Category: Technology

What Are the Essential Design Elements of a High-Performing WordPress Website?

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Businesses are ruled by customers. For online businesses, the user experience is one of the most crucial factors that determine the success of your company. It is important for your website to drive maximum traffic and have high lead conversions. A well-designed and high-performing website adds credibility to your offerings. Remember that it takes very little time for the user to form an opinion about your website! Research shows that over 80% of users are unlikely to return to a website after a bad experience. 

WordPress is the most popular CMS (Content Management System) that powers over 40% of the websites globally. Given its popularity, it is easy to get your website started. However, integrating your website with the right set of tools, plugins, and design is crucial to make it a high-performing differentiated offering versus competitors. 

In this article, we have highlighted key design considerations while building a WordPress website.

  • Branding

Before even starting working on a WordPress site, you need to focus on branding elements such as logo, color palette, high-quality images, fonts, etc. Your brand represents your business, and good branding helps you stand out in a competitive online environment. 

  • Navigation

Navigation helps the flow of your WordPress website and therefore, it is important to enhance the user experience by having simple but effective navigation. Since a lot of traffic these days comes from mobile devices, it is even more important to have good navigation of your website. It will also enable better SEO and result in higher traffic to your website.

The navigation should be designed keeping your users and these questions in mind – Why are they visiting your website? What actions do you want them to perform? We recommend avoiding unnecessary menu options and will focus on simplicity. You should also have CTAs (call to action) for your users. 

  • Consistent design

Your WordPress website should have a consistent design and layout. In simple words, common user interface elements such as logo, site navigation, page content, images, etc. should appear in the same place throughout the website. This allows visitors to navigate through your website efficiently as they know where these common website elements are placed on every page. This also leads the users to spend time engaging with your content. 

In addition to a better user experience, there’s also a time/cost-saving benefit to you of having a consistent design. Having a consistent layout means that your website developer only needs to create a small number of reusable templates which effectively cuts down on the overall development time and costs.

  • Responsive Design

This is a crucial design element of your WordPress website. Your website must be responsive and should adjust to your user’s devices and their screen/size. Search engines such as Google rewards websites that prioritize the mobile experience for visitors. WordPress has several tools (Elementor, Gutenberg, etc) that help develop high-performing responsive websites. 

  • Selection of right tools & plugins 

The performance of any WordPress website is measured by the loading time. The speed of the website is a very important factor and can result in a bad user experience leading to a user abandoning your website within seconds. A few important considerations to improve your WordPress website’s performance is – 

  • Plugins: You should focus on including only necessary plugins for your website’s features/functionalities. Unnecessary plugins can increase load time. 
  • Image Optimization: Heavy Images can lead to an increase in the site load time hence using optimized and presentable images can help reduce the site load time.
  • Enable Caching: Caching saves certain data which can be later accessed directly instead of being loaded again. This reduces the load on your WordPress hosting server and makes your website run faster.  
  • Minimize HTTP Requests: The request that any visitor’s web browser sends to the WordPress hosting server is called an HTTP request. This request contains details of your website such as content and images. Having more files or having more pages on your website results in a longer response time from the server to respond, and hence poor website performance. This problem can be improved by carrying out activities such as combining your CSS files, removing redundant images, etc. 

Conclusion

No doubt WordPress is the most popular and quick way to get your website started. But, making your website a high-performing one requires paying attention to these little details. A well-made website would drive maximum traffic and result in achieving your business objectives. If you’ve any doubts related to WordPress website development and if you need assistance developing one, then feel free to talk to us here.

What Are the Best Practices for Running a Successful Ecommerce Website?

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Ecommerce is growing at a quick pace and having an online store is getting increasingly important for your business to stay ahead of the competition. Ecommerce stores provide a great opportunity for businesses to explore several geographical markets and attract new customers that were not accessible with only a brick and mortar store presence.

Your company’s growth and success will be determined by your Ecommerce website. Hence, the need for a well-designed Ecommerce website to increase traffic, high conversions, and achieve more sales. We know how important it is to set up an Ecommerce website in this highly competitive online environment. In this article, we have compiled seven best practices for running a successful Ecommerce website.   

  • Simple and Effective Design – Ecommerce websites with simple designs offer customers a better user experience which results in a higher conversion rate. A well-designed home page is crucial for visitors as this will be the first thing that they see on your website. You should design your home page with a clear point of focus to drive visitors to perform the desired Call-To-Action (CTA). The right CTA would depend on your business objectives – to register a user or sell a product or draw attention to a specific point. A too complicated and cluttered design would make it difficult for visitors to identify your CTA. 

A simple design eliminates confusion and makes everything easy for visitors. Simple menu features, search bar, filters, etc are key components of a well-designed Ecommerce website. Concisely introducing your products can boost your value proposition and enhance the experience of your users. 

