Team Mango Media Pvt Ltd

Over 3000 websites and counting, impeccable execution and precision oriented detailing astound our current and potential clients prevalent across different regions of the world including USA, UK and Singapore. Customized web services offered at Team Mango Media are developed by highly experienced and creative crew of professionals. The conception and execution of innovative and engaging web solutions are responsible for the creation of sustainable value for each of our clients. Our world class development team presents our unsurpassed technical expertise in PHP, HTML 5, Flash Programming and Multimedia and Macromedia tools that significantly differentiate us in the market.

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Common web design mistakes that designers need to avoid

Introduction

An attractive website with its well themed branding and aesthetic looks is bound to keep the customer coming back for me. Your website is an integral part of your business. It speaks for you and your products without the human presence. So keeping a customer engaged with meaningful content in a well presented layout is absolutely essential to furthering your business. There are a ton of material that points to building websites easily and enough to make you feel overwhelmed. So it is important to understand the end goal of building websites and how to avoid the common pitfalls that designers should keep in mind while building their website or web design.

Web Design Essentials

A well-organized website is identified by search engines whenever a user looks up information. It helps build more leads and a potential for increased revenue. A cluttered website for example, can put off customers or a website with poorly designed navigation or if it is not intuitive can frustrate customers easily and they may not look back again. To make it more difficult, there is a possibility that they will discuss it with their friends or other business partners, closing down the avenue for building referral customers also. Today, real-time feedback collected from genuine customers and the company’s response on the forum is taken seriously and evaluated immediately. So the debate is also about functionality versus the overall aesthetics.

When you build a customer’s website, it is important to keep in mind that while the designer and the customer will know what their products and services are all about, a visitor to the site will not know right away what your website is all about if it does not provide relevant images and content. Let’s say that you have built a teaser to engage your customer’s attention, then the teaser needs to speak like a short story to the visitor. This should pique the visitor’s interest who then goes on to explore the rest of the website and may possibly convert as a future customer. This is the power of web design.

We also live in a digital age where everyone has a mobile phone at their disposal. Be it emails, writing, talking, taking notes, or shopping, it is all on the phone. Devices can be synced so data is not lost. So a responsive mobile design is imperative to your overall reach.

Still wondering why your pages do not feature in the search engine’s results page or why the ranking is not where it is supposed to be after having everything in place? Did you check the heading tags, which is one of the essential SEO elements? Tags are like a target audience for a web crawler, since it points out to specific words. Second, while using images or media files, make sure they are not too heavy, else it will impact the overall site performance. You get brownie points with search engines for faster performance. Finally, keep in mind the overall user perspective and keep away pop-ups from scaring visitors away!

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The Importance of Graphic Design in Business

Introduction

Many a time, existing businesses may choose to go for a makeover or expand their existing business lines. New businesses also emerge and will want to make their mark in a competitive landscape. In a constantly dynamic environment, where everything is closely related, organisations need to ensure that they stand out to keep their businesses thriving. It is important to communicate with your customers and keep engaging with them consistently.

Your website is your visiting card of your services and telling a potentially interested customer that you exist. Along with an interesting website, you also have a ton of marketing collaterals including a logo that conveys your philosophy, brochures, pamphlets, and flyers among others that drive the branding. The common thread that binds these entirely different communication mediums is a visually attractive theme and eye catchy graphic design. The adage, a picture conveys a thousand words holds good even today. What’s more, majority of the population are visual readers.

The importance of graphic design in business

Today people do not have time to have in-person meeting and a loyalty driven customer base was a traditional notion of business. Everyone is busy and with technology at their finger tips, customers can easily compare different products to make a decision. Business commands that your site visitors are able to understand what you are trying to sell them. While content is king, visuals play an important role in supporting the content. Where words are complex, breaking the idea into a simple pictorial representation using the company’s branding colours will ensure they remember the idea much after they have seen your marketing material.

That is why even today, people ask for landmarks since they are easy to relate to. Graphic design uses a combination of creative thinking, aesthetic sense to balance colours and words, and software tools to deliver a visually attractive design. Images should be of high resolution and sharp so when the viewer zooms into the product, each aspect stands out clearly. Graphic design delivers strong non-verbal impressions such as the branding of the company. For example, think of Microsoft, Google, Instagram or Facebook. Their icons deliver a story of who they are in very simple, but effective terms using a specific colours and design. This brand identity also acts as a differentiator in a competing environment. Further, investing the time in building creative visuals for your business also conveys the professionalism and commitment you and your company exude, as a whole.

