Category Archives: Responsive Web Design

5 Best Fonts for Christmas Themed Designs

With Christmas less than a month away, every website owner is already busy in infusing the holiday theme into their website. It starts with the website banners, product categories, special holiday season mailers, and much more. The fact is: Christmas is the merriest time of the year and customers landing at your website want to see something that will relate to the fun of the season. This is why more than 90% of the websites today, have made it a tradition to give a festive makeover to their website during the last month of the year. But the dilemma for web designers is what new to think. Every year, web designers have to come up with thousands of festive season design ideas. They cannot deviate from the color range, which remains fixed at red, white, green, golden and silver. They cannot go much beyond the conventional elements such as Santa Clause, bells and balls, X’mas tree, snow or reindeer with a sleigh. So, what new can you think this year? Well, there is one area which has not been explored much – the Font. Let us tell you about some really cool typefaces that can add the X-Factor to your designs. And here they come:

  1. One Starry Night: Having its roots in the handlettering style, this is a fun font to use in your designs. The swirls and loops in the letters infuses a lot of energy into your text. The letters have a thin typeface that makes sure your content does not look too overwhelming and mingles well with the overall context.
  2. Sentinel: This font comes straight from those old holiday storybooks that the visitors have grown up reading and brings back those fond memories. In terms of its style; the twirling and bold letters look great on any design. The typeface has a certain classic drop case style attached to it, allowing your text to stand out from the crowd.
  3. Mountains of Christmas: A perfect match for all those holiday themed illustrations, this font is an unique blend of the playful and the carefree. Using the subtle Serif style as well as certain staggered-ness in its elements the Mountains of Christmas has soft curving nature with unique character.
  4. Harrington: If you are looking for a perfect headline font to compliment your holiday season designs then Harrington is the perfect font to opt for. Being a classic font, it remains very clean and yet carries a certain degree of fun about it. The decorative letters with slight slants and curves give your headlines unique character.
  5. Nickelodeon: This font aptly brings back the childishness involved in all the fun! This is a thin, nice and simple font that compliments well with many other fonts. The simple Serif style and the quick curves give personality to the content. Use it in the headline or the body text, whether you want to mingle it other fonts or use it solo – this is a very versatile font.

So, the secret recipe to your holiday season web and print design uniqueness is ready. Have fun playing with these fonts!

How to Implement BYOD in your organization successfully?

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is the new mantra for modern day work spaces. The IT provisioned and corporate owned devices have already become a thing of the past. Having realized the potential and benefits of BYOD policy, more and more companies are adopting this new trend. With the adoption of this policy, businesses can see a higher employee productivity, greater employee satisfaction levels and lower IT costs. But allowing an employee, to use his/her own device at the workplace has its own list of challenges. And there are many IT managers who have nightmares about data loss and privacy breach scenarios that may arise due to the implementation of BYOD.

With the BYOD policy, the employee would be using their own devices to access various confidential company information. Many such information would be stored in their personal devices. And when they decide to move on, they can easily carry such sensitive information with them. That is the dilemma IT managers face today. How do you offer employees this benefit, without costing your business? How do you control the data and access rights from a personal device?

The good news is, there are many ways to get around these problems. One of the emerging trends in the IT industry is the use of containerized applications. These applications were primarily used beforehand as Mobile Device Management applications. With the mobiles turning into Smartphones, the employees could access and download files from their handheld devices too. So, in came the concept of containerized applications. What does it do? Every employee needs to install this containerized application in their devices. The application would allow the administrators to restrict, block or remove the sensitive files from a device as and when they deem neccesary. This means, while the employee can download and access every file, IT managers have a certain control over how it is used.

But, the containerized applications can be easily misconceived by the employees as spying software. They can view it as an infringement over their personal data and privacy. So, before you implement BYOD in your workplace, it is essential to explain the entire mechanism associated with it. Explain the need and utility of the containerized applications. The employees should be clearly informed that the application only controls the data that is downloaded from the company servers, it will have nothing to do with any other data sitting within their devices.

As you can see, making the BYOD work is not that difficult. With some logical steps the IT team as well as overall employees can stay happy with this new policy.

Security Features you should check before choosing a web host

In today’s world every business needs to go online to boost their sales. And the basis to have a good sales generating website is to opt for secure web hosting. There are thousands of web hosts waiting for an opportunity to serve you, but you should choose one who can offer a safe and secure web hosting environment. Why?

  • 32% of all live websites were hacked in 2016!
  • 454 websites suffered from data breaches
  • Nearly 12.7 million private business records exposed!

You can well understand the vulnerable times that persist in the online realm.

