StartupTalky

Tag: Website development

  • Top 10 Common Web Design Mistakes to Avoid in 2022

    Do you know the feeling when you visit a website only to close its tab in the next five seconds? The average attention span of a user on a website is eight seconds. Your website could be a business, e-commerce, or your personal blog. Now, in the next eight seconds, you would like to create an impression on your audience or your customer which is positive. And grab their attention

    You would not want them to switch to your competitors, make a terrible impression or increase the bounce rate on your website with a shoddy design. Where the color scheme is messy, the typography does not sit right with the brand, or just in general the UI is ineffective.

    Basically, your website can be a deal-breaker for you. Every other business has its presence online, and having a website has become an integral part of being in the market and getting potential customers.

    A good website with the right components, clean user interface, simplicity, functionality, color scheme, visuals, typography, and consistency can ensure that people will continue to browse, make a purchase or keep reading your blog.

    So how can we have a website that has a balance of all of these? Further, we will explain what website design mistakes can be avoided to make sure your audience has a seamless browsing experience.

    What Makes a Good Website?
    Common Website Design Mistakes

    What Makes a Good Website?

    To avoid making website design mistakes, first, let’s try to understand what makes a website a good one. You might not be a graphic designer, or perhaps you are paying one to get your website design done. How do you make sure that your vision comes into being?

    The design has principles, and again you don’t need to be a wizard to know all of it. Just the basic 6 principles that you can follow to get it right. Let’s take a look at what design principles are.

    The six principles of design

    Unity/ Harmony

    Create repeating patterns with the elements having a regular repetition of elements that suggest movement or again create a rhythm. E.g., like a maze.

    Balance

    Arrange the elements in symmetrical, asymmetrical, and radial forms to establish a sense of balance.

    Hierarchy

    As the name suggests, here you use the other principles and arrange design elements to how you want your users to view them.

    Scale/proportion

    Use size, ratio, and divisions to create visual harmony and establish a sense of the relationship between the elements.

    Dominance/ Emphasis

    Create an emphasis, establish a point of difference and bring the focus of your audience to the important aspects of your website by playing with highlights, color, and size.

    Contrast

    Group together elements that appear to be similar or share the same visual characteristics

    While composing, put together the designs that have differences, e.g., the foreground and the backdrop of the web design with different colors.

    Common Website Design Mistakes

    Not Having a Call-To-Action (CTA) Button

    A call to action can be anything that gives your users proof that you exist as an organization or a person. It further guides and encourages the user to take some kind of action on your webpage.

    CTA Button Example
    CTA Button Example

    It could be something as simple as a subscribe button, a call, or a sign-up for the free online course that you are offering. In most cases, a call to action is highlighted or made through special buttons.

    Too Much Loading Time of the Website and the Images

    As mentioned before, the average attention span of a user on a website is 8 seconds. What would you do if you saw a banner ad somewhere and immediately became interested in the brand or the product/service that it is offering?

    Following the button, you click on the link, and it takes you to a page that takes too much time to load. You become annoyed and immediately close the tab. It can be terrible for your business, especially if you are dealing in the industry of e-commerce with no app where your website on the internet is the only source available where your presence is.

    Similarly, when you upload pictures, make smaller graphics that you use for your web are 300 KB or less with large or full-screen background images being no more than 1 MB.

    Not Having Relevant Images and the Content

    Let’s say you are an NGO that focuses on the education of less privileged children. But the content written on your website is about the meaning of the song that’s recently released, rather than giving out any information regarding what your organization is doing to make their lives better. It will definitely confuse your audience. Have content that is aligned to the purpose of your main purpose.

    The same holds true for your visuals. If the image does not blend well with your content, you need to change it to a relevant one or get rid of it.

    Having Complex and Dysfunctional Websites

    Your website can be challenging to navigate, with problems with coding, expired or mismatched domain names, and broken internal links creating a dysfunctional website.

    Another reason could be that you don’t have a secure HTML website, which makes your viewers doubt the security of your website. Resulting in a bad user experience and frustrating your audience.

    Not Secure Website Example
    Not Secure Website Example

    Not Updating Your Content

    Refreshing and updating your content is necessary because it indirectly influences response times. You can lose data and have your website crash due to outdated plug-ins and themes, and you might even experience auto-redirects to other websites that will hurt your SEO ranking and might even result in Google blacklisting you.

    Lack of a Proper Layout, Color Scheme and Typography for Your Website

    Some websites are too crowded with information, graphics, videos, and more. This will only increase the load time for the website and will make it difficult to read. Make use of whitespace, do not have too many elements cluttering your website.

