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Tag: website development

web portal development

What Exactly is A Web Portal & Why Is It Beneficial To A Company?

Web Design, Web Development

“What is a web portal?” is a reasonable question to ponder. Similar phrases like the corporate portal, business portal, digital portal, and others are used often. At first, it might be challenging to understand all of the different words.

However, all of these names speak to the same thing: a single gateway for exchanging information and accomplishing business activities by workers, partners, and consumers. 

So, what exactly is a web portal?

A well-designed web portal serves as a doorway to the internet that users may connect with. Search, email, chat, play, and buy are just a few of the features available via a single point of entry that is meant to be quick and convenient for users.

Companies employ portals as part of their marketing strategy to fulfill customer demand in today’s business environment. The advantages of utilizing a web portal, rather than merely having a website development online, will be discussed in this article.

What are the advantages of company web portals?

Improved Customization

Most online portals have systems that enable users to alter the material to suit their tastes and requirements. By doing so, you’re making it easier to keep track of all of your essential data.

Opportunities to Learn

If you’re a B2B or B2C company, portal platforms may help you educate your prospective customers/users. This is a new trend in online development that presents new marketing prospects. Thanks to these tools, even if things go wrong unexpectedly, you’ll never be left behind again while attempting new approaches or improving on existing ones.

Connection to a Larger Audience of Leads

Businesses may connect with their consumers and business partners using web portals. Businesses may benefit from this by increasing their consumer base and establishing a favorable internet reputation for their company.

Accessible From Any Location

For organizations, web portal development may be a boon since it gives a user-friendly interface for their employees, partners, and customers, allowing them to access the information from wherever they are and on whatever device they have. Because of this, individuals may more easily make adjustments and update information as needed, which leads to increased productivity.

User-friendly, Centralized, and Efficient

It’s all about making the user’s experience as pleasant as possible. Centralizing essential pages into a single location allows for a solid organic link structure. Because of this, all of the company’s material can be accessed using a single URL, login, and password.

Boosted Communication 

We all understand how important it is to provide accurate information to our customers and business partners. You have the option of customizing information that may be of benefit to your team, business associates, or customers. Using web portals to communicate with clients and coworkers is a smart move, and they open the door to additional commercial ideas by making communication easier.

Promotes a Sense of Community Between Clients

Your consumers will appreciate having a second means of contacting and communicating with your company if you use client portals. Customer retention is boosted when they get timely updates on the progress of their orders, questions they have answered, or other connected topics.

Analytical Tools For Obtaining Reliable Data

It’s a great approach to monitoring the overall health of your business. In a single window, you can see where you need to improve or where you can develop without having to bother with data analysis since it all flows right into the system!

An Increase in Efficiency

Everything you need to keep track of your project or sale is at your fingertips. There’s no need to go through many emails to see what you and your coworkers or customers agreed on since they’re all in one convenient location.

Improved Interaction with Clients

Client portals allow clients to handle issues independently, which saves them time and effort during website design services. Because service providers do not want to waste time and money dealing with difficulties that a computer program can address, it’s a no-brainer victory for them!

Source of Reliable Information 

Incorrect material on your client portal is far less likely with excellent content management. Only the most recent copies of papers, including the correct branding and signatures, may be shared thanks to the consolidation of firm information.

Conclusion 

The advantages of using a web portal are many: from collaboration to customer service to brand identification. Because most businesses encounter the same difficulties, well-designed enterprise portals typically provide high ROI.

Web portals are a fantastic approach to increasing your company’s visibility. To take the next step in your organization, consider creating a web portal that will enable customers and partners to access vital information from any location and time while also boosting customer service.

Making a bespoke web portal is not a simple task, but it is achievable with the help of EcoYork’s team of web developers with extensive expertise! 

6 Biggest Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make that Lead to Business Failure

Business

A new beginning can be a tough, exciting, and great learning opportunity for entrepreneurs. Anybody can be an entrepreneur, but not everyone manages to make their business successful. Even the most experienced entrepreneurs make mistakes.

Making mistakes and learning from them is a part of every entrepreneur’s journey towards rising up. And you are not the only one, there are many like you. Take a look at some interesting stats about business failures:

  • Hardly 78.5% of small businesses manage to run at least for a year. 21.5% of startups fail during their first year only.
  • 9 out of 10 startups fail due to some or other reasons.
  • 75% of the venture-backed organizations fail to return cash to investors.

These stats clearly show that starting a business is a lot harder than most people think. Rarely is a business with a rock-solid growth strategy and expertise in its niche can run smoothly and successfully.

But why do so many businesses and entrepreneurs fail?

