Website Designing - Ouriken Blogs

8 Tips to Speed up WordPress Performance

During a technical audit, you should be most concerned with improving the speed of your website. In general, users prefer to browse sites with faster page loading times, and there are numerous online tools that provide detailed insights into your website’s speed performance. Increasing the speed of a website begins with your WordPress website hosting. It is very similar to the process of optimizing a website hosted on a shared or dedicated server. As a result, you may find some of the tools mentioned below, such as Ouriken consulting, to be similar to what you were doing with your shared website.

Why Should You Optimize Your WordPress Site?

If your admin panel is not functioning properly, it will have an impact on your work and time efficiency when managing the Website up-gradation services and your dashboard may become difficult to navigate. Aside from that, visitors will not be patient while your website loads. They’ll leave if something isn’t working as well as they’d like. Worst of all, many of them will never return. According to a 2009 Akamai study, 47 percent of visitors expect a page to load in less than two seconds. If a web page takes longer than three seconds to load, 40% of visitors will leave. A one-second delay can also result in a 7% decrease in conversions.

Many websites today perform poorly in terms of page speed, which has a direct impact on their revenue. As digital marketers, there are many things we can do, and there is never enough time to do them all. Today, website page speed is an important factor in digital marketing. It can affect how long visitors stay on your website maintenance services and, as a result, conversions. It also has a significant impact on your organic ranking. One of the things we frequently overlook is optimizing page speed. This is primarily due to the fact that the majority of people are unaware of its significance. As a result, they do not see the value in investing time and money in improving it. Because Google considers page speed to be one of their ranking factors it is critical to optimize it in order to see improvements in your keyword rankings and to provide a better user experience on your site! Ouriken, for instance, is the best web design service provider that enables us to customize the best websites of our choosing.

It is not necessary to try all of these solutions at the same time if you want a faster WordPress website. You can choose to use only a few of them depending on your needs. So let’s get started!

Ask Your Cloud Hosting Provider: – Before beginning any actions, it is recommended that you inquire about your WordPress website-managed hosting provider’s product and compatibility with WordPress. They can provide you with suggestions and ideas for making your WordPress site faster. This will save you time when it comes to optimizing the speed of your WordPress site.
Install an Effective Caching Plugin: – Using a cache plugin is one of the most popular ways to improve the speed of your website. A caching plugin will save the final version of your site for future visitors. This means that your WordPress website won’t have to generate it for every subsequent visit to the site. This data may include HTML, JS, and CSS code, images, fonts, and Flash files. Ouriken consulting enhances your site’s user experience by increasing WordPress website performance, decreasing download times, and enabling one-click content delivery network integration. Ouriken consulting is a No-Hassle WordPress cache plug-in that eliminates the complexities of the top-rated caching plug-ins.

Specifications:

WordPress, Woo Commerce, and WordPress Multisite are all supported.
Minimization is the process of reducing something to
Support for Gzip Compression Browser caching with Varnish
Static file grouping
Optimizing a Database
Exclusions from the File

However, before selecting and installing a plug-in on your own, consult with your hosting provider to see if they prefer a specific caching plug-in.

Content Delivery Network Won’t Disappoint You: – Another important option for speeding up your WordPress website is to use a CDN (Content Delivery Network). The main benefit of a Custom WordPress Design CDN is faster loading times for your website, regardless of the type of site you run. CloudwaysCDN, CloudFlare, and jsDelivr are three excellent options to consider. CloudwaysCDN is a simple CDN that offers one-click integration with your WordPress website for a low monthly fee of $1/25GB.

Highlights include:

Single-Click Integration was supported by HTTP.
Inexpensive
Global Distribution

Cloud flare provides a basic free plan with fast website performance, visitor statistics, and security protection. Cloud flare employs any cast technology, which routes your visitors to the closest data centre. It has over 28 data centers worldwide. Highlights include: Optimizing for mobile a global network to provide quick DNS analytics for your update website traffic. Apps for a faster, safer, and one-click simpler update website jsDelivr is a free product that allows any developer to host their files, such as CSS, JavaScript, jQuery plug-in, and fonts. Cloudflare and MaxCDN both support it.

1. Compress media Files: – Large images and videos will significantly slow down your WordPress website site. As a result, compressing your media files is another way to speed up a WordPress site. There is a free WordPress website plug-in that will automatically reduce all of your image dimensions, so you won’t have to do it for each image individually. WP Compress, an excellent image optimization plug-in, is another option. In short, smaller files allow your pages to load more quickly.
2. Compress your WordPress site size: – Your website will load faster if it is smaller in size. GZip compression can shrink your website’s content by up to 70%. Because of the reduced bandwidth, a website that has been compressed loads faster. Installing and activating the WordPress cache plug-in is all that is required to perform GZip compression.
3. Check if the Website and the Database are in the Same Data Center: – Check to see if your WordPress website site and database are in the same data centre. When it comes to hosting and servers, proximity is always a factor. The fact that the website and its database are housed in the same data centre is beneficial to the updated website’s performance. This will make retrieving posts and working with the database a lot easier and more fluid. You should inquire with your hosting company about the location of your server. During the signup process, companies may also display their server locations.
4. Optimize Your WordPress site’s Homepage: – Optimizing your homepage is another way to speed up a WordPress website. Make it look simpler by removing clustered content and unnecessary widgets or tools. Also, do not display the posts in their entirety. You have the option of displaying only the first paragraph or a specific excerpt from the text. Displaying too many posts on the same page may also result in a long loading time. The more organized your homepage is, the faster it will load.

