In the ever-evolving digital landscape, a website serves as the virtual front door of a business or individual to the world. A successful website not only attracts visitors but also engages and converts them into loyal customers. To achieve this, effective web development plays a pivotal role. Luckily there are numerous companies that are working in this domain, one such reliable company is vStacks Software Solutions.

It’ll be helpful to look at some key tips that can guide you towards creating a successful website.

1. User-Centric Design:Putting the user at the center of your design philosophy is paramount. The layout, navigation, and overall design should be intuitive and user-friendly. Prioritise a responsive design that ensures a seamless experience across different devices and screen sizes. The goal is to provide a visually appealing, easy-to-navigate website that keeps visitors engaged.

2. Performance Optimisation:In a fast-paced online world, users have little patience for slow-loading websites. Page speed optimisation is crucial for retaining visitors. Compress images, minify code, and leverage browser caching to ensure swift loading times. Google’s PageSpeed Insights can be a valuable tool for assessing and improving your website’s performance.

3. SEO-Friendly Development:Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is vital for attracting organic traffic. Incorporate proper HTML structure, meta tags, and descriptive URLs. Conduct keyword research to align your content with what your target audience is searching for. A well-optimised website ranks higher in search engine results, increasing its visibility.

4. Quality Content:Compelling and relevant content is the lifeblood of your website. Regularly update your site with informative articles, engaging videos, or captivating visuals. High-quality content not only keeps visitors coming back but also establishes your credibility and authority in your field.

5. Mobile-First Approach:With most internet users accessing websites from mobile devices, adopting a mobile-first approach is non-negotiable. Ensure your website is not only responsive but also designed to provide an excellent user experience on smartphones and tablets.

6. Intuitive Navigation:Simplify navigation by employing a clear menu structure that helps users find what they’re looking for without confusion. A well-organised navigation menu can improve user satisfaction and reduce bounce rates.

7. Call to Action (CTA):A successful website encourages visitors to act. Whether it’s signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or contacting you, strategically place clear and compelling CTAs throughout your site. Use persuasive language and contrasting colors to make them stand out.

8. Security and Privacy:Website security is paramount, especially if you’re dealing with user data or facilitating transactions. Implement HTTPS encryption to secure data transmission, regularly update your software, and use secure authentication methods to protect your website and its visitors.

9. Analytics and Monitoring:To continually improve your website’s performance, utilise analytics tools like Google Analytics. Monitor key metrics such as traffic sources, user behavior, and conversion rates. This data provides insights into what’s working and where improvements are needed.

10. Regular Maintenance:A successful website is not a one-time creation; it requires ongoing maintenance. Regularly update content, check for broken links, and ensure all functionalities are working as intended. Outdated information or broken features can deter visitors and harm your credibility.

Remember, a website is a dynamic entity; it requires constant improvement and maintenance to stay relevant and effective in the fast-paced digital world. You need experts like vStacks Software Solutions who can effectively develop and manage your website.

The first impression, for most of us, turns out as the last impression. A website is the face of your organization. It is your 24X7 marketing tool that can make or break your online journey. That is the reason why you need a professional, modern, attractive, feature-rich, and functional website. You also need to understand that just having a website on the internet is not sufficient; you need to rank well on search engines to get the desired traffic and business. If you want a website that is complete in all respects and is SEO optimized as well, you need to hire a reliable web development company. A professional web development company can deliver on all the aspects to make your online presence much more effective.

However, some small and mid-sized businesses still think that hiring a web development company might be a waste of time and money. It is a myth that needs to be busted. There are several benefits if you hire a professional agency. Let us, therefore, take you through what you stand to gain when you hire a professional website development company.

Benefits of hiring a professional web design company

There is a lot of competition on the internet. And, if you don’t have the best to offer to your clients, they are likely to move on to your competitors. With customer experience taking precedence over every other thing, it is crucial to offer the best that you can to your consumers. And, you need to understand that the customer experience starts with your website. That is the reason why you need to have a website that is complete and functional in all respects.