On the reverse, poorly designed logos, lack of cohesive branding across the site including fonts, typography, and colours, neglecting your website overhaul in line with the businesses roadmap can adversely impact your company and its overall image in the market place. The customer base is also built on referrals and different customer personas, with different expectation. So a failure to review your own company marketing and communication material including your resume such as your website will even have the capacity to bring down traffic. Your budget should definitely include a good portion for investing in a professional graphic design company that can read your mind and deliver more!

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Top 8 Reasons for the Decline in Website Traffic

Introduction

We live in a world dominated by the web. Information is not even a stone’s throw away but available with a simple click of the mouse! The web has invaded both our everyday life as well as the way corporate reinvent themselves amidst heavy competition. For any business to sustain and thrive, the role of website traffic is crucial. It is a deal breaker.

Your website is your business resume, which means that with every visitor who comes to your website, implies the potential for making a brand connect and establish a relationship. This naturally translates to referral customers and an increased customer base, means increase in revenue and an overall bright prospect for the business.

Top reasons for decline in website traffic

It is understandable when businesses are concerned with a drop in traffic. With decreased traffic, it is an indicator of your product’s performance, growth and the overall revenue. There could be many reasons why traffic to your website may have declined. As businesses go through the landscape of transformation, it also means that your website has to be upgraded or re-branded to reflect the business changes. Changes to your website design also have an impact on its load time. This is an influencing factor on search engines when they fetch results. It is also important to consistently monitor your website to track website traffic and identify sources of traffic.

Since there is more than one reason why there may be a decline in website traffic, it is imperative to monitor your website on a regular basis. Most often, a drop in traffic is usually blamed on the changes in the Google algorithm, which determines how it fetches pages or ranks them based on the search. However, it is quite farther from the truth since changes are not mass made, but implemented smoothly so as to not shake up the entire online space. Rather than blame it on one source, it is logical to examine the drop from different angles such as the traffic source, landing pages, and devices used.

Do you know if the source is organic, paid for, or direct? By analyzing the source of the drop, it is easier to perform a targeted analysis and arrive at a solution.  In some instances, it has been found that adding new plug-ins can de-index the site, which means the search engine will not include them in their search results! It can even be as simple as a new email service that can be hampering overall traffic by spamming the mails. Check your SERP pages to determine whether your pages have been indexed. Over optimizing the website can hit traffic too since the sanctions work like filters to protect it from spams.

Check your website for viruses to ensure your website is not blacklisted. In addition, users will receive a warning from the browser if there is malicious content owing to viruses. So clearly analyse the source of the problem and then understand what is causing the drop.

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Factors to consider when choosing professional SEO services

Introduction

The choice of the search engine optimization (SEO) company you decide to go with to enhance your business including the choice of services that you select has a direct impact on your website’s rankings among the search engines as well as the corresponding impact to your business. This is because there is an array of SEO services that you have to choose from including some of the basic services such as Link structure, SERP performance including SEO copywriting, email marketing, campaigns, and post submission.

Every organization tries to woo its potential customers by promising them to help put their business on a larger map. So there are factors to consider before you make the final choice of a professional SEO services organization.

Choosing Professional SEO Services

Investigate the promises

There is warning signs you need to cue into when a company offers to put your website on most sought out search engines within hours or even days. Investigate or probe more into such promises through demonstrated work, testimonials, impact and case studies. You must also understand how employing these SEO services has an impact on your business or should you need more in addition to already what is offered on the table.

Understand SEO impact in similar businesses

Every business has different needs in addition to common services that is spread across all industries.  It will also be very useful for you to gauge the validity of the select company’s claims when you are able to see the influence in businesses similar to yours, so that you are not comparing chalk and cheese but apples to apples. It gives you a larger picture of what is required and what may be nice to have driving you towards informed decision making.

Industry experience

Another basic consideration as you go short-listing the companies you want to work with is the industry experience. Now there are two aspects to it. First consideration is the number of years in the business across different types of industries. This is a strong indicator of adapting to different business needs and the challenges each industry poses and the ability to tailor solutions that address the business challenge. Second, is the relevant experience in the industry that you want to build the solution in, which will be of greater interest and use to you when it comes down to the wire.

All these factors also have a direct impact on the cost, which is a huge factor to consider while choosing the choice of SEO company you decide to work with. As a company, you must also be aware of the basics such as the use of relevant images with good resolution or higher resolution, incorporating the required keywords that users are most likely to use while browsing for information, use of well authored content that is relevant and useful to users are essentials that must not be compromised on your website.

Today, we live in a digitally dynamic world where information must be available across any device and at the same time, the user experience cannot be altered and must be seamless. Ensure that your SEO company delivers these results.