Hacking or data breaches are more than a loss of face, for businesses. They amount to huge financial losses and drifting of customers. How can you stay protected from such unscrupulous acts? Simple first step would be to choose a web host with an eye on safe and secured hosting. This is why you should check for the below given features before choosing a web hosting service provider.

  • Secure Data Center: As mother nature gets more violent with every passing day; cyclones, earthquakes and other natural disasters should be anticipated by your web host. A secure data center should be situated in a safe part of the earth. Not only this it should have various emergency provisions such as diesel power generators and other protective measures. Such arrangements would ensure that your business sustains minimum losses, if any due to untoward events.
  • Minimum Downtime: Though all the web hosts promise a 100% uptime, there are instances when they cannot keep this promise. While 100% uptime is a myth, you should choose a host who offers minimum shortages so that your web traffic is not impacted too drastically. It is also a wise idea to opt for web hosts who offer reimbursements for downtime. Reimbursements not only signal confidence on the part of the hosts, but also ensure that downtimes are indeed quite less.
  • Data Backup: Many web hosts offer the option of data backup in emergency scenarios. Data backup plans come with monthly, weekly or daily basis. Daily basis backups are the best of the lot, as it allows you to get back the updated version of the website in case of any emergency. Then there is also the option for manual backup, whereby you can take a backup each time you have updated something at the website.
  • Manual Reboots: This feature is often provided with the VPS as well as dedicated packages. With manual reboot you can use a control panel to restart the dedicated or virtual server. You can reboot the server when there is any problem or while making any important updates.
  • Less Clients, better the security: While most web hosts would claim to have hundreds of hosting clients, it is good if you can find one who serves only a limited number. Less clients, on the part of the web host, makes your website more secured at the end.

Finally, before choosing a web host do care to visit some of the relevant forums to read reviews. Reviews are gold mines of information regarding the services of web hosts. Visit OptraHost to find web hosting packages that come with all requisite security features.

Why Live Chat Feature is essential for your online business?

Live Chat is everywhere you look around today. While the social media sites have completely utilized its power, there are many large brands who have also integrated this technology into their websites. Live chat allows the users to interact with the customer service professionals directly, in real time. The customers out there, today, are chatting away using their smartphones and computers all the while. So, they are in the habit of getting quick replies for their queries and problems. The live chat accommodates just this. When compared with traditional online communication modes such as email, phone calls and instant messenger services, the live chat is much easy to use. This is why your website definitely needs to integrate the live chat feature. And by including this feature you will get a list of great business benefits such as:

Customer Service Expenses are reduced

Phone support services can prove very costly for businesses, given the toll charges and per hour costs for professionals. Live chat even costs less than setting up for quality email support. A Forrester research found that live chat customer service is 17-30% cheaper than phone support. This is primarily because a live chat agents can tackle multiple customers at the same time.

Positive Impact on Sales

Many studies have proved that implementation of live chat feature inevitably leads to an increase in sales. A research by American Marketing Association proves that live chat feature at a website leads to at least 20% increase in conversion rates and an increase in ROI by 300%! The same study also proves that customers are thrice more likely to make a purchase when there is live chat facility at a website.

Increase in Customer Loyalty

Modern day customers really appreciate brands giving them access to live chat. A research by eDigital Customer Service Benchmark found that live chat catered highest customer satisfaction levels (at 73%), when compared to email support (at 61%) and phone support (at 44%). These numbers are significant enough to show why customers return back to perform business with websites having live chat. A consumer research study by Oracle, found that 90% of customers are happy to do repeat business with websites having the Live Chat feature.

Grow business by catering customer convenience

Everyone knows that the quality of products or services is the biggest benchmark for a successful business. But customer service is the second most important criteria. Live chat provides the customers instant access to the support staff and sales team. When the customers can quickly get in touch with relevant people to ask questions and seek clarifications, they stay open minded to spend more. An Econsultancy report shows that 51% of customers love the live chat as it allows them to multi-task while shopping, while another 21% like it because it allows them to shop while working. So, the live chat feature promotes customer convenience.

Gain a Competitive Business Advantage

So, what type of competitive advantage are we talking about here? A report by TELUS International found that only 9% (of 1000 websites) use real time chat services at their website. So, that means most of your competitors have still not invested in this technology. Now that gives you a great early mover advantage over competitors.

Use Keyline’s web development services to build a feature packed website for your business.

Why you should never compromise with .com Domain Name Extensions?

Just like you need to choose your brand name after much thought and consideration, you also need to take into account various factors before choosing a domain name. While your brand name should have high recall value in the offline world, your domain name should have the same attributes in the online world. It is no wonder than that business owners face a big challenge before selecting their business domain name. Every business owner wants their brand name to be replicated in the domain name. But many a times they have to deviate from this rule. Why?

