Clean Your Code

This is an easy step, and should be something you have in the back of your mind when coding a new site. You don’t want your code to look messy, or have any extra div files. The more basic your code is, the faster the loading time. It should look clean crisp and white.

“For a more definitive marker, if your page HTML is over 30kB-50kB, then you have an issue you need to address. This can be checked in the Web Developer extension for Firefox and Chrome,” says Kristine Schachinger of SearchEngineWatch.

HTML is not the only code that should be clean—make sure your style sheets are in order as well. Keeping things neat and organized should ensure a faster loading time. When implementing large photo files, use a compressed file instead. This will also keep your CSS more clean and help with loading time.

HTTP Requests

This is a big one. The more HTTP requests you have the longer your loading time. Below is a screenshot to help you better visualize how HTTP requests work.

The more times your page requires these types of requests from the server, the longer it will take for the browser to display the page. Using AJAX is one way to help streamline your process, but as Aaron Hopkins points out, “for many sites that reference dozens of external objects, the majority of the page load time is spent in separate HTTP requests for images, javascript, and stylesheets. AJAX probably could help, but speeding up or eliminating these separate HTTP requests might help more. ”

Hopkins goes on to say that most DSL/cable Internet connections, “have asymmetric bandwidth, at rates like 1.5Mbit down/128Kbit up, 6Mbit down/512Kbit up, etc. Ratios of download to upload bandwidth are commonly in the 5:1 to 20:1 range. ” To summarize, this means the requests can take the same amount of time to send as it would to display an object that is 5-20 times the request size.

One way to speed up your site if you do have multiple images is to set your keepalive active. “The Keep-Alive extension to HTTP/1.0 and the persistent connection feature of HTTP/1.1 provide long-lived HTTP sessions which allow multiple requests to be sent over the same TCP connection. In some cases this has been shown to result in an almost 50% speedup in latency times for HTML documents with many images. Toenable Keep-Alive connections, set KeepAlive On,” according to apache.org.

Caching

When sending HTTP requests, many people implement caches to help with load time. This can be a great fix, but if you update your images and other cached items, it could actually take longer. “Even though the browser has the logo, it doesn’t know whether the image can be used. After all, the file may have changed on the server and there could be an updated version,” reports betterexplained.com.

You can get around this however in a few different ways. One being with an ETAg—which, “allows a client to make conditional requests. This allows caches to be more efficient, and potentially saves bandwidth, as a web server does not need to send a full response if the content has not changed. ”’

You can also have it figured so that the browser checks for the date of when the file was last modified. This can be a good fix, but the ETag is more preferred because of situations such as day light savings, the initial clock was wrong when programming etc.

Javascript and CSS Files

When looking at your Javascript make sure you are putting your files on the external .js file. If you use JQuery, make sure you don’t have any unwanted script in your code. JQuery is known to have libraries of scripts you never use.

When using XHTML you can streamline your code to ensure your HTTP requests are limited. An example of this is below:

So this:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/fonts.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/nav.css" />
<script src="/js/functions.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/js/validation.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Becomes this:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/combined.css" />
<script src="/js/combined.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Even better, XSSI these files directly into high traffic pages, like this:

<style type="text/css">
<!--
<!--#include virtual="/css/combined.css" -->
-->
</style>
<script type="text/javascript">
<--
<!--#include virtual="/js/combined.js" -->
// -->
</script>

Don’t write in Old Time

You don’t have to mimic 400 year old style; if you want to appeal to today’s audience you must go through today’s authors and check out their writing style and dramatic style, see JK Rowling Harry Potter series is not just a children’s book its hell more than that.

Do not write Long Paragraphs

Writing long paragraph and putting stories in full blocks actually kills the reader’s interest. People who read on internet are looking for more of fun reading and little shots of information along the way is well accepted. Make small paragraphs, looks well presented and easy to read.

