Candid Software Weblog -Web Designing, hosting, ecommerce, content and more!

Top 10 Shopping Carts for Developers

2009-09-14T14:18:05Z

The large numbers of e-commerce solutions in the market have made it easier to develop an e-commerce website or to add a small store to your current site. But, there are so many open source e-commerce softwares that choosing the most appropriate one for your business could be a confusing job.

10 Must Check-up Points for a Website!

2009-09-02T14:18:10Z

If you want to mark a presence on World Wide Web, it is necessary that you constantly evaluate your website and improve it further. But, how to go about it?

We, at Candid Info provide website maintenance services to improve the performance of our client's site. There are certain features you must check on quarterly basis to review the site. The same is done by our site maintenance experts also. This helps us in knowing what are the ideal steps we can take to keep the website effective. So, here are the top 10 check-up points for your website:

Function
Most of the people make a website for their business without figuring out what they exactly want the website to do. You must know that website can make or break a business. You can create leads with websites, make sales, communicate with customers, educate visitors and create a community for your brand. Make sure that your website is more than just an online brochure. So, before you get a website made, find out what you expect it to do for your business.

Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is derived from the amount of people who convert into what you want them to do divided by the total number of people who visited the site. This will tell you the effectiveness of the website.
Cost per Conversion
Find out the total amount invested in running the website for one month and divide it with number of conversions. In this way, you will get better idea of the effectiveness of the site and ROI.

Design and Brand Development

You have to judge brand development conceptually, as it cannot be measured like conversion or cost per conversion rate. It you want your business to grow and survive in long-term, concentrate on brand development. Consider these factors to develop a brand:

Look and Feel
Does your site carry the fresh and exciting look? Are you able to communicate right message about your company through the website? Does you site look cute instead of being cutting-edge? Is the website made as per the current trends?
User Feedback
It is important to know if your customers like your website? Check out the number of complaints or compliments your website has received? Find out if your website even provide features to customers to give their feedback.
Neglected Sections
Does you website has some parts that are rarely updated or neglected? Do you still need those parts? Check out analytics to know the pages that are visited the most and what is the user experience.
Multimedia
Are multimedia elements present in your site? If yes, make sure they are not outdated or inappropriate for the site page. Make sure that the load time should not be slow for the multimedia pages.

Keywords

Right keyword usage is essential for the site as it keeps the content focused and helps in ranking the website higher on search engines. You should constantly evaluate and adjust the keywords. Ask these questions:

How well does the site rank for the keywords?
Use keyword tools like SeoBook's Rank Checker to find out how the website is doing on major search engines. If the ranking is poor, its time to change it. In case you are doing fine, find out the plus points of the site.
Find out keywords working well for you.
Use keyword tools to find out the keywords that are attracting most visitors to your website. This will help you in finding out how each keyword is converting. Put yourself into the shoes of customer and try to find your site by using certain keywords. Are your keywords making sense to him? If not, then change them.

Security

Security should be one of the major concerns when you are updating the site. If the site is made on open source platform like WordPress, Droopal or Joomla, check its security features regularly. You can ask following questions to yourself:

Has somebody hacked my website?
If yes, then find out if you have taken the right steps for security. In case you have recently changed the passwords, then there is a need to get deeper into the matter. A hacked site is dangerous because it can destroy your credibility in front of the users.
Do you have latest versions of open source content management system?
By keeping the open source platforms updated, you will get latest patches and security processes.

Conclusion

If your site is outdated or not performing well on the above discussed criteria, its time to update it. Pay attention to the design and function features of the website. In case the site is really poor in these areas, there is not harm in redesigning it. Some people might be reluctant to the whole idea of redesigning, but it will be easier and quick as you have learned a lot from the previous site designing experience. There are chances of the website harming your brand image because of poor features, lower ranking and unprofessional presentation. So, get it redesigned as soon you can. Even after getting the new site, it is essential to keep a track of its performance on quarterly basis. If you will constantly evaluate and update your site, it will positively affect your advertising, sales and brand positioning.

Get access to SEO Book's Rank Checker.

Know more about Candid's Website Redesigning Services.

Firefox Testing Add-on: SQL Inject Me

2009-08-06T12:41:54Z

SQL Injection is a technique that exploits the security vulnerability of a website. It usually happens if a user enters either incorrect filter for string characters embedded in SQL statements or input is unexpectedly executed. These errors can harm your website in the long run. At Candidinfo, we employ the latest in cutting edge technologies and makes your e-business error-free. Everything from giving your site a customized open source solution to an updated look and feel, we make the process simple and effective.