Minify JavaScript and CSS Files: – If you use Google Page Speed Insights or ySlow to test your WordPress website, you will be prompted to minify JavaScript and CSS files. That means you should reduce JS and CSS calls to improve server response time and file size. By lowering them, you will notice that the site loads much faster than before. This will eventually assist you in reducing your bandwidth usage. There are numerous methods for minifying. You can do it manually or with the “Ouriken consulting” WordPress website cache plug-in. However, there is another plugging available, such as Autoptimize. Stay tuned for more interesting blogs.

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Website Designing

Why do companies Redesign their Website every year?

Credits: Jagruti Singhal

The reason why companies redesign their website every 3 years is due to changes in technology. Technology runs fast and just like that websites also get outdated. Nobody wants an obsolete website on a network full of new and modern websites with unique web designs. Hence, to keep up with the modern trend’s companies redesign their websites every 3 years which keeps the company’s website fresh and does not allow it to fade in the crowd.

Redesigning a website does not only include changes in graphics or keeping up with trends but also changes in SEO and speech-specific keywords. SEO tactics keep changing every few years and due to this reason companies should redesign and update their websites every few years.

When do you know it’s time to redesign your website?

Firstly, without beating around the bush, you must redesign your website every 2-3 years. If you want your website to stand out and do not wish for it to vanish in thin air around the new modern websites with trendy web designs on the internet you must keep updating and redesigning your web every few years.

Now let’s have a look at the list of things that will help you to know that your website needs an update:

1.Visually Outdated:

First impressions matter a lot! Let’s be honest, if you meet a person for the first time you are going to judge him through his outward appearance like fashion, hygiene, or beauty, etc. Just like that, websites are also judged. No visitor is going to keep scrolling and going around your website if they find it visually unappealing. If you haven’t redesigned your website in more than 5yrs then guess what? You need a website redesign.

An outdated web design either gives the impression of not being in touch with modern trends or the website company just doesn’t care. It may also give the impression of the website and company being shut down. Due to this, you may lose tons of customers.

2.Heavy texts:

We live in a visually appealing world. If your website consists of more words & texts than graphic designs, images, and icons then without giving it a second thought you should start redesigning your website.

No visitor is going to scroll through your website that’s full of heavy texts. It’s not only uneasy for the eyes but it’s also overwhelming, and no matter what type of message you are trying to convey it will most likely get lost, misread, or unread.

People have an average attention span of 8 seconds and you need to use it wisely. A text-heavy website will not only give the visitors a hard time reading but will also block the call-to-action buttons which may lead to visitors giving up and leaving the website.

3.Slow Loading:

Like we said before the attention span of visitors is 8 seconds and you want to capture their attention in those 8 seconds for them to actually engage on your website.

In a world full of fast network connections, if your website takes a lot of time loading it will lead to visitors losing their interest and moving on to another website.

Hence, your website must load within 3 seconds. No visitor is going to be around on the website that takes more than 10 seconds to load unless it’s really an important website.

4.Not Responsive to Mobile Device:

Responsive web designing services n average person spends more than 5 hours on their smartphone which means having a mobile responsive site is a must! People need information as fast as possible and smartphones are the devices that are very much convenient to use.

A visitor will most likely check your website on their mobile-first and once you grab their attention, they will move to their other devices like laptops, etc to have a good experience. A website displayed incorrectly on a smartphone will make visitors lose interest.

No matter how good your website is, if it does not display correctly on a smartphone it will lead to a loss of visitors.

Web redesigning surely has many steps but taking time and evaluating your presence online will surely lead you one step ahead of your goals.

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Application Development, Website Designing, Website Development Company, website optimization

How to Keep Your Website Ahead Of the Competition

Marketing a website in 2019 is very challenging. The rivalry is extremely intense, and if you don’t think smart, almost someone else will think smarter than you. Navigating effective website marketing strategies may sound labyrinth as there are plenty of traps to avoid and things you should not do. Whether you are new to creating a successful website or you’ve been doing it for a long time, items you’re missing might still be apparent.

Don’t worry; to help, we’re here. There are many ways to sell and advance the website from the competition, and some of these methods are more obvious than others. Some might give you a thinking break. Here are just a few of the forms we found effective in keeping your website ahead of your competition and becoming a market leader.

Involving others

It may sound strange, but the ratings of your website can really be sponsored by other people. Marketing staff tends to rely on artificial intelligence – algorithms and ratings and machines – a little too much. All this is good, but there is no suggestion that comes from a real person, quite like that. To get the website into a human-edited web directory would be an example of how to do this. Human edited web directories ensure that websites are reviewed and chosen on the basis of engaging insightful content, not only selected by an (admitted advanced) algorithm because they tick boxes. Networking with others will raise your visibility, give you a good reputation in your family, and allow you to differentiate yourself from others.

Investigate the Competitors

If you don’t know who they are, you can’t know if you’re offering better products than your competition. Checking out the peers and how they treat web design and communication is no embarrassment. For your website, market research is essential if you want to remain competitive, as there is a risk that your competitors will all do something that you overlook. Make sure that you follow one and that you can’t go far wrong. Ask yourself what you can repurpose for your site and how can you be the best you can for the visitors and customers once you’ve learned what your competitors are all about.

