Habit #1: Your Site Lacks Personality

Website visitors are goal driven. They arrive at your website looking for a specific product or piece of information, so if your site lacks a clear purpose and sense of self, these users will quickly move onto the next option listed by their search engine. Bad website design first and foremost involves a homepage that does not adequately represent your site or prove why this site is relevant. Your homepage is your calling card – and first impressions are everything. Whether or not visitors move onto other sections of the website hinges on this initial presentation. Is your homepage boring? Is its purpose unclear? Hallmarks of bad website design include not knowing your target audience, including irrelevant or repetitive content, and lacking calls to action for sales or for more in-depth site exploration.

For all these reasons, make sure that you’re using web analytics to gain a sense of who’s coming to your site. Once you know what this demographic is looking for, provide them with it. Prioritize information so that the homepage is easy to read, with a clear header, introduction, and appropriately displayed links. Keep things simple and remember that not every piece of information must be included right off the bat (that’s what subsequent pages are for). Imbuing your site with the look, information, and personality that will speak to your niche audience is essential for capturing their initial attention.

Habit #2: Failure to Establish Credibility

Failing to inspire confidence in your readers is a major problem that can easily get in the way of a website’s success. It is necessary that your design features elements which prove to visitors that they can trust the information found within your pages. Immediate warning signs that diminish your site’s credibility are errors in grammar and spelling, a lack of visual cleanliness, and a site that looks outdated.

Think about it: If a site looks old, then might you conclude that the information contained therein is old, too? Therefore, it’s imperative that you continue to update and improve your website over time, being careful not to fall behind new trends. Technical errors like spelling and grammar mistakes, as well as messy visuals such as unaligned paragraphs give the impression that the website creator hasn’t put a lot of thought or effort into the site. If you can’t be bothered to spellcheck your work, then why should anyone else bother to read it?

Beyond just this basic maintenance, you can also add more in-depth indicators of your credibility. These include any relevant information about your educational and employment background, accomplishments, awards, accolades, site membership numbers or other statistics that indicate your success level, and any community or trade involvement that shows your legitimacy and outreach.

Habit # 3: Impossible to Read Text

Who’s going to stick around a site they have to strain their eyes to read? Be very cautious about the font you use and the colors you choose. A lack of contrasting color between your type and your background can cause huge legibility issues. Make sure that the writing stands out enough from page and that the colors complement each other appropriately. Text that is too small can also be problematic, especially for older viewers. And although it’s not a bad design choice to use a fresh and modern font, make sure you’re selecting something that is crisp and clean enough to be used for bodies of text.

Long blocks of writing are, in and of themselves, something to avoid. Website visitors want to get to the main point of a page – and quickly. Large chunks of text discourage this, so the optimal thing to do is to edit out any unnecessary details, break up content into manageable paragraphs, and organize selected information into lists and bullet points.

Lastly, beware the bold, italic, underline, and caps lock options. These can be used sparingly to make a point, but overwhelming a page with them creates a visual mess and ultimately achieves the opposite effect from what you want, confusing the eye to the point where it doesn’t know where to look first.

Habit #4: Confusing Site Navigation

Perhaps one of the most egregious offenses in website design is creating a site whose navigation is poor, shoddy, or confusing. Major design mistakes center around links, which must always be easily identifiable, descriptive in their title, and functioning properly. Don’t make visitors guess where they’re going: make sure that you distinguish visually between content on your page that is simply text and content that is a link and, therefore, “clickable. ” Underlining, bold, or a standout color choice can all be used to indicate that a word or phrase is actually a link. Be clear about where each one takes the visitor by giving obvious titles to your different sections, making it clear from a glance which button takes you where. Make sure that the links are visually unified; if every link is presented in the same style, then it will be easy for users to scan a web page and spot them.

Beware of orphaned pages! This term indicates web pages that have no link back to the homepage or, in the worst case scenarios, links to any other section of the website. Orphaned pages can create a huge hassle and annoyance for your visitors, who must leave the visual area of the website to use their browser’s “back” button. Likewise, to further avoid this situation, double-check to make sure all of your site’s links are functioning! Broken links and 404 error pages make a site look messy and unmaintained, as well as cause users a headache.

A few other warnings on this topic: bad website design is likewise evident on websites whose links don’t change color after having been clicked by a visitor. Help your users remember what parts of the sites they’ve already checked out so that they don’t find themselves lost within your content. Under no circumstances should you include any drop-down menus that fall below the bottom of your page. These will make certain links impossible to reach!