  • Page Speed Optimization – Page speed is the time taken for the content on a page to load. It is an important element when it comes to measuring the effectiveness of a successful Ecommerce website. Research indicates that even a delay of a second in the page loading time leads to a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction and a 7% loss in conversions. There are various ways to optimize page speed such as the selection of an Ecommerce platform based on your business needs, using a fast and reliable hosting service provider, using the appropriate server network for content delivery, etc. 
  • SEO Optimization – Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is very important to get noticed and drive traffic. Most visitors start their buying process from search engines like Google. Therefore, your Ecommerce website needs to feature in the top results of any relevant searches. Based on industry research, almost 40% of Ecommerce traffic comes from direct searches, and hence most successful Ecommerce stores invest in good SEO plans.
  • High-Quality Images  – Once a visitor starts looking in your Ecommerce website, having high-quality relevant pictures helps you engage and connect with the visitor. A high-quality picture can influence visitors in making a purchase. 
  • Customer reviews and testimonials – Customer reviews and testimonials help add credibility to your products and brand. When it comes to buying online, customers mostly tend to buy products with the most reviews. Customer testimonials can be a powerful tool for a successful Ecommerce website. Not only do they help build credibility but also help spread your products and brand; thus, effectively reducing your marketing spend and increasing profitability. 
  • Customer Service – Online businesses need a customer service division to help their users. This includes everything from helping them complete their purchases to resolving shipping/ refund/ payments issues. Having a well-thought-out customer service plan is a prerequisite for a successful Ecommerce store. These customer service touchpoints would vary depending on businesses but would cover topics such as shipping, returns, product feedback, etc. By having seamless customer service functionality, you can create greater customer loyalty in the overall process.
  • Responsive Website –  A responsive website design is essential when it comes to a successful Ecommerce store. Mobile makes up almost half of all internet traffic, and having a responsive design allows your website to properly load across all devices, and ultimately provide a good user experience.

Conclusion 

Running a successful Ecommerce website in today’s highly competitive online environment requires adhering to several best practices. While we have listed down some key best practices, there are many more considerations in order to drive maximum traffic and have high conversion rates. If you’ve any doubts related to Ecommerce platforms and if you need assistance developing one, then feel free to talk to us here.

5 Best Nodejs Frameworks for Web Apps in 2022

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Node.JS is increasingly getting popular amongst developers, so much so that 4 out of 5 developers rate Node.JS as their go-to choice for backend development. 

In this blog, we will take a look at some of the best Node.JS frameworks. These frameworks are rated based on their popularity and unique toolsets for cost and time-efficient development.

CTOs choose a framework that helps them minimize resource consumption and reduce the time to market. Our list of the top 5 Node.js frameworks will also help you choose the best Node.JS framework for your software solution. 

Express.js

Launched in 2010, Express.js is a minimalistic and straightforward framework. It’s beginner-friendly as it has a low learning curve. It just requires a basic understanding of the Node.js environment and programming skills. 

Express.js is fast, robust, and asynchronous. It can easily handle high-speed I/O operations. It provides a robust Application User Interface (API), making client-to-server requests and visible user interactions more streamlined.

Companies like Twitter, Uber, Accenture, and IBM deploy applications built with Express. 

Features:

  • MVC Architectural pattern
  • Asynchronous programming for independent multiple operations
  • HTTP helpers
  • Better content negotiation

When to use Express.js

Express.js offers robust routing, templating, security, and error handling, making it suitable for building enterprise-grade or browser-based applications. Using Express.js you can develop apps faster as it’s already equipped with all the things needed to build APIs and more.

Koa.js

Dubbed as the next-generation Node.js framework, Koa.js is among the best in the lot. Koa takes a stack-like approach to deal with HTTP middleware,  making it a great option for easily building APIs. 

Koa is quite similar to Express.js, so switching from either is fairly easy. While it provides the same flexibility and features, Koa further tones down the complexities faced while writing code.  

Features:

  • Multiple levels of customizations
  • Referred to as a lightweight version of Express.js 
  • Comes with cascading middleware (Personalizing user experience)
  • Normalizes node inconsistencies 
  • Cleans cache supports proxy and content negotiation

When to use Koa.js

Use Koa.js when performance is the top priority for your web application. In certain scenarios, Koa outperforms Express.js, so you can pick it up for large-scale projects. 

One thing to note here is that it is less popular than Express and is backed by a smaller community. So if you have a beginner team, please research carefully before you opt for Koa.js as answers and solutions to problems (usually populated by the community) may be scarce.

Meteor.js

Launched in 2012, Meteor is best for teams that like to speak in one language, that is Javascript. Meteor is an open-source, isomorphic, Javascript framework. It comes equipped with comprehensive libraries and testing features to ensure seamless client-server communication. It can be used to develop apps for Android, iOS, and desktop all wrapped in one language, Javascript.

Meteor is perfect for contemporary real-time applications as it facilitates the instantaneous transfer of data between client and server.

Features:

  • Cross-platform framework
  • Rapid  prototypes with CLI
  • Open-source, backed by a great community
  • Full-stack solution 
  • Easily integrates with other frameworks

When to use Meteor.js

Meteor is a great choice for teams that are familiar with and prefer Javascript. It is beginner-friendly as it has a low learning curve. It’s also great when you’re looking to develop apps for both web and mobile. Meteor is also ideal for apps that require a lot of updates to be pushed even in live environments.

Socket.io

Socket.IO is a Javascript library best suited for real-time web applications. Socket is used when efficient real-time and bi-directional communication between web clients and servers is required.

You must have seen this in real-time chat apps that you use like Skype or Whatsapp, it continuously looks and refreshes background processes for updates or messages. 

The Socket library consists of two parts: a client-side that runs in the browser, and a server-side library for Node.js. Both have similar APIs. 

Companies like Bepro, Barogo, and Patreon, use Socket.io.

Features:

  • Binary support 
  • Multiplexing support
  • Reliability
  • Auto-reconnection support
  • Error detection & auto-correction

When to use Socket.io

As mentioned earlier, Socket.io feels at home building real-time applications like chat rooms, video conferencing, and multiplayer games, where servers are required to send data before it’s even requested from the client-side. 