Create a unique brand

It sounds obvious, isn’t it? “Be different because you are special.” Maybe this doesn’t feel like the world’s freshest insight. But you would be shocked at how many small site owners and content developers just don’t grasp these basic building blocks to make the page stand out. If you are new with your content, simply because you are original and individual, you will attract tourists. It applies not only to the page itself but also to the ancillary material connecting to it – youtube videos, social media updates, the influencers to which you contribute, and so on. Find a niche that is not being filled at the moment and look to fill it. People will begin to consider your product as being made to your rivals from a different cloth, and word-of-mouth advertising is going to work for you.

Establish a good presence throughout social media

Modern advertising has been destroyed. Long-long advertising influencer. With your blog, you won’t get anywhere if you don’t set up a presence on social media. This will certainly all of the competitors do. Roughly 2 billion people were using social networking sites and applications back in 2015. Imagine how rapidly this number has risen since then. If you don’t develop your own profile on Twitter and Instagram, you’re just not hitting a large enough audience. If you want to reach a mass audience, Facebook is also relevant. Video content will also need to be created via Youtube. Ask yourself if your brand could benefit from this type of content, and if it’s not, ask yourself if there is no way you might change it a little. Social media is the key to going forward.

Use as much personal content as you can

This should go without saying, but if you want your website to stand out, you have to use as much content as possible that does not appear on their websites. Do not use stock pictures, photos, or sounds (when possible). If you need to use stock media, make sure the stock media is not widely used. Needless to say, DO NOT plagiarize material from other sites, even if the content is somewhat rewarded. You’re going to be found out and the massive hit to your reputation would not be worth it. If you are not comfortable in your ability to build your own brand, then search for talented staff that can support you in this endeavor. Trust us, it’s worth it.

Achieve Straightforward interaction

You need to know what your brand is about before you build your website. Try the o quick, a short phrase about what you are doing. If you can’t do that, at the planning stage, your idea will be flawed and you will have to start again.

Try to use it as a model for all the text content you make on your page once you have your sentence. Simply and clearly communicate your beliefs and brand to your audience. The more confused the core identity of the brand is, the fewer people can understand what you are trying to do. In particular, it’s definitely a good thing to strive for a simpler and more open website. Imagine being a client. Want to wade through menus and violet prose to figure out what you’re after? Write and it will evolve for your audience.

Ouriken‘s standard web designing services include many features that contain home, blog, images, faq, contact us and many more. It is the best web designing firm. Ouriken is a standalone web design and digital agency. We design and implements powerful solutions for small and medium businesses in technology, business, and operations.

[contact-form][contact-field label=”Name” type=”name” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Email” type=”email” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Website” type=”url” /][contact-field label=”Message” type=”textarea” /][/contact-form]

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Application Development, Website Design and Development, Website Designing, Website Development Company, website optimization

Why and How to Optimize your Website for Mobile Devices?

In these modern times of technology, it is very important for websites to be accessible across a variety of devices. Mobile traffic has been seen a significant, steady, and rapid increase in the coming years and it finally overtook the traditional desktop and laptop computer users in 2015. And changing the algorithm of Google favors mobile-friendly sites. A change in the Google search engine in April 2015, giving priority to those websites that display well on smartphones and other mobile devices, nicknamed, Mobilegeddon has penalized those websites who were not providing an adequate experience for mobile users forcing their website owners to invest more in the mobile upgrades giving a helping hand to app development.

We found a significant drop in traffic for non-mobile-optimized websites while monitoring the websites of some users and customers, while mobile-enabled websites saw a slight increase in incoming traffic which we attributed to a higher search engine ranking.

Create your mobile-friendly website

Non-mobile-optimized try to cram a traditional website into small limits of a mobile device, making the content difficult if not impossible to read and much harder to navigate. On the contrary, mobile-friendly sites adapt to the screen resolution of the device. The text is large enough to read, images adjust to the screen frame size, and navigation buttons are accommodating to a touch.

Redesign of a website – Full

The first approach will always be to make a new remake of the website.

Older websites that did not have major changes for 5+ years, full redesign works best for such websites. Coding and Web Designs standards underwent some major changes over the last 5 years and it’s often more efficient to start work from scratch rather than to try an older version of existing code and design. Across both traditional and mobile screens, the new website will benefit from the modern look and accessibility.

Conversion of an existing website into responsive coding

The second approach would be to convert an existing website to responsive coding.

If there is a clear separation between HTML and CSS code the original website was built according to W3C standards. To support responsive design, the website could be converted. Screen elements automatically adjust to the resolution of the device and thus provide an optimal viewing experience in a responsive site. Content-rich websites that do not require excessive user interaction.

Building a Standalone Mobile Website

The third approach would be to leave your traditional website as-is and make a stand-alone mobile website.

Mobile websites can share the same data and CMS (Content Management System) as a desktop website, so both websites can be managed through a single place. The standalone mobile website gives the owner complete unconstrained freedom over the layout of the elements and functionality, so the mobile website may look and feel quite different from its desktop counterpart. For an e-commerce website, this approach works best where the user interaction is very different between stationary and mobile devices.

Converting WordPress website to mobile

Getting a responsive website is quite easy if you’re using WordPress as your content management system. You will need to install a responsive theme, whether it be free or premium. All content immediately becomes mobile-friendly.

We at Ouriken consolidate, optimize and standardize technology/products to bring technology simplification, cost reduction and then to overcome technology obsolescence/skill issues. Ouriken application development & maintenance services help you maintain your business-critical mainframe applications & replace legacy applications. Ouriken is a standalone web design and digital agency. We design and implements powerful solutions for small and medium businesses in technology, business, and operations.