Without a reliable and professional web development agency, it is difficult to make a website that does well on the internet. Let us, therefore, list down some of the key benefits of hiring a professional web development company:

• You get an attractive website, which creates a positive first impression
  As mentioned earlier, your website is the first thing that people see and interact with on the internet. And, if the first impression they get (of your website) is not positive, it is certainly not going to help your business. Hence, it is essential to make your website attractive so that it attracts your customers as well as your prospects. And, when you hire a professional agency, you can rest assured that your website will be attractive, which is sure to create a positive first impression.
• You are assured of a better website design
  Website design is crucial. If you use regular templates or formats, it is not going to give you the desired results. Your website will be just like any other website on the internet. What you need is this – a customised design and a user-friendly interface. When you hire a professional agency, you are sure to get both things. They will customise your website and make it user-friendly as well.
• You get a website that has a faster load speed
  You should not expect to do well on the major search engines if your website does not load at a lightning-fast speed. If you have limited technical knowledge, then it is difficult to make a website that loads quickly. However, when you hire a professional website development agency, you can rest assured that your website will load at a lightning-fast speed. Professionals know how to do their job efficiently, and they can develop websites that load at a much faster speed.
• You get a mobile-friendly website
  A mobile-friendly website is the need of the hour. If your website is mobile-unfriendly, you should not expect to do well in the online landscape these days. Mobile-unfriendly sites cannot rank well on search engines because of the poor user experience they offer to their users. Again, you need to have the requisite technical expertise to make your website responsive. When you hire a professional agency, there is no reason why your website will not be responsive. They have all the technical knowledge and can make your website mobile-friendly.
• You get a reliable website
  It is important that your website functions properly after it is up and live on the internet. For example, if your website develops a snag every time you make some changes to it, then it is not going to help your business in any way. What you need is a reliable website. It should be up and running after you go live with it. When you hire a website development agency, you are sure to get a reliable website.
• You get an SEO friendly website
  Every website owner wants to make it to the first page of Google and other search engines. However, if your site is not SEO optimised, it is difficult to do well on any major search engine. When you hire a professional company, they code it (your website) properly and make sure that it becomes SEO friendly.
• You get a trustworthy website
  If your website can’t instil trust among your consumers, it is difficult for them to spend their money on your site. A professional web development company knows how to piece together content and other things on a website, which makes it look trustworthy and reliable.
• Professionals can help you save time
  If you hire a novice or try doing it yourself, you may need to spend more time developing a feature-rich and powerful website. But when you hire professionals, you don’t need to worry about these things as they stick to the timeline. Moreover, professionals have the technical skills and knowledge that allow them to complete the same job faster.

If you are looking for a reliable and trustworthy web development company in Dubai, you should get in touch with vStacks Software Solutions now. We have been in the software development business for over two decades, and we know what it takes to design a complete website. From attractive design and making it responsive to fast load speed and more, we can check all the boxes that make up a modern, professional, reliable, and trustworthy website.

It is difficult to beat the competition and climb the success ladder these days if you don’t have a website in place. But just having a website on the internet does not guarantee you success. To do well on the internet, you need to make sure that your website ranks high on the search engine result page and it offers an excellent user experience. And, one factor that can surely impact your website ranking and user experience is the load speed of your site.
If your website load speed is slow, it can negatively impact your performance on the internet. It (slow load speeds) not just adversely affects your website rankings, but it can also dent your conversions and sales. Therefore, it is vital to ensure that businesses work hard to improve the load speeds of their websites.

Here are some load speed statistics that prove our point beyond any doubt.

What is a good load speed?

But before you set out to improve the load speed of your website, it is vital for businesses to know what is good load time.

The best practice according to Google (in 2018) is three seconds, but most sites are not up to the mark when it comes loading time. Google in an analysis of 900, 000 mobile ad landing pages found that 70% of them took about seven seconds for the visual content above the fold to load. In the analysis it was found that it takes about 15 seconds to load a mobile landing page fully.

Also, as page load time increases from one to ten seconds, the bounce rate possibility goes up by 123%.

How to assess your website speed?