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Best CMS Platforms for Developing a Website

Introduction

Having a website for your business irrespective of whether it is a small, medium, or large enterprise has become a norm. The basic questions an interested party will most possibly ask for after getting an introduction to your business and its offerings, is a website address where they can go through the services you offer in greater detail, and maybe reach out to you in the future should there be a potential for getting into a business deal. So your website acts as your resume to not just a potential customer, but to millions of others who probably are not aware of your presence but may need the services you offer.

A content management system or CMS as it is popularly known helps you design that attractive site with beautiful themes, cool layouts, publish blogs, and maintain your business’s online presence along with other aspects that is customer facing. The market is flooded with numerous CMS platforms to choose from; so the most practical way to choose a CMS is from the bouquet is to go with the one that best delivers your requirements.

Best CMS platforms for developing a website

The most popular CMS we have today is WordPress, Magento, Drupal, Joomla, and Microsoft DNN, an open source software, among many others that are used by developers across the globe. The best CMS to use is the one that not just enables functional web development, mobile application creation, and redesigning the existing website, but is also compatible with the different plug-ins that can customize your site. WordPress is considered among many to be one of the most versatile CMS platforms that lends itself to different customization and ability to incorporate plug-ins. It is primarily known for its ease of use and myriad options or themes that help build an attractive website.

Another advantage to using WordPress is that it is also a preferred CMS of choice by the world’s most popular search engine, Google. So there is a high possibility that your search rankings may also enjoy an advantage should you choose this easy-to-use platform. The Joomla CMS as a comparison is considered much more easier to use than Drupal and is far more flexible to work with customization compared to its popular cousin WordPress. It offers a single-click install, so you do not even have to be a geek or an advanced user to work with this remarkable web application development hosting service.

Microsoft DNN is a .Net based platform that does away with the need for technical know-how to manage your website and accommodates third-party applications. It is a good choice when you are working with Microsoft supported tools. PHP is also another popular tool that not only offers a wide variety of functionalities, but is also robust, and has the capacity to manage traffic in large numbers. Magento’s user forum is extremely popular today along with its dozens of extensions that support website customization. 

So irrespective of what platform you choose to go with absolutely depends on what your business goals for your website are.

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6 Reasons Why You Need to Revamp Your Website

Introduction Today’s businesses irrespective of their size of business, be it, small, medium, or large enterprises have a basic necessity to have their presence felt online. Almost everyone from all walks have life either have access to the web or to a smartphone which connects them to other sites. So the world is in your pocket. What this means is that information is accessible every second and every second, implies a potential customer who is visiting your site.

Reasons to Revamp Your Website The website is like a business card or a resume of the services that you offer. It is the first shop for new customers who are looking into your products and services including testimonials, comparing it against competitors in the market before filling out a request for more information or a quote on your site. So it is absolutely imperative to have a website if you do not have one or ensure that you revisit your site periodically to ensure that it is up to date.  It is not just about keeping the site updated, but it also means redesigning the website if necessary to make it aesthetically pleasing and inviting to the user. 

Using the right colour combinations, creative exercise in branding and marketing are also essential and offers a good reason to revamp your website. Organisations also understand the need to have a user-friendly website, intuitive and easily navigable. The redesign process will involve a complete thought engineering geared around making your website shine among others in the market. This involves a lot of time, effort, and money, whether you choose to go with a freelancer or a professional agency. So it is good to have an allocated budget to meet these expenses. An outdated site is most likely to have a negative impact on the business.

Remember, users cannot see you, so they will look at other aspects to evaluate your business. If you do not invest time in your own website, it is a possibility to extend it to your interest in the business. On the other hand, a website that is clean, crisp, and delivers their goods has a positive psychological assurance to the visitor that they are possibly dealing with professionals in the business. Another good reason to consider revamping the site is the need for responsive user design providing a seamless across user experience across all devices popularly used, such as, tablets, ipads, desktops or mobile phones.

Not everyone has access to all the devices, so it is important to ensure that your website provides the same user experience across any device the user may choose to use. While considering a revamp of your website design, look into the technology used to build it. It needs to be progressive and flexible enough to adapt to modern technological development. Otherwise, it is going to be another round of investment redesigning the site completely using a new technology stack. You must consider the maintenance cost and long term plans while building the site.

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The Impact of Social Media on SEO

Introduction

Social media is the buzz word today. Businesses both and new are jumping on this social media bandwagon to capitalise on market research through increased traffic and footfalls. It undoubtedly has a huge impact on your business irrespective of the size. But have you ever wondered if SEO or also otherwise known as search engine optimization have an impact on your business via the social media. SEO is typically associated with content and web page rankings, but social media adds a whole new dimension to it.