Nest.js

This object-oriented and functional reactive programming(FRP) based Node.js framework comes equipped with extensive libraries that makes it a great choice for building dynamic and scalable enterprise-grade applications. Nest.js is known for preserving compatibility with a subset of Javascript(built with Typescript). It also goes even further to provide painless integration with frameworks like Fastify and Express.

Features:

  • Modern CLI 
  • FRP
  • Numerous easy-to-use external libraries
  • Direct compatibility with Angular is a plus

When to use Nest.js

When you’re looking to build efficient and scalable web applications for large projects. It comes with a clean and modular architecture pattern which helps developers build scalable and maintainable applications with ease. 

Conclusion

The listed Node.js frameworks are only the tip of the iceberg of contemporary app development, but they will help you narrow down the best you can use for your specific development needs. These frameworks not only make the development effortless but also equips your apps with the modern tools needed to succeed. 

Technology would change and new frameworks will emerge, but a close assessment of your business requirements and resource availability will facilitate your decision to choose the right framework for your projects.

About Galaxy

We specialize in delivering end-to-end web application design & development services and have hands-on experience with popular back-end languages and frameworks like Node.js, Python, etc. We have expertise in customizing websites for multiple business or web application development requirements. Contact us for your project discussion today.

How to select the right WordPress developer?

Posted on by galaxy-admin

WordPress is the most popular CMS (Content Management System) that powers over 40% of the websites globally. More than 500 websites are built using WordPress daily! 

The reason is that it offers versatility, thereby allowing users (even non-developers) to create feature-rich ecommerce websites, forums, and corporate websites. WordPress websites are highly customizable, can be easily optimized for mobile, and are SEO friendly. WordPress is open-source; is completely free, redistributable, and offers unlimited validity.

However, creating a good WordPress site requires a lot of skill. You need to be well-versed with programming languages (JavaScript, PHP), HTML/CSS, databases, SEO, responsive design, etc. This makes selecting the right WordPress developer or a company crucial in achieving your end objective. 

In this article, we have highlighted a few important considerations that will help you make the right choice. We have also compiled five important questions later in this article to help you in making the right decision. 

1. Objective alignment

Once you have identified the overall goal as well the key features and functionalities of your website, finding the right WordPress developer is the next step towards achieving your goal. The developer should be aligned with your needs and should have the relevant skillset. Based on your end objective, be it a new website or a redesign, you should hire your developer. 

For a website consisting of a traditional site structure (such as a home page, about page, contact page, blog, et all), the right developer would be someone with good front-end design experience. However, if your website needs a lot of features and functionalities, a developer with more back-end technical expertise would be the right candidate. There are various marketplaces where you can find WordPress freelancers for simple websites. However, for developing a website with a lot of features and functionalities, going with a bigger company is more suited given their access to multiple resources with diverse experience. 

2. Technical skills 

A good WordPress developer should be able to understand your site’s needs and design a website that stands out. The developer should have advanced website development skills such as design understanding, page customization, plugins, site speed optimization, etc. Given that over half of the website traffic globally is via mobile devices, the developer should design a website that is compatible and responsive with all mobile devices. 

A good way to evaluate expertise is to ask about their WordPress portfolio and check out some of the websites they have developed. A few evaluation criteria could be design, compatibility across different devices, ease of navigation, etc.

3. Pricing

Pricing remains one of the important considerations in the selection process. Once you have evaluated a few developers/companies on their project understanding as well as their capabilities, understand the # of hours and project plans each is proposing. Then compare their total costs and timelines in selecting the right choice. 

Five questions to help you decide the right WordPress development partner

Based on the above considerations, here are five important questions for which you need clarity to select the right WordPress developer/company. 

  1. What expertise do they have in WordPress? Can they provide some work examples?

(Tip: Ask about a few sample projects completed. Have a Zoom/Skype call with the WordPress developer to know his experience/communication skills.) 

  1. What will be their approach towards building the website? 

(Tip: Ask them about their approach around using existing/custom themes, mobile responsiveness, SEO, security, work best practices, etc.)

  1. In the case of outsourcing, have they worked with clients from your location?

(Tip: Ask them about a few clients that they worked with as per your timezone so that you become comfortable with issues such as time difference, cultural and linguistic barriers.)

  1. How much will the website development cost?

(Tip: Ask them about their pricing including the number of hours they estimate for the work. Note that website development costs vary depending on factors such as the complexity of the features/functionalities, themes, integrations, etc.)

  1. Will there be continued support after the website is developed?

(Tip: Ask them about their support and maintenance after the website is developed. These may include plugin updates, feature enhancements, etc.)

Conclusion

We know how important it is for you to get things right as your business is in question. If you’ve any doubts related to website development and if you need assistance developing one then feel free to talk to us here.

About Galaxy Weblinks 

Galaxy Weblinks is your one-stop solution for WordPress solutions. We offer a complete range of IT services including WordPress development and WordPress optimization. Contact us now for complete WordPress solutions.

Cloud Strategy for Companies in a Post-Pandemic World

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Being an early adopter of new technology can often come at a higher cost than it is worth. As a result, businesses all over the world are slow to embrace digital innovation. Many of us were caught off guard by the pandemic, which forced hundreds of millions of workers to seek shelter and essentially move all operations and most daily life online. Not all businesses had the technological tools they needed to deal with these new challenges.

