Welcome to Knowledge Sauce!

We are proud to announce to launch of ‘Knowledge Sauce’.

Our team of designers and developers will be sharing all the essentials entrepreneurs, start-ups and small businesses need to know about anything everything to do with Design for Business. We will be dropping weekly with knowledge sauce on design, online, development, SEO, SEM, Re-marketing, Branding, Graphics… the list goes on!

5 Design Tips to Make Your Website Stand Out

For a website to be successful, you need to have a style that feeds into your website’s user experience and functionality while being easy to understand for a first-time visitor.

1. Minimalistic & Clutter Free Homepage Design

It is better to appeal to emotions rather than focus on word count. The less a visitor has to read, the better chance you have to retain his or her attention. Use images or icons as alternate ways of communication and keep ‘Call To Actions’ under larger subheadings and in legible paragraphs.

1. Keep Visual Hierarchy in Mind

When you only have a few seconds to grab someone’s attention, tell them straight up what your site is all about. When you establish a clear hierarchy to your website information, readers can’t help but unconsciously follow the trails you have set for them.

• Create Easy-to-Read Website Content

“Readability” is a key component for any website. When it is easy for people to recognize words, sentences, and phrases on your website, they will efficiently and comfortably scan through your site without much effort.

1. Make Your Site Easily Navigable

If your creative mind suggests you to break the mold, remember, website navigation is not the place to apply your creativity. A site with a solid navigation not only improves the viewers’ experience, but also helps search engines in indexing your content.

1. Stay Mobile Friendly

When we live in a mobile society, it is foolish to even mention this tip, but it is important. However, test out every page, every user action, and button to ensure your mobile-friendly site is running on all cylinders.

Implement these tips and create a website that draws customers and engages them in interaction.

HOW to Build Your Own Website

As the online world continues its evolution, it’s important that business owners don’t remain constant. Creating a strong online presence is essential to succeed in the modern era. However, if you are not tech-savvy, it can be a frustrating and confusing process. There are numerous options available but creating different profiles and accounts to building your website can be a tiring process.

Let’s break down the process and figure out the best possible ways.

• Purchase your domain

There are many companies offering free domain registration along with a hosting purchase. Choose a unique name, but don’t overcomplicate it so that people have a hard time finding it on the internet.  Make it memorable and easy to type.

• Create a hosting account

Web hosting is essential for any professional website. Analyse online forums and reviews carefully before deciding. For newcomer’s, choosing a tried-and-trusted brand like Bluehost can be a safe bet.

• CMS systems

CMS systems such as WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Shopify etc. are open source software used for creating websites. WordPress is the most popular software, both for beginners and seasoned professionals. It offers two unique options- fully hosted and self-hosted versions.

• Theme

Your theme will determine the layout of your website. You can choose between various free to use and highly customizable ones present in the market. Or simply, build your own… but easier said than done!

Website building can be expensive, even tiring. However, with user-friendly platforms, abundant online forums and affordable hosting service companies, it’s possible to reach your desired goal.

5 Ways to Increase Website Traffic

As an e-commerce marketer or entrepreneur, you are always looking for new ways to drive traffic to your store and generate more sales.

Let’s look at 5 effective ways to maximize the online platform Shopify, and generate high traffic to your website:

1. Run Paid Social Media Ad Campaigns

To give your business the required visibility, you can run paid social media advertisements for your website that are highly target-oriented.

Remember, more visibility means more traffic and more traffic means more sales.

1. Use SEO to Increase Your Store’s Discoverability

SEO is the process of fine-tuning your website so that it ranks high on the result page of search engines.

When customers look for your product online, it is important that your store comes into the top bracket of results for that search as ⅓ of all clicks go primarily to the first organic result on Google.

• Reach New Audiences with Influencer Marketing

The process of building strong and loyal relationships with the right influencers to give your online store a sustained visibility in front of new audiences is known as Influencer Marketing.

With influencer marketing, you can harness the creativity and reach of relevant influencers in your field of industry while leveraging the trust that the influencers have already formed with their audience base.

1. Drive Excitement with Contests and Giveaways

By offering exciting prizes in exchange for your customers’ participation you can quickly drive more traffic to your store with viral contests, giveaways and sweepstakes.

1. Attract Customers with Content Marketing

A simple way to attract customers to your online store is by creating interesting, informative, and engaging content. From videos, podcasts to guides and e-books – the opportunities for content marketing are endless.

How Much Should A Website Really Cost?

In the modern world, no business can survive without a legitimate online presence. Website building can be expensive, so while evaluating the cost of creating/updating a website, you need to keep certain factors in mind. The overall expenditure can be segregated into several smaller overtures.

Domain Name

Every website requires a unique domain name. .com are among the cheapest options, costing $5-20AUD. While the most popular domain .com costs approximately $20-200AUD. The cost of a domain name is directly proportional with its demand and popularity.