Impact of SEO on Social Media

Though SEO and its impact on social media may not be direct in terms of search ranking, it nevertheless provides a mileage when you are working with SEO through increased reach and stronger online presence, branding and marketing, and a much better content distribution that reaches a far wider market. When considering a good digital strategy combined with SEO strategy, it is critical to include the social media needs and ensure that it is well integrated in your overall development plans. The debate between the impact of SEO on social media is much debated since there has been immense speculations about whether top search engines like Google use social media pages to determine the page ranking.

While at one time, they did mention that social media was used to rank pages, yet at another time, they denied it. Moreover, their strategies for page ranking is kept tightly under wraps making it hard to determine the logic. Irrespective of these arguments, there has been a clear paradigm shift in the way search engines are retrieving results. It is really hard to ignore social networks that have burgeoned in size at a massive scale and massive pace. The numbers are only growing. Facebook pages and Twitter pages for example, seem to have made their presence felt in Google’s results. In a controlled test that was carried out to determine the correlation between Social media and SEO, the results indicated that the relationship was indirect, however, it also showed that content that has a good standing in social media will understandably get more backlinks, which in turn boosts the search results.

Social media channels such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook are as much or even more popular as Google. There are immense visuals, plethora of information that is available at your fingertips today. Social profiles have an important reach as well since there is an element of personal touch that is integrated as part of the social engagement and customer reach. Instagram is immensely popular because of its visual reach. You can upload demos, fun videos, pictures which give a realistic touch and help potential customers get interested in your products. This visibility along with keywords has an influence in the way a business is positioned in the search results. As much as Google likes to deny the use of social media in its rankings, it is impossible to ignore it permanently since the impact is way too huge. If not now, then in the future, it has the potential to become a reality.

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Why should you use a custom Content Management System?

Introduction

A content management system or CMS is designed to manage digital content and is suited for use in a collaborative setup. A CMS enables you to add version history and control each time a document is modified, including applying indexing, search, and retrieval of documents. You also have web based CMS that supports web pages including images, audio, map, graphics and other similar assets. Users do not require technical expertise to work with a CMS and can easily modify, edit, or delete data, depending on the user group and permissions assigned to them.

Using a Custom CMS

Today, there are a number of open source content management systems available on the web. Also, the kind of information your business may actually require can be as simple as maintaining a blog site, easily executed by just using WordPress, Jhoomla, or Drupal, which is one of the many popular options available today. A custom CMS requires paying more for specific features, which may not necessarily be required for your business. Further, there is also a possibility that using a custom CMS does not guarantee that it is proprietary. So it basically boils down to the size of the business and the nature of business.

An enterprise organization or a large scale organization may have a greater need for a customized CMS depending on its multiple business units. Next, when there are issues of security or if your organization calls for tighter controls on data and its management, then a customized CMS can be designed to ensure security checks are in place, while on the other hand, off-the-shelf products may be far more vulnerable to data leaks and threats. However, should you choose to use the latter, then you must consider if your business will require more add-on features over time depending on the business strategy. Should you plan to go in that direction, then you must evaluate if your CMS can handle such customizations else, it will crash or impact the business. So if you require a lot more features to be built on top of the existing ones, then you may want to consider a custom CMS.

Customizations have a lot of benefits that a regular CMS may not be able to offer since features are predefined. When you tailor it to suit your organizational needs, you have greater flexibility regarding the flow of information and the design of the user interface that ensures every employee is able to access it with ease. Wordpress also offers a good user interface that is easy to handle. However is it enough for your business size? It is however sought out by bloggers and writers on an individual basis where they are more interested in sharing information or an experience. Such applications also rely heavily on plug-ins, which makes it difficult to upgrade them should there be performance issues. Since it is already hardcoded, you may not have control on its performance needs. From a compliance and requirements perspective, this is a factor to consider.

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Reasons why you should give importance to the Visual Content

Introduction

We live in a technologically consumed world where the common citizen right from the small villages to the large cities across the social and economic divide carries a device such as a smart phone. This means the world in everybody’s pocket along with instant access to the web where you can instantly upload images, videos, posts, tweets and what not. Instagramming has taken the world by storm, and much more than Facebook, which was once the most popular social networking site. However, people are making a beeline for Instagram for its instant visual appeal. You have social media influencers who have millions of followers and are known to influence trends.

The more visually appealing your images are, the more engaging it becomes to connect you with your viewers. What starts out as a hobby such as cooking, can transform into a business through such visual content. People do not have time or patience to run through huge loads of content today. They want quick, easy to make, or understand, nuggets of information. Statistics also tell us a vast majority of people are also visual learners. Did you know that our brain processes images 60,000 times faster than it is able to process text?

