Steps to Make Your Ecommerce Shopping Cart more Secure

Ours is the age of technology and is dominated by the trend of online shopping. People across the world prefer to buy online. It not only saves time but also spares you the effort of going out and doing all the shopping. Moreover, almost everything is available online. You name it and you have it. Business organizations have realized the importance of ecommerce website development and the benefits offered by it. It t only improves a business' chances of gaining more potential customers but also helps in expanding the business. This is why a majority of businesses opt for ecommerce development.

It is a fact well known that when it comes to online shopping, people do not easily trust a website. They prefer to buy from credible, reliable and secure websites. If a website is not secure, it will be abandoned by visitors. And more often than not, the major reason behind shopping cart abandonment is the lack of security. Therefore, good security is a must for every ecommerce shopping cart. If an ecommerce store does not provide good security, it will not be trusted by visitors and consequently the business will suffer. Read further to find out how to make your ecommerce solution more secure.

Get the SSL certificate. When it comes to ensuring the credibility and consistency of an online store, an SSL security certificate is all you need. SSL stands for secures socket layer certificate.  SSL ensures secure communication and transmission of the customers personal information including credit card data back to the server or payment processing gateway. By employing an SSL certificate in your website, you can improve your web presence and can also enhance your conversion rate. An SSL certificate helps in conveying the message of safety to potential visitors; ultimately it will affect your conversion rate globally.

When you employ an SSL certificate it creates a secure connection of HTTPs. It also creates an icon of a padlock within the address bar. All the sensitive information provided by your visitors is kept protected through SSL certificates. You can get one from any one of the major brands like GeoTrust, VeriSign etc. To offer best security, you can opt for the strongest SSL security encryption levels which are 128 bit encryption and 256 bit encryption. However, the 256 bit encryption are highly recommended for the protection of online stores. With a strong SSL certificate, you can rest assured that all the sensitive information provided by your customers will be kept safe.

Another important thing you can do is to inform your customers. A business should be able to explain to its customers that their website is completely safe and secure. While it is important to maintain the security of the site, it is also equally important to have a clear and well planned security policy that a potential customer can read. It not only satisfies the visitors but also boosts their trust in your site. When a visitor lands on your site, the security policy helps in assuring him that the personal information provided by them will be kept safe. In absence of it, the chances are high that the visitors will abandon your site.

From the above discussion it is evident that security is very important for ecommerce solutions. Without offering quality security, an ecommerce website can not do well. If you follow the above mentioned points, you can make your shopping cart highly safe and secure and can expect a huge volume of traffic on your site. It will augur well for your business and it will fare well than the competitors. It will also help a lot in enhancing your business' reputation among visitors.

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How Important is Website Navigation for a Website?

One of the most important things to keep in mind while opting for custom web development is navigation. Since a website is all about inter linked pages it won’t be wrong to say that navigation acts like veins and arteries in a good website. Navigation is nothing but letting the user know where he or she is and guiding them to the information he or she is looking for. This can be achieved via a user-friendly navigation panel, hyperlinking within the content and categorizing information in a logical manner.

Easy navigation encourages users to browse through different sections and pages of your website which immediately increases your conversion rate. When you hire a web design company discuss about the navigation apart from discussing the design and search engine optimization factor. Navigation should be user-friendly and avoid trying to be over creative as this might confuse the visitors. Here are a few of reasons which highlight the importance of navigation in a website.

Reduce Bounce Rate – Would you like one page view per visit or multiple page views? We all know how difficult it is to get a visitor to a website in this competitive environment and thus having proper navigation encourages the users to visit multiple pages, thereby bringing down the bounce rate of your website. 

 

Visitors are Impatient – Studies have shown that most Internet users are impatient and merely stay 8 seconds on a webpage. If they find your navigation hard to figure out they would immediately close it and look elsewhere. Thus it is very important that your users can find the exact information he or she is looking for and navigation plays a pivotal role in guiding them to the information.

Increase Conversion Rate – To convince the users about the quality of your products and service you need to provide them information in detail. Thus having a proper navigation helps as users can browse through your website and gather information about your products and services thereby increasing your conversion rate is terms of increased sales and revenue. 

SEO Factor – To be successful you need to cash in on search engine traffic and this is possible when you have high quality coding and navigation in your website. Search engine crawlers are attracted by proper navigation model in your website thus brining your traffic to your website. You will lose out on search engine traffic in case you don’t have a proper navigation model in your website.

There are a few things that you need to keep in mind while developing the navigation module during custom website development. A multi-tier navigation structure is a must for complex websites; you can make use of bread crumbs in the footer to add different sections of your website. The navigation should also be uniform throughout the website as this makes the website user-friendly. Thus you will need to hire the services of a professional web development firm for the job by taking a look at their portfolio.

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Important Points of Website Designing From Users Point of View

Have you ever wondered what the most important aspect behind developing a website is? It is catering to the needs of your users or customers better. So the primary objective behind a good business web design is to develop a website  which is user friendly. What better way to achieve than opt for custom web development where you can incorporate features and functionalities to serve the needs of your end users. When you hire a web design company make sure they prioritize the users above all and know who your target audience is. Here a few important points which you should keep in mind while developing your website from the user point of view.

1. Welcome Them – The layout of your website should be simple and welcoming. Most of your users would come via the search engine and should be impressed with your website in the first look. Don’t be scared to leave huge amount of empty spaces in your website as they complement the content you have. Cluttered websites often act adversely in marketing your business and act as big turnoffs. For example, Google’s immense success can be attributed to its no-nonsense homepage.

2. Don’t Confuse Them – The last thing that you would want is to confuse your users with too much of information. Most users don’t read but scan through a website upon arrival and your website shouldn’t appear as a directory or business listing! Don’t hyperlink every second word or paragraph in your website. Let the users decide if they want to go deep into your website. You also need to make sure your website is uniform as distinctive layout  tend to confuse the users.

3. Don’t Make Them Wait – Does your webpage take longer than usual to render? You are scripting your own failure no matter how much of information you have inside. In today’s world where options are plenty a slow loading website would seldom gain popularity. Avoid long scrolling pages and make use of the Cascading Style Sheet to reduce the load time of your website. You don’t need to present everything to them on the landing page, let them browse through your website.

4. Stress on Usability – When you hire a web design company, ensure that the website is usable to the average Internet user.  The user should know where to go once he lands on your website. Do not incorporate fancy functions which make browsing your website a painful exercise. Avoid asking people to register unless your business model really needs it. This often annoys the users and turns him/her away from your website.

5. Communicate Effectively – You should deliver your message effectively with the use of written text, images and graphics.  This helps in catching the users attention in the place you want it. Avoid long paragraphs and over usage of images and graphics unless you really require them. Don’t beat around the bust and announce your USPs to the users as this catches the attention. For example, if you offer 10% discount on products and services compared to your customers highlight this in your homepage. 

6. Let Them Navigate Easily – Navigation plays a key role in business web design. The users should know where he/she is and how to navigate to a section containing the information he/she wants. Categories the information logically making it easy for the users to go from one section of the website to another. Make sure your website has a good search engine embedded in it which makes search information easily. For large websites using bread-crumbs in the footer would be a good idea.

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