It is also vital for businesses to first assess their existing website speed before getting down to how to improve it. Fortunately, there are numerous performance evaluation tools available on the internet to assess the speed of your website. Some of these are:

1. Google Pagespeed Insights
2. Pingdom
3. YSlow
4. Performance Budget Calculator

Ways to Improve the load speed of your website

After testing the speed of your website, you should get down to optimising it. There are various ways of increasing the load speed of your website. Here is the list of 9 most effective ways that can improve the load speed of your website:

1. Implement a content delivery network or CDN – A CDN is a set of web servers which are distributed across numerous geographical locations, and they provide web content to the end user per their location. When the website is hosted on a single server, all the user requests are sent to the same hardware which increases the processing time of each request. Moreover, when users are physically far from the server, it increases the load time. But when you use a CDN, user requests are redirected to the server that is closet to the user which allows the content to be delivered to the user quickly and the website starts working faster. CDN, therefore, is an effective way of increasing the load speed of your website.
2. Move to a better host for your website – Make sure that you choose a fast web host so that your site loads faster. Mainly, there are three types of hosting, namely shared hosting, a virtual private server (VPS) hosting, and dedicated server hosting.
   The most popular type of hosting is shared hosting. It is also the most cost-effective way to get your website online. But it is vital that you select your web hosting service provider with a lot of caution. A fast web hosting service provider is what you need to select if you want to ensure better optimisation. Typically, shared hosting is not as fast as VPS or dedicated hosting because in shared hosting you have to share the disk space, RAM, and CPU with other websites.VPS and dedicated servers are faster in comparison to shared hosting. Multiple servers are used in VPS hosting for content distribution. In VPS hosting, you only need to share the server with other users, and your configurations do not influence other websites. VPS hosting is ideally suited for websites that have average traffic with traffic spikes in some periods.And, dedicated hosting is the most expensive hosting option where all the resources belong to you.
3. Make sure you optimise the images on your website – Images are important for an attractive layout of a website, and it is known to generate better user engagement. Also, images are essential if you have an e-commerce site. But the negative effect of having too many images is that it slows down your website because they are large files. What you need to do to reduce the size of the images is to compress the images. You can search the internet and use the tools that can reduce the size of your images without compromising their quality.
4. You should also decrease the number of plugins – Plugins are a common component of websites which add specific features suggested by third parties. But more the plugins, more are the resources you need to run a website which slows down your website. The number of plugins grows over time, but not all of them are used all of the time. That is why it is important that you check all the plugins you have installed, and remove those that are not required. To start with, you should run the performance test to find out which plugins are slowing down your website. The website speed depends on the number of plugins as well as their quality. You should avoid deleting plugins that load a lot of scripts or generate a lot of queries. Make sure that you only keep plugins that are necessary, and it is also important to keep them updated.
5.  You also need to use website catching – When there are many users accessing the page at the same time, servers go slow and need more time to deliver the web page to every user. The process of storing the existing version of your website on the hosting is known as caching, and it presents this version to the users until your website is updated. It means that the web page does not render every time for each user. Since cached web pages store copies of documents; hence it does not need to send database requests every time. The stored document is rendered to the user which increases the load speed of your website.
6.  It is also important to reduce the number of JavaScript and CCS files – When your website contains too many JavaScript and CCS files, it generates a large number of HTTP requests when your visitors want to access specific files. Due to these requests, which are treated individually by the visitor’s browser, it slows down the website speed. Hence, if you decrease the number of JavaScript and CCS files, it is bound to increase the load speed of your website. You can group all JavaScript into one and do the same for all the CSS files which bring down the overall number of HTTP requests.
7. Use Gzip compression – You can use Gzip compression to reduce the size of the files which minimises the HTTP requests and cuts the server response time. Gzip compression is used to compress the files before sending them to the browser. A browser unzips the files on the user’s side and presents the content. Gzip compression can work well with all the files on your website.
8.  Minimise redirects and decrease the use of web fonts – Website redirects negatively impacts the performance of your website because it creates additional HTTP requests. It is, therefore, advisable to either minimise them or eliminate them completely. You can run a site scan to identify all the redirects on your page and barring the critical ones you should eliminate the rest.Web fonts are increasingly becoming popular these days in website designing. But the use of web fonts can have a negative impact on the load speed of your website. Web fonts create additional HTTP requests to external resources. To reduce the size of web font traffic, you can use modern formats for modern browsers, select only the needed styles, and include only those character sets that are used on the site.

   If there is a problem with the load speed of your website, you can get in touch with vStacks Software Solutions now. We will make sure that your site starts loading faster on all the devices. We are a digital marketing services company specialising in web design and hosting.

The worldwide e-retail sales, according to Statista in 2017 was 2.3 trillion US dollars and this is expected to touch 4.48 trillion US dollars by the year 2021.