It is always important to gather the right knowledge to help you plan ahead and avoid all possible issues in the first place itself! The reasons run deep. So, let’s take a look at some of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make that ruin their business setup.

  • Not doing the foundational work

One of the very first mistakes that entrepreneurs commit is to overlook developing the foundation of their business. It is not possible to carry out any marketing or sales activity until you have not built the foundation to support those activities. It is important to understand where your marketing campaigns are directing people, how you will close the sales and other important aspects.

You cannot bring your business to the target audience’s attention if no follow-through can occur. Therefore, you have to ensure everything is done right the first time only by building a strong foundation for your business. Set up the website with the help of a web design and development company, establish a rock-solid business process, have support in place, and make sure you have zero deficiency in your products or services.

  • Lack of market research.

Apart from the solid growth strategy, you will have to know what your customers want to get the desired success. Many startups or entrepreneurs go to the marketing thinking that they have a rock-solid product or services without realizing whether people out there really want the product or services or not. This in the end results in a failure. Therefore, it is crucial to conduct detailed market research to understand what your users want and how you can fulfill it.

  • Lack of cash flow.

You need money to make money. That is an unrealistic but lethal truth when it comes to setting up and running a business successfully. While some businesses may start getting profit in a short time span, others may need some time to make a profit. Meanwhile, you will need a lot of cash to run your business.

Many businesses fail due to a lack of cash flow. Of course, the ultimate goal of any business is to increase sales and profit. But you also have to be prepared to take some heat considering unforeseen situations and market trends. So, while planning the business, you first have to do some mathematical work to estimate the amount of cash flow needed to run the business.

  • Failing to get proper guidance.

Running a business is a team sport and you will need a mentor who can guide you about ins and outs. You are the captain of your boat who is responsible to guide the sailors in which direction to move to reach the destination. But you cannot know the technical know-how of a ship and there you will need someone to guide your team on how to move to the destination you want.

Running a business needs courage, experience, and support. And having someone to guide you could help you mitigate the possible risks you fall into.

  • Focus more on social media and forget about other marketing strategies.

Of course, social media platforms are a great tool that can help you increase your followers and let people know about your business. Many businesses invest heavily in social media services and don’t pay attention to the other marketing strategies. Social media can help you create the sales funnel only, and it will not help you convert the visitors into customers.

To do so, you will have to reset your focus on other marketing strategies such as email marketing, pay-per-click, and so on. If you have noticed successful brands worldwide, they have relied on email marketing and other strategies to grow the business.

  • Don’t understand the value of time.

Time is money and as an entrepreneur, you must understand the significance of time. Wasting time is an opportunity for the rivals to take advantage of you. Many startups often invest their time, effort, and money in irrelevant activities. It is important that you strictly focus on your time to improve your business. You will get more time later to balance your personal and social life. But in the beginning, you must be focused to utilize time effectively.

A single person does not build a successful startup or business. You must need a team of mentors and subject matter experts to help you grow. Don’t be afraid of failure, instead, learn from the mistakes you have made so far. Looking for a professional web design and development company or growth strategy hacker for your startup idea? We’re a call away to assist you in social media services or with all-in-one maintenance services to keep your business running smoothly…

e-commerce development

A Closer Look at How eCommerce Revolution Has Affected Online Consumer Behavior

Web Development

Today, eCommerce is the fastest-growing retail sector all over the world. Right from the groceries, clothes, and electronic gadgets to the medicines, shoppers can buy almost anything they desire at the click of a button. According to 99Firms’ eCommerce Statistics for 2020, 95% of all purchases will be conducted via eCommerce websites by 2040.

Though eCommerce website development is on its peak, it is observed that still there is a gap between what customer is expecting and what retailers are offering. This not only affects the way consumers shop online but also changing conventional search optimization and social media marketing methods to understand and match customer preferences to deliver a better shopping experience. 

Modern consumer behavior has changed drastically over the past few years and affecting the decisions of online retailers about their social media marketing or business growth. Therefore, retailers must understand the modern customer’s behavior and discover multiple channels and ways to grow their online business. To help you get an edge over the rivals and win at customer experience, we have clubbed a few key behavioral changes in the shoppers. 

Ways eCommerce is changing consumer’s shopping habits:

  • Online shoppers expect more

With the multiple online stores and brands available in the market and that too with innovative features and deals, most of the online retailers are struggling to bring the best of the products at affordable rates. No matter how hard you invest in eCommerce website development or search engine optimization, the consumers will switch to any other store in just a minute if he found better opportunities and offers. 

