Gone are the days when websites were developed for large screens of desktop computers or laptops. Today, everything has to be scaled down to fit smaller screens of mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets. With Google’s mobile-friendly update for websites as released on April 21, 2015, it has now become apparent for every webmaster or blogger to apply a mobile-first strategy for website development. Developers now focus on mobile-optimised websites that work great on mobile phones and tablets, and then scale up perfectly for larger computer or laptop screens. Let’s take a look at what mobile first web-design means, and its importance for websites, and how to start development of mobile-friendly websites. What Does Mobile-First Approach Mean? The ‘mobile first’ strategy for website development involves designing an online experience first for mobile devices and then optimizing it for scaling up to desktop and laptop computers. It does not mean designing a website that works well on desktop computers and then adjusting it to be compatible with mobile phones or tablets. The mobile-first process is to design online websites specifically for mobile customers, keeping their dynamic behaviour, context and needs in perspective. The user interface should suit mobile devices with easily readable text and easy navigation to the different sections of the site. Why Go Mobile-First? The number of mobile users has increased manifold and easily outnumbers the number of people that access websites on PCs or laptops. According to a ComScore report, mobile devices generate more than 60% of the online traffic to websites. This percentage keeps on increasing with every passing quarter, and that has fuelled the need for every business to have mobile-friendly websites. Source: ComScore So, if you haven’t optimised your website yet, you need...
Google’s search engine algorithms are important on many counts. While all web developers know the basic SEO strategies, businesses need to be aware of how Google wants them to behave. Mostly, the trend is of businesses look at exploring White Hat SEO, or SEO through ethics that Google approves, in a better way. The latest Google update just reinforces Google’s dominance in the search engine market. The Google Penguin update, for instance, was aimed at filtering spammy content and ensuring that quality content rank higher. Now, we see that Google has introduced the Mobilegeddon update that is rewarding websites, which are mobile friendly. In fact, there is one interesting point that I would want to mention here. As early as 2013, Google’s Matt Cutt had stated how the company will now penalize companies with slower page loading times. Yes, Google’s plan to move in this direction was evident for some time now – it was not a matter of if but when. What Does The Mobilegeddon Update Mean? The Mobilegeddon update is aimed to reward businesses with sites that are mobile friendly, helping them get better rankings in search results and be featured more prominently. The change, effective from April 21, means that you will have to design a mobile friendly site sooner than later if you want to stay in the competition. The update seems to be much more important than all Google updates till date, including Google Panda and Penguin. Those in the web developer world would know that when these two updates were introduced, the rankings of many websites changed drastically – many for the worse....
iOS 8 Vs. Android Lollipop – Which one let’s you build better? Here is a quick head to head comparison of the features of both the platforms that developers need to take a look at. There are more mobile users using the internet than those using fixed internet access lines today, and it comes as no surprise. It’s no longer the question of whether you should have a mobile presence, but rather ‘when?’ Google’s Mobilegeddon update was important for web developers. For app developers, Apple’s introduction of Swift as a programming language was a wake-up call. Mobile adoption is increasing with a Gartner report stating that users are increasingly satisfied with the current engagement rates. So, does it mean that you need to develop apps for both these OS? That’s one area that many entrepreneurs and developers ponder about. App entrepreneurs and developers are looking to develop apps on both Android and iOS, and are often asking the question, ‘Which one do we look at first’? Here is a quick head to head comparison of the features of both the platforms that developers need to take a look at. iOS 8 What do you like about the iOS 8 – the new developer friendly features or a smoother performance? iOS 8 has the same design as its predecessor and comes with a number of extensions for developers. With iOS 8, Apple has finally moved away from its policies of not allowing third party extensions to communicate with its operating systems. So, which extensions have come in? Here is a look. Today extensions Much like Windows phone’s Live Tiles, iOS...
