On January 11, WordPress has released a Security and Maintenance Update and they suggest you to update immediately. As WordPress users ourselves, we strongly share their suggestion.
If your website uses WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS), you should backup your website and update WordPress Core to the latest version.
To backup your website is always important, especially before installing Core updates, so to prevent issues. Also, if your website has Plugins installed, these may not always be 100% compatible with the new version which can lead to your website becoming broken or unbrowsable.
Being an open source, heavily community-reliant CMS, WordPress updates are usually based on the huge amount of feedback coming from its huge user base (WordPress 4.7 has been downloaded over 17 million times).
This is a short list of the main bugs that the 4.7.1 update fixes, along with a brief explanation:
There are other 62 bugs that have been fixed. If you are interested, you can check the full Release Notes for WordPress 4.7.1 directly from their website.
Need help? Contact us!
As more and more people go mobile, a lot of work goes into getting your visitors to convert. It’s not just a matter of having quality products.
One of the mistakes you can make, as an Ecommerce owner, is to deliver a poor Product Page Design to your customers. A balance between User Experience and Content Optimisation is what you want to achieve.
If your Product Page Design doesn’t make it easy for customers to check and buy the product, then they will simply leave your website altogether.
We at Handyweb are working with more than few Ecommerce websites, so we thought we should share few tips, coming from experience. Of course, one or more of the following may represent no secret to some of you. Still sometimes they are overlooked, therefore we thought we should mention them.
Good Content is part of your Product Page Design. Make sure to give your customers a clear idea of what the Product is and that it is what they are looking for. How?
Know your audience – Being a shop owner, you may already know why customers should look for your products instead of others’. Find long-tail keywords you could use to attract your targeted audience.
Use descriptive terms and words that value the product – “Victorian China Tea Set, 7 pieces: 3 cups and saucers, teapot” is a better Product Name than just “Tea set”.
Write original Product Descriptions – Whether you are manufacturer of your own products or not, don’t just copy-paste descriptions coming from similar products you find online or from the manufacturers’ websites.
Include all valuable informations – If you think that a piece of information is valuable to your customer (Product Size, Product Weight, etc.) be sure to include it.
If you use WooCommerce as an Ecommerce Platform, it’s not difficult to provide all this information.
Include long-tail keywords – For a better Search Engine Optimisation, use long-tail keywords related to your audience in both your Product Description and Product Name.
Mind Page Title’s character count – If your Product Name is included in the Product Page Title, make sure that its character count remains between 50-60 characters.
Update: since November, 2016 Mobile and tablet internet usage has officially exceeded desktop worldwide. Now more than ever you should think about mobile-friendly design for your online business.
Provide clean looking images – Your products should have clean, crisp images, preferably original.
Be consistent – Keep your display images’ style consistent throughout the website. Consistency often inspires reliability. Reliability often reinforces your Brand Awareness.
Always think about Page Speed – Be sure to choose images that are “lightweight”, optimised for Web Broswing. It is known that slow loading times are bad for both SEO and conversion rates.
Here is a thorough article: How to Optimize Ecommerce Product Images for Faster Pages, High Conversion from Practical Ecommerce.
Avoid slideshows and animations – Focus on speed. If your Product features more than one image, make the first image as descriptive as possible. Then let the user decide whether to look at other images.
Provide easy interaction – Make sure your main Call to Action (the “BUY NOW” button, if you will) is easy to interact with. If your Product also considers Quantity, make Quantity Selection easy to increase and decrease.
Iterate – Have people test your website from a mobile browser and ask them for feedback. Fix what has to be fixed and repeat.
Update 2017: Consider AMP – For a further focus on speed and ease of use, consider Accelerated Mobile Pages for your Ecommerce. As of July, 2016 Ebay started testing AMP for their website.
Wishlist – Maybe your customers are interested in your Product but want to wait for a discount or simply come back later. Consider including Wishlists in your Product Page Design, maybe including an easy email reminder.
Related Products – Maybe your customers are looking for a different but similar product and didn’t know it beforehand. Put this section at the end of the page, as it shouldn’t distract customers from the Producty they’re looking at.
Up-sell – If your customers are looking at an MP3 Player with 8GB of storage, for instance, showing them the same MP3 Player with 16GB of storage could move them towards that.
Cross-sell – Once your customers have chosen the right MP3 Player for their budget and needs, they could be interested in a pair of headphones to buy along with it.
Customer Support – Be always there for your customers and visitors. Live Chat, phone, email, online forms. Make it easy for them to reach you from any part of the website, and to ask for help about a specific Product. This will make it easy for both of you.
Social Media Share Icons – Allow Social Media Share Icons (in a non-intrusive way), if you want your customers and potential customers to “work for you” by spreading the word about a Product to their peers and followers.
Today’s headlines show that the Swift payment system has been hacked. This system is used by many leading banks in the world, probably including yours. Perhaps it is a good time to remind yourself of your responsibilities as a website owner: you should always protect your visitors’ data against hackers.
The headlines on the heading picture of this article are all cut from web stories today. There is an increasing level of security breaches even on top brand websites.