Habit #5: Distracting Design Elements

Overambitious and/or inexperienced designers have a tendency to believe that the more bells and whistles they add to a website, the more impressive it will appear to viewers. Wrong. In fact, too many special features and attention-grabbing effects can create a serious eyesore, as well as distract from the really important content. While it’s always a good idea to stand out from the crowd, making too big a point to grab viewers’ attention will actually send them running in the opposite direction. Remember that content is key, and no design features should overshadow that fact. Nor should they, in the worst cases, attempt to make up for a website whose content is not up to par.

What are these distracting features that bad web design usually consists of? Blinking signs, clashing colors, too many photos, crazy background images, clutter, and an inundation of ads, especially those that are poorly placed or which have absolutely nothing to do with the website’s theme.

First of all, to repeat, not all of your information must be included on the homepage – or on any single page for that matter. Websites have sections for a reason, so divide up your content wisely. Second of all, always go back to the main idea that website users are arriving at your page looking for information. If you remember this, then you’ll quickly see that anything blinking, clashing, or attention-grabbing simply isn’t helping anybody’s cause. Third of all, although advertisements can be a great source of revenue, be wise about what you allow on your page and where you place it. Keep the commercial aspects off to the side and always make sure that their products match your website’s theme and your viewers’ interests, otherwise, they will steal the spotlight simply by virtue of the fact that they don’t fit in.

Habit #6: Auto-Play Media

No discussion of distractions can take place without also addressing the major design problem of automatically-playing media. If your visitors’ purpose is to get information from your website, why are you stalling their progress with long Flash intros that have no option to be skipped over? Why are you playing music when people only want to read or look at pictures? Why are you shoving pop-up windows in their faces?

To be clear, there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these media elements. A Flash intro can be a dynamic, inviting, and creative opening to a web page; videos and music can be wonderful tools and sometimes are the sole purpose of a website; and alerting your visitors to sales and offers is an essential part of marketing.

However, it’s all about the way you present these elements and the keyword here is always choice. Let visitors decide how much time they have and whether they want to use that time to sit through an intro or video; let them decide when they want to listen to music and for how long; allow them to click on offers, but don’t force them to close a pop-up window that’s of no personal interest to them. In other words, go ahead and include these media options on your page, but don’t make them run automatically. A tidal wave of media doesn’t achieve anything except increased visitor annoyance levels.

Habit #7: Your Site Makes Us Work Too Hard, Wait Too Long…or Think Too Much!

Because of web users’ goal driven natures and the plethora of web pages that they have at their immediate disposal, any web design features that test their patience can be prove to be major pitfalls in your website’s success. Beware of anything that makes visitors work too hard to find information or wait too long to get to it.

Perhaps the biggest issue in this category is the slow-loading page. This occurs primarily when there are too many images trying to load at once, or even a few images whose file sizes are simply too large. Make sure you know what quality of image is enough to make your site look beautiful, but not too much to slow it down, and then be selective about how many images you include. Besides the slow-loading page issue, you can also run the risk of half or partially-loaded images, which can look highly unprofessional and messy.

Also reconsider any design features that seem unnatural or add extra steps to your users’ activities. A good example of this is the horizontal scrolling bar. While web users are used to scrolling vertically, it takes much more effort for them to keep scrolling back and forth horizontally to finish reading sentences or find information that is off to the side of the main webpage. In some cases, they might not even notice or recognize that this type of scrolling is an option, thus causing them to miss out on whatever page elements are “hidden” from view.

Habit #8: Leaving Out Essential Information

Sometimes it’s what bad design leaves out, not what it puts in, that causes the biggest problems. Creating a website that lacks significant and relevant pieces of information can be disastrous for a business. By failing to fully answer your visitors’ questions or fulfill their needs, your website will quickly fall short of their expectations and potential return traffic will instead move elsewhere.

One of the main problems found in bad website design is a lack of contact information. Whether a customer is looking to find a business’ location(s), has a product-related question, or simply needs to speak to someone about opening hours or website issues, in this day and age they must be provided with multiple ways of getting in touch. Supply users with as many ways to contact you as possible: a phone number, an address, an email address, a fax number, or even a specially designated comments form.