    If you have a high-end brand, choose a layout that can be aligned with the industry. Talking about branding, another mistake people make while designing a website is not selecting a proper color scheme and typography. And the whole website ends up looking like a clown with mismatched color palettes and fonts.

    Cluttered Website Example
    Cluttered Website Example

    Each color represents something. When designing your website, try to keep color psychology in mind. And select your colors accordingly. The same rules apply to typography; it should suit your brand’s personality. Use fonts that are easy to read unless your brand screams funk, and have an appropriate font size.

    Not having mobile-friendly websites

    Websites designed just for desktops can be a problem when your user is browsing them from other devices like macOS, mobile devices, or tablets. The user experience is affected, and not in a good way. Have your website optimized for other devices and be mobile-friendly by building a responsive design for your site.

    In simple terms, back linking is when a user is directed towards your website from another website to your website. The credibility of your website depends a lot on backlinks, especially for Google’s PageRank and SEO.

    It confirms that your site has the relevant content related to the site linking to it and ensures quality. Backlinking is one of the most prominent elements in your SEO.

    Internal linking is when your user is guided from one page to another on your website. It’s again important as search engines use these links to navigate your website. Linking your social media accounts to your website is one of the influential social media integration strategies.

    It helps your audience connect to you on different platforms as well as makes it easy for them to find out more about you, which can also drive traffic to your page.

    Lastly, if you are not using these practices on your website, you are missing out on a lot of actions that can give you an advantage over your competitors.

    Not Having a Minimalistic and Clean User Interface

    Less is more, and most of the time people underestimate the power of simplicity. But having a website design that is minimalistic in nature started growing around the early 2000s and the concept is booming today. By not having one, you increase the risk of complexity.

    A minimalistic design will steer the focus of your viewers quickly to where you want to while cutting back on the clutter. Helping to present your content in a simple and direct way.

    Similarly, a clean user interface will be easy in the eyes of the users, easy to read, and well organized. By not having a clean user interface, you make it difficult for your viewers to focus on one thing without getting distracted. You can refer to the principles of design to help achieve a clean and minimalistic user interface.

    No SEO or Analytics

    If you ignore the strategy of using SEO on your website, you miss out on the organic traffic that comes your way, and the ranking of your page is affected. One should always keep SEO in mind while creating a website, and at least know the basics of SEO.

    Another key part of your website is analytics, which helps you understand your audience. Where is your audience from? What type of content do they like on your website the next time? And if you are an e-commerce site, you can use your metrics to scale up your sales game.

    In addition, tracking outbound links will provide new opportunities for collaboration. You can also see what questions cause users to reach your site, your click-through rate (CTR), and your average position.

    Conclusion

    We looked at a lot of things that make a website perform badly. But as we conclude, let’s take a quick revision of the Do’s and the Don’ts, so you can avoid the mistakes while creating a website

    What should your website consist of?

    • Have a mobile-friendly website with a clean and minimalistic user interface.
    • Follow the principles of design while creating your website.
    • Have relevant visuals/ graphics and content that is relevant to your website. This also means having no pixelated or distorted images on your site. Optimize your images that have larger file sizes.
    • Include SEO and analytics on your website to level up your ranking
    • Have inbound and outbound links to your website and integrate linking your social media accounts to your website
    • Make it a practice to align your typography and color scheme for your website with your brand’s personality.
    • Don’t miss out on the call-to-action button.
    • Make use of whitespace, don’t let your website be crowded or complex.
    • Have your content refreshed and often updated with a clear message.

    FAQs

    What are some common website design mistakes

    Not adding a CTA button, not having a mobile-friendly website, not having a clean and minimalistic design, and long loading time are some of the common website design mistakes web designers should avoid.

    What makes a bad Web page design?

    Non-responsive design, cluttered layout, hidden navigation menu, and bad color contrast indicate a bad web page design.

    What are 4 common design errors?

    Use of too Many fonts, using stock images, not proofreading and bad color contrast.

  • How Much Does It Cost to Build an E-commerce Marketplace Website?

    Online shopping is moving towards a new direction in the world, undergoing constant modifications and growing rapidly. The marketing trends are changing in the blink of an eye.

    The e-commerce marketplace is evolving so quickly that it is hard to imagine how the industry will look in the next decade.

    A study says 80% of shopping is done online globally. In 2021, eBay alone had a market cap of 47.8 billion dollars. Online sale is increasing every year and now it’s the right time to build your e-commerce marketplace.

    Starting an online marketplace is not easy, it requires an investment and a clear-cut scheme.

    Now the question is, how much does an eCommerce marketplace development cost?

    Well, in this article, we will cover the investment needed for developing an e-commerce marketplace website.