For website owners there are two areas to consider, when seeking to keep your website safe from hackers.
Do you have an Ecommerce website? Find out more about how to increase your Ecommerce security.
Your interaction with your online visitors is based of trust. If your website fails in delivering a proper protection for its visitors, building trust in them will be very difficult.
Here are 7 steps you can consider if you want increase your visitors’ trust
One of the easiest ways for hackers to access your website is because your software, like your website CMS, are not up to date. Many CMS such as WordPress often release Security and Maintenance Updates. These updates aim to close off the loopholes in security found in the previous versions.
More about why you should always keep your software up to date.
Owners of Ecommerce Websites usually focus on delivering a high quality user experience, so that visitors will enjoy their buying experience. Other than the way products are presented, Ecommerce Security should be a crucial topic for both owners and users.
Unfortunately, most Ecommerce owners do not give enough consideration to security until something goes wrong, which is generally too late.
Hackers always try new ways to attack websites to gather information, deny access to your website, extract customer information, or redirect payments to their accounts.
Ecommerce owners have a responsibility to protect their clients against such events. Small brands, big brands they all have been attacked by hackers. The flaws in their safety can lead visitors to lose faith and trust in their services. Nobody likes having their financial and personal information exposed where they would not wish!
The good news is that you can do something to increase your Ecommerce’s security. Here are 6 quick, general tips:
Over 17% of online customers will leave the shopping process when they notice that a website is not secured with a HTTPS protocol.
The HTTPS protocol keeps the conversation between your website and your customers’ computer confidential. This means that when they submit their private or financial informations these are not easily subject to being intercepted by hackers.
You can notice whether a website, page or service is HTTPS-secured just by looking at the URL bar of your internet browser. If there is a little lock icon, or if the URL of the website starts with “https://”, then it is HTTPS-secured, otherwise is not.
Some browsers warn you when a website is not HTTPS-secured but you should always be wary when you are about to provide personal or financial informations.
Clients often ask us for easier passwords to remember for their website accounts. While we do not force them to keep their passwords strong, our suggestion always points towards that direction.
A strong password has at least 15 characters, is composed by both lowercase and uppercase letters, contains numbers and symbols (such as ? % ^ $ *). You can use this useful website to create a strong password.
If you don’t do this yourself, arrange with your web developer to set up an automated website backup, possibly away from your premises.
This is a low cost solution that avoids a nightmare situation if your website ever gets hacked and all your products disappear.
Frequently we find out that clients do not log out of their website and just walk away from the computer that remains logged on.
Wi-Fi is great and, of course, we all love free Wi-Fi! Security levels on free Wi-Fi are often limited, though, and can easily be hacked.
This means that anything you type while connected to such Wi-Fi is open to being captured and used by hackers.
Being careful about what you do on free Wi-Fi is a general security rule and we share the common strong suggestion to wait until you are using secure connections before you use a credit card or give banking or password details that matter to you.
As obvious as it may be, we strongly suggest you to keep your antivirus and antimalware software updated. Also we invite you, of course, not to open emails from persons you do not know.
Also, don’t open attachments or click on links that you are unsure of. Email spam keeps getting more sophisticated. Spam emails don’t always carry a subject as silly as “Click here to download an important message”.
They can infect your computer and some of your actions can make the malware spread to your website, therefore to its users.
Many good browsers, including Chrome and Firefox, can be extended with an increasing number of apps (or extensions or plugins). These apps can make life easier for you in many different ways.
Still, our suggestion is to always ensure that both these apps and your browser are up to date. Also, keep an eye out for those apps you didn’t install on purpose. They could be the kind of malware that opens up dozens of spam popups whenever you try to do something on the internet!
At Handyweb.ie we can help you improve your Ecommerce Security, as we can provide quality advise, put in place secure certificates (HTTPS) and setup automated backups.
We can perform a scan on your website, then clean, protect, and monitor it every day, preventing attacks from hackers and other vulnerabilities from arising.
We have quite a few Ecommerce websites in our Portfolio, but also have team members who run their own. We asked them to share a few tips for Starting an Ecommerce Business. 9 things to consider when thinking about starting an Ecommerce Business Design - Ask yourself:...
read more
Businesses know it is important to be trading online. In fact, 60% of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) have a website and online presence, yet a lot of them admit that cannot process sales on the internet! It is a logical step to conclude from the above...
read more
If I told you that over 10% of all shopping by Irish consumers will be done online within the next two years – you wont be so worried. Maybe you think its only 10% of a big cake or maybe you think is it eating more than 10% of my industry cake and each year after this will take bigger slices?
What if I told you that this year the online spend by Irish Consumers represented €5.9 billion and is projected to reach €9.3 billion by 2017 ( thats just about two years from now!).
read more
We have quite a few Ecommerce websites in our Portfolio, but also have team members who run their own. We asked them to share a few tips for Starting an Ecommerce Business.
Design – Ask yourself: what is my online store about? Is it design lead? What type of design will be best for my shop? Can the design change in the future, without losing my content? Try to Imagine if you have 2000 items in your online store and in 3 years time you would like your website to move with the times.