Another type of issue arises when it comes to ecommerce websites, which are looking to make a direct profit from web users. Imagine you are a consumer looking to buy a product, and you end up on a website that doesn’t supply you with prices, descriptions or images of their items, or even a clear way to make your purchase. What are you supposed to do? You have no choice but to turn elsewhere.

Designers must make sure that an adequate amount of information is available when they’re asking customers to shop online. Photographs of the merchandise are very important, but may need to be supplemented with written descriptions that contain specifics like the products’ materials, functions, or non-visible qualities. Be sure that the prices are displayed clearly and choose graphics and colors that clearly indicate the path buyers can follow to check-out.

Habit #9: Trying Too Hard to Be Different

Perhaps one of the most overarching bad design habits is simply the overwhelming desire to be different, at the expense of website functionality and straightforwardness. While it’s important for your website to stand out from the crowd of other options, this can be achieved through excellent content, beautiful images, easy navigation, stunning graphics, or even utter simplicity. Where experimentation goes wrong is when a website tries so hard to break the mold that it actually only serves to alienate and confuse visitors.

Web page users are familiar with browsing websites and have learned to expect pages to work in certain ways. They’re accustomed to even the littlest details, like links being underlined or bolded, and sitemaps being found at the bottom of the page. If you start messing around with the accepted format, you risk losing an audience; even well experienced web users can still get lost and those goal-driven users who find your site too overwhelming will simply move on. Find the middle ground between making a statement and giving visitors what they want. Be creative in your content and instead leave all the major or basic page elements alone: let them work the way they always have.

Habit #10: Not Checking to See if Search Engines Can Find You

Last but certainly not least on our list, if your website cannot be found by search engines and, therefore, cannot be appreciated by more visitors, then your web page design has seriously failed you. It’s not enough to have great content or a page that looks pretty; there are certain design elements that must be either included or avoided if you’re going to grow an audience and have any impact on the virtual world.

Make sure that you are using SEO keywords in an artful manner, incorporating them into the fabric of your web page so that your content can be found and receive the attention it deserves. At the same time, you don’t want to overwhelm any web page with irrelevant information or a whole bunch of SEO nonsense that has been awkwardly planted in your text. Be smart, selective, and mindful of your viewers. Fit keywords into your writing in ways that complement the content, not destroy or delegitimize it.

Another major rookie mistake is placing text inside of image boxes. Designers may think this effect looks cool, adding a neat visual background to tabs and headings. Unfortunately, however, text that is programmed in this manner cannot be found by search engines, so any keywords that you’ve embedded in an image will be lost and useless. In this case, as well as in the case of Flash menus, it is absolutely essential that a designer remembers to include a sitemap or tags on their page, since these will be recognizable. It’s a simple solution that allows you to achieve creative design, without sacrificing your number of page views.

Avoid these ten habits of bad web design and you’ll be on your way to creating a site that is not only gorgeous and visually memorable, but fully-functioning and successful!

PayPal

No matter from where on the planet the money is being sent, PayPal is one of the fastest and easiest methods of receiving payments. Funds are credited to your PayPal account as soon as a payment is processed, and a nominal fee of approximately 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction is charged against you; but you can get this lowered by opening a PayPal merchant account. Now, as can be confirmed by various web sources, PayPal is known for having the worst possible customer service; its representatives are often unwilling to resolve issues quickly. If you call with a problem, you may just find yourself waiting for quite a while. Another critical issue is that, with so much as one complaint against you, PayPal can lock your account and even take all of your money.

As a freelancer, my suggestion is to avoid PayPal as a service to receive payments. If PayPal for some reason doubts the authenticity of a transaction, they have the power to suck out the money you receive from your PayPal account as well as any funds you may have withdrawn to your personal bank account. On top of it all, you can’t do anything if this happens. The contract you signed states in sections T and C that PayPal has the authority to be the jury for any action it takes. Even if you dispute an issue, the waiting period to simply begin resolving it can stretch beyond six months. Rest assured, you will have a horrible time dealing with PayPal if this happens.

Althought PayPal still the best payment option available but some countries got effected by it’s recent Policy changes. For example, Recently PayPal updated his policies for Indian users and now the new guideline makes it mandatory for users to transfers their PayPal balance to their banks within 7 days from the date of deposit. Any balance into PayPal account must not be used to buy goods or services. In addition to that there is a new guideline saying that each transaction to PayPal account shouldn’t exceed $500. This means if someone pays you an amount $500 or more, you can’t use PayPal to handle such transaction. Read more..