Pre-Covid-19, for example, most businesses had only just begun their cloud-migration journeys. According to Accenture research from 2019, 90 percent of enterprises have “adopted cloud technology in some form.” On average, these businesses only had 20-40% of their workloads in the cloud.

Even the preliminary steps were significant. Technavio, a market research firm, predicted a 7.1% increase in the cloud migration services market before the pandemic hit ($7.1 billion in 2024). This would imply a compound annual growth rate of 24%.

These figures, however, are expected to skyrocket following the pandemic. According to a study conducted after Covid-19’s impact, 87 percent of “global IT decision-makers” believed Covid-19 would cause organizations to accelerate their cloud migration. Businesses must transform numerous processes and functions within their organization by implementing an integrated cloud strategy and embarking on a transformation journey. A “cloud-first strategy” is formed by combining all of these factors.

Why cloud will continue to explode post-COVID

According to another study conducted by a cloud-native logging and security analytics company, up to 81 percent of organizations reported that COVID-19 had accelerated their cloud timelines. Companies plan to move more than 75% of their apps/workloads to the cloud, up by 200 percent. Eighty-six percent of companies consider cloud options when developing new applications, and more than 40 percent choose the cloud as their first choice.

The reasons are well known by this point. Using public clouds eliminates many of the pandemic risks associated with maintaining your own data center, hardware, network, and software. During quarantine, many companies that were not in the cloud encountered issues.

Public cloud providers remove these problems by making everything virtual. During the pandemic, public cloud service providers demonstrated their dependability as well as their ability to scale up quickly. In light of COVID-19-related problems with on-premises systems and a move to remote work, many businesses moved their processing to the cloud.

Three ways you can get more out of your cloud investments

1. Start Me Up (Once More) – BCP in the Cloud

It may appear overwhelming, but to achieve digital transformation, you must initiate a complete cultural shift. Business Continuity Plan or BCP is one area that must be approached with a fresh perspective.

A cloud-first business that operates with an inflexible BCP created at the beginning of the fiscal year – and then forgotten – is the polar opposite of lean and agile. To aid in the mindset shift, you could even retire the term BCP entirely!

With cloud platforms correctly used, plans for fast failover to backup data centres and data backups on tape are not required in any case. Instead, the objective is to identify the best strategies for providing employees with secure access to everything they need while moving from the office to the train to the home to a coffee shop without missing a beat.

While user business continuity is critical, organizations must also ensure data continuity. AWS and other public cloud providers have this down pat, offering data replication across multiple zones and regions.

2. Shine a Light on Cost-Optimization

It may seem obvious but only invest in cloud projects that will help your company achieve its goals. One of the motivators for many organizations to invest in the cloud is to save money. However, this rarely begins smoothly.

Many businesses experience “bill shock” after migrating to the cloud because they failed to put in place safeguards to prevent enthusiastic overuse of AWS accounts and instances. We’ve also seen large organizations turn off everything in AWS, stifling innovation.

The emphasis here should be on establishing a robust set of controls that do not prevent the use of cloud services but rather set boundaries. You can set up alerts and controls when certain quotas are met, such as when a developer spends £500 on AWS time on an experiment.

3. Engage the Boardroom Beasts

Today, technology is a boardroom issue. However, board members who are cloud illiterate can hinder a company’s ability to succeed. The most effective way to overcome this is to ensure that all board members understand, are involved in, and agree with the cloud journey.

As organizations shifted rapidly to remote working, a significant shift to cloud-based platforms and solutions occurred. Many C-suite executives were also compelled to accelerate their cloud migration plans during this time period. 27.5 percent of IT leaders polled in a recent Cloudreach- sponsored IDC study of 200 IT leaders agreed that large-scale cloud migrations were “essential for business survival” in the future.

Conclusion

The first step in a cloud-first strategy is to identify an optimal cloud strategy and execution plan, which is followed by a secure and cost-effective migration and modernization to the cloud. Using the right expertise and cloud data models, it unlocks existing intelligence and insights, and then reimagines business functions to emerge as a stronger innovation enterprise.

All of these elements must be present for businesses to transition from non-agile and capital-intensive infrastructures to cloud-based innovation platforms that are industry-specific.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We specialize in delivering end-to-end software development & testing services. We also offer effective solutions for Cloud support & maintenance to help our global clients with cloud storage, public, private & hybrid application development, among other things. Contact us to speak with our cloud experts.

iOS 15 is Here – Here is What You Should Know

Posted on by galaxy-admin

From September 20th onwards, iPhone users has been able to update to iOS 15. Apple first unveiled iOS 15 in June 2021 at its Worldwide Developers Conference. Since June, the iOS community is elated about the new features offered in the latest iOS 15. Now is the time for iOS 15 to get into the limelight.

In this article, Galaxy Weblinks shows you what the new OS is capable of, how to use it, and everything related.  

A Rundown on Apple iOS 15

The new Focus mode is the biggest change coming with iOS 15. It accompanies the “Do Not Disturb” feature and does not replace it. Users can configure various modes. Like choosing apps and people to get notifications from. They can change focus depending on what they are doing or where they are. For instance, creating a work mode, a sleep mode, a workout mode, and so on.

The new weather app, updated maps, an improved version of FaceTime, and more. These are some of the many new features launched. Safari also gets a brand-new appearance. Responding to the feedback, Apple has improved its new take on Safari.