Sales are the lifeblood of every business. This holds true for the online businesses as well. And would understand this better than the eCommerce entrepreneurs? To be able to craft winning strategies, eCommerce entrepreneurs have to track their sales every month. Not only this, they also have to keep a track of new customers visiting and buying from them, repeat customer and the purchases made by them and many other critical details of the activities their target audience is doing on their website. So, you have been all this so far. That’s great! But what more are doing? No we are not talking about shooting out newsletters regularly to your website visitors. Neither are we talking about rolling out huge discounts and irresistible offers for your customers. We have no doubts that you are doing all of that and doing a pretty fine job with your eCommerce website. But there’s one more thing on which the success or failure of every online business hinges. And that is how readily and quickly you adapt your business to the changes your immediate environment (technological or consumer behavior) may offer you. Currently, the eCommerce industry is faced with changes in both technological environment as well as changes in the consumer behavior. We have shifted from the desktop era to the mobile era and the eCommerce industry is not an exception. Your buyers are searching for your business over their mobile devices. Are you prepared to greet them there? You better be because if you are not, be ready to say goodbye to them for forever. If you wish to keep your customers...
WordPress 4.0 was released in the beginning of September this year and it came with tons of new improvements like the enhanced post editor, improved Internationalization support, etc. But let’s admit, it wasn’t the revolution all of us had expected. But the latest WordPress 4.1 which is expected to be released in the coming next week will have new features and more visible changes. From the latest update you can expect to see some new UI elements, modes in the dashboard, query API and numerous performance enhancements. In this blog post, we will talk about the expected changes that are coming in WordPress 4.1 and what they will mean for the users. The New Theme The first thing you will notice new in WordPress 4.1 is the default Twenty Fifteen theme. The beautifully designed theme fits perfectly well with WordPress Internationalization. The new theme supports Google’s Noto Serif & Sans fonts and that to for many languages. This means that users who publish content in any of the languages with non-Latin alphabets will not have to adjust fonts for their languages. Apart from this, from a features point of view the Twenty Fifteen theme offers options like custom header and custom background. You will be able to set color schemes and there will be built-in support for popular social buttons. All you will need to do is to create a menu in the native WordPress interface and these icons will appear on your website / blog. The New Dashboard In the earlier releases including the release of WordPress 4.0, various improvements were made to better the language pack support....
What is NoSQL and why one should use it are the questions that have been in the air for a long time. While there are some who are unfamiliar with the technology, there are many who are looking for a new alternative to solve some of the issues they facing with their current database systems. Through this blog post we aim to demystify NoSQL for the relational database crowd and for the understanding of common information seekers. What is NoSQL? A NoSQL database environment is a non-relational and largely distributed database system. It enables rapid, ad-hoc organization of data. It is also very useful to analyze high volume of disparate data types. But what needs to be made clear here is that NoSQL encompasses a wide variety of different database technologies and is not a single beast. These different database technologies were developed in response to the rising volume of data that was stored about the users, objects and products. Another reason was that the frequency in which these data were accessed also increased over time. To improve the performance and processing needs of the database system, the NoSQL was developed. These are referred to as cloud databases, non-relational databases and Big Data databases. The most common types of NoSQL Databases The most common categories of NoSQL available and widely used today by many are listed below: Key-Value Store: These databases are designed for storing your data in a schema-less way. The data within it consists an indexed key and a value, hence the name. Common examples of this type of database are Cassandra, Azure Table Storage (ATS). Column...
The present era can easily be called the era of content and content marketing. Doesn’t matter what industry or product you are dealing in with, content is absolutely necessary and something that can cause some fatal damage to your business if you choose to ignore it. Agreed that there is no shortage of great information to consume online, but when it comes to content there is always room for lots more. The scope of content is not restricted to making information available only to the end-users. By now we all understand how important Big Data can prove to be. There are many businesses who have invested their money in implemented strong content driven enterprise applications that help them in streamlining their business processes and making more informed decisions. Whether it is finding the right case for your smartphone or screening the activities of your accounting firm, with content websites and applications the possibilities are endless. If we talk about what makes a content driven website / application great, the answer is great content. Yes, there is no substitute for great content. But there are many other factors that contribute to the success of a content driven website / application. Some of them are explained below: SEO-friendly: A good content website has to be SEO-friendly. Even if you are publishing awesome quality fresh content, it will be of no use if you don’t Search Engine Optimize it. Your website has to be on the top of search engines to be able to reach your audience. Powerful Authoring Tool: A website must have an all-in-one authoring tool. It makes it...