The biggest reason for such deviation is the unavailability of their choice of brand name (with .com extension). In such instances they have to add some filler words to find a domain name close to their brand name! That makes many observers curious: how powerful is .com domain extension? Is it so strong that business owners can shun their brand value? Well, this is the time when we would like to throw in some statistics:

  • More than 1.17 Billion people use Google to search for websites
  • Only 11% of all websites are visible (means 89% of them are never found in searches)
  • 75% of the visible websites have .com domain name extensions.

But why is Google so favourable to .com extensions?

The logic is very simple. While Google changes around its ranking logics to provide surfers with best search experience, they keep one thing constant. For them age of a website is a best way to judge its authenticity. So, for Google age is a very important criteria. Now, think about the .com domain name extensions. They were the default options for any website for a very, very long time. They came into existence long way back in 1985. So, Google rates a website, with .com extension, higher than ones coming with other alternatives!

.com domain extension website: Best hotel management college in Kolkata – IIHM Kolkata

The Challenge with finding .com Extensions

Today, the web masters are confronted with problem of a new kind. The high demand for .com domain extensions has led to the prominence of .com real estate moguls! Such businesses are entirely dedicated in collecting as many generic domain names as possible. They buy such domain names by paying $5 and then sell it for thousands of dollars. While the larger brands can afford to splurge such amounts and purchase their favourable domain names from these middle men, the startups and small businesses often have to settle for what they get!

But, here we would like to advise you to spend some extra money if necessary for the procurement of ideal domain name (with .com extension). It would assure a good online business future in the long term.

Where other extensions work?

There are multitudes of domain extensions available today. And frankly speaking, with clever business tactics these can work too. Suppose you are in the education domain, .edu extension is cater made for your business. Again, the .in extension would serve ideally if you are targeting local customers within India.

Visit Optra Host and choose a domain name of your choice, without paying exorbitant amounts!

Which is the best hosting type for e-Commerce stores?

It is easy to say that e-commerce store is a money minting machinery, in today’s business world. But than that would be undermining various factors that go into making any e-commerce store successful. Marketing activities, content, user experience and many more such factors turn an e-Commerce store into a successful venture! Digging deep into the dynamics of such websites, it can be quickly understood that web hosting decisions can make or break the dreams of a business owner in this domain. The impatient web surfers of the present era hate to wait. They want lightening fast loading times. So, before you choose a web hosting type for your business, we thought of presenting the merits and demerits of each web hosting type.

Shared Hosting

It is like staying in a shared room, where all the amenities are equal for everyone.

Though, shared hosting plans are the cheapest of the lot but they do not work for e-commerce stores. They offer slowest page loading times and that does not auger well for your business prospects. Website speed is very important for high turnovers. With slow loading time you not only lose out on many sales opportunities but offer poor user experience, opening gates for poor reviews. Speaking from the statistics: 79% of users who faced an issue never return back to the website. 44% of these people take their grievances one step forward and share their poor experience story with friends and family. Shared hosting also comes with security issues, where a breach in one website exposes the others as well. So, look beyond shared hosting.

VPS Hosting

Now, you have a room for yourself, you have special amenities for yourself too!

This is the most fitting hosting type for your business. With Virtual Private Servers in your control, there will be no performance issues for your website. Every activity at your website can be tracked and there would be a larger number of resources allocated to you solely, unlike shared hosting. Such hosting plans come with higher clocked CPUs, more RAM and larger disk spaces, which will aid you in putting up a robust e-commerce website on the web. Add to that some of the optional managed services, and you will have all you need to run a successful website.

Dedicated Hosting

It is like buying a villa with all the luxuries of life!

Of course there is no denying the fact that dedicated hosting is the highest performing hosting option, but they may not fit into your present scheme of things. First of all they have a much higher pricing than all the other hosting options, so it would definitely drill a hole into your profits. Secondly, dedicated plans are feasible options once you are hitting “tens of thousands of sales with high six figure visitor counts”. So, based on your current business scale you might not need this costly hosting plan.

Based on the analysis, VPS hosting is the best choice for your e-commerce website. It helps you cater good user experience and attract high sales. It is friendly on the pockets too. If you are looking for cost effective web hosting packages, do take a look at Optra Host’s offerings.

Why Mobile Web Hosting Speed Counts?