With the Live Text feature of iOS 15, users can scan photos for text. And, highlight, copy and paste text in photos. This can also turn into a great accessibility feature as well. These features are handled on-device directly.

iOS 15 is available as a free download for iPhone 6s and the following models. All models of iPhone SE and the most recent iPod touch model can also upgrade to iOS 15. 

New iOS 15 Features At A Glance

  • Redesigned notifications experience.
  • With ‘Focus’ reduce distractions.
  • Spatial Audio and SharePlay in FaceTime calls.
  • Live Text using on-device intelligence.
  • Redesigned Safari (new browsing experience).
  • Advanced privacy features.
  • ID cards in the Wallet app.
  • Restyled Weather and Notes app.

Opinion!

Apple’s ecosystem continues to excel and impress 

The new iPhone 13 and the new operating system i.e. iOS 15 bridge the gaps with Android. It also continues to pull ahead of the competition. Visually, there are no drastic changes. Apple has integrated major innovations in a manner that one can’t even notice at first glance. At instances, users will think it’s always been like this. It’s good news as users will find it easy to jump from iOS 14 to iOS 15.

Innovations in FaceTime and iMessage seem to bridge the gap with its competitors. Google Meet, WhatsApp, or Telegram. In this regard, Apple certainly has some serious catching up to do. It is nice to see the necessary efforts coming from the giant tech company. Live Text, Notes, etc. features can become indispensable tools daily. Extracting text from images feature can be used regularly. AI processing happens on the smartphone itself. Information isn’t sent to Apple’s servers. It is a real plus point not only for data security and privacy but also about performance. 

Functions like Private Relay will put a stop to the data collection frenzy on the Web. It is about time other companies follow this suit and stay clear of collecting personal data.

Offering iOS 15 to all iPhones from the iPhone 6s onward shows how much Apple cares about sustainability. That said, older models lack the requisite hardware to take advantage of all the new features. 

Apple will gain even more ground on its competition with iOS 15 in conjunction with macOS and iPadOS.

Apple carefully orchestrates integration between operating systems and devices. It offers simplicity that is hard to find in other OS or platforms. Apple’s consistency in implementing privacy is a lesson for other companies.

How To Install iOS 15?

Updating your iPhone with the latest OS is pretty straightforward. Go to the Settings App. Click on General > Software Update. Then follow the instructions present on the screen.

Conclusion

iOS is the most advanced mobile operating system globally. iOS 15 is the latest update that allows building apps that connect people in new ways. Developing feature-rich iOS 15 powered mobile apps requires expertise and experience. Galaxy Weblinks is the best mobile app development company with expert iOS developers. We can build your mobile app as per your requirements.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We specialize in delivering end-to-end app design & development services and have hands-on experience with mobile app and site design in agile development environments. Our designers, engineers, and developers help improve security, reliability and features to make sure your business application and IT structure scale and remain secure.

Scaling in WooCommerce – Challenges and Solutions

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Scaling an Ecommerce website can be a challenging undertaking. You have to factor in a lot of situations like logged-in user accounts, order information, add-to-carts, coupons, pricing variables, etc. These situations need to be dealt with besides common scaling issues such as well-written code, custom database tables, and server infrastructure. 

It is important to approach this with great care because delays or breaks can have a direct financial impact. According to Kissmetrics a single-second page delay can potentially cost $2.5 million in lost sales over a year, for a website that brings in $100,000 of business every day. This proves that it’s crucial to have a highly functional and efficient Ecommerce website. 

WooCommerce is typically installed over WordPress CMS and the sites running WooCommerce are often customized to fit specific business needs. These customizations can range from something as basic as integrations with external services to custom SQL interfaces that don’t use WooCommerce or WordPress classes. As the number of these customizations increase, so does their difficulty to scale. A majority of customizations are one-off and not made to scale under load. This makes it difficult to approach scaling as a one-size-fits-all solution.

However, this doesn’t imply that scaling is impossible. Some methods work despite a website’s complexity and customizations.

Figure Out The Problem Areas

You can’t fix things you can’t see. So the first plan of action is to find out the problem areas, especially related to sales and incoming revenue. 

  • Begin with a site audit and gather information about code, the server, services, and integrations. 
  • Identify the problem areas with the help of this data you can identify the problem areas. For example, issues such as slow query logs in server information may show up. 

Run Query Monitor

We suggest you use Query Monitor to identify things that are running slowly on different pages. Notice where the slow-down is occurring. For example, is it happening when you’re adding a product to the cart or when you’re applying a coupon? A quick study of the system process and interactions in checkout can help reveal things that need fixing.

Perform Load Testing

The next step is to perform load testing. Design test cases around different sales activities with a load testing service to analyze the website’s performance when there’s a sudden spike in traffic and activity. Ensure that you’re doing these kinds of tests in staging and not in a live environment. Also perform load tests when you introduce new functionality, integrations, or other changes in your system. You’d want to be double sure as there are new variables in the system. 

Keep Databases Separate

WordPress has a single database table for all post types while it stores all post meta content in another table. This can work for small-volume websites but might pose a major problem for larger ecommerce websites. And since all the content is in only two database tables, it causes a performance bottleneck when the volume increases. In that case, user orders might fail or users might find it difficult to add or remove items from the cart. All this will eventually cause your revenue to take a hit. 

Consider creating custom database tables based on the bottlenecks you encounter. That way you will be able to store different content in their separate tables. When the post types have separate homes, you can optimize SQL queries for faster load times.