Today, various discounts and offers have obliterated margins of online retailers. The consumers easily jump to other sites offering FREE delivery and other incentives. The only way to fulfill what a shopper expects is to get smarter about other sales channels

  • Shoppers are less committed

It is observed that there are a few people who can be loyal to only one sales channel. The higher price of the products, the lack of global presence, delivery issues, privacy issues, and a lot more; there could be multiple factors affecting the loyalty of online shoppers. Therefore, retailers need to think out-of-the-box to keep the shoppers engaged and involved for a longer time to sustain in the market.

  • Consumers are SMART

Yes, that is true! According to a recent survey, it is found that 50% of online shoppers use their smartphones, and approximately 60% use their tablets to buy products online. This means consumers these days are not dumb and are smarter. It won’t be easy for online retailers to fool them with fake promises from their web development venture. When any retailer is offering something special, he is accountable to provide it anyhow to the consumer. This has boosted the value proposition to the customers when they buy anything from the store.

  • Brand’s digital presence influences consumers

It is very important for consumers today to validate how a brand portrays itself online. If you fail to establish a strong market presence, you are going to lose a major chunk of online shoppers. Therefore, search engine optimization and social marketing are very important these days for retailers to boost their brand’s identity and personality. Most of the eCommerce website development agencies are aware of this aspect and thus, hiring professionals can help you work out on graphics and user experience design more effectively.

  • It is all about the omnichannel world today!

Getting help from the web development agencies to set up your online presence is not something that is appealing to online consumers. In a world where people are using multiple devices of different sizes and shapes, the retailers cannot operate a website that is not optimized only for the desktop or laptop experience. It is a must that your eCommerce site is accessible from laptops, tablets, and mobile devices to bring optimal customer experience.

  • Consumers are concerned about their Privacy!

While eCommerce brings a whole new shopping experience, it also opens the new doors of opportunities for the retailers to roll-out their marketing strategies based on the information gathered from the online consumers. It not only helps retailers understand customer preferences but also enable the personalized experience. But it is also important for the retailers to take the privacy of the consumers seriously. Consumers today are well-aware of the pros and cons of sharing personal information and may raise concerns if found something suspicious. Therefore, online retailers need to think about the privacy concerns of consumers.

Apart from this, it is also observed that online shoppers love to bargain during their online purchases. They often expect simplified checkout and multiple payments or discount options as a part of their shopping journey. A lot is going to change in the future in terms of customer’s shopping behavior. The rise of artificial intelligence and chatbots will greatly change the way consumers shop today. 

What’s your take on this? Do you feel the conventional way of eCommerce website development will work for changing consumer behavior? Want to know how experts can help you with your web development? Get in touch with us now!

Web Page Load Time

How to Speed Up Your Web Page Load Time and Convert More in 2020?

Web Development

Okay, let’s think about this:

You have got an idea to have a website for your business.

You have spent days crafting an appealing design and weeks preparing it for generating massive revenue.

But suddenly you observed a problem: A web page of your new and beautiful website is not as fast as you thought of! 

Unimpressive and slow website pages not only frustrate the visitors but also encourage them to find your alternative. If your web page is slower than the blink of an eye, just over half of your potential visitors will leave your website. This greatly affects your overall conversions and profit. In the world of the web, the current speed of the website will be a factor to measure the success, which means SPEED sells!

Do you know?

Even a delay of second in page load may result in:

  • Pageviews decreased by 11%
  • Customer satisfaction breaks down to 16%
  • Conversions reduced by 7% 

On the other hand, it is found that almost 47% of eCommerce consumers are expecting page load time of lesser than two seconds. Amazon discovered that even a second of delay in page load time costs them a loss of $1.6 billion sales every year.

As you can see, the page loads heavily affect consumer behavior. If you manage to speed up or improve the page load time of your website, it can bring a huge advantage for you over your competitors. Moreover, you won’t rank on the first page of the search engines! Therefore, it is crucial to focus on page speed to help your website converts. 

So, how do you make sure the page-load of your site is up to the mark?

  • Work on scaling down images

Of course, images are the backbone to make your website attractive. But very rare website owners know that images are one of the most common bandwidth consumers. Therefore, optimizing the images is the very first in a direction to improve the page loads of your website. All you have to do is to change the dimensions of the image and you are done! It will greatly decrease the file size. 

  • Cutdown CSS load time

The CSS of your website loads even before visitors view your website. The more time it takes to download the CSS, the longer they have to wait. By optimizing the CSS of your website, you can make sure the web page load faster and give your viewers quick access to the page they intended. 

Therefore, it is important to figure out how many CSS files being used and remove unwanted CSS from the backend. Also, it is advisable to reduce the CSS file size by removing additional space in the sheet. In case you are using an eCommerce platform, you can leverage free online tools or services to improve eCommerce site performance.