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    What is an eCommerce Marketplace?
    Types of Marketplaces
    How Much Does an eCommerce Marketplace Development Cost?

    What is an eCommerce Marketplace?

    An eCommerce marketplace is an online platform where buyers can find different brands’ products from different sellers showcased on the same platform. It allows all the vendors to sell their goods on the same eCommerce marketplace, which entirely runs on one software infrastructure.

    These eCommerce marketplace companies take a small percentage of product sales from vendors selling across the platforms. For example Amazon, eBay, Flipkart, etc.

    Types of Marketplaces

    Are you sure about the category of the marketplace? Let’s understand the classification of the marketplaces. Depending upon the type of marketplace, the cost of development is affected. The marketplace is divided into two parts that affect the eCommerce marketplace development cost.

    Based on Participants

    The target audience and the intention of the buyer-seller relationship decide your marketplace, which can be one of the following:

    B2C Marketplaces: It offers an opportunity to vendors to sell products directly to the consumers. B2C marketplaces are generally monetized by listing fees, commissions, subscription fees, etc. For instance, booking.com.

    B2B Marketplaces: It provides an opportunity for manufacturers to sell products or services. A third party usually operates them. Their motive is to promote transparency in deals and buying/selling processes. These are monetized through listing fees, commission, subscription fees, etc. For instance, eWorldTrade, and Alibaba.

    C2C or P2P Marketplaces: These marketplaces connect people to share their products and services in exchange for money, such as a car. The motive behind C2C marketplaces is for maximum utilisation of resources, which are monetized through paid ads and promotions. For instance, Etsy, OLX.

    Ecommerce Marketplace: It allows individuals and multiple businesses to sell their products and services online to consumers. These marketplaces are the most popular imaging eCommerce marketplace development cost. Example: Amazon, eBay.

    mCommerce or Mobile Marketplaces: These are designed to facilitate mobile shopping. These are digital stores monetized through subscription fees, commission fees, freemium plans, lead fees, and listing fees. Example: Upwork, Fiverr, Sephora.

    Crowdfunding Marketplaces: It allows its members to raise funds from the groups for a specific project. Monetization strategies include transaction fees and commission fees. Example: Kickstarter, Indiegogo.

    Auction Platforms: They encourage vendors to fulfil the services by bidding. It exclusively helps to gain the most competitive rates for a specific item or service. Auction platforms monetize through transaction fees. Example: Artsy.

    Based on Business Model

    The structure of your marketplace depends upon the business model. The business model defines the strategies to attract buyers and sellers and generate revenue. It helps determine the essential functionality and even affects the marketplace development cost. Business models are classified into three groups:

    Horizontal marketplaces: They deal in different categories to different consumers. consumers can find all the necessary products. Here the competition is fierce, and a wider audience is covered. Example: OLX, Etsy

    Vertical Marketplace: Instead of selling every product to everyone, these are mainly focused on niche services or products. Here you experience less competition. Additionally, you can focus on delivering better personalization. Example: StockX

    Global Marketplace: It allows the exchange of goods and services worldwide. It has the widest audience and hence more power to generate revenue. You will face some language barriers and legal constraints in the global marketplace. Example: amazon.com, ebay.com

    Marketplace App Development Time
    Marketplace App Development Time

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    How Much Does an eCommerce Marketplace Development Cost?

    The eCommerce marketplace development cost depends upon what features you want to add account. However, here’s an estimated cost if you’re building an e-commerce marketplace such as Amazon.

    The eCommerce marketplace is built on two platforms: Website and App.

    Marketplace Website Development Cost

    The table contains the eCommerce marketplace development cost of a website like Amazon. Amazon is a B2C marketplace where one can find any product. Here is the average possible development cost.

    Stage: Development Estimated cost
    Business Analysis $10,000 – $22,000
    Design $5000 – $14,000
    Front-end $25,000 – $75,000
    Back-end $39,000 – $116,000
    Quality Assurance $14,000 – $62,000

    Basic Features

    Feature Estimated Cost
    Authorization $5,000 – $21,000
    Profiles (Host, Admin, Guest) $18,000 – $25,000
    Search with Filters $15,000 – $20,000
    Product Pages $10,000 – $14,000
    Shopping Cart $12,000 – $17,000
    Payment System $15,000 – $20,000
    Customer Review $12,000 – $18,000
    Notifications $10,000 – $20,000

    Advanced features

    Feature Estimated Cost
    Product Comparison $10,000 – $16,000
    WishList $5,000 – $10,000
    Geographical Location $10,000 – $16,000
    Message and Texts $10,000 – $20,000
    CRM Integration $12,000 – $16,000
    Vendor Admin Panel $10,000 – $16,000
    Product Recommendation $10,000 – $40,000

    Marketplace App Development Cost

    A simple marketplace app includes an admin panel, buyers profile, sellers profile, reviews, search system, product page, messaging feature, notifications, payment gateway, shopping cart, and search filters.