Electronic Funds Transfer

The electronic funds transfer (EFT) system expedites money transfers by allowing funds to be sent from one bank account to another. There is no intermediary; the bank handles both the sending and receiving. To use this service, you simply provide certain banking details to your client, and the funds are essentially wired to whichever account you wish. The details required to complete a wire transfer are: a routing number; a savings or checking account number; the name, address and phone number of your bank; and the name of a person to whom any future questions can be addressed.

In general, it takes two to three business days to receive funds through EFT. However, it may take five to seven business days depending on your location and the location of your bank.

Cash Wire Transfer

This is one of the quickest ways to have funds transferred to your bank account. Your client simply walks in to their bank and orders the transfer. The client’s bank then sends a SWIFT code requesting the fund disbursement as per the instructions in the message. The funds do not actually transfer instantly and may take a few days, but the payment is ensured. Both the sender and recipient’s banks will charge a fee for this service. Typically, the fee charged for an outgoing wire transfer ranges from $35 to $45, and $15 to $20 for an incoming wire transfer. However, the fees vary depending on the bank and its location.

Escrow

Escrow accounts are considered one of the safest and most secure ways for freelancers and online service providers to process payments. Based on prior agreement, the buyer deposits the money into an Escrow account, administered by a third party, before receiving a finished assignment or service. The funds are transferred to the seller only after the buyer gives the go-ahead to the Escrow account manager.

This method offers complete protection for both the seller and buyer. The seller is compelled to deliver the assignment in order to receive payment, and the seller has no fear of losing money before the task is complete.

Escrow companies charge nominal fees and disclose them beforehand to their clients.

Google Checkout

Google Checkout is rapidly gaining popularity in the online business community and is proving to be one of the preferred methods of receiving payment from overseas clients. It is an integrated payment gateway provided by Google. You and your client both need a Google account in order to use the service.

Google Checkout records your accounting information as a one-time formality, and after that all information is monitored by Google Checkout’s fraud protection program. You can also integrate your Google account with other well-known payment gateways and accept free money transfers. The system employs a tiered fee structure and offers competitive rates as low as 1.4% plus $0.20 per transaction. There is no additional monthly set-up or service fee, and Google Checkout does not charge to transfer funds from your Checkout account to your bank.

Western Union

A Western Union money transfer is one of the quickest ways to transfer and receive funds from clients worldwide. The process is quite simple: your client walks in to any Western Union branch, deposits the payment, and then you collect the funds from a convenient, pre-selected location when the transfer is complete. This type of transfer is often referred to as a “cash transfer.” Western Union also provides a feature to send money online or over the phone. All your client needs to do is provide the branch with their account information and the details of the person receiving the funds. This is a quick, comfortable system that allows you to collect funds in cash, on a prepaid card or through a bank deposit.

Western Union has over 300,000 locations worldwide, and there is no restriction on the amount of money being transferred. The fees charged are higher than a few of the other options profiled in this article, but the amount depends on many factors, such as the country to which the funds are being sent. For example, transfers to the Philippines and India are far cheaper than ones to Cameroon.

2Checkout

2Checkout.com is the online distribution center for over 300,000 tangible or digital products and services. Web businesses (suppliers/vendors) agree to sell their goods and services to 2CO for immediate resale. The supplier status you obtain through 2CO permits you to access a larger market.

2checkout.com are a credit cards procesor site, the diference from the other similar sites are that they are accepting payments right away. If you choose 2CO Checokout, you would be directed to the billing information followed by the Credit card details. 2Checkout.Com will immediately process your order. After your order has been authorized by the 2Checkout.Com your Account will be upgraded to the desired subscription.

On 2Checkout you can make online credit card payments, use the virtual credit card terminals, as well as create a merchant account to sell your products through a reliable company.

MoneyGram

MoneyGram processes transfers much like Western Union. That said, there still are major differences between these two services. First, MoneyGram has far fewer agents worldwide, approximately 100,000. There is also a restriction on one-time transactions of $899, provided your client uses their US bank account. If you are using a credit card to transfer the money, the transaction limit is $500 with MoneyGram’s “Same Day Service.” As you can see, MoneyGram is not the best option if you want to transfer a large sum of money.

The fees charged depend on the amount of the transfer, the country where funds are being sent to, and the type of service chosen (same day, economy, home delivery, etc.).