Don’t make up Tough Scenarios

You need not beat around the bush for any reason at all, many times this is seen and it’s a total blunder as nobody likes to get caught in a puzzle. Making such scenarios as to get the reader more absorbed, actually takes the reader away from you.

Don’t stick to Stereotype Style, be Innovative

You need not stick to one format and style; stereotypes have overcome our world today. Same design, same format, same cloth and same sense make life boring. Innovation needs no boundaries and no rules as well.

Hear yourself and Write the way You Want

Listen to the “inner voice”, write what you think and how you think, many times the employer puts constraints which makes the writer feel lost in his own land. Writer should know how to deliver while hanging on to his ways.

Try to Stick to some Old Practice, Don’t just go on Hearsay

Here I am contradicting my statement, but not without a reason. Safe play may let you go a long way, so you may sometimes stick to those practices which are proven and undoubtedly beneficial.

Keep your Titles Short, and use Easy Language

Keeping long titles and complex language may look good but makes an idiot of you as very few read it and even fewer would undnd ierstat.

Don’t ignore your Readers, Peers, Social Media

Often writers ignore their readers and peers; they write complete text and publish it giving less notice to what their peers have to say about it, Social media comments need to be taken seriously enough to alter it totally or be proud of it. Listen to the readers review, ignoring that may get you out of business.

Leave your Ego Aside

Some people high on ego reflect their ego in there writings, know your client wants your writing and not your ego. Some might argue that such a thing as ego as helped them rise but if it’s not kept down I am pretty sure it will get them down even faster.

Grammatical Mistakes

Putting down the most common (at least for me) grammatical mistakes done while writing. Go through these well as nobody could be perfect with each of these (unless with a degree in English).

• Your vs. You’reYour means “The forms of the possessive case of the personal pronoun you”.Usage > your book

  You’re, is a contraction for “you are”.

  Usage > you’re not doing this right.

• It’s vs. ItsIts, means “Possessive form of the pronoun it”.Usage > this page has lost its attraction.

  It’s, is the Contraction for “it is” or “it has”.

  Usage > It’s very important to use correct English.

• There vs. TheirThere as noun means “a location other than here” also an adverb.Usage > there are many people in this field.

  Their means “The possessive case of the personal pronoun they”.

  Usage > their opinion is also important.

• Affect vs. EffectAffect as verb means “act physically on”.Usage > Communication skill immensely affects the income.

  Effect as noun means “the central meaning or theme of a speech or literary work”.

  Usage > the effect of communication skill is immense on income.

• Loose vs. LoseLoose as verb means “become loose or looser or less tight”.Usage > See that your pants aren’t too loose.

  Lose as verb means “allow to go out of sight”.

  Usage > don’t lose your wallet.

• Who’s vs. whoseWhose means “The possessive case of who or which”.Usage > whose game is over?

  Who’s is contraction for “who is”.

  Usage > who’s coming home with me?”)

NOTE: All word meanings are taken from onelook.com

Advantages of E-commerce:

• Time saving – is the reason number one for using electronic commerce. People now have access to their money and what they need to buy from home and work all from a desktop computer.
• Consumers have an access to a wider range of products – company now can use internet sites as shop fronts, so consumers can browse, buy from many different sellers and making it easier to find exactly what they are looking for.
• Allows small businesses to mix with the big business online – with a relatively small cost, a new business can set its self up to conduct transactions online.
• Provide benefits to suppliers of goods and services – company now can target a wider variety of consumers even take the product or service international, allowing them a means of supplying their goods to places that were before unreachable.
• Business is Open 24 x 7 x 364 7/8 – it works while you play or sleep. They are open for business every hour of the day, every day of the week, every week of the year. Your receptionist, greeter and front people are always working for you because they are your website. They do not complain about the long hours.
• Messages spreading (world wide market space) – advertising on the web can make a big or small firm’s promotional message reach out to potential customers all over the world quickly and small cost as an online marketing strategy.
• Help protect against frauds and theft losses – electronic payments can be easier to monitor than payments are made by cheques.
• Thinking Outside the Globe – selling something made by someone else, shipped by yet another and the money handled by yet another is the heart of the advantages e commerce brings to the business world. You can even employ an international staff. Some work you may need done can be more effectively done by companies or even individuals in other countries.

