or Paypal logins across to third party software and if not programmed correctly, this data can pass in to the wrong hands.

A huge percentage of website views are now coming from people using mobile phones or tables. I recently saw a website that went live and within the first day had received over 50 visits of which ninety percent were on mobile phones. Many companies are using social media of a way of advertising their brand and products / services and often the visitor will be looking at their social media accounts on a phone or tablet. With these figures, it is obvious that all website owners should be considering mobile marketing and mobile friendly websites.

You could go all out and have an app created for your site, but even if you do it is also important that you make sure the main sites is still compatible as you will find that a percentage of visitors do not want to install the app.

If you have a website that was built a number of years ago then you may need to go back to the web developers and ask them to either create a mobile version of the site or at least optimise your current one to display correctly on these platforms. Delaying in doing this could be costing you visitors which in turn means sales.

The point of an XML sitemap is to list the pages within your site that you want the search engines to crawl. The idea is that by submitting a list of all your pages to the search engines, they can easily list the content you have on your site and it should ensure that no pages are missed out of the search engine results (URL indexing).
You can either create a site map manually, have one created and update by your website (using a bit of programming) or can have one created by third party software and upload it to your website yourself. Be sure when creating a site map that all URL’s are listed in the same way e.g all with the www.
Once you have created a site map you can upload this to Webmaster tools on Google which can speed up the process of the site getting indexed or the content getting updated in the search engine results pages.

There are a lot of companies that can do web design in Milton Keynes but the quality of such services and the prices are not the same. This means that you have to take some time to look for the best company where you will not only get the best web design services but you will also get them at the best price range. There are many people in Milton Keynes who have websites designed by vague companies and such websites are not even ranked higher in the Google search engine optimization. For your website to be ranked higher, it has to be designed by an expert or a recognized company who knows all the requirements of an ideal website. Below are some to the tips you can employ so as to choose the best company:

Choose a Web Design Company with Experience 

It is advisable to make use of a company that has been in the field for a longer period. Such companies have handled different problems related to web design and they will never be challenged by any problem even if it is a sophisticated one. They are not like for the case of those companies that are new in the field where they are not even aware of some complex designs. Therefore to get the best services ate the best rates; you have to consider the services of experienced web designers. (more…)