In case you are asking, the answer is: yes! We take all these into consideration.
Responsive Web Design – This is an absolute requirement for new websites. It simply means that your website will rearrange itself according to the size of the screen it will be viewed on. This means that it works as well on Mobile devices.
We also provide Responsive Web Design
Payment Options – What’s the best way to facilitate my clients’ payments? Many are the available payment solutions: credit cards, debit cards, cash on delivery, collect and pay. We are happy to advise on options and costs as well as security issues in relation to accepting online payments.
When gathering customers information, you should definitely think about SSL certificates to ensure your customers’ privacy.
Shipping Options – What countries will I sell to? Are there places I dont want to deal with? Will I charge by item? Will I include shipping costs per weight and location or shipping cost for total purchase? Will I offer free shipping for certain products or if the client spends more than a specific amount? Flat Rate or location based shipping options should be considered.
Product options – Will my products be digital downloads, physical goods or both? What range of options do I need to display to clients? Can I quickly put items on sale and show discounts and feature discounted items? Can I show related items to encourage upsells during the purchase process?
Stock Control – How do I manage stock control? How big an issue is it for me? If I sell out of a product can I replace it in 24/48 hours or is it “when it’s gone, it’s gone”? Can Stock Control systems can show actual stock or limited stock or show stock always available and even can show order now even if an item is out of stock.
There are different ways to approach this. Talk to us for further information.
Integrated online and Offline shop – Will it be possible to have both a Retail and Online Shop? Should I prefer Online over Retail? Can they coexist and be compatible without hurting my business? Can I handle them both using the same stock?
Handyweb.ie offers a unique package, particularly geared at new startups, which allows them run their offline shop and online shop from the same Ecommerce.
How much time to put into your Ecommerce management – If your Ecommerce site is well planned, you will automatically get notified of each order that comes in. This way you can quickly print out the order requirements, place them ready for fulfillment and, dispatch the orders sending an instant notification to your customers. You can have your orders area set up that a single click will email the client. This basically means that you will end up into a daily routine of checking your orders. With a proper Stock Control System and a well planned Ecommerce, you will have very few tasks to do everytime.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – How do I get my products out there? How do I attract more customers towards what they’re really looking for? The design of your online store should go hand in hand with Search Engine Optimisation
Handyweb offers SEO Services as well. Get your Free SEO Audit
Summary
Don’t feel overwhelmed by what you need to consider. Do ensure this list is on your agenda no matter who you talk to about delivering a quality Ecommerce website. Do ensure that whoever you choose will be there to help and assist on the longer term. A well planned website will make it easy for you to monitor which products are selling well (good reporting), a well thought out order system will make it easy for you to deal with orders and your stock system will ensure you keep your stock levels up to date (or expire products that are no longer available or temporarily unavailable).
While building your website, keep Search Engine Optimisation in mind, and consider integrating Social Media Marketing tools.
Businesses know it is important to be trading online. In fact, 60% of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) have a website and online presence, yet a lot of them admit that cannot process sales on the internet!
It is a logical step to conclude from the above that there is a combination of fear and lack of understanding that is stopping businesses from taking a step this close to the lowest cost of expansion for any business.
So let’s have a look at 7 great reasons why you should seriously think about embracing Ecommerce!
Setting up an Ecommerce business costs an awful lot less than opening a new premises on the high street. It is obvious, but still a valid point to consider.
You can quickly take payments online from clients (also as deposits from slow payers, if you use QuickPay). This is quite a useful starting point to get businesses used to the value of online payment.
This benefits both you and your customers. People may want to buy products from your shop but really don’t have the time or the chance to stop by. Having an Ecommerce enables them to browse your catalog and buy anything, anytime and anywhere.
An Ecommerce doesn’t have to be as massive and corporate-looking as Amazon. There are plenty of very unique Ecommerce websites that carry as much personality as their owners can offer. Many customers are attracted by something that feels unique and has a personal touch.
In 2013, Irish people spent over 4 billion online. By the end of 2017 this is estimated to rise up to 21 billion. Do you really want to miss out on this?
Search Engine Optimisation and Social Media Marketing play a great deal in your Business Strategy.
With an Ecommerce it’s easy to get started with both. It’s not as easy as sharing a post or tweeting, but it something that anybody can learn how to do, given they are willing to spend time learning and practicing.
Or you can have a third party expert to manage SEO and Social Media Management for your Ecommerce. Someone like us!
Of course, there are businesses that do have a Retail store, but benefit a lot from their Ecommerce website. An example of such business is The South African Shop in Mullingar.
We helped the owner designing a website that also works as an all-in-one POS System, syncing the stock available at the retail and on the online shop.
An Ecommerce can be cheap, can help you earn money while you sleep, can be as unique and personal as you are and can also exist along with your Retail store.
These are just few of the reasons why a business should embrace Ecommerce. In the end your business will thank you as you will be surprised how cost effective it is to deliver.
We offer free consultation on how to get your business online, and can also help you get the Trading Online Voucher for your Ecommerce, talk to us today!