Disadvantages of E-commerce:

• Purchase to Delivery – when making a purchase at a brick and mortar business, you get the product when you pay for it. On the web, there may be a time lag from purchase to actually being able to consume. The consumer will have to wait for delivery of physical goods.
• Inability to Feel the Physical – it is nearly impossible to sell things like furniture and tires online. Furniture is something people like to sit on and know the feel. Tires need to be installed once purchased. The old tires also need to be disposed of. In both instances, there is a need for real actions to fulfill the reason for the purchase. That’s why things like food, jewelry, antiques etc. can never turn to E-commerce.
• Trouble recruiting and retaining employees – the company needs well-expert and skilled staff to keep up and create the ecommerce facilities of the company. Many companies favor to outsource their improvement and programming tasks to decrease labor costs.
• Consumers feel less confident with their credit card numbers – most of the consumers are still not confident in providing their credit card numbers for making payments on  the website while shopping on the Internet.
• Not every company can take the benefit – some of the small companies may not be able to take the benefit of E-commerce for example the lack of expertise and lack of technology. The legal environment in which E-commerce is conducted is full of unclear and conflicting laws. It should be noted that mostly these disadvantages stem from the newness and rapidly growth of the technology.

• Purpose – at the very top of the list is what you want the purpose of your website to be. While this may seem basic, many people jump into building a website that they have glorified in their head only to find weeks later that the idea looked better in their head than on paper when it comes to actually making money. Try to creating list of categories that would be included on your site and range age of your consumer as target markets. Such as Converse, which only provides shoes that consists of several categories and 8 years to 35 years are their target markets. You got my point?
• It will need long learning curve – what profitable things in life do not require learning? Additionally, web success is a constantly moving target. Success will require continuous education. Try to learn and make some study case from big players that have goods and valueable services and how they can long run in this industry. Give more your attention for what condition and criteria of goods and services that consumers wants from your site. Stay hungry, stay foolish just like Steve Jobs said. This phrase means we should always want more, never be content and when you want to do something that others say is foolish, but you need and you believe it, do it anyways!
• It will need long start to success time – at the minimum it will take 6 months to get recognized by the Google search engine. Some have found that it may take up to 2 years to make a minimum income of a few hundred a month. Many if they do make an income will only make a few to several thousand dollars a month. If you just want instant success, this industry is not for you. Just go check out one of the get rich quick schemes out there! So, are you ready to be a part of this industry, ask yourself again.
• Marketing – how are your potential customers going to find your online store? While it’s true that search engines will provide some traffic, to be successful requires advertising your online business just as if it were a physical location. Building awareness for your product, brand, or store takes time and money. It will often take as much or more than the website development costs. Some key components of a good Internet marketing plan include search engine marketing, website advertising, social media, and offline advertising. And don’t forget to create email marketing for effectiveness online marketing strategies while spreading your messages, promotion or anything. Need resources? You can find here, Bulletproof Email Marketing: Overview, Tips and Tools that I’ve written previously on InstantShift.
• Logistics – an E-commerce website is your storefront. So, where is your warehouse? Where will you store and fulfill the inventory? Who will manage this process? Anyone with retail experience will tell you that inventory control will make or break your business. The other logistical challenge that can have a huge impact is shipping. The shipping carriers you utilize and your shipping charges should be determined based on the type of products and your target market.
• Customer Service – the best E-commerce businesses collect and use customer feedback. Feedback it possible to understand, anticipate and meet changing internet customer needs and wants because people come to your E-commerce web for goods and other information. The various aspects of customer needs can be provided as a resource to solve many customer service issues. It does not stop there. Sometimes a living human touch is needed. What better way to handle customer service than actually having customers who have solved complicated problems themselves help. Yes, you need good customer service to begin.
• Security – even with the enhancements with knowledge encryption, there may be still the hazard of somebody getting a maintain of your personal and financial information. Remember, it’s better to prevent than cure your system. Always making sure your customer knows that your website is secure and that their privacy will never be compromised goes back to the issue of trust. It does not take much effort to display a message telling your customers that they are safe in your hands just because a footer link to your privacy policy is not always enough.