Visual Content Makes All the Difference

As a business strategy, it is proven that more than static pages, dynamic pages with both visual and content have a better response than just content alone. While content may be king, the quality and quantity of content balances against mind-blowing visuals are likely to tip the scales in favour of the latter. With phones equipped with cameras, everyone literally has a camera in their pocket. Going by data, it tells us that a press release accompanied by a video pushes up viewing by over 45% while an article that is balanced with good visuals improves footfalls by over 94%. What’s more? Consumers are also more likely to make or consider a purchase that is accompanied by photographs of the product. This accounts for about 60%. So adding high-resolution images, product angles that communicate branding, marketing, and build trust is extremely crucial to any business or entrepreneur trying to gain market acceptance and recognition.

Pinterest is yet another popular site where images are interactive. People are constantly online and obsessed with social media platforms where information and reviews travel at high speeds. Over three billion photos are uploaded on these social media platforms including Snapchat, Messenger, and Whatsapp. Tweets with images get retweeted 150% more. This is absolutely critical to your business. Your portal’s engagement with the customer should persuade them to share the content and increase the user base. Reference customers make a huge impact, more than repeat customers since it flushes in new accounts, leads, and sales.

With the market competition dictating the trends, it is imperative for businesses to constantly innovate and command the attention in a congested, content consumed world. In the world of content marketing, visuals certainly are a stand-out and this is non-negotiable. You can reuse the same content in different visual interpretations to drive home a point. Minimal text, bigger visuals, and easy processing is the trend.

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5 Reasons Why E-commerce websites need SEO

Introduction

It goes without saying that the web aesthetics, engaging content, and the positioning of the products and services offered by a business plays an important role in creating and sustaining a good customer base. For example, if the UI design is cumbersome and customers find it difficult to navigate a site, then chances are they will drop off or may not visit the ecommerce website again. An ecommerce site or a business site has an absolute dependence on the number of footfalls it can generate to its site. This is where SEO or Search Engine Optimization plays an important role in generating traffic to your site. Have you noticed that when a query is posted on a search site, the Search Engine generates multiple formats of results that match the search term. This could be a mix of websites, videos, and local listings. All these results are ranked and displayed based on the determination made by the search engine on what it considers most relevant to the end user.

Top Reasons Why E-commerce Websites Need SEO

Today, every business, whether it is a medium sized business, small business, or large enterprise has to have an online presence. People do not have the time or patience to physically visit a store or inspect the goods. Rather, ecommerce with its competitive pricing and door delivery coupled with payment options and easy Returns policy have made it an interesting and extremely challenging environment since the need to stay relevant is much more. Amazon, Myntra, Jabong, Urban Ladder to name a few, are some of the most popular sites today that dominate the ecommerce market. The challenge of driving traffic and organic results is also a complex, but non-negotiable need.

SEO is a marketing strategy that is absolutely necessity to ensure a steady and stable stream of traffic by targeting the right audience who will find your product relevant. There is really not much practical use to drive traffic to a market that does need your product. So you must consider including professional SEO services as part of your business’s long term development plan. Consider the SEO requirement as an investment rather than as expenditure. In the context of online businesses, it is critical to ensure that a steady online presence is clearly established. A well-devised SEO strategy delivers good returns on your investment by attracting the buyers for your products.

You may argue that there are other alternatives such as online advertisements including Google Ads that can still do the trick. However, while these may be a temporary tactic, the SEO investment has a long term impact simply because it ensures that your website is featured on the first page of the search engine results. Users typically are more likely to go with the results that are ranked within the top ten results rather than go through a volume of pages. This entire exercise is also geared towards driving sales and market revenue through leads and buyers, which is the basic need for any business to expand.

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Web Design or Web Development – What’s the difference?

Introduction

There is a lot of debate between web designing and web development. Does a business need both? In that case, that brings up questions on the required skill set for both during the process of building a custom website. To really answer this question, it is important to understand the difference between both or rather the purpose of web design and web development. Both roles however, web designers and web developers are integral to the overall web development process.

What’s the Difference?

Web designers by their very name are responsible for the look and feel of the website, the graphical elements, and design components which will appeal not just for the product and company, but also represents the needs of the end user in mind. Based on the requirements of the website, the designers come up with a number of wireframes for consideration, including typography, color themes, logo designs and icons. In order to deliver these design requirements, Web designers are usually competent in the use of design software such as Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator to name a few. Certain organizations even have specialized user experience designer roles, whose key responsibility is to design highly functional websites, which are user friendly. By user friendly it means, building intuitive layouts, navigation, frames where the user does not feel lost, but is rather firmly engaged with the website.