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Digital Solutions, Website Designing, Website Development Company

4 Link Building Strategies That Will Enhance Your SEO

Introduction

What you do with them is what matters whether you love them or hate them, such is the characteristics of links. To get attention from Google, it’s no secret but to get a high-quality backlink from popular websites. There are two ways to get a link for Google, one is ethical and the second is not so ethical or wrong way to do it. The wrong way will undoubtedly get you blacklisted but the right way will get you a precious firm hold on Google search results.

No matter you’re an expert in SEO or a complete beginner, everyone will agree that natural link building will give you a stronghold in Google search ranking.

Natural Link Building

The attraction of links without investing in time or energy is called a natural link building. They are generated naturally due to guest posting, outreach or link buying.

The content on your website is so valuable that people can’t resist linking your website within their content that is the core idea behind generating natural links. And with no surprise the more you can accumulate the more your ranking on Google will be firm. And to double the impact we would suggest combining both the natural link building with current link building strategies.

Benefits of Natural Link Building

With natural link building, you can impact on the improvement of the traffic on your website, rank, and hence there will be an increase in brand visibility.

Industry Recognition: If your link gets mentioned in the famous publication, your brand visibility will increase.

Social Shares: The number of shares of content is directly proportional to the attraction of natural shares.

Relationship building: With industry experts, the relationship could be built with the help of natural links.

Confidence: If you get traffic from natural links, it eventually refers to the people are genuine and willing to read and invest time furthermore taking interest in your brand.

But how can these natural links be built? Let’s dive deep into the six strategies.

Related Post: 8 Free Ways To Promote Your Business.

Content Marketing

You just have to create a sharing worth content which will be the foundation of strong link building. Natural link building doesn’t need attention and demand from guest posting and blog comments. A sure-shot way to attract links from high-quality websites is building evergreen content. The people and high-quality websites will take note if your content is regularly providing value.

Social Media Platforms

Without even spending a dime, social media platforms allow you to share links on the platform to be seen by more and more people.

Twitter provides two fields to add the link (in bio and website section). And in profile, there is an option to give a link on Instagram. Whereas, LinkedIn provides three fields to add the link.

Besides all these options, social media will help you to get your content to be seen by a high number of people. Engaging and relevant content is always loved and the audience will share that content. That will result in attracting tons of natural links.

Taking Aid from Resource Pages

Resource pages are always known for providing high-value to the customers. These pages contain PDFs, downloadable content, tools and tips, third-party links and interviews that offer valuable content. The traffic on these pages is consistent that is why it becomes very helpful from them to provide that natural link which we need. Sometimes it happens that the pages limit their resources for themselves. But, there is an option to convince the website owner to post your link on the resource page. It would boost your ranking on Google exponentially.

People with modern and digital problems come on these pages looking for digital solutions. And if they liked the content and think it is useful, then they will share it further giving directing more relevant traffic and link juice to the website of yours.

EBooks

If you have got an excellent writer in your team, then ask them to write an industry-leading eBook to get some natural links. An eBook is considered as personal, so if done the right way, then people will consider you as an expert in your domain giving you authority over other websites.

You can intelligently place links of articles, once you’ve crafted a highly valuable EBook or a landing page of your products and services via hyperlinks and CTAs (Call to Action).

Conclusion

Honorable mentions in this list would be websites like Quora and Reddit which are very good and helpful for building strong natural backlinks. Every link building activity doesn’t involve guest posting, cold emails, and reaching out to websites. The fact is, the more value you provide the more natural links you will achieve. Efforts must be made for this to happen though.

And that is why it is a strong recommendation for the combination of natural link building strategy with your current link building strategy. That’s how you will attract links from multiple sources and increase your chances of getting your content circulated online.

Ouriken is a standalone web design and digital agency. We design and implements powerful solutions for small and medium businesses in technology, business, and operations. Our digital solution services not only help the client create integrated digital ecosystems but also to strengthen brands, increase ROI, new business value.

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Artificial Intelligence, Website Design and Development, Website Designing, Website Development Company

What is Web 1.0, 2.0, & 3.0?

Web 1.0

In the evolution of the World Wide Web, Web 1.0 refers to the first stage. With a huge majority of users who are content consumers, there were only a few content creators in Web 1.0. Personal web pages were normal, hosted on ISP-run web servers consisting mainly of static pages, or on web hosting services.

Advertisements on Web 1.0 were banned while surfing the internet. Web 1.0 enables to showcase of the piece of information on the websites which is known as Content Delivery Network (CDN) also can be used as personal websites. Cost formula is per page view and it has directories that enable users to retrieve a particular piece of information.

Design Essentials of web 1.0

Pages are static.
From the file-system of the server, the content is served.
Using Common Gateway Interface (CGI) or Server Side the page sare built.
To position and align the Elements, frames and tables are used on a page.

Web 2.0

User-generated content, usability, and interoperability for end-users are some of the highlights of Web 2.0 which is also known as a worldwide website and another name for it is a participative social web. It doesn’t refer to any modification to technical specification, but to recreate in a good way web pages are designed and used. When the changes have occurred the transitions are beneficial, but it doesn’t seem that way. Collaboration is allowed with each other by Web 2.0 in a social media dialogue as the creator of a user-generated cant in a virtual community. Web 1 is an enhanced version of 2.0. In web 2.0 development the browser technologies are used, and it includes ajax and JavaScript Frameworks.