And why do I need WordPress for E-commerce site?

As we already know that WordPress is one of the best open platform for now. Because it’s free, which has become one of our point in the advantages section that I’ve mentioned above, SEO friendly and the flexibility of WordPress has always been its strong point. The fact that you can tweak and twist (easy installation, easy customization and maintenance) it to your own will with just a bit of knowledge and an extraordinary support from a large community of developers and blogger (plugins and themes) transformed what initially was a blogging tool into a powerful website CMS, may it be a blog, photoblog, portfolio, simple presentation website, or even your E-commerce site.

• Keep it simple.Many people cite overly complicated navigation or too many pages in the purchase path as reasons they don’t complete their online sale or abandon their shopping cart. Successful eCommerce sites simplify the checkout process and display clear pricing and shipping information. Putting your brick and mortar store’s phone number in a visible place on your Web site is a good idea.
• Optimize your headings layout.Headings are the main place where you can persuade users to stay on your website for another few seconds. If your heading is too informational or puts them to sleep you have missed your chance. Use clear, descriptive headings that get to the point and provide users with a source of relevancy.
• Make payment processing easy.After all, it is easy to set up a website that shows off your product, but unless you have a way for customers to pay, there is no use in doing so. You can accept credit card payments with either a PayPal account or an online merchant account. PayPal is ideal for anyone trying out the E-commerce waters since there’s less of an upfront commitment, but you may end up paying more per transaction. The thing to note about PayPal is that both the buyer and the seller need a PayPal account, but that’s hardly a barrier to entry. It’s so easy to create a PayPal account that more than 96 million consumer accounts have been created at PayPal since it was founded in 1998.
• Optimize your internal site search.This is more of a usability tip, but it applies perfectly within the context of E-commerce SEO. Because your visitor found your site via a search engine, they will likely expect your internal site search to work as well. I’ve found that many first time visitors landing your site from a SERP will search for the exact same term they typed into Google.
• Provide professional product imagesOne of the best parts about walking into a brick and mortar store to make a purchase is that you are physically able to pick up and examine a product. By giving users multiple images online allows us to overcome this barrier. On top of giving users multiple images, give them professional images from different angles and in different environments. Show them a shirt from the front, back, side, as well as on a model.
• Leave a trail.Incorporate “breadcrumb navigation” into your online catalogue pages. This will show where in the site hierarchy the currently viewed web page is located and it will give the visitor shortcuts to instantly jump higher up the hierarchy. It’s good practice for usability and for Search Engine Optimization.
• Product reviews.A great strategy for guaranteeing unique content is displaying user generated content from your customers. Allow customers to review products they’ve purchased or comment on one’s they haven’t.
• Market your site once it’s live.It’s not enough to just build a Web site. You need to make an effort to market and promote your Web site to new and existing customers. Collect email addresses on your site to help you keep in touch with customers and consider creating a newsletter that I’ve mentioned on things to consider section above.
• Study your customer’s every move.Watch how your customers use your website and learn what frustrates them. Analyze your visitor’s traffic patterns, invite customers to complete a survey after they purchase and have informal brainstorming sessions with your most valuable customers. More research, more effective to learn habits from your customers.