Security Compass has introduced a firefox add-on “SQL Inject Me.” It will submit your form and replace the values in the existing form field with strings that are considered as possible attack. This tool will send all the possible database escape string as well as search for any error messages returned. Finally, it will render as HTML format in page.

Once you have installed the addon, go to Tools-> SQL Inject Me-> Open SQL Inject Me Sidebar. You will find a sample form that will proceed an update action into database while form is being posted. To make sure the form is tested, fill in the fields with good values and mark the checkbox.

Here a sample of the tool, after you test the form for all attacks:

Here's is the final output. The result marked with red color background are error messages, which have been returned by
database.

Although, this tool looks for all the possible input that may harm your system but it doesn't provide protection for password hacking, firewall attacks, etc. However, SQL Injection Me is still quite useful and helpful tool for you, as it tests SQL Injection vulnerabilities.Download SQL Injection Me now - to make testing an easy process.

To know more about testing and other web development services, click here.

Evaluate your e-commerce Website with Simple Metrics

2009-07-30T11:29:07Z

It is true that you cannot manage your e-commerce website unless you are measuring its effectiveness at regular period. The very first step in this regard is to get a breakdown of the traffic by using some form of analytics. Candid has an extensive experience and sound knowledge of e-commerce sites & suggests clients to use Google Analytics to evaluate their site's performance.

When you are tracking the numbers on your website, you will still need to do some calculation to know how it's performing. Follow these four basic methods that are highly helpful for e-commerce websites:

Conversion Rate

When a person visits your site and does what you want him to do, this is called conversion. It could be anything from making a purchase to leaving a comment in the section.

Identify the goal pages in Google Analytics to track your total conversion rate. You can make the thank you page as your goal that will come after somebody places an order.

The next step is to divide the total conversions by the number of visitors. You can see the total traffic in numerous ways. The highest result would be achieved by considering page views but this is least accurate because the same visitor can see other pages also.

You can also consider the total visits, which tells the number of people who visited your site including the visitors who returned again. An absolute unique visitors option is also present, where you won't get the record of people visiting the page for the second or more time.

It is better to consider visits for getting accurate conversion rate because it is more conservative and accurate measure for the calculation.

The formula for finding out conversion rate is:

Conversion Rate = Total Conversions/Visits

Cost per Conversion

If you have a high conversion rate, it doesn't mean you are doing a good business. Cost per Conversion is a more accurate way of judgment. You can calculate Cost per Conversion by:

Cost per Conversion = Monthly Website Expenses/Total Conversions

Do not forget to consider all the costs of your website including web design and development, SEO, online marketing, web hosting, PPC, blog writing and more.

Suppose you are spending $1,817 per month and the number of conversions in the month are 50. Then you Cost per Conversion would be $36.34.

If you are making more than $36.34 on every conversion, you are getting benefited.

Average Profit per Conversion

If you know your average profit or loss on every conversion, it will help you in making a budget and planning for future. You can also set online sales goals after knowing this. The formula is:

(Gross Revenue from Website – Total Costs)/Total Conversions = Average Profit per Conversion

The total costs should include all the costs apart from web costs.

Abandonment Rate

It describes the number of people who started to convert on your website and dropped out later. If the rate is high, it means the site is inefficient or you have to check out the conversion process. Abandonment rate is calculated by:

(Number of Visits to the Conversion Page – Number of Visits to the Goal Page)/Number of Visits to the Conversion Page

If you don't have Google Analytics, click here.

Know more about our Web Development Service. Click here.

Importance of Social Networking

2009-07-24T13:01:56Z

One of the newest and hottest internet activities now is Social Networking. It is one of the simplest way to build online communities of people who share the same interests. At Candid, we understand the importance of social networking, as it help boost ranking opportunities and attract the target audience's attention. Indeed it's playing a major role in website promotion and SEO process.

The social network websites (also known as Social Sites) offer a wide range of services such as:

Blogging
Messaging (Email, IM, Chat Room)
Sharing Photos and Videos
Events Organization
Group Discussion
News Publishing
Classified
Applications

In the past few years, the number of social sites has increased drastically. Some of the most popular sites nowadays are Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, Twitter and more.

According to Alexa Ranking the top 25 social sites are:

Reasons for Social Networking:

Here are some of the main reasons behind the popularity of online social networking:

Lack of time.
Allow people to be more open.
Learn and share from others in a fast paced environment.
A new way to find content.

Reports suggest that the power of social networking is still spreading around. The process behind these social sites is that massive amount of people visit these sites, who later tell their friends to create an account on the site and the process continues.

“Facebook is probably so popular, because of the massive amounts of teenagers that go on the site. Those teenagers probably tell their friends to get a Facebook account, and wala, you have a domino effect.”