A web developer on the other hand has two types of roles to choose from. You have the front end developer and back end developer. As its name suggests, the front-end developer is responsible for coding the pages the user sees while interacting with the website. So primarily, the skill sets will include coding in HTML, CSS, and Javascript, which are industry standard requirements for this role and need. The backend developer on the other hand, exhibit competency on the server side technology piece. This includes in-depth coding experience and knowledge about PHP, Java, ASP, and Ruby for instance. Their profile can also extend to mobile app development or building mobile architecture based on their programming familiarity. The responsibilities of the back-end developer may also include server administration and database management. In essence, web developers are technically in the forefront of the project leading mobile architecture or web development projects.

Hence it is obvious that both web designers and wed developers have a definite role to play in the entire web development process. How these highly skilled individuals are used depends on the goal of the project at hand. For example, if the project involves building a custom website with specific technological requirements, then web developers will be imperative in leading the project. It does not mean that the web designer has no role to play. Your hiring will be minimal for this project for this role. However, if the project is heavily into recreating or redesigning the layout, colors, themes, and look and feel, then web designers will have a prominent role to play. However, there is no hard and fast rules about combining both roles and responsibilities.

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Landing Page vs Website: Which One Do You Need And Why?

Introduction

Much has been said and debated about landing pages and home pages. Landing pages have been compared to web pages and many comparisons have been drawn. For every entrepreneur who wants to showcase their business card virtually, the home page is that critical factor that does the job for them. The home page talks about the business, products and services offered, and where they are available and how an online visitor can get in touch with the business for enquiries or employing their service. A landing page, which is also a necessity, is also recommended in the same vein. Landing pages have also been compared to web pages. Do they mean one and the same or is there a clear cut distinction in their roles? So the natural question is, does one require both?

Which page do you need?

The key purpose of a landing page is to draw visitors to the site, be it an ad campaign or any other form of information source. However, a home page acts as an online introduction to the host of services and provides links to key components of your website. Importantly, it also provides information on how site visitors can get in touch with you at any time through email, phone, fax, or social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram or other sources. The landing page does not offer so many navigational options and draws your focus to a specific topic. It may or may not even feature permanently on your website.

A landing page is yet another type of web page. Web pages on the other hand are a subset of a larger website such as a domain with different types of web pages catering to diverse information, that is unique. So a landing page is designed as a web page with its own differentiator. Example of common or standard web pages you can see on a website include About Us, Contact Us, Services, Blogs and other information. You will notice that in a website, all these different web pages are actually logically organized with links to each other to give the visitor complete, comprehensive information about their site. These web pages also provide a variety of navigational options to other pages.

On the other hand, the landing page, a web page, is created with a single focus in mind, which is to drive a specific user action, such as signing up for a campaign. It does not offer so many navigational distractors unlike the web page.

Hence the question of whether to include a landing page or a home page absolutely depends on the goal you are trying to achieve. If the goal is to drive an ad campaign targeting a specific audience group, track visitors, and convert potential leads, then landing pages will be very useful here. The Home Page is a crucial make or break factor based on a customer’s first impressions. This page should be designed to engage the customer and ensure they do not forget you.

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Responsive Web Design or Mobile App: Which is better for you?

Introduction

Today developing a mobile application and building a responsive web design both are integral to the growth of a business. With constraints on time, people across the world use their mobile device on the go to conduct business or look for a service. Hence the user consumption in a technologically rich world has come a long way from traditional methods of advertisements or retail store visits. So investing in a mobile application for user engagement or developing web friendly pages that adapt to devices is a not only a strategic decision, but also a technical decision that brings in other considerations.

Both mobile apps and responsive web design development are used interchangeably though both have distinct uses and purpose. So do businesses need both to keep customers engaged and expand the customer base? Since both mobile apps and web sites have certain common aspects and certain unique features that set them apart, while also being high in demand. So it is imperative to have a clear understanding of where it will appropriate to use either or both to invest your bucks.

Which is Better for You?

A responsive mobile design basically makes your desktop pages adaptable for viewing in mobile. It is housed under a different url. The webpage adapts itself to the device in use. One of the advantages of using responsive design is the investment in time and cost, both of which are comparatively reasonable to deliver and manage. Since mobile responsive design is one of the key skills, resources are usually able to develop and deliver it faster. Practically speaking too, this is comparatively cost friendly as compared to developing an application from scratch. From a functional perspective, they are not as versatile as a natively built mobile app. In comparison, a mobile application that is built-up from ground offers these cons as an advantage, which is key to user experience and engaging the user with the product. Also the key driving force behind developing mobile apps is efficiency. The loading time is designed to be faster since they do not have to load a number of assets unlike web pages.