Upgrade Older Code

As WooCommerce has evolved, some older functions and processes have become completely obsolete and hence been replaced with better code. With updated core WooCommerce code Legacy custom websites might not perform as their modern counterparts. 

Identify outdated functionality and replace it with newer code from WooCommerce Core or custom code based on the latest practices and standards. To replace the legacy code you must know what it does first. This is where detailed code documentation comes in handy. The better the documentation, the easier it becomes to upgrade.

Find An Alternative To Default WordPress Search

The default search in WordPress is built on a set of queries to the database. This is bad news for complex site searches, filters, or custom content pages. Look for custom search solutions like Elastisearch or Algolia. These alternatives will perform better in complex higher-volume sites than WordPress’ default. 

Final Thoughts

A smooth and flawless user experience is key to customer retention in an Ecommerce business. Scaling the website to match rising traffic is a good problem to have. It can be easily facilitated by strategy, thought, and customization.

You can outsource this important task to an experienced WooCommerce development agency to reinforce your Ecommerce website from the inside out.

About Galaxy Weblinks 

Galaxy Weblinks is your one-stop solution for WooCommerce solutions. We offer a complete range of IT services including WooCommerce development and WooCommerce optimization. Contact us now for complete WooCommerce solutions.

Performance Testing: An Overview of its Importance, Metrics, and Examples

Posted on by galaxy-admin

The performance of your software is important for its success. Project managers, developers, and marketers measure the performance using testing tools to know how an app is performing when live.

Performance testing has its own set of challenges. For instance, changes in application behavior in scaled-down environments. However, we must first understand why performance testing is necessary in the first place.

To name a few things, we’ll talk about:

  • Why performance testing is needed
  • Types of performance testing
  • What does performance testing measure
  • Performance testing success measure
  • Performance testing process
  • Performance testing example

Why is performance testing needed?

Following are some of the reasons:

1. Mobile app errors are now much higher than ever. Mobile applications face network issues, especially when the server is overloaded. It becomes even more difficult if the applications are running on unreliable mobile networks. Some of the issues that apps face in such a situation are as follows:

  • Problems downloading images or images that are broken.
  • Massive gaps in the content feed.
  • Errors in booking or checkout.
  • Timeouts are used frequently.
  • Freezing and stalling.
  • Uploads that failed.

2. Poor application experience means frustrated customers, which leads to lost revenues. Research shows that over 47 percent of the respondents would exit the application when faced with a broken image, and switch to a different platform.

3. Application speed changes as per region. It is critical to ensure that users of the application all over the world can use it easily and without experiencing any network issues.

4. Moreover, a system may run smoothly with only 1,000 concurrent users, but it might behave randomly if the user base increases to 10,000. Performing performance tests on a system determines whether or not it is stable, scalable, and fast enough to handle high demand.

While there are different tools to test the above criteria, there are different processes that determine if the system works per the established reference point. It is also important to plan how performance tests should be performed.

Types of Performance Testing

Spike testing

A technique known as spike testing examines how quickly the software responds to sudden, large increases in the amount of load generated by the system.

Load testing

An application’s ability to handle anticipated user loads is tested during a load test. The goal is to identify performance bottlenecks before a software application goes live.

Scalability testing

Testing for scalability – Determines the application’s ability to “scale up” in response to an increase in user load. It aids in the planning of software capacity expansions.

Stress testing

Stress testing entails putting an application through its paces under extreme workloads to see how it reacts to spikes in traffic or processing demands. The objective is to identify applications that are just about to be submitted.

Endurance testing

Ensures your software can handle the expected load for a long period of time through endurance testing.

Volume testing

Data is populated into a database during volume testing, so the overall behaviour of the software system is monitored. The goal is to see how well a software application performs with varying database sizes.

What does performance testing measure?

Response times and possible errors are among the things that performance testing looks at. In this way, you’ll be able to confidently identify performance bottlenecks, bugs and mistakes – and choose a way to optimize your application for the problem (s). Tests of performance have shown that speed, response time, load time, and scalability are the most common problems. 

Excessive Load Times

To start an application, you’ll need a certain amount of load time. Delays should be kept to a minimum to provide the best possible user experience.

Poor Response Times

Latency is what elapses between a user entering information into an application and the response to its action. Long response times significantly reduce the interest of users within the application.

Limited Scalability

Limited scalability is a problem with an application’s ability to scale up or scale down as needed to accommodate more or fewer users. While the appliance works well with a small number of users, it starts to struggle as the number of users grows.

Bottlenecks

Bottlenecks are performance-degrading impediments in a software system. They’re usually the result of faulty hardware or bad code.

Performance Testing Success Metrics

The critical metrics in your tests must be clearly defined before you begin testing. These parameters generally include:

  • Hits per second – the number of hits on an online server during each second of a load test.
  • Hit ratios – cached data instead of expensive I/O operations handles the number of SQL statements. If you’re serious about solving the bottleneck problem, you should start here.
  • Amount of connection pooling – the number of user requests met by pooled connections. The more requests met by connections within the pool, the higher the performance is going to be.
  • Maximum active sessions – the utmost number of sessions that may move directly.
  • Disk queue length – When a sample interval occurs, the average number of ‘read and write’ requests that go into the disc queue during that time are recorded.
  • Network output queue length – Length of the network output queue in packets (instead of bytes). Anything less than two indicates the presence of a delay or bottlenecking, which must be addressed immediately.
  • Network bytes total per second – Bytes sent and received on the network interface, including framing characters, are measured in network bytes per second.
  • Response time – the amount of time it takes for a user to enter a letter of invitation and receive the first character of the response.
  • Throughput – The rate at which a computer or network receives requests per second is known as throughput.