In this era of mobile apps, no one really cares for mobile website, right? You are wrong. Statistics suggest that mobile websites are making a big entry into the market. While the mobile owners really love apps, more than 50% of them treat their devices as the primary mode to make online searches! And that is where you can really tap into new customers. But the world of mobile web is a bit different to the desktop web, we have got so accustomed to. Here you have to play by a different set of rules.

Also check the speed of “Best hotel management colleges in Kolkata” – IIHM Kolkata.

Speed is the King

Yes, the number one criteria to win the hearts of customers through your mobile website is to offer them speed. Desktop website users can wait 5-7 seconds for a website to load before they move over. If you thought that was impatience, wait till you hear the turn-off time for mobile websites. Mobile users expect a website to open accurately in not more than 3 seconds! If the website does not show itself within these fleeting seconds, the user will try some other place. It is also very important to note that: more than 79% of mobile users do not shop at a website that has failed to load in the aforementioned time frame. This means a huge loss of revenue, right? Now, that is a huge problem, and we would like to help you overcome this obstacle through our experience.

Bells and Whistles count for little

As a web master you have every right to get really choosy about every corner of your web page. You want to impress visitors with streaming videos, animations, lots of content, many design innovations, and what not. But wait on. It is important to read the minds of mobile web visitors in this respect. No matter how innovative you get with the website, what counts for them is its loading time. What comes next might impress them, but if the web page does not load in time, they will move away! So, the number one rule to designing and developing a mobile web page is to make it lightweight and shun all the sophistication you have thought of. Give them crisp content, neat categories, nice images and most importantly information they seek from your website. You need to really think about the design from the user’s point of view.

Web Hosting is more important than ever

In this era of impatient surfers, it has become more important than ever before to choose the right web hosting services. The web host should offer quick loading times and absolutely negligible down times. Reputed web hosting companies use updated technologies to detect the mobile device and route users to the website at the speed of light. Some would even come with content adaptation, wherein the content gets auto adjusted to suit the browsing screen of the user.

If you really want to reap the benefits of all that mobile traffic coming towards your website than there is no point in experimenting with the web hosting services. At Optra Host we have hosted many successful mobile websites and understand the requisites. Come visit us to learn more.

What are the Business Gains of Oversees Hosting?

Technology has bridged the gap of many thousands of miles, with its huge power. Today, you can easily manage an online business sitting in Adelaide (Australia) while your remote web hosting server is situated in Kolkata (India). The world has become such a small place, leaving you with an array of options. The boons of technology have brought a whole new range of dilemma for the business owners. Some years prior businesses, in need of capable web hosting, knew they had to look around in the locality to know about a good service provider. But in the era of the global village that concept has changed. Today, you can opt for a web hosting partner situated in the opposite end of the globe. But, if you are a business owner, who is still finding it hard to understand whether – local or overseas hosting will suit you best, then here are some points that would be an interesting read for you.

  • Savings: So, you are a web master operating your business in UK, USA, Australia or any other part of the world. You want to cut down on the business operating costs, to improve the profits. This is the time to try out overseas hosting. Let us talk about Indian web hosting benefits in this respect. Make a quick search on Google regarding the exchange rates of Dollar vs Rupee, or Pound vs Rupee. You will find when you pay $1 to an Indian web hosting company, they are earning more than Rs. 60. So, automatically the rates of web hosting in these parts is bound to be much lower than mainland Europe, North America or Australia! This opens up all new avenues to make big savings without compromising on the quality of hosting.
  • Reliability: The web hosting scenario in India has undergone a sea change in the last few years. Today, Indian web hosting companies are dishing out their array of reliable hosting plans. With minimum down time and high speed connectivity, the Indian companies are really eliminating all needs for concern. Just because a server is situated on the opposite end of the globe, does not mean that the web host will take it easy. With 24X7 support and easy communication mediums (in case of emergencies), the Indian web hosting experience would be nothing different than the local one!
  • Legalities: There are many businesses who are finding a simple way to bypass their country specific cyber law. With overseas web hosting you can overcome various legal obstacles to your business. One such example lies with the adult oriented sites, which are banned in many nations. You can always choose an overseas host to take your business forward in such situations. There are many other cyber restrictions, country specific, that can be easily tackled with the help of overseas hosting.

Now, that you know about the benefits of overseas hosting you should be on the lookout for a reliable host. Optra Host is a web hosting service you can rely upon. What’s more, we have various hosting packages (with pocket friendly rates) to choose from.

4 Good Reasons to reconsider the design of Inner Pages

 

Don’t judge a book by its cover they say, same applies for the websites!