Further, by designing a mobile app, the branding and marketing of the product is chiefly addressed. However, developing mobile apps requires excellent development skills or the branding can fall flat. Hence designing and developing native mobile apps from scratch is expensive since companies are willing to invest huge sums for a well-functioning app that will take their branding into the future. So it make business sense to invest in mobile apps, where there is a need for interactivity such as gaming, need for access to offline content is yet another great consideration, as well as the need for developing data driven business requirement.

On the other hand, responsive websites are a great choice for the preliminary brand outreach program and getting the word out there among targeted customers and are designed to work across multiple devices such as iOS and Android. Finally, they have a longer lifetime than mobile apps.

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How Smart are your Search Engine Optimization Goals?

Introduction

When you look up information on popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing, you may have noticed that they return search results with content, image, or video listings in order of ranking based on what the search engine considers map closely to the search term. While this may sound ordinary, SEO has an important role to play in improving a website’s position among competitors including increasing traffic to the site and enhancing the market presence. So it is absolutely critical to ensure that the appropriate SEO strategy is implemented to maximize customer base, increase sales and revenue. There are SEO companies that offer professional services to help you realize your SEO goals.

Evaluating Your SEO Goals

Any major investment or business strategy takes a keen look at the cost effectiveness of the investment. In order to have a returns on investment that is cost effective while giving maximum returns, considerable research must be carried out to understand market behavior, trends, market constraints and evaluate it against the existing resources and skills to determine reasonable goals that are relevant and can be achieved within reasonable time within a specific budget.

In order to measure progress, the SEO goals must be measurable or should be quantifiable. Giving vague non-quantifiable measure will make it inaccurate or impossible to evaluate whether the goals are achievable, and if so, what is considered an ideal target to aspire for. These sort of difficulties can be resolved by implementing the SMART approach to achieve reasonable, aggressive goals, that can be evaluated. SMART is mnemonic that means Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timelined. In other words, the goals have to evaluated against the five Ws of What, Who, Which, Where, and Why. For example, you need to first question the goals you want to achieve against your business needs. This can include the need for higher conversion rates, if applicable, and whether the process or tool to achieve this desired goal is even the SEO tool.

Sometimes, you may be surprised to realize that a tool you strongly felt is the right choice, on closer evaluation may not even be the right one. Once you have decided to go with the SEO approach, then you need to determine the team composition and consider if you will be able to extend your support to the team. While building the team, you will also have to decide between going for external contract agencies or building an in-house team. You can either do a mix of both in proportion to the allocated budget and feasibility or go with either choice.

Next, you must think through how to set SEO KPIs or key performance indicators to establish the link between positive SEO metrics and the increase in business. For this, you need to measure different aspects of the SEO component including number of links from authoritative and relevant sites, the percentage increase in organic search, pages that increase site traffic, to evaluate the SEO strategy.

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Choosing the Right Technology Stack for Web Application Development

Introduction

Web application development is critical to every business since it creates a touch point between the user and the developer. Common examples of web applications include social media sites like Facebook, email applications such as Gmail, and search engines such as Google that fetch data for a query posted by a user. While all this looks simple on the outset, a lot rides on the choice of technology stack you choose to build your web application, while considering the business constraints. The tech stack plays a crucial role in making or breaking your business since you are looking to get your money’s worth by building these applications. There is a considerable investment in time, money, resources, and research before the project is undertaken. Hence choosing the right combination of technology stack for developing your web application is the challenge.

Choosing Your Technology Stack

Keep in mind that the goal is to develop a sustainable, scalable, profitable application that serves the business need both in the short run as well as in the long term. This includes not just a great technology stack, but also an equally competent set of developers who can deliver the job. This implies that the team should be familiar with, and have demonstrated expertise in the choice of tools and programming language that will be used to build the product.

As technology continues to evolve by leaps and bounds, so does the choice of technology your team chooses to use at that point in time. In simple terms, a technology stack refers to a rich combination of operating systems, platforms, databases, and components that are engaged to build a product, be it a web or mobile application. To choose the right combination of technology stack that suits your needs, you must be familiar with the basic process that comprises web development.

There is typically two parts to this: the client side (front-end) and the server-side (back-end), each requiring its respective set of software components. The former refers to the user interface that every customer will see and interact with. Developing the front-end requires the use of Hyper-text Markup Language (HTML) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). HTML is required to deliver the content and CSS helps style the content by applying the right format. Both are tied together through JavaScript that drives the interactivity. The server-side is meant for developers and is not visible to front-end users and is the driving force of the tech stack. All the data generated by the web application is stored in a database such as MySQL and MongoDB. A common back-end techstack is Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP also known as LAMP.