If you are a shopping buff, the go-to place for you is the internet. It is undoubtedly the biggest market place on earth. As ecommerce businesses vie for your attention, you have plenty of options to choose from when you are on the internet. Yes, ecommerce business is a growing market, but not everyone on the internet is doing brisk business.

With competition in the ecommerce business growing thick and fast, just offering exciting deals and variety is not sufficient to move ahead of your rivals. You need to provide a good user experience to your customers if you want to scale new heights and beat the competition in the ecommerce business. And, site reliability, user-friendliness, and speed of your ecommerce site are the three main things that can help improve your customer’s user experience. Of the three, load speed is by far the most significant criteria that affect your conversion rates and subsequently your sales.

Only a one second delay in the load speed of your ecommerce site can cause a 7% dip in your conversion rates.

It is not surprising to note that on an average the load speeds of the sites on the first page of the Google search results are less than 2000 milliseconds.

The significance of the load speeds of your ecommerce site is pretty clear from these statistics.

If you are in the ecommerce business (or planning to start one), you need to understand that your site should load fast enough or else it is difficult to flourish in this business. Also, if you are worried about your conversion rates, then load speed could be one of the reasons.

To find out the reasons why you need to improve the load speed of your ecommerce site, read on.

The significance of page load speed for your ecommerce site

Are you aware, 2018 has been declared as the year of the customer? Customers these days are short on time and patience. If your ecommerce site takes too long to load, your prospective customers are bound to get disillusioned. Therefore, one thing that you need to make sure is that your site loads at a lightning fast speed.

The overall time it takes for the content of your website to load is known as the load time.
There is sufficient proof to suggest that slow load speed of your site adversely affects your conversions, sales, and revenue.

Bad customer experience does not end with one person; it has a rippling effect. It leads to negative word of mouth publicity that can cause a lot of damage to your ecommerce business.
Even a few seconds delay can make a big difference in your conversions and sales.

Here are some of the reasons why you need to increase the load speed of your ecommerce site

In ecommerce business, if you start losing customers due to slow load speed of your site, then it becomes difficult to climb the success ladder. Slow load speed can lead to a dip in the conversion rates causing your sales to drop resulting in a decline in your overall profits. Hence, it is vital that you work towards increasing the load speed of your ecommerce site.

Here is why you need to increase the load speed of your ecommerce site:
Slow load speed creates a negative first impression – On the internet, a positive first impression makes a lot of difference. It does not take long for your customers to form an opinion about you and your business, be it positive or negative. A good first impression can tremendously benefit your ecommerce business. You can never leave a positive first impression on your customers if the load speed of your ecommerce site is slow. A negative first impression creates a poor user experience which is a big irritant among the online shoppers. If your site loads faster, it is considered as professional and reliable. Also, speed is generally associated with confidence, trust, and efficiency. On the contrary, a slow site creates a negative first impression, and people consider your site to be unreliable, unprofessional, and insecure. Moreover, it is not easy to change the first impression of your customers. In the ecommerce business, you generally don’t get a second chance easily; hence you need to make sure that the load speed of your site is fast.

Slow load speed causes poor customer experience – You have to look after your customers well or else they will desert you. If your customers are not happy with the experience, your sales and conversions can go for a toss. You have to give your customers what they want and when they need it. And, without any doubt, fast load speed is known to improve the overall experience of your customers. You should try to give your customers what they want, and give it to them fast. If your ecommerce site takes too long to load, it only frustrates your customers. Hence, if you want to improve your customer’s experience, you need to make sure that the load speed of your ecommerce site is fast.

Websites with slow load speeds rank lower on the Google search result – It has been the constant endeavour of Google to make the web user-friendly, useful, and fast. If your ecommerce site does not load faster, you can see a drop in your ranking on the Google search results. It is not in the interest of your ecommerce business to ignore Google. Hence, you need to make sure that your site loads faster.

Customers expect sites to load faster – It is difficult to survive in the ecommerce business if your site does not load faster. Customers these days are short on patience, they want instant replies and quick answers. In case your site takes too long to load, customers can abandon your site and move on to your competitors and rivals for quick results. Customers these days expect websites to load faster, and if it does not load faster, they quickly move on to the next one. People might wait sometime longer if you are an established name in the market, but they are generally not kind enough if you are a start-up or a small entity.