Moneybookers.com

This is an online tool that allows the sending and receiving of funds using either a credit card, bank account or debit card. It has no geographical limitations and is safe and instant. One restriction with this service is that it cannot be used for online shopping; a setback compared to PayPal. Transferring funds to an individual’s bank account can cost as low as $0.50. However, the fee rises if a credit card is used. Moneybookers.com does not require the sender to register an account, only the recipient.

Checks and Demand Draft

The two traditional ways to receive funds are by check or demand draft. The demand draft is often preferable because there is no possibility of a payment being denied due to insufficient funds, which could occur when using checks.

AlertPay

AlertPay is yet another quick and convenient method to receive funds from clients. It works like PayPal but is not as widely used by online businesses. One interesting aspect of AlertPay is that it allows you to earn money through referrals.

Revolution Money Exchange

Revolution Money Exchange (RME) works very similar to PayPal by providing instant money transfers. You and your client both need to be members to use it, and RME offers a lot of promotional deals to members. The referral benefit, in particular, is something to take advantage of: RME pays as much as $10 for every referral. Refer 50 people and you can expect a check for $500. Most importantly, this service is free for business owners. Your RME account is linked to your personal savings or checking account, and funds can be transferred and received from other RME account holders. The biggest drawback is that it can be used only in the US. It has other transaction limitations, too; namely, a daily limit of $1,000 and a monthly limit of $2,500.

Free RME services include account registration, adding money from your bank, sending and receiving funds, and sending money electronically from your bank.

Xoom

Xoom is one payment transfer method that has yet to receive due credit for the type of service it offers. It functions like Western Union or MoneyGram but is restricted to online transactions and allows only funds to be transferred. Your client can pick from a few payment options, such as PayPal, a bank account or a credit card, and the funds can then be sent as cash or directly to your personal checking or savings account.

1. Facebook

More often than not, people aren’t using search engines to discover new content online. Instead, they’re turning to their friends. And with its new “Like” button appearing all over the web, Facebook is becoming an ever-more-important source of finding content online.

Rather than using Google or Yahoo! to find information on a topic, users are asking their Facebook friends and groups about whatever information they need. People also trust this information more, as it’s coming from people they know, rather than just being returned in what often seems like a random pattern.

According to a latest research it’s been indicated that Facebook has currently More than 500 Million active users. If Facebook were a physical nation than this would make them the third most populous country in the world, after China and India.

And if the service continues to grow as rapidly as in the three months to July, it will reach one billion in about 15 months—almost the size of India.

What You Should Be Doing — Facebook opens up a host of possibilities for driving traffic to your website. Incorporating a “Like” button on your site should be your first step if you want your visitors to be able to easily share your site. You’ll also want to create a page or group for your company or website, and encourage people to join. You can put a link to the group on your website, as well as send out recommendations to your current FB friends. Another option with FB is targeted advertising, which can be relatively inexpensive.

Be careful not to use Facebook to spam your fans, though. Post information on your page or group that is relevant to your niche and will also be useful to your fans. If all you do is post about your company or product, you’ll drive away fans.

2. Social Bookmarking and News Sites

A lot of people are actively involved in social bookmarking and news sites. Sometimes these are niche sites devoted to a particular industry, while other times they’re more general. In many cases, it’s more effective to turn to sites like this when looking for information on current events or information of interest than it is to use search engines.

Really involved users might turn to their social bookmarking and news sites when looking for virtually any information. Because of tagging and built-in search functionality on these sites, it’s easy for users to find pretty much anything. And the fact that someone else has already looked over something and decided it was worth saving for later reference or sharing with others, the sites found in this manner are considered more trustworthy.

What You Should Be Doing — Adding social bookmarking links to your website is a great way to encourage your visitors to promote your pages for you. You’ll also want to set up accounts on the major social bookmarking sites (Digg, Reddit, Delicious, StumbleUpon), as well as any sites specific to your niche. Promote relevant content both from your website and elsewhere; otherwise you might be viewed as a spam account.

3. Better Search Engine Algorithms

Search engines get smarter every day. SEO tactics that worked brilliantly years or even months ago don’t work as well now. Search engines know how to weed out the obvious SEO tactics to get at the meat of a site’s content. Because of this, SEO tactics are becoming less and less effective.