  • Optimize scripts

Today, the majority of the organizations put JavaScript before the contents, which cause them to load even before your website content. This will put your visitors on hold to view the content of your page until JavaScript loads successfully. Ideally, JavaScript files should load after the rest of the page of your website load, and thus, it is required to put all the external JavaScript files at the bottom of the web page. Moreover, you can leverage from defer or async attributes to decrease the page loads.

  • Make sure adding asynchronous pages

Usually, the browser loads pages in a synchronous manner. This means, it will load the page from the beginning to end, right from loading headers, stylesheet, texts, images, and so on, which consumers a lot of time. Therefore, it is recommended to use asynchronous pages to overcome the chain of loading elements in a sequence and instead, load the scripts simultaneously to improve the current speed of the website.

  • Cut-off unwanted redirects

Do you know how many redirects are available on the website? In case, you have recently performed website migration, the chances are higher your site may have multiple redirects. Such redirects affect the page load time. Instead of having multiple redirects, it is always beneficial to cut-down unwanted redirects, which will greatly improve eCommerce site performance.

  • Don’t forget to enable compression

If your website is having a size of CSS, JavaScript, or HTML higher than 150 bytes, it is time for you to enable compression. With the help of Gzip, you can easily reduce the size of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files. However, it is advisable not to use Gzip on image files.

  • Get rid of render-blocking JavaScript

In the backend, when any browser is loading your website page, it must build a DOM tree by parsing HTML to load the page. In between, if a browser discovers any script, it will stop and will have to execute the script before it continues with the parsing. This, in the end, affects the page load time, and thus, it is recommended by Google to reduce the usage of blocking JavaScript.

  • Think about browser caching

Right from stylesheets, images, JavaScript files, and more, a browser cache lot of information about your website to avoid reloading the entire page of a website for the consecutive hits. This could be another factor affecting the page load times. Hence, it is important to set the expiry time for a cache. This can be a great way to improve the current speed of the website.

  • Content distribution network can be of great help

In case you are using a content management system like WordPress and wish for WordPress speed improvement, the Content Distribution Network can be a great way to help users with faster access to your website page.

  • External hosting platforms for larger files

Apart from hosting your website on the content distribution network, you can also leverage from the external hosting platforms to access some of the largest files of your website, specifically when you have videos available on the website.

Final Verdict…

Sometimes, it is hard to identify what is affecting the page load time of your website. The problem could be anything, right from the code written or large elements. However, following the guidelines discussed here can be a great way to initiate your journey to improve eCommerce site performance. Just remember, a little attention to your website can be a pathway for sustainable growth! 

Want to know how to improve the current speed of the website? Or looking for expert guidance on WordPress speed improvement? Get in touch with us to know more!

Web Frameworks

Top of the Line Web Frameworks to Consider for Building Sparkling Websites

Web Development

The days are gone when implementing a static website was enough to get the desired outcome. With the advent of web frameworks and APIs, the development of websites or online applications has become a lot easier and more advanced. It has become an integral part of web development to bring something innovative and set a benchmark for businesses. 

Do you know?

  • 13.68% of websites across the world are using the ASP.NET framework.
  • Ruby on Rails web framework is being used by approximately 63,384 (6.34%) websites out of the top 1 million websites evaluated.
  • Based on the survey conducted by GitHub and StackOverflow, React, ASP.NET, Angular, Ruby on Rails, and Angular JS web frameworks came out as the top 5 most popular web frameworks based on the scores.

The above statistics prove that almost every developer, whether associated with ASP.NET development, Laravel Development, jQuery development, or Ruby on Rails development, prefers to use frameworks and development tools to make their work easy and deliver faster. There are approximately 195+ web frameworks available. 

Since there are plenty of web frameworks available in the market, it has become a daunting task for the developers to get the right one. And therefore, we have analyzed a couple of surveys and researches conducted to find out which frameworks are the most popular among the developers these days. In this blog post, we are going to discuss the top 10 web frameworks that are in demand in 2020 and most preferred by web developers. 

  1. ReactJS 
ReactJS

React is the JavaScript library intended to help web developers developing interactive user interfaces with the help of its dynamic, declarative, and flexible nature. Today, the majority of the web developers make use of React.js development to avoid rewriting the entire code. 

Pros:

  • HTML compatible
  • Virtual DOM programming support
  • Updates consistently
  • SEO friendly

Cons:

  • Lack of support for the isomorphic approach
  • A huge library creates difficulties for the developers
  • Requires thorough knowledge of integration
  • Tedious manuals
  1. Angular 
Angular

It is a TypeScript-based open-source framework extensively popular for developing mobile and conventional web applications with the help of TypeScript and other languages. With the growing popularity of mobile-friendly applications, Angular development has gained a lot of attention recently.