Slow site load speed results in lower conversions and sales – This is the worst that can happen to an ecommerce store. You, of course, don’t want your conversions and sales to drop because of the slow load speed of your site. You are in the ecommerce business to make money, and you just cannot let your conversion rate and sales to drop. Hence, if you want your conversion rates and sales to improve, you should make sure that the load speed of your ecommerce store is fast.

If you want your ecommerce store to flourish, you need to make sure that you design it aesthetically, come up with exciting offers, and increase the load speed of your site.

In case you are planning to start your ecommerce store and want the load speed of your site to be faster, get in touch with vStacks Software Solutions.

You can also contact vStacks Software Solutions if you have an existing ecommerce store, and you are facing conversion problem due to slow load speed of your site. From designing your ecommerce site to hosting it, vStacks Software Solutions can help you reach the top in the business quickly and swiftly.

The technological advancements have not just changed the way businesses function these days; it has also altered our lives by bringing the shops to our doorsteps and more specifically into our hands. From services to products, you can now shop and order anything and everything from the cool confines of your home or office. All you need is a desktop, a laptop or a smartphone. But, have you ever given it a second thought how all of this happens? This is made possible by the presence of numerous websites, which are hosted on the internet. However, to succeed in the online market, you need to have a great website to look at and a sound web management strategy, which inevitably ensures that you make a sale. And, in order to get a beautiful website and a fool proof web management plan, it is a must for you to hire a reputed web development company in Dubai.
59% of customers worldwide prefer engaging with a website that is attractively designed rather than the ones that are designed simply This clearly proves our point that in order to succeed in the digital space you need a website that is beautifully and exquisitely designed, (Adobe).

What is web development?

Broadly, web development refers to as the work undertaken to develop websites for hosting on the internet or intranet. The process of web development includes web designing, content development, front-end/ back-end scripting, configuring network security and a few other tasks.
More importantly, web development is the programming of a website that allows it to function as per the requirement of the owner. It primarily pertains to the non-designing processes of a website that comprises of programming and writing markup.
From developing pages that have plain texts and intricate web based applications to electronic business and social network applications, web development caters to all of this and more.

Why is it essential for you to hire a professional web development company?

When you want to reach out to a wider audience, internet is the perfect medium. But, your success in the digital space requires a website that is great to look at, and a strategy that can propel your business to new heights. And, in order to get both of them right, you need to hire a professional web development company.
This is what you stand to gain when you hire a web development company:

They devise an effective web strategy for your business – These days what you need is a holistic approach to make your presence felt in the digital world. A professional web development company provides you a scalable and futuristic web development plan, which gives your project the thrust that is required to take your business to the next level.

A professional web development company would aesthetically design your website with perfect coding –Web development is a process that consumes a lot of time. Even if you know a thing or two about website development, you probably would not have enough time to develop it on your own, as there are many pressing matters that need your attention. Whereas, when you hire a reputed web development company, you get the services of experienced and trained web development professionals who are skilled at developing websites. You can get a high quality website, both in terms of aesthetics and programming.

They manage and develop your website content uniquely – With a professional web development Company, you can be sure that they will develop and manage your website content in a way, which gives you the best results. You just cannot replace good content with anything. In order to make your online presence successful, you need content that is relevant, concise and to the point. Content writing is an art, and developing and managing quality content requires experience. That is another reason why you need the services of a professional web development company.

They deploy the use of up-to-date tools – When you hire a professional web developing company you can rest assure that they will use all the current tools that make your website user-friendly and responsive.

They ensure that the safety of your website is never compromised – Security is an integral part of hosting a website. A web development company will make sure that all the security considerations are duly met. With data theft on the rise, it is imperative that proper security measures are in place if you are doing business online.

They make your website visible – The job of an expert web developing company does not end with just creating a website. You can only succeed on the internet if your website ranks high on the search engine/s. And, a reputed web development company ensures that your website’s search engine optimisation techniques are up-to-date.

If you are based in the UAE region, then get in touch with vStacks Software Solutions – a web development company, for all your website and web management needs.
With over two decades of web development experience, vStacks Software Solutions knows what it takes to make your online business a success.
vStacks Software Solutions has trained, experienced and professional web designers and developers who cannot just make your website look beautiful, but can also help your online business to rock.