Hosting

Your website requires to be hosted on a web server. On shared web servers, which also includes other sites, hosting costs around $10-20AUD/month. Having a personal dedicated server is more expensive, costing around $150-500AUD/month. A Virtual Private Server (VPS) is the middle ground between shared servers and dedicated servers, costing around $40-1000AUD/month.

You can also avail the promotional hosting packages with websites like GoDaddy, 1and1, 123reg etc. who provide free domain names too. These packages start from as little as $5AUD/month. However, for a business looking for a solid foundation, this is not recommended!

However, if you opt for a more complex or attractive website, you would require go hire a professional web designer/development (like us!), which, depending on the specific functions of your website can ranging from $1,500- $50,000AUD – depending on the complexity.

However, the average cost of a standard website can be in the range of $5000AUD.

We recommend you perform some detailed cost and market analysis before embarking on any such venture, especially before you commission a designer/developer!

What does HOSTING and BANDWIDTH really mean?

The question about what bandwidth and hosting are must have crossed your mind at some point and then came the confusion of how much and what exactly you need. Again, you may have heard of hosting but what is it? Let’s find out both!

Web hosting is the service provided by certain entities that allow people or companies to post a website on the Internet. The provider of web hosting allows the customer to use the technologies necessary to make the webpage viewable, which can also be hosted or stored, on servers.

Bandwidth is the data traffic that transfers between your website and the internet and the more bandwidth, the faster the experience. The internet is an entity with numerous computers running into the millions, all connected by networks. We have all used the internet at home and have encountered bandwidth, where complicated website designs utilise more bandwidth and can slow down the experience on slower connections. Keeping this in mind, today’s web designs focus more on a simplified structure and aesthetics, which will keep a contemporary feel without slowing down the page to a crawl. Bandwidth requires constant flexibility and calculations, as opposed to a storage space where data can be deleted when necessary to clear space.

Bandwidth calculation by reputed websites is done by the following methods:

• An estimation of the average page size in units of KB. Use a method called the Pingdom’s Load Time test on some pages and then calculate the average.
• Now, take the average monthly visitors number and multiply that with the above average.
• Take the result from the above and multiply with the average number of page views per visitor.

Wix or SquareSpace?

If you are confused about what’s best for you between Wix and Squarespace, we are here to help you place your web presence in “safe hands”. You need to try something that both serves your purpose and is user friendly. Let us help you to decide!

1. User friendly

For Wix – As you put up the control panel on your screen, you are immediately struck by the familiarity of the design. It is perfectly evident that stress has been put on aspects like aesthetics and organization, with the customization of your website is now easier than ever.

For Squarespace – Most of its UX-related disadvantages have been resolved but the fact remains that it is still a lot behind Wix in terms of fun, design and ease of use.

Verdict: Wix wins. Ease of use is a big draw for Wix.

2. Flexibility

For Wix – Build your website without writing codes with enough tools to build blogs, eCommerce platforms, and much more! The control panel allows you to tinker with most features, although there are third-party extensions via the Wix App Market.

For Squarespace – Although feature-rich and compact in design, you don’t get the huge plethora of apps that you get with Wix.

Verdict: Wix wins. The total absence of applications make Squarespace inferior.

3. Design

For Wix – You get a great template variety that are professional, with an extremely handy mobile editor for fine tuning by dragging and dropping stuff. Modify as much as you want without affecting the normal view of the site.

For Squarespace – You get to use templates full of great features, with beautiful fonts and simple layouts, that are usable in all types of screens. The edit, though, is unusable in the mobile view.

Verdict: Wix wins. Wix has more diversity.

4. Customer Support

For Wix – An interrogative symbol beside every editable option in the control panel helps you learn more about it. This is in addition to a comprehensive help center with articles and videos, along with a forum.

For Squarespace – Responsible support structure that provides live chat, tutorials and even email support. Also, worthy to be mentioned are the customer workshops they hold in their offices.

Verdict: Wix wins. It is more user friendly.

5. Expenses

For Wix – There is a free version for beginners along with several paid packages. Note that the lowest amount payable for a Wix subscription is 4.50 USD.

For Squarespace – There are zero free plans, except a trial of 14 days. Subscriptions range from 12USD a month to 46 USD a month.

Vedict: Wix wins. Squarespace, being more expensive, doesn’t offer proportionate value.

How to protect your website from HACKERS!

Hackers are not people who care much for your privacy or the sanctity of your personal information. If you think that websites are immune from such a possible onslaught, then you are sadly mistaken. Just because you have a small enterprise doesn’t mean that you should simply sit back and relax.

In fact, statistics show that your website is always under attack!

Studies conducted recently state that about 50 percent of all small businesses with an online presence are breached yearly.