Features of Web 2.0

It permits users to retrieve and classify the information collectively, and it also provides free sorting of information.
It provides dynamic content that is responsive to user input.
By means of evaluation and online commenting, information flows between site owners and site users.
APIs are developed to allow self-usage, such as by a software application.
Web access leads to an issue different from the traditional user base to a wider variety of users.

Use of Web 2.0

To share the perspectives, thoughts, opinions, and experiences the social web contains a number of online tools. Web 2.0 applications tend to have a conversation much more with the end-user. The end-user is also a participant of the 8 tools mentioned below:

Podcasting
Blogging
Tagging
Curating with RSS
Social Bookmarking
Social Networking
Social media
Web content voting

Web 3.0

The evolution and utilization of web interaction with the inclusion of alteration of the web into the database. After a long time of focus on the front-end, it enables the upgradation of the back-end of the web. To describe the evolutions of web usage and interaction among several paths web 3.0 is used. Instead of owning data, it is shared, where services show different views for the same data / same web. All the development process is done in Web 3.0, and all the Website Development Companies uses Web 3.0 for the website designing services.

Establishments of “the world’s information” is promised by the semantic web (3.0) in a responsible way than Google can ever attain with their existing engine schema. From the perspective of machine conception, this is particularly true as opposed to human understanding. It is necessary for the semantic web for the use of a declarative ontological language like OWL to produce domain-specific ontologies that machines can use to reason about information and use it make new conclusions, and not simply match keywords.

Features of Web 3.0

Semantic Web

There is an involvement of the semantic web in succeeding in the evolution of the Web. In order to create, share and connect through search and analysis based on the capability to comprehend the meaning of words, instead of keywords or numbers, al this is used in the development of and improvement of the semantic web.

Artificial Intelligence

Mixing this capability with natural language processing, computers can distinguish information like humans in order to provide faster and more relevant results in web 3.0. to fulfill the requirements of the user it becomes more and more intelligent.

3D Graphics

In Web 3.0 the three-dimensional design is being used widely in websites and services. Computer games, museum guides, eCommerce, geospatial contexts, etc. are some of the examples that use 3D graphics.

Connectivity

Thanks to semantic metadata, the information is more connected to web 3.0. As a result, the UI evolves to another level of connectivity that leverages all the available information.

Ubiquity

The services can be used everywhere, content is accessible by multiple applications. Every device is connected to the web.

Ouriken is a standalone web design and digital agency. We design and implements powerful solutions for small and medium businesses in technology, business, and operations. Our standard web designing services include many features that contain home, blog, images, faq, contact us and many more. It is the best website designing firm.

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Digital Solutions, Website Designing, Website Development Company

Common Problems in Web Designing and how to Avoid it

While developing a website you can face a lot of problems which can ruin your whole development process, the precious time you had invested in developing the project and the resources as well. In this blog, I will be sharing a few common issues, time-suckers, and other things that arise that can deviate a project.

Each Website project is different, but according to my experience, there are a lot of common problems that arise in the phase of website designing. And we do our best to acting in advance to deal with the expected change guide course of designing very clear of any issues so we can save our client’s time as well as budget in Website Designing services.

Here is a compilation of 4 common problems/issues we have observed in web design projects over the years and how to avoid them effectively. In order to keep your website production smooth and at a budget.

Wrong people in Charge

Many clients think that we are vendors they pay us to do the designing the websites, so all the responsibility is our own.

It’s very important to know that it’s a collaborative effect whenever we are beginning a web design project. To help you achieve your goals, we take our knowledge of the web, best practices and your option to create a website. To get there we need to have a point-of-contact that will be engaged, communicative, well-organized, and understand the large goals of the project.

We have run into issues where this does not go as expected, so once there was this client running the project without seeking approvals or feedback from anyone else on the team. Without the knowledge to us, we received approvals on things and then we got to the final stage. But when the CEO saw what we made, she hated it and we had to start over.

Assigning a wrong person in charge can be very destructive for the project’s budget and timeline – according to what we have seen. We should manage our time in terms of communication because the person in charge was not doing what they’re supposed to do, the less time we need to create a beautiful website.

Ignoring the budget

The trickiest subject to deal with when it comes to a project is its budget. We arrange our projects based on the number of hours we think it will take. Based on historical data from previous websites, we come up with our estimates. We estimate our deadlines accordingly.

We give updates on where we are with a budget, as we move throughout our web design project. Just address the concern and try to be mindful of the hours if you find out that the design phase is already wasting the development time.

Some clients have requested that we keep updating the design and hope that we will have enough for the rest upon knowing this information. It does become an issue sometimes and clients end up getting very close to their budget or exceeding it.

You should hear those concerns and make any important adjustments to preserve the budget for the remainder of the project if your web designer is bringing up a budget in the design phase of the project.

Radio Silence on Feedback

There are many website projects which are based on approvals. We typically start with a sitemap/wireframe whenever we begin with a new project. And once that is approved, we go ahead with the design.

It’s important to really review the drafts you are given and make sure its what you want, it’s typically a red flag that they didn’t really review it and will probably change down the road if clients are too swift to approve a design. Make sure your review is thoughtful and specific.

Assumption of the Template is a Right Method

We will sometimes recommend using a template to keep the budget low. Website templates help us put out a product quickly. But many clients opt for the template for the wrong reasons and don’t consider the long term consequences.