Performance Testing Process

Performance testing methodology varies widely, but the goal remains the same regardless of the methodology used. With the help of this, you can demonstrate that your software system meets certain performance criteria. It’s used to see how well two software systems compare to one another. It can also help you find performance bottlenecks in your software system.

Here is the performance testing procedure. 

  • Recognize your testing environment – Understand your physical test environment, production environment, and testing tools. Before you begin testing, learn about the hardware, software, and network configurations that will be used. It will assist testers in creating more efficient tests. It will also aid in identifying potential issues that testers may face during the performance testing. 
  • Determine the performance acceptance criteria – This includes the throughput targets and constraints, response times and resource allocation. In addition to these objectives and limitations, defining project success criteria is also necessary. Testing should be empowered to set performance criteria and goals because project specifications may not always include a diverse set of performance benchmarks. Sometimes there may be none at all. Whenever possible, find a comparable application and use that to set performance goals.
  • Plan and design performance tests –Determine how end-user usage differs and identify key scenarios to test for them. A wide range of end users must be simulated, performance test data planned and metrics outlined.
  • Setting up the test environment – Before starting the test, make sure your testing environment is ready. Organize tools and other resources as well.
  • Implement test design – Create performance tests in accordance with your test plan.
  • Run the tests – Put the code into action and monitor the results.
  • Analyze, fine-tune, and retest – Compile, analyze, and disseminate the results of the tests. Then make any necessary adjustments and retest to see if the system’s performance has improved or deteriorated.

Example Performance Test Cases

  • When 1000 users access the website at the same time, the response time is no longer than 4 seconds.
  • When network connectivity is slow, ensure that the response time of the Application Under Load is within an acceptable range.
  • Examine the maximum number of users that the application can support before crashing.
  • Analyze the database execution time when 500 records are read and written simultaneously.
  • Make sure to keep an eye on CPU and memory usage, especially when the system is under heavy load.
  • Test the application’s response time under various load conditions, including light, normal, moderate, and heavy.

During the execution of the performance test, vague terms such as acceptable range, heavy load, and so on are replaced by concrete numbers. These numbers are determined by performance engineers based on business requirements and the technical landscape of the application.

Conclusion

Software engineers must conduct performance testing on all new products before releasing them to the market. There is no risk of a product failure, so customer satisfaction is guaranteed. Gaining a competitive advantage usually outweighs the costs of conducting performance testing.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We specialize in delivering end-to-end software design & development services and have hands-on experience with automation testing in agile development environments. Our engineers, QA analysts, and developers help improve security, reliability, and features to make sure your business application and IT structure scale and remain secure.

Selecting The Right Ecommerce Platform – The Key Factors

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Setting up a shop online? Yes it is easier than setting one up made of bricks and mortar but comes with its own set of complications. 

Ecommerce isn’t easy. The insane level of competition aside, your problems begin even before you’ve begun to build your website. The first important decision that you need to make is selecting the best Ecommerce platform to build your website. The options are numerous and they all seem to offer some distinctive features that make this choice so difficult. 

We have listed a few key considerations to help you select the right Ecommerce platform.

How secure is the platform?

One of the first things that you should consider in your Ecommerce platform is the language it is based on. The platforms based on object-oriented programming language come with embedded security protocols and are, therefore, considered safer. Magento and Shopify pay extra attention to reduce the vulnerabilities of websites with two factor authentication. 

The platforms which do not have multi factor authentication to protect sensitive information, security plugins can provide that extra layer of safety.

A platform is safe when –

  • An Ecommerce platform should conduct security audits for sustaining websites.
  • It should safeguard sensitive data from breaches and attacks.
  • To prevent any monetary frauds, an Ecommerce platform should be PCI and SSL certified.

Is it SEO friendly?

39% of Ecommerce traffic comes from direct searches. This makes it a good reason for you to take SEO considerations into account.

Popularity of a website depends on various factors with content playing a significant role in attracting the audience towards the site. To understand things better, ask questions like, does the Ecommerce platform allow you to write meta-information about the product or is there Google site map support? These questions are important as they have a direct impact on SEO rankings of the site.

Onveos is a perfect choice if you are considering SEO as a selection factor because it provides independent fields for SEO elements. Other than this you can also go for Magento, WooCommerce, and OpenCart as they play a significant role in inbound marketing initiatives.

Responsiveness 

A responsive web design is a must have for a great user-experience from a desktop to tablets and mobiles of various sizes and orientations.

Having a separate mobile and desktop site requires having different marketing campaigns, product information & banners, catalogues, etc. Platforms like Magento and WooCommerce have various responsive themes and templates to make websites vertically stacked.

Shopify even lets you edit HTML and CSS directly. You can change the colors, size, and positioning of any element on the page within the platform.

Does the platform provide multi-channel support?

Always prefer a platform that lets you sell products or services across different channels like Instagram, FB Messenger, Amazon, and others. It increases the revenue percentage on the whole. The best multi-channel Ecommerce platforms are Shopify, BigCommerce, PrestaShop, Magento, and WooCommerce. 

As soon as you choose a platform, your next step should be towards understanding the audience. It will help you analyse what your end users are looking for and how they buy things online.

Adding more channels will increase the task of managing and tracking inventory systems. Centralised management of the data creates diversified selling options in online marketplaces. Multi-channel selling increases the revenue of Ecommerce sites.