Fox Cubs

Official Link

Incase

Official Link

Cosmicsoda

Official Link

Threadless

Official Link

Djin

Official Link

Pure Volume Store

Official Link

Brand Nuesense

Official Link

Emptees

Official Link

Victoria’s secret

Official Link

Archiduchesse

Official Link

Me & Mommy-to-be

Official Link

Bridge 55

Official Link

Itself

Official Link

Mozilla Store

Official Link

Decoder

Official Link

Nicholas Deakins Clothing

Official Link

Designbyhuman

Official Link

Clever Craft

Official Link

HelmetDress

Official Link

Free People Clothing Boutique

Official Link

WP Store [$65 for single use license]

Official Link Live Demo

e-Commerce [$65 for single use license]

Official Link Live Demo

Kidz Store [$65 for single user license]

Official Link Live Demo

eShop [$65 for single user license]

Official Link Live Demo

ArtShop [price $30]

Official Link Live Demo

AppCloud [Free License]

Official Link Live Demo

AppCloud Premium [price $35]

Official Link Live Demo

Kelontong WordPress E-Commerce Theme [price $35]

Official Link Live Demo

Dangdoot online music store theme [price $35]

Official Link Live Demo

ShopAholic [price $25]

Official Link Live Demo

Ecommerce WordPress Theme [price $75.95]

Official Link Live Demo

Crafty Cart [Free License]

Official Link Live Demo

The Clothes Shop [$42]

Official Link Live Demo

The Furniture Store [$47]

Official Link Live Demo

WPShop Reloaded [$37]

Official Link Live Demo

Vanilla Cart [Free License]

Official Link Live Demo

SimpleCart(js) [Free License]

Official Link Live Demo

wpStore [Free License]

Official Link Live Demo

• WP e-Commerce – is a very popular and free plug-in and can be installed right from the plug-in section of your hosted WordPress admin tool. There are several modules for this product including drop shipping, digital downloads, members only, and an affiliate option. These modules are reasonably priced, but can add up if your trying to be cost conscious.
• Shopp plug-in for ecommerce – this plug-in is not free, and you will pay for enhanced features. But the thing you really like about this product is it’s breadth of features. From the WordPress Dashboard integration to the drag and drop functionality of putting products in the shopping cart. You’ll find advanced features like inventory management, multiple shipping types, data export for Excel and Quickbooks, and various language translations through this plugin.
• YAK for WordPress – is another free and simple shopping cart plugin which allows you to run WordPress as a shopping cart. There is a whole long procedure of setting up the plugin and how to configure it, to ensure that you can display the products and receive payments through cheque, deposit, credit card form or through PayPal.
• eShop – this is WordPress 2.5 and above compatible shopping cart, which is actively developed at the moment and has got some of the most wonderful options. It’s one of my first suggestions to anyone, who wants to use WordPress as a shopping cart too.
• Tribulant – costs $49.99 is a full shopping cart plugin to help you get an online shop going, you can categorize, organize and add categories fairy easily. It works with PayPal, 2checkout, moneybookers, bankwire, and credit card.
• ShopperPress – pretty darn good its a shopping cart theme, so not just a plugin but an entire theme making the whole process of getting setup very very quick and it works with every payment gateway you can imagine! There is a free trial version costs you nothing to download, a vip version which is $69 and developer version which is $175 I would highly recommend checking this out if your looking for a fast solution that looks good.
• Quick Shop – QuickShop supports any WordPress that has the Sidebar Widgets installed, really. It adds a SideBar widget that shows the user what they currently have in the cart and allows them to remove the items, not to mention a TinyMCE button to easily allow you to add products to your posts/pages.
• Wp Live Shopping – this widget enables you to display all relevant live shopping offers within your WordPress blog in one single widget. You can add the widget to your sidebar and customize its appearance as you like inside the boundaries of LiveShoppingWidgets presentation options.
• Are PayPal – this plugin is used to monetize WordPress blog content using PayPal. It is designed to sell your knowledge. Seems to be having issues right now. Basically it works with PayPal.
• StorePress – is a full e-commerce WordPress plugin that accepts PayPal, Authorize.net, and 2Checkout out of the box. It includes multiple widgets, dashboard widgets, shortcodes, and works using WordPress pages to keep everything nice and simple. Costs $49 very similar to shopper press, works with PayPal and its a theme and cart together.
• Paypal Shortcodes – let you to insert PayPal buttons in posts or pages using short code, no management panel though.
• ArtPal – ArtPal is a free (GPL) WordPress plugin, originally written for Artists, to seemlessly integrate PayPal with their WordPress blogs so that they can sell their work online. It’s totally free.
• Market Theme – costs $55 or $150 for developers, is a theme and cart. It works with PayPal only though, though there is a Google checkout module available.
• WPosCommerce – or the WP.osC plugin for WordPress is a modified version of the popular ecommerce solution osCommerce. WP.osC allows you to integrate osCommerce with existing WordPress website. The plugin displays latest products, random products, top 10 best sellers all on your WordPress blog post page. It adds a dynamic widget in your blogs sidebar to display the products.