It doesn’t work in the long run, while the templates help us keep the budget less. A template has its own limitations. It could be further edited beyond its capabilities which will force the designer to use the custom website design, which will make the cost to custom website design so there is no use of using the cheap template for the use.

Conclusion

It doesn’t mean that every website project is doomed from the beginning, but if you are aware of the common problems, you can work with your company to avoid it effectively. We work hard to make our clients happy and to make a successful product that produces amazing results. And by collaborating to work on issues.

Ouriken is a standalone web design and digital agency. We design and implements powerful solutions for small and medium businesses in technology, business, and operations.

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Website Design and Development, Website Designing

Maintaining a Website’s SEO After a Redesign

Planning to redesign your website but afraid of the SEO rankings? There need is some need to considering the maintenance of SEO rankings and your website’s DA before, after and during the redesign process. The aesthetics of the site is not the only thing you need to worry about when you think of redesigning your website, but we also need to take some time to look into the maintenance of SEO for your website and ways to improve it as well.

Many companies, since maintaining SEO for a website is a big deal nowadays, fail to understand the importance of attention to SEO while the redesigning of their website, but it affects them a big-time after in time. You could wipe out all your previous SEO efforts if maintenance of SEO is not done carefully. With major Web Design and Development activities, there are both technical and non-technical areas to consider for. Specific steps must be taken care of to ensure that you don’t demolish your SEO quality when transitioning from old site to new one.

Core Areas to Consider

There are three main areas to look upon in order to maintain the SEO rankings when redesigning your website:

What is acceptable with your current SEO efforts
During a redesign, what might be the possible common challenges
Changes that will come with a new website

You will be able to find out your weakness in SEO by focusing on these areas so you can improve it later.

Monitoring your SEO

If you have campaigns in place and currently monitoring your SEO rankings regarding those keywords then you have a good amount of data to analyze. In that case, one must be really aware of the keywords they rank for, the mapping for each keyword, the exact placement in rankings and the pages that deliver the highest organic traffic.

Common Challenges to Face with SEO in Redesigning Process

There are a lot of issues that may pop up when you work on a site redesign, focus on rebranding, improving User Experience, and updating of backend. There is a list where one could face challenges:

Removed Content
Changed Content
Movable content based on the new site’s navigation or site map
URLs might change
Changes in Page-level optimization
Addition of new content, sections, technology, new features
New Technical difficulties
Internal Link structure edits
Changes in Domain or Sub-Domain
Changes in Protocol

These are the areas which may impact SEO in a redesign. It may be very hard to identify exactly what needs to be addressed with so many possible changes. Out of the above-mentioned challenges, changes in a domain are one of the biggest challenges as compared to other challenges, but each and every challenge must be overcome and the more challenges you have the more difficult it will be to maintain your SEO rankings.

How to not lose your SEO rankings checklist and redesign at the same time

Before starting the redesigning process it’s very important to undertint the best practices to preserve your SEO rankings. Some of the parameters are as follows:

An SEO audit must be run on your current website

Understanding all the keywords you are attempting to rank for and with what the pages are associated with. You should be concerned about pages and specific on-page optimization beyond redirects, which go from the Dev. to the live line state.

Setting up 301 and 302 redirects

First and foremost, you must redirect the old URLs to new ones. You’ll need to have a spreadsheet of all needed redirects if you’re making changes to permalink structure. Crawl the old list of URLs to ensure that everything redirects as it should once you have the new site live.

A permanent redirect from one link to another is called a 301 redirect. This redirection is used for website visitors and search engines, a 301 redirect is better for SEO over a temporary one because it transfers the internal link as well, approximately 90-99% of the time. This redirection method is the preferred method for new sites.

And a temporary redirection is called 302 redirects, redirecting users and search engines to the desired page for a short period of time until it’s removed. In order to give your users a seamless experience, you should use it during the update of a web page. What they say is right, excess 302 redirects will affect your SEO, so be careful when using it.

Multiple Tests

Assuming the live site will perform the same as a dev. site is kind of stupidity. A lot of time and resources are probably invested in testing, but in the real world, things can change. Usage of technical tools for site audits like Moz, Ahrefs, or DeepCrawl, these tools provide insights on technical issues. Also, running your domain through the mobile-friendly testing tool and the loading speed of the new website must be checked too. Last but not least, schema markup on the new website should be done and must not be forgotten.

How to Avoid Mistakes

We’ve covered almost everything that you should do, but how can we avoid mistakes that can cost you your SEO rankings.

Don’t start over on the content: If the content on your website is ranking, then you must not abandon it. If you do it will affect the rankings.
Redirects are your friends: when a 404 Page Not Found error is displayed to the user, which means the pages have dropped off Google’s index.
Internal linking is the key: Always remember to push this to the new website.
Outbound links must be added on need.
You can use Ahrefs to find these pages that have high rankings and multiple backlinks, try to preserve or transfer them.

Conclusion

As the brand evolves, redesigning a website is a move that most companies should make. In order to maintain the SEO rankings, you must follow these best practices from a website redesign. Never start over on the content like your old website never existed, it will affect the rankings so bad. Feel free to add your tips, tricks, and suggestions in the comments below.

Ouriken is a standalone web design and digital agency. We design and implements powerful solutions for small and medium businesses in technology, business, and operations.