    If you’re looking for the exact numbers, the table below shows the estimated range as the cost may differ depending upon the complexity.

    Feature Estimated Cost
    Authorization and Authentication $5,000 – $21,000
    Admin Panel $18,000 – $25,000
    Search with Filters $15,000 – $20,000
    Product Pages $10,000 – $14,000
    Shopping Cart $12,000 – $17,000
    Product Recommendations $10,000 – $40,000
    Payment System $15,000 – $20,000
    Shipping $10,000 – $20,000
    Geolocation $10,000 – $16,000
    Photoshopping $10,000 – $20,000
    Virtual Placement $16,000 – $30,000
    Customer Review $12,000 – $18,000
    Notifications $10,000 – $20,000

    The cost of developing a marketplace website and an app depends upon the industry, marketplace type and target audience.

    Conclusion

    The eCommerce marketplace development cost depends upon the target audience, marketplace type and industry. It can cost you $80,000 to $289,000 depending upon the features you want to add. Preliminary research is needed to build an e-commerce marketplace platform. However, reaching out to an expert might solve this.

    FAQs

    How long does it take to develop an online marketplace?

    If you want to build a basic marketplace website from scratch, it would require more than 1000 hours.

    How much does it cost to build a platform like Amazon?

    It would cost you around 60, 000 to more than 90,000 to build an e-commerce marketplace like Amazon.

  • What Should You Know Before Developing Backend for Your E-commerce Website?

    Before establishing any e-commerce website, or any web application, we should establish a fully functioning system before kicking off. If we do not do our homework in setting up this system, we would face a lot more difficulties as time progresses.

    They are two main components that come to play when it comes to setting up this system- Frontend development and backend development .

    Examples of frontend-based technologies are HTML (HyperText Markup Language), CSS(Cascading Style Sheets), Angular.js, React.js.

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    What Is Backend Development?
    What are the Key Components of Backend Development?
    Things To Consider Before Backend Development For Your E-Commerce Website

    What Is Backend Development?

    They are two main components that come to play when it comes to setting up this system- Frontend development and backend development. Frontend development involves those aspects of programming that the user/client can see and interact with. A frontend developer is to build on the User Interface and User Experience and thus bring those designs to life and thus provide a structure needed for feasible working.

    Backend development involves the other aspects of programming which are faced by the server/programmer and are responsible for the smooth functioning of the platform from behind the scenes.

    Actions taken by the user/clients are analysed, fetched, and then data is manipulated depending on what is the function of the platform by the backend developer. A backend developer should be well versed in knowing various databases and frameworks which we would discuss in detail.

    What is backend Development?

    What are the Key Components of a Backend Development?

    The key components of a Backend ecosystem are as follows:

    Database Management

    Database management for E-commerce website
    Database management for E-commerce website

    A database helps us maintain and process the humongous amount of data, created by the users, that is present in the web application. The backend developer is the one who is responsible for storing, retrieving, updating, and managing the complete dataset.

    While the frontend developers do have the option of manipulating data from the Application Programming Interface (API), it is a cumbersome process, and asking the backend developer to manipulate, like say adding new data, through the databases he has is widely seen as a time-saving process.

    Examples of databases are SQL, MongoDB, DynamoDB by Amazon, Firebase by Google, etc.

    Backend Framework

    A backend framework is a foundation where the user has all the foundational tools needed for developing the backend applications in one place together. Thus, they automate all of the necessary prerequisites correlated with backend software development activities.

    The advantages are that it reduces the time taken for the whole process and can make it more scalable across various other platforms. Some popular backend frameworks are express.js, Django, Ruby on Rails, etc. And all of these backend frameworks need an environment conducive to work. There comes the role of various programming languages like Python which supports Django or runtime environments, which allows the user to run the language outside the browser.

    For example- Node.js, which provides a runtime environment in which JavaScript can run, is the platform on which Express.js runs. These runtime environments, as seen in Node.js, also act as their web servers which turn out to be very convenient. Web servers are a type of software that takes requests from users, scans, and then provides an end product in the form of the requested documents to the user.

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    Things To Consider Before Backend Development For Your E-Commerce Website

    Things To Consider Before Backend Development For Your E-Commerce Website
    Things To Consider Before Backend Development For Your E-Commerce Website

    Compatibility

    In some cases, the database is way more compatible with the backend framework which makes for smoother implementation and convenience. For example, MongoDB works way better with Express.js(and thus node.js) than SQL simply because there is no specific need for a well-structured schema for MongoDB as in MongoDB the data is represented as a collection of documents rather than tables with foreign keys.