As search engines get even more intelligent, on-site SEO strategies will only get less effective. While search engines will still recognize good, relevant content, there will be few strategies that will give sites a boost outside of providing good content. Off-site SEO strategies will likely still work for quite a while longer, but search engines are aware of many of the tactics used to make sites appear more popular than they actually are. It’s a trend that’s going to continue for the foreseeable future, at least.

What You Should Be Doing — This one is pretty obvious: you need to provide high-quality, relevant content on your site. Forget about keyword stuffing and writing with SEO in mind. Just provide content that’s important and useful to your target visitor and trust that search engines will be able to sort out the best sites in a given niche.

4. Blog Roundups and Showcases

There are blogs for virtually every niche in existence. And many of these blogs post roundups of content from various sources online. These roundups are a fantastic way of finding information about a given topic without having to wade through search results.

Again, one reason people turn to these types of posts is the idea that someone has already been through the content featured and has weeded out the content that isn’t any good.

What You Should Be Doing — There are two ways to approach this type of content and promotion. First, if you have a blog, you’ll want to do a couple of these roundups. Include both resources from your own site and elsewhere. These types of posts get bookmarked and passed around for months after they’re written.

The second thing you’ll want to do is create content that’s well-suited to being included in these types of posts. Email bloggers who write about your topic and make sure they’re aware of your site (but also make sure you don’t nag them or become annoying). Getting featured in a post like this can drive traffic to your site for months.

5. Twitters

When looking for information about a topic, a lot of users turn to Twitter. It’s easier to ask a question there than it is to do a search, and you often get much better results. In a lot of cases, people have more Twitter followers than they do friends on other social networking sites, and so there’s more chance to find the information they’re looking for. Plus, Twitter lets anyone see your updates (unless your feed is private, of course), which opens up some great opportunities for promotion.

Twitter is used for everything from breaking news to research. Trending topics give us insight into what’s going on at that moment, and what’s being talked about. Hashtags let us focus on particular topics and see what people are saying whether we’re following them or not. Twitter is a giant conversation, among both strangers and friends, that anyone can become a part of.

What You Should Be Doing — Every business should have a presence on Twitter. Businesses should set up Twitter accounts to interact with their customers and prospective customers, and to see what’s happening in their industry. Businesses should also use Twitter as a proactive customer service tool. You can see the experiences users are having with your business almost in real-time. You’ll also want to follow relevant hashtags related to your industry and answer questions being posed by other users. This can be a great way to pick up new followers. If the information you provide is useful and relevant, people will view you as an expert and will turn to you next time they have questions.

6. People Already Have Their Favorite Sites

Because the Internet has become such an integral part of the lives of so many people, most regular Internet users already know their favorite sites for certain things. If they’re looking for an apartment to rent, for example, they’ll go to Craigslist without bothering to search elsewhere. If they’re looking for a book, they might go straight to Amazon or Abe Books. What they won’t do is use a search engine.

Internet users find websites they’re comfortable with and are hesitant to deal with a new site, especially when it comes to actually purchasing something. When they do business with a new site, they often do so based on the advice of someone else, not based on search engine results.

What You Should Be Doing — Figure out who the big sites are in your niche and then figure out how you can get your content featured on them. With some sites this is pretty easy. If you’re a local business, put ads up on Craigslist that direct people to your website. If you sell a product, see if you can become an Amazon Associate to sell through their website. If all else fails, see if you can place an ad on the site that leads your industry, or see if they’d be interested in featuring some of your content.

7. More Savvy Searchers

Internet users are much more savvy than they were ten or even five years ago. When someone goes to a search engine to find something, they often know exactly what keywords will yield the best results and can quickly weed through the results that don’t offer what they need.

Search volume also plays into this. Searchers can use very specific search terms and still often get thousands or millions of results returned. Because of this, they’re not afraid to search for very specific things, since they know they’ll still likely get enough relevant results. This is where the long-tail comes in, and the long-tail is harder to optimize for effectively, since you never really know how someone is going to reach your site, or what search terms they’ll use.

What You Should Be Doing — Again, this comes down to providing great, relevant content. Stop trying to game the search engines and simply put the best content on your website that you can get. Search engine traffic is becoming a smaller and smaller part of traffic for more established websites, as they get more incoming links and referrals. Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay any attention to how searchers are finding your site. And by all means, if you find some obscure search term is sending you significant amounts of traffic, consider adding more content around that term.

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