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Web Push Notifications, Website Designing, Website Development Company

Factors to Consider When Choosing a Web Development Company

Choices are very good as well sometimes confusing factors. Humans are gifted with quick decision-making capabilities, so the choices we get to choose from helps humans to decide completely depends upon the choices. Nowadays choices are ample, but the time to choose it very less. That’s is why we come up with some set of rules, regulations, and principles of our own to choose what is good for us. In the same way, choosing a Web Development Company for our business is a tedious task as well since there are almost 10,000+ companies to choose from Countrywide. Let’s look at one of the examples of what I’m trying to say.

In 1980, at the headquarters of Crest Toothpaste, there was a grand party. Due to a knowledge-intensive environment, the chief operating officer suggested coming up with new ideas and a new marketing strategy must be invented and implemented. And after brainstorming for a while they came to the conclusion of introducing new variations in the toothpaste and it will be good for the company, business-wise. Within the organization, this idea was well received. Without wasting any time, they came up with 52 new variants of the toothpaste, which were given shelves in the major supermarkets.

But, when Crest was working on its 52 variants, unfortunately, another company named Colgate launched ‘Colgate Total’. It was just a single toothpaste claiming to clean the mouth totally.

Now, what happened was whenever a customer visited the store he had choices. Either they can choose one Colgate toothpaste or they have to choose one from 52 variants of Crest toothpaste. According to me, the customer will choose Colgate over Crest. So after offering so many choices, humans get confused with its natural tendency because they want the best for them.

So, if you are planning to start a business or already have one, an obvious first mandatory factor is to have a website for the business. In order to achieve it, you can either use your internal resources for building a website or finding companies to build a website for you. And there are so many companies to choose from that is become almost impossible to choose the right one for you.

Let’s see some tips which you must consider before handling your website development job to a new agency.

Check Internal Resources

In this process, we take a look at our available resources in the firm, and according to it, we can set a budget for ourselves. The development of an e-commerce website requires serious skills. UI/UX design sense, what type of content needs to go on the website, testing, development, and quality control. After all this, we must decide on what e-commerce software platform to use. Later comes the digital marketing part containing SEO and so on.

If you and your team have an above-mentioned list of skills then it will play a vital role in getting your website launched quickly and will reduce the cost of the company. But let’s be real, no one has that kind of expertise laying on their hand ready to work, and most of the small businesses and even big champs didn’t have that type of skill set readily available and they didn’t have time as well. Here comes the Website Development Company into the picture, getting a website developer on board becomes imperative for a successful website launch. Let’s see the factors that one must consider before hiring a website development company for your e-commerce store.

Portfolio Enquiry

One does not think twice while asking for extras at a restaurant, so we must not hesitate t ask the portfolio of the company. A website is a medium where people will visit and make a purchase and you will make money out of it, so make sure you design your website is very well optimized and built according to your needs. Do not leave everything on the hands of the developer, they don’t know your requirements in and out unless you tell them to do so.

Ask them for their finished as well as ongoing e-commerce website projects, in that way you’ll come to know about their work as well as you can get ideas for your website, regarding UI/UX as well as components that will solve your problem. A simple background check of the agency is an optional thing to do, but it is possible just to be sure.

Handling Deadlines

This factor can be judged easily in the first few meetings with the client. The amount of time a vendor invests in each project can be checked by their portfolio. Enquire about the contingency plans and challenged the Website Development Company faced to build an e-commerce website for their previous customers. The company will be able to provide a clear-cut plan if they are experienced.

Response Time of Agency

In the first meeting, it is impossible to know how efficient the developer is, but in 2-3 presales meetings you can be sure about the levels of commitment and speed of delivery is the vendor going to show after you’ve hired him. Get ready for not only missed deadlines but also unfulfilled commitments if the representative of the agency is not addressing your request for more information quickly and they provide unjustifiable reasons for the delay.

Do Your Own Research

Because of the advancements of the telecom sector, the digital world has become one big family they are always in touch with each other. For the search of perfect developer what you can do is ask our friends or friends of friends if they can refer anyone they can know. It’s the best way to find potential vendors as it can save time. Reddit and Quora are filled with good developers, you just have to search properly. A lot of good Web Development Companies and their customers are using these platforms to search and talk to each other. Pay attention to the reviews which people are writing about the company, if they are good then the company is actually good if they are bad they have a talk with the company about what went wrong and let them clarify the things and let them fix the situation to provide you better service.

Opt for All-In-One Package

Most of the companies usually have all in one package, to release some pain from the budget. It is a very wise decision of hiring an agency that has a team that makes sure that the website not only attracts scores of the customer very well but also website functioning perfectly. When you get all the information in one place, it becomes easier for you to stay updated with the progress that agency is doing, for creating something new and extraordinary a diverse team I required to brainstorm properly with your involvement as well. Always remember, more heads means more innovation.

Conclusion

Starting a business is a very daunting task, which makes it way harder is to maintain the workflow run business smoothly and generates leads. That’s why a working website is a very crucial thing to have. If not taken seriously, the dream of success and money you want to generate will never come true. Try to provide the best experience otherwise, the customer will bag the product in the cart but not from your website. Keep these tips in mind and concentrate on getting the best website designing services.

Ouriken is a standalone web design and digital agency. We design and implements powerful solutions for small and medium businesses in technology, business, and operations.