If statistics are to be believed the worldwide mobile subscriptions for this year are projected to cross 6.5 billion. Yes, mobile has taken over and is changing how business professionals communicate with each other. There is no denying it! The explosive growth in mobile adoption rate is unparalleled and unstoppable. Also, audiences interact more with B2B brands that are there on the mobile. Smartphones have presented a sky full of opportunities and possibilities for B2B marketers. You now have a brand new platform for marketing your brand and products / services. A platform that gives you immense freedom to run innovative and engaging campaigns to the ever growing customer base of those who use mobile as their primary source to search information. The most appealing thing for Smartphone using customer is that they can connect with your brand whenever they want, without having to wait to get to their desktop. This is the biggest benefit any B2B brand. There are a lot more and here’s a list of benefits B2B brands can enjoy if they take their mobile strategy seriously: Communication becomes easy: There is just so much that you can do with your Smartphones. You have access to so many applications, such as Skype, that lets you chat, text or even video call to your employees and business associates. If there’s a need to transfer an important file you can do so directly from your mobile with the help of a cloud storage system. You have to admit it; mobiles make communication faster, more convincing and a lot more engaging. Reaching your potential Partners becomes easy: Having a...
We are happy to announce that we have launched our new product, Zonka Feedback – that aims to cater all the services-based industries, especially the hospitality and restaurant industry. Zonka Feedback is a revolutionary, new and an out-of-the-box way of collecting feedback on tablet right when the guests are still in the premise. After much wait, we finally launched the product at The Restaurant Show 2014, UK’s leading exhibition that caters to the premium sector of the restaurant industry. The three-day event which started this Monday, October 6, 2014 at Earl’s Court, London, is where our team Zonka is keeping busy these days. The feedback management system offers powerful reporting, intelligent insights and instant alerts. These powerful tools make life easy for those in the services-based industries. With that in mind, we knew that The Restaurant Show 2014 will serve as the perfect platform to showcase to the world how awesome our brand new feedback system for restaurant, Zonka Feedback is. And were we right! We couldn’t have been more right! We are receiving some awesome updates from Zonka team present at the event. The product received great response by many big names from the industry in the international market on the first day of the exhibit itself. We can only imagine what the remaining two days of TRS 2014 hold for us. The exhibition is giving team Zonka the opportunity to meet with industry leaders and players, to discuss with them the latest industry trends and of course to showcase our amazing Android and iOS-based feedback app – Zonka Feedback. The vision of Zonka’s awesome feedbacks on tablet...
Despite what you have heard, read or just assumed, Email Marketing is a powerful tool amongst the different options we today have in Internet Marketing. There are many myths that surround Email Marketing. Many think that it is costly. Some think that it’s too technical. While there are some who think it is an old and dead. No, it is not! Email Marketing is very much alive and kicking. So much so that if used properly, it can lead your business to higher lead conversions, more sales and increased brand awareness. But like every important tool, Email Marketing also needs a strategy that needs to be pulled correctly. With this blog post, we aim to help you pull yours’ perfectly. So, here are a few steps that will help you make your Email Marketing Strategy a successful one. Step #1: Getting a basic setup – Deciding upon which way to get started with your email marketing campaign can be tricky. Whether to hire an email service provider or not? If yes, which provider is right for you? If no, you have an option to go for email templates. There are plenty of free HTML templates available on the Internet. Or you can get them custom made from a reliable digital marketing agency. No matter which option you choose just make sure that your templates are responsive. Step #2: Getting Email Subscribers – The next step is to get subscribers. Whether yours is a new setup or an existing business with millions of customer, you don’t get subscribers you won’t get a chance to grow as an email marketer. There...