Pros:

  • MVC architecture
  • Enhanced design architecture
  • Better tooling, clean code, and high scalability 

Cons:

  • Lack of SEO compatibility
  • Verbose and complex
  1. Ruby on Rails 
Ruby on Rails

Known for its impeccable support for MVC, Ruby on Rails is one of the most reliable web frameworks making web development easy and faster. Since it is allowing developers to write very less code as compared to any other frameworks, Ruby on Rails development is in demand these days.

Pros:

  • Ease of use
  • More tools, more features
  • Free of cost
  • Great for test automation 

Cons:

  • Slow runtime
  • Performance hiccups
  • Lack of support for multithreading
  • Lack of proper documentation
  1. AngularJS 
AngularJS

AngularJS is one of the most structural web frameworks used extensively by the developers to build dynamic applications. It is easy to write client-server applications and utilize HTML, which makes Angular.js development more extensible and flexible to work with other libraries as well.

Pros:

  • Out-of-the-box support for MVC
  • Ease of testing
  • Ease of customization
  • Lesser code

Cons:

  • Complex to learn for the beginners
  • Difficult to debug code
  • Restrictions in terms of routers
  1. Vue.JS 
Vue.JS

As compared to other web frameworks, this is one of the latest additions. Vue.js is a progressive framework, which makes vue.js development quite popular among the developers due to the ease of picking up the core library and integrating with other libraries. 

Pros:

  • Compact in size
  • Ease of learning and creating the application
  • Code flexibility 
  • Compatibility with TypeScript

Cons:

  • Poor community support
  • Hard to deal with larger projects
  • Language barriers since codes are written in Chinese
  1. Django 
Django

Django is a Python development framework, which is popular among the developers willing to work on the DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) approach. Due to its capability to help developers utilize their existing code and helping them become more productive, it is very much popular among the developers. 

Pros:

  • Highly scalable and customizable
  • Boost rapid development
  • Robust community support
  • Model-View-Template support

Cons:

  • Monolithic structure
  • Detailed knowledge required
  • ORM creates hurdles for the developers
  1. Laravel 
Laravel

Written in PHP, Laravel is most sort-out frameworks enabling developers to build beautiful websites without sacrificing the core functionalities. With the help of a routing engine, powerful dependency injection container, real-time event broadcasting, and other feature, Laravel development is the most preferred among the developers.

Pros:

  • User-friendly 
  • Capability to reuse code
  • Capable to handle large website applications
  • Benefits from blade template engine

Cons:

  • Performance issues 
  • Not suitable for eCommerce sites
  • Lack of support for proper functionalities
  1. Spring 
Spring

Sprint is a well-known java framework for developing web applications. It is extensively used by the developers to write backend applications in Java as well as creating fast, simple, and flexible Java-based applications.

Pros:

  • Ease of using POJO
  • Ease of testing
  • Flexibility in terms of configurations
  • No need to use a web app or server

Cons:

  • An extensive list of classes and tools
  • Lack of clear guidelines
  • Complicated to use
  1. ASP.NET 
ASP.NET

ASP.NET is one of the oldest web frameworks available to help developers build web applications and services with the help of .NET and C#. It comprises of three different frameworks, i.e. Web Forms, ASP.NET MVC, and ASP.NET Web Pages. ASP.NET development can help developers with native mobile apps, responsive websites, and more.

Pros:

  • Less coding for larger applications
  • Most secured
  • Ease of maintenance
  • Ease of maintaining and writing source code

Cons:

  • Costs more as compared to other frameworks
  • Difficult to customize
  • Restrictions in data access for sliver light
  1. Express 
Express

Due to the immense popularity of Node.js, Express has quickly become one of the most popular frameworks among the developers. Be it Accenture, IBM, or Uber, all are using Express for their business applications. Moreover, it is easily compatible with other frameworks like Sails, Loopback, and Kraken.

Pros:

  • Easily compatible with HTTP methods
  • Ease of creating robust APIs
  • High performance

Cons:

  • Tedious code structure
  • Lack of middleware 
  • Lack of library

Final Note…

Choosing the right kind of web framework is not a kid’s toy; it requires a lot more detailing in terms of application use case, technology stack being used, and so on. Hopefully, the web frameworks discussed in this post may help you simplify your choice! Want to get help for your vue.js development or ASP.NET development? Get in touch with our experts to know how we use the web frameworks effectively to build your dream application…

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