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CRM Software, Digital Solutions, Website Designing

8 Free Ways to Promote Your Business

Every business wants their products or services to be seen by potential customers. But, most of the traditional ways for promotion costs money and not everyone can afford it if they are just starting up the business. Well, there are ways to promote your business without spending a dime. So, let’s get into the list of the ways of 8 ways to promote your business. These ideas will not cost you money but they will surely cost you some of your precious time.

Optimization of Website for Search Engines

In this digital world, what people do when they want to buy something? Well, they search for the product or service on Google or other search engines of their choice. The process of information gathering takes place about the product. They try to collect data from the internet so if your website is not the list which they are searching for their information on, so you virtually do not exist.

The easy fix for this is to hire a digital agency that can do the optimization of your website for you but, even in that case you need to be aware of the process, so that Google cannot penalize your website for some wrongdoings or against its algorithm. By reading some guides on SEO you can tweak your website and rank higher on Google and on other search engines as well. The good thing is agencies would not be able to fool you if you know some of the processes.

Business Listing

Vendors are being searched on business directories by buyers. If your products are mostly B2B, add a free listing on IndiaMart, Trade India and Indian Yellow Pages. These are some popular business to business directories.

And if you’re products or services are B2C then you can list your business on Just Dial, Ask Me and Get It for free. The biggest advantage of these platforms is that they have mobile apps and that attracts a huge audience.

If your business is selling software’s then SoftwareSuggest is a very good directory to list your business. The categorization of the software’s on this website is quite good, like HR, CRM, ERP, etc. Many small businesses have been profited by this.

Listing On Google My Business

Google is trying to make the search personal and now displays results that are tailored for your location. For example, if we search for McDonald’s, Google will show you the outlets in your city with a map. So, if your list your business on Google, it will be very beneficial for you, and it is necessary to get listed on Google as the rate of competition is increasing very rapidly.

Adding your business is very easy, Google made sure that the process is simple for addition and managing the added business for the location on the map.

Social Media is Powerful

Social Media Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, not only help you get more customers but also the engagement to get quality feedback from them for your products or services. One can get around 20% of traffic only from social media.

The key point in achieving most out of social media is the frequency of our posts, if we post regularly, the rate of popularity and loyal customers will increase. Business updates or news related updates can be shared with your industry. Competitor analysis on social media is very easy as well; we can follow some influencers and monitor their activity. Recommended is to post twice to thrice a week on Facebook and 2-3 times a day on Twitter.

Answering Questions

It happens most of the time that people don’t get their desired answers on the Google search, so they turn up towards forums on the internet to solve their problems. QnA sites like Quora and Yahoo answers are one of the popular places where you can find new customers. There are LinkedIn Groups that are also used for the QnA website.

How can we benefit from these sites? We first have to create accounts on these websites and start searching for your product or services; we will get a lot of questions related to your product or services. People will ask about the top companies that sell this product and they will compare different products and so on.

Always start by answering easy questions and then move the levels up a bit by bit. For Example in Ouriken, I searched for a web design and development company on Quora and got hundreds of questions related to the topic. Then, like I said start answering easy questions and keep recommending your website in the answers so that you will get organic traffic to your website that too, free of cost.

The same thing could be done on Yahoo answers and LinkedIn groups, all 3 of them are a good source for organic traffic and very influential. Talking about good things, all these websites are crawled or indexed by Google so your answers will get displayed on Google whenever someone will search for it. Tip for answering in these websites is to have the intention of helping the needy first then we can sell our things in between. Nobody likes hard upselling.

Attending Networking Events/Meetups

The Concept is to visit Events/Expos/Meetups and increase your network in order to find new customers. You can just search for “Business events in (your city)” and Google will come up with the list of upcoming events if there are any. Most of the events are free of cost, you just have to bear the travel expenses and they attract potential customers as well as distributors/resellers/consultants.

Gradually, there will be a realization in you that people attend these events just to meet other people and increasing their network, eventually increasing their customers. Meetup is a site through which we can meet a lot of entrepreneurs and startup owners meet frequently using this site. People with open minds come here to meet and or open for new ideas sharing and partnerships in the existing startups.

Uploading Videos on YouTube

Over 4 billion videos are played on YouTube every day, and this number is growing exponentially. So, uploading videos on YouTube of your product or service is a no brainer. The best part is, search results of your videos will appear on the Google search result page giving your website more visibility.

For product, a 2 min demo video of the product will do, and for service, you can upload a testimonial of the client and upload it. You should always remember to put keywords in the title or description of the video so it ranks up. If you come up with interesting content that has the potential to go viral and hit the jackpot, leads will flood into your inbox.

Offering a Deal to Customers

Deal sites like Groupon and Coupon Dunia attract millions of users to their portals. So, have a meeting with the deal website guys, brainstorm with them and come up with a deal that your customers cannot resist. And you can a good number of buyers at no cost.

Once you have decided the discount to give to your customers, the deals website will do the promotion for you. Since they have a large database of registered users. This process of offering deals will be more or less will remain similar in other websites as well.

Conclusion

These are just 8 ways, there can be or there are many more ways of promoting your business. You just have to be creative and have an out of the box thinking. Some of the points mentioned above will yield results instantly, and some will take its own natural time. If you’re on a tight budget for marketing you have to invest your time in it instead to promote your business. There are some startups who succeeded with literally ZERO marketing budget. If you have any other ideas to add in this list, I know there are. Feel free to comment down below.

Ouriken is a standalone web design and digital agency. We design and implements powerful solutions for small and medium businesses in technology, business, and operations.