Other Plugins

Well, the above mentioned plugins are good enough when it comes to setting up the shopping cart, however there are several things for which you may not need a e-commerce solution. Here are some of them which have nothing to do as far as e-Commerce sites are concerned but are worth to mention.

• WP BankRoll – this is a free/premium plugin, which allows you to earn money by allowing you to sell reviews on your blog. This plugin integrates with PayPal and if installed you get the ability to sell the reviews and also even lets you configure things in a way that an advertiser can write the post himself. Ah! that’s a neat thing, isn’t it ?
• Zencart & WordPress integration – this plugin is not a shopping cart however, it integrates wonderful and open source shopping cart software i.e. ZenCart with WordPress.
• EasyPayPal – if you want to charge for your content, then you can do that with the help of this plugin. It also lets you help in creating various other type of payment pages which completely depends on your need. Without mentioning this plugin, this post would have been incomplete.

glossy eCommerce icons

Free for private and commercial use, featuring the so needed shopping cart, money signs and credit cards.

Official Link Download

FRESH Add-on

Business icon pack featuring some must-have pieces.

Official Link Download

WP WooTheme Icon Set

This is the first release of the WP WooThemes Ultimate Icon Set and the idea is to expand and build on the set (which contains 79 icons at the moment) in the coming months. The free download contains all 79 icons, sized at 256×256 pixels and available in both PNG and GIF formats. As an added bonus to our users, they will also be able to download Nishan’s Illustrator file, which will give them high-res, vector copies of the icons.

Official Link Download

Ecommerce Payment Icon Pack

A free set of icons including credit card and popular payment gateway symbols in a mini format that’s perfect for ecommerce websites and online payment stores.

Official Link Download

Payment Option Icons

This set contains 20 icons for popular payment methods such as MasterCard, PayPal, Visa, American Express, Diner’s Club and much more. All icons are in PNG format and come in three different sizes: big (130×80), small (80×49) and tiny (50×31).

Official Link Download

Payment type icons and buttons

Collection of payment type icons (buttons) which you can embed into your website or online storefront to show which payment types that you accept.

Official Link Download

Chalkwork Payments

Official Link Download

Credit Card Images and Test Numbers

Official Link

Free E-commerce Vector Icons

The set includes five icons that were created for use in e-commerce websites. The icons are free for personal or commercial use.

Official Link Download

Exclusive E-commerce Icons

Available e-commerce icons may be used in any projects, whether commercial or private nature.

Official Link Download

Free Checkout Process Vector Icons

Set of 6 free icons in sizes 16×16, 32×32 and 48×48 in PNG and ICO format. Vector source file also included.

Official Link Download

Shopping Basket Icon

Official Link Download

Shopping Cart and Basket Icons

Official Link Download

CSS Globe Icon Set

CSS Globe offers an icon set that includes shopping cart icons.

Official Link Download

Shopping Cart Icons

Official Link

Money Icons Set

There are 10 icons in this set.

Official Link Download

Milky – A free stock vector iconset

Official Link Download

243 Country Flag Icons

With such a large selection, you are sure to be able to find the flag you are looking for. These are free to use for personal and commercial projects.

Official Link Download