    This is why “stacks” exist. Stacks are a set of software subsystems that comprises the various software that is compatible with each other. In web applications, it consists of various components depending on the circumstances. For example, it could include the three backend aspects in the databases, backend platform, and the programming language/run-time environment.

    It could also include the front-end (web application framework) or even the webserver. At times, if it works with only a specific operating system, then even that is included in the stack.

    One popularly known stack is the “MEAN” stack(MongoDB-Express.js-Angular.js-Node.js) where MongoDB, Express.js, and Node.js act as the backend components while Angular.js is the front-end component. Alternatively, we can substitute Angular.js for React.js and thus, the “MERN” stack.

    Another known type of stack is the “LAMP” stack(Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP/Python). Here Linux is the specific operating system on which it works, Apache is the Web Server responsible for connecting web browsers to the correct website, MySQL is the database used and PHP/Python is the programming language on which this works. There is also the Python-Django stack which comprises the programming language in Python and the backend framework in Django.

    Thus buying into these tried and tested stacks which are compatible with each other makes for smoother implementation of the project. We must also ensure these stacks are compatible with the technology we use, for example, we can’t try to use the LAMP stack on a Mac or a Windows directly without separately installing Linux in it.

    Scalability

    By Scalability we mean whether the system increases or decreases in performance and cost in face of more application and process demands than what it is used to.

    Thus, when building an e-commerce website, we need to be sure of roughly how many users would come to our site at various junctions of time. For example, if the e-commerce site is targeting a low number, but niche customer then it makes sense to use MySQL as database, as it works well when there is a low write/read ratio. If the site is targeting a higher number of users then it is preferable to use MongoDB as our database as it is suited to handling larger and more complex data.

    It also makes sense to use JavaScript(.js) backend frameworks more than Python-based frameworks as it allows multithreading, which makes for better scalability. Multithreading is a model of program execution that allows for multiple sequences of programmed instructions to be created within a process, executing all of them independently but at the same time. JavaScript-based frameworks also have more inbuilt libraries which give us a lot more diverse options in hand.

    Efficiency

    While selecting what kind of technologies we need for our backend framework, we also need to consider how much time it takes for building the process. Like if the e-commerce website has any time constraints then they can quickly launch the product using LAMP, but if we can take a slow and steady approach then it makes sense to go for the MEAN framework as it allows for better performance.

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    Frugality

    We also need to consider the various costs involved in setting up the whole process in the first place. That could be the expenses paid to the developers, or could be the separate cost of setting up the web servers and so on. In the end, all of these depend on the complexity of the task-in-hand. Like, it may take relatively lesser costs for a low-level e-commerce website using JavaScript-based frameworks as all of them can be dealt with by a single or a group of JavaScript specialists. Whereas for say LAMP you need a separate specialist for Apache and then PHP which might bring more costs and more parameters to be considered, thus making it complex.

    Security

    We also need to consider how secure the back-end frameworks are and be wary of them before incorporating them into our e-commerce website. Like, due to different servers and client codebases, we might allow malicious data to enter while operating through a LAMP stack.

    Similarly, privacy issues might prop up if we disable JavaScript and this can be an obstacle in running the MEAN stack. We need to find the optimal solution which does not compromise our security.

    Conclusion

    Thus, here, we have discussed the various factors which should be considered for the backend development of any e-commerce website. A basic rule of thumb is that for smaller applications it makes sense to go with a LAMP-based stack and for bigger ones, it makes more sense to go for MEAN-based stacks. There might be some innovative developments in the future but for the time being, it makes sense to go with these known frameworks so we can start the business soon.

    FAQs

    What is backend development?

    Backend development refers to the server-side of a software/application that communicates between the database and the browser.

    What are the Key Components of a Backend Development?

    Key components of Backend Development are:

    • Database Management
    • Backend Framework

    What are the features of an eCommerce website?

    E-Commerce Website Features are:

    • User-Friendly Design
    • Mobile-Friendly Features
    • Detailes Product Description
    • Several Payment Options
    • Customer Support Features
    • Sales and Discount
    • Users Review Option

    Which technology is used in backend development?

    Technology used for backend development are:

    • Javascript
    • Python
    • Ruby
    • PHP
    • C#
    • Perl
    • C++

    Which is the best example of an E-commerce website?

    Some examples of the best E-commerce websites are:

    • Amazon
    • Flipkart
    • Ebay
    • Walmart
    • Snapdeal