Another factor that affects the technology stack choice is the complexity of the projects such as small, medium, and complex sized projects and the overall business goal you are seeking to achieve. With mobile application users becoming the large user base for products, you must also consider the support for Android and iOS platforms.

Finally, it must be secure, portable, and inter-operable across different platforms.

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Things about Professional SEO Services you should know

Introduction

Every business today requires a well-developed, fully-functional website where consumers or potential customers can find out more about the products and services. A business to be successful should be able to attract a steady stream of visitors to its site, since more traffic, means there is a potential for more business scope. One of the most critical strategies to drive site traffic is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Using well-designed SEO methods can make a business by featuring it on the top ranked search results page of popular search engines such as Google.

Professional SEO Services

As easy as it may sound, you are at a better advantage if you employ the services of a professional SEO provider, especially in the formative time period when you are building your market. While it most obviously will save you a lot of time, you also get the expert guidance of people who have been in the business and are well aware of how to steer your website traffic. As part of web development services, some organizations also offer SEO as an added service. There are numerous organizations that provide SEO services. So you need to choose carefully, so you are able to fully realize your time and money invested in this exercise.

First and foremost, you must be absolutely clear about the purpose of hiring SEO services. For example, you may be interested in pushing up your current rankings rather than drumming up the click through rate numbers. Understand the breadth of expertize that your selected company can provide. You can find out more by doing some extensive research on the vendor’s work, and the number of clientele across diverse businesses they have worked with. Hence more the experience in the relevant area, the closer it brings you to decision making.

While selecting the SEO company of your choice, you must also check if the vendor will be able to provide full-time support to enhance your business, and for what period of time it will be available. Just consider this: once the SEO strategies are going in full-swing, whom will you turn to should you run into a wall? Hence customer support is very important for business continuity. Finally, it boils down to the price factor, which is one of the most sensitive topics for discussion. The price should be reflective of the quality of work delivered. You must look into your clients work samples, timeliness since business is time bound, and also speak to their references to validate your decision. The more information you have, the better, since it will help you make a sound decision.

Always stay closely involved in the progress of your SEO campaign and check the data points gathered during this time. You should by now have also defined the metrics against which the performance will be evaluated and further steps can be fine-tuned accordingly. The team should also be able to adopt white hat practices while building the backlinks, track, update, and report development on an ongoing basis.

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What an Ecommerce website development provider can do for you!

Introduction

We live in a fast paced digital era where everyone is virtually connected to businesses and people in different parts of the globe through websites, social media sites, and videos. Time has become the most precious element governing businesses today. So if you are considering becoming an entrepreneur or diversifying your existing business lines, then an eCommerce platform is the first step you should be thinking about to sell your goods and services.

The Potential of Ecommerce Website Development

Ecommerce or electronic commerce, by its very definition means the sale of products over the web with payment modes set up online to purchase goods. Ecommerce website development has proven to be far more lucrative because of its ability to eliminate overhead costs, which otherwise inflate the costs for the business. The shipping today takes place so quickly that drive customer usage preferences. Amazon for example, has a business model that primarily revolves around easy shopping experience combined with faster delivery times. This keeps customers happy since it plays to their expectation of the product and being able to enjoy the experience as soon as possible. This is almost similar to going to a retail shop and making a purchase then and there.

You have many web application development companies from the high end of the spectrum to medium sized groups that offer a host of ecommerce development solutions. Popular ecommerce platforms in the market today are Magento, Joomla, Shopify, OpenCart to name a few. Such online platforms including web development companies play to different segments in the market such as B2B, B2C,including C2B. So depending on your business needs, you can choose the web development company that best addresses all your requirements or atleast most of your requirements. You must also consider long term maintenance cost and support that the ecommerce website development team is willing to extend to your business.

Ecommerce has become immensely popular because of the ability of customers and businesses to interact with each other from any place, at any time, all through the web. The user experience while shopping online makes a significant difference. Further, business logic is also built in such a way that it suggests related products based on the shopping preferences. So there are lot of built-in influencing factors that can be easily incorporated to drive sales.

The way it works is when the customer registers on the ecommerce site, it remains in the database forever. Once the product is selected and is ready for check-out, then the secure symbol or SSL symbol is displayed. Third-party applications are used to make the payment and calculate shipping rates. Payment gateway systems that work in alignment with ecommerce websites have the crucial responsibility of ensuring the customer’s credit card transactions are carried out securely and are not stored by businesses. Combined with a 128-bit encryption, it ensures fraudulent activities are ruled out. Ensure that your theme, layout, design, and web hosting are all centered on your target audience who are crucial to your business.