Inner pages of a website always come second in the picking order! While the web masters spend more than 70% of their time, efforts and energy in planning for their Home page, they put little thought into the inner pages. The common notion among the web masters is that: with the Home page done, all the other pages will automatically fall in place. But sadly, that is not always the instance. The inner pages of any successful website are as much beautiful, functional and visitor oriented as their Home page. In this era of intense business competition, the cardinal sin of overlooking the inner pages could prove costly for the aspirations of web masters. So, we bring some points which will allow you understand the importance of good inner pages.

  1. They are the landing pages: In the present era, where SEO experts are prodigiously trying to promote your products and services through their link back postings, your inner pages often become the landing pages. So, they should be seen as entry pages to your website, when a new visitor clicks on a link mentioned in an article or blog on another website. New visitors will only stick around and do business with you, if they see something impressive. Thus, the design and development of inner pages becomes so important.
  2. They keep the visitors glued: While your Home page gives the visitors a general understanding of what to expect from the website, it is your inner pages that carries the real business proposition. It keeps the visitors glued to the website through its content, design and offers. This means, every web master should rethink on the design and content for the inner pages.
  3. Their purposes are different: While some pages cater information about the company, others tell the visitors about services and products, there are others still which talk about the price plans. As the purpose of each inner page is so different from the other, so their layouts should reflect that as well. Under the urge of keeping all pages uniform, in look and feel, many web masters tend to deviate away from the purpose.
  4. They are best guides for first time visitors: Okay, so a first time visitor has stumbled upon the web designing page of your website, but what he would also like to use content writing services. Now, if your inner page does not lead him (through hyperlinks) to the content writing page, that too quickly, the prospect is lost! So, one of the important elements of inner pages are links to pertinent services and products. If you do not help your visitors reach their likeable products or services, they will not do business with you!

Just for an example, IIHM Kolkata is the “best hotel management college in Kolkata” – they also have website with different attractive inner pages.

You are of course well within your rights to treat the Home page as a piece of art, but let that art also be reflected in the inner pages. A careful planning and execution to the web development, design and content for inner pages will give you good ROI at the end of the day!

Features every Food Ordering App Developer should accommodate

There is an eternal love between human kind and good food! It is no wonder than that people always love to dine out at popular restaurants. But, a sharp trend shift is being witnessed in the food business over the last couple of years. People are showing more inclination to ordering food online, particularly through a robust mobile app. This new trend has been largely fuelled by the billing models of restaurants, who end up collecting many taxes and excesses (service taxes included) from their visitors. On the other hand, the food ordering apps help the users save their energy (of driving up to the food joint) as well as money (with their coupons and discount offers). Such apps present the best of both worlds, where the food lovers can order from the best restaurants around and that too at lower than normal prices!

Prevalence of many quality food ordering apps are proving catalysts to the overwhelming popularity of ordering food through mobile devices. When there is a trend, everyone wants to have a piece of its share. And thus, as a mobile app developer, you are more than likely to be working on one or multiple food ordering apps. The fist important thing to keep in mind is: a high benchmark has already been set in this industry, so the client would expect nothing but the best features in the end product. No need to get all tensed yet, we are here to discuss about the key features you need to build in the app.

  • Menu Screen: Let us start with the obvious, the menu feature! Food apps should infuse interest of their users right from the word go. So, showcase the specials of the day on the Home screen. When clicked upon, the user should be led to the menu screen to see all the requisite details and make choices. The menu page should contain attractive images as well titles and descriptions for each of the food items.
  • Neat Categories: Allow the users to filter their search, to cater a customised experience. If a person is looking out for Italian food he should not have to go through all the other offerings. There are endless variants of creating categories, choose the simplest way keeping in mind the end users.
  • Reviews and Ratings: In the old world, everyone would ask around for references to the best restaurants. Carrying the same notion, the reviews and ratings helps the users understand which restaurant would make their eating experience really great. Apart from this, the food partners (of your client) would always be happy to hear the end customer feedbacks. So, arrange for this in the app.
  • Coupons and Discounts: As mentioned before, the food ordering apps are growing in popularity due to their cost saving features. The coupons and discounts should have a section of their own, which can be easily accessed by the user. This could also reflect in payment screen, somewhere, to simplify the application of coupons.
  • Multiple Payment Methods: While there would be some, who would want to pay immediately through online payments. There would be others who want to get the food delivered first, before making the payment. So, have options for online payments or COD. Apart from this, there should be options to make payments through Credit or Debit Cards as well as PayTM, PayPal and their likes.
  • Order Tracking: Users are always tensed whether their order would reach on time, so give them the privilege of tracking their order in real time. This would encourage them to use your app again and again.

These are some of the bare minimums which every successful food ordering mobile app should have. At Keyline, we try to assure the best deliverables to clients with our mobile app development service.