What are the key plugins and integrations?

Even though an Ecommerce platform has all the things to run an online business, it still needs integrations and plugins to add crucial functionalities like Payment gateways, Tax calculators, Inventory management, etc.

You’ll find a popular bunch of essential plugins and integrations that are common to all the platforms. But your platform of choice should be the one that has an active community and supports plugins and integrations relevant to your business.

How important is the pricing of the platform?

Price of an Ecommerce platform depends on multiple factors like design, setup configuration, custom development, maintenance, and so on.

The per month cost of Shopify platform starts from $9 and goes till $299 whereas Volusion starts from $15 and goes upto $299. Shopify is a perfect choice if you are looking for multiple features and add ons in your app. You can select Volusion for a more selling-focused experience.

BigCommerce has the highest starting price of $29.5 followed by 3dcart at $29. BigCommerce is one of the best platforms for SEO considerations. 3dCart is a feature rich platform that builds and manages online stores real well.

Conclusion

Before you zero in on any platform, match your website’s specific needs with the platform’s features and estimated cost. Ecommerce platforms can also utilize AI, VR, Chatbots, and Blockchain to help your online business stay relevant.We know how important it is for you to get things right as your business is in question. If you’ve any doubts related to Ecommerce platforms and if you need assistance developing one then feel free talk to us here.

When to Outsource User Experience Design?

Posted on by galaxy-admin

You will witness how comfortable toddlers and preschoolers are in operating smartphones and tablets.  While it is true that these new-age kids are super smart and quite capable of comfortably learning to play games and run apps on their devices, a lot of credit also goes to the ingenious way the applications have been designed. 

The User Experience designers and developers make complex applications exceptionally simple, appealing, and intuitive. We are living in times where the demand for mobile apps, websites, and other digital products is on the constant rise. People are constantly demanding easy-to-use and effective applications with immaculate User Experience. 

That said, while digital products are becoming a necessity and IT companies are making innumerable applications, there is still a lot left to desire in terms of appealing and responsive UX design. 

Businesses have found that outsourcing the User Experience design and development is an ideal way to get beautiful designs, seamless navigation, and uninterrupted flow. It is also more cost-effective vis-a-vis in-house development. 

A large number of companies entrust professional outsourcing teams with the complete IT development process. This is to reduce cost, minimize risks, and achieve higher efficiency. 

Likewise, UX design tasks also have the scope to be outsourced separately. The process for the same is simple. The company just has to work out a blueprint of the product design and hand it over to the designing firm, which then creates the final product. 

Who should hire outsource UX design teams?

Outsourcing is expensive and it is hard to trust vendors! This was the argument that we used to hear a lot when we started our business over two decades ago. Our transparent processes and open communication channels have helped in addressing these reservations of our clients. 

There are many instances where it makes a lot of sense to opt for outsourcing the UX development. 

If you own a startup, you are probably tight on budget and would not want to invest in a full-fledged team for a one-time task. Along with the designer and developers’ salaries, add the time invested, the supporting manpower required for testing, implementation, etc. Outsourcing designing tasks makes more sense here. 

A similar case goes for Ecommerce enterprises. They work in and around IT but do not specifically have design and development teams for their niche is online selling, not IT development. 

An Ecommerce website design must facilitate a great user experience, making the buying process a breeze for customers. The design of the Ecommerce website is perhaps the most important element. It cannot be neglected, but at the same time, it is an expensive task. Thus, outsourcing Ecommerce design services to a third-party service provider like Galaxy Weblinks serves a great deal of convenience. 

The world of digital UX frameworks changes fast with new trends emerging regularly. Keeping up with everything is a full-time job. At the same time, different industries go through constant shuffles and developments. 

For instance, a B2B company, if opting for in-house designing, must be aware of frameworks like Angular, Vue, and React and their updates. How to use them and what technology fits where. This is an additional burden. When UX design isn’t the bread and butter of your business, keeping up with design and development trends becomes time-consuming, laborious, and inefficient. Instead, the focus should be on things happening in the B2B market.

UI/UX design outsourcing is a good idea as it is an investment, not an expense. The product company can reduce costs and concentrate on the core competencies, enabling rapid business change. 

More advantages – 

  • An outsourced team is a combination of an art director, designer, manager, and graphic designer all in one package. 
  • Design teams come in with the experience and skills needed to build great user experiences. You can expect them to be more progressive and smart with an added advantage of the ideas garnered by their collective minds.
  • You are assured that no matter what, the project delivery will happen on time and within budget. 
  • In the role of a client, you would receive 24/7 service and support. You can even ask for a customized workflow.

When to opt for in-house design teams?

Companies having complicated IT products requiring to be designed sprint by sprint, analyzed, and then designed again can save a lot of money by having an in-house design team. (But, that is not the case with most companies.)

Have an in-house design team instead of outsourcing if:

  • You have an art director, controlling the quality of the design. PMs or team leads can’t handle this. 
  • You have a lot of designing tasks in-house such as creating ad designs, platform designs, making new landing pages. And, these tasks are regular. 
  • You have a strict company policy of working with in-door specialists only. But, even if one department operates on an outsource model, having an in-door designer doesn’t make sense.

You need to pick the best solutions suited for your business. It can be an in-house team or outsource. If you are looking for a reliable partner to outsource the UX/UI design work, Galaxy Weblinks is here for you. Know more about us and our UI/UX design services here