The social networking sites allow you to keep in touch with your friends from work, universities and other sources. It helps you build your own network and keep track of every update of your friends. The growth of a social site greatly depends on the applications, games and other activities available on it. In short, these application is all about sharing and communication that helps in sharing and communication.

In simple words, social networking sites help people pass their free time and have some fun.

If you want to know more about social networking and other relevant SEO services, click here.

Knowing the Site Page Load Time from Different Locations

2009-06-24T06:59:50Z

Page load time is crucial for a website, as a lesser time interval indicates that you value your visitors and don't want to keep them waiting at any cost. Candid knows the importance of Page Load time and always ensures that it uses tools like WatchMouse Web Monitor in the web designing services to give your site a lesser page load duration.

Whether it is the page size or the number of elements present on it, we check out everything to give your website the lowest possible page load time. This expertise of ours is getting us more clients who are looking for advanced website designing solutions.

If your website has a page load time of .00X seconds, it will fall into normal category. But a site with a lower page loading time takes the lead position.

If you are still confused about how to know the time taken by your website or blog in loading up at different parts of the world, use the WatchMouse Web Monitor Tool. It will tell the accurate load time, connect and download time along with the download size of the page. You will also get to know if you encountered any error while accessing the site.

Check out the WatchMouse Tool.

Know more about our Custom Website Designing Service.

WordPress 2.8 Beta Version Released

2009-05-21T05:37:57Z

The release of WordPress 2.8 is a good news for testers and early adopters, as they can now download the Beta 1 version that promises to make the WordPress more powerful & better. Candid has extensive experience of working on WordPress platform and is excited about the new launch. Our team of builders have an in-depth knowledge of 2.8 Beta and are recommending the new version to clients looking for WordPress blog customization service.

WP e-Commerce: A Fully Integrated WordPress Shopping Cart Plugin

2009-05-12T04:32:35Z

WordPress, an open source application is a great way of brand positioning and doing business on the World Wide Web. There are numerous plugins available that make WordPress even more resourceful application for businesses.

5 Best Open Source and Alternatives to Photoshop

2009-04-20T13:58:00Z

Adobe Photoshop is the most popular tool amongst designers as it comes with lots of photo editing tools and versatile features. But, the biggest problem in front of any designer who wants to own Photoshop is its price. There are numerous open source and completely free programs that are loaded with features similar to Photoshop and some times even more.

We at Candid have expertise in providing ultimate website designs by using photoshop and open source tools. There are various alternatives to photoshop, which are not only equivalent but sometimes have more advanced features than the famous photo editing tool. In order to provide better web designing solutions to clients, Candid also uses some of these tools for handling projects. Let's have a look at 5 best open source and free alternatives to photoshop that are selected by our designing experts for a hassle free and advanced photo editing experience.

GIMP

GIMP means “GNU image manipulation program”. One of the oldest and well known program, GIMP is a perfect alternative to Photoshop. It might not have all the features, but most of them are included in GIMP. This cross platform is supported by a large community.

If you still find GIMP lacking in many features, then there is an alternative GIMPShop based on GIMP. It is similar to GIMP and the only difference is that the layout is very closely structured like Photoshop to give users right at home feeling.

Download

Paint.NET

This open source tool has gradually grown out of being a simple replacement to well known MSPaint to a fully featured open source image editor. Showcasing a wide support base, users need to have Windows to run Paint.NET.

Download

Pixia

The program was originally designed in Japanese but it now has an English version also. Although Pixia is a very capable editor but the main focus was kept on anime/manga. Users might get disappointed by finding some of its features a litter counter intuitive, but with lots of English tutorials you can give it a shot. Pixia also works for windows.

Download

Picnik

This is a web based photo editor with all the basic features and some advanced ones like special effects and layers. Picnik has recently taken off because of its partnership with Flickr. This editing program is cross platform as you only need a browser to run it.

Download

Adobe Photoshop Express

This is a free web based photo editor of Adobe itself. Photoshop Express comes with all the basic functions and some advanced ones also, but it does not have layers. The editor interfaces with different photo sharing websites also and is again a completely cross platform.

Download

Powerful Combination of Ubercart and Drupal for Online Store

2009-03-10T04:57:36Z

With lots of open source shopping carts available in market, it is often confusing to judge an appropriate one for your business. To make things pretty simple, we at Candid use Ubercart, a shopping cart suitable for the business of every client. This open source e-commerce package fully integrates the online store with Drupal. Ubercart with Drupal is an ideal combination for those who want to build a community around a product, sell access to their premium content and offer paid downloads with many more features.