Wordfence plugin for WordPress is responsible for scanning for any threats that may be present in the system and these are routine scans that look for issues, protect via a firewall, actively guarding against real-time threats. There is also iThemes Security for added protection.

The following are certain precautions that are mandatory for a comprehensive protection.

• Lockdown website and ban undesirables
• 2-factor authentication
• Use your email as login username
• Rename your login URL
• Adjust your passwords and change those periodically
• Protect the wp-admin directory
• Monitor your files with plugins like Wordfence

There are a number of plugins that fulfill the roles of login security, firewalls and IP blacklisting among others, all in one place. There are some which are also known to function with IPv6 compatibility, that technical experts believe is the future of online security.

Complex credentials add increased security to any website security structure and additionally, core files, need regular updates. Newest updates always have fixes and regardless of the kind of content system you use, the newest versions usually have bug fixes and exploit removals.

User roles are critical to platforms like WordPress, which determine the actions of a visitor and can potentially cause a lot of damage. Therefore, roles and permissions to be allocated in the correct manner.

Google Analytics is an exceptional tool that you can use not only to monitor site traffic, but also to find suspicious activity. These measures should keep your website safe and functional.

Magento! Why is it the platform for serious e-commerce merchants?

What makes Magento a true revelation for eCommerce websites? Top brands such as Coca Cola and Burger King rely on it for its incredible flexibility, that is especially helpful for today’s customers whose tastes vary with every minute. Magento’s open source and agile design is impeccable in its adaptation to adverse situations and helps you thrive.

Its global ecosystem consists of over 150,000 developers, in addition to over 300 solution partners, who are well trained. Magento functions within the scope of boosting online sales and facilitating maximized gross margins. Businesses aligned with Magento tend to make more profit than a lower TCO, when compared to those on competitive eCommerce sites.

Magento has a network of over 250,000 merchants selling on it, and it is the most popular eCommerce platform in the world today. The flexibility that comes with Magento is the ability to carry out customizations to build unique branded experiences. The rule is simple – fast adaptation and staying ahead of customer patterns, with regard to purchases.

It is a very hard to always keep up to date with regular changes in eCommerce and Magento’s army of innovators, numbering in the tens of thousands, do exactly that for you. You get to stay ahead of the curve and at the top of your game.

It is also one of the most modifiable eCommerce platforms out there, with a vast and diverse online marketplace characterized by customized and tested extensions.

Statistics show that merchants who are using Magento have grown over 3 times faster than those on other platforms. This is significant with around 50 percent reduction in Total Cost of Ownership.

7 Ways to Maximize SEO On WordPress

WordPress has progressed in leaps and bounds since its inception in 2003, with some of the most elite brands choosing to utilize it for themselves in the market.

WordPress has two different versions that can be used, one is WordPress.com, that is free and simple while the other is WordPress.org, that is a self-hosted publishing platform for advanced use.

1. Your permalink structure is the format that your URLs will have when they appear on a browser. Keep your URL as clean as possible so that you can help search engines to crawl and index the URLs adequately.
2. Never aim to crawl different versions of the same content or website twice as it will only serve to confuse users and search engines. Also, webmasters should utilize permanent redirects, better known as “301” redirects, to permanently move an URL.
3. Google’s Authorship facilitates content organization and the big benefit of this is that your image and byline would appear next to your post on the search page.
4. Google is all about speed and page load time is today an important SEO factor. Webmasters should only install plugins that wouldn’t affect the speed of their site.
5. Your website needs to be mobile friendly to be accessible via a number of devices. This is a considerably important factor today in for Google’s search parameters.
6. Micro-Data Support is a big advantage for those who use schema. With it, webmasters have the ability to assist Bing, Yahoo and Google to perfectly understand the content’s semantic intricacies.
7. Plugin Compatibility is a big thing for Google rankings. Certain themes don’t support certain plugins and such incompatibilities can cause sitemap issues, etc. Always makes sure that there is a perfect balance between all elements of the site.

G Suite by Google Cloud

G Suite (Click here) offers an exceptional combination of features that will sweep you off your feet, enabling you to seamlessly work from your smart phone or computer.  You get the following benefits:

• Communicate with your colleagues no matter where they are.
• A plethora of tools to accomplish any project you have.
• Store any number of files to access when you like.
• Management of devices and users to protect data with ease.

The elaboration on G Suite is stated as follows:

Faster Decisions: There are shared calendars available to schedule meetings and then turn that meeting into a video conference. A face-to- face conversation would effectively allow for immediate decisions.

Active Collaboration: Working on documents have never been easier and you can work on a document with team members within your company or with outsiders. You can monitor progress of others and communicate via comments and chat.

Cloud Storage: You get to store everything in one location with a completely secured access from your personal devices.

Impeccable Security: Well-defined security measures like single-sign-on and 2-step verification are incorporated in G Suite to ensure the protection of your company’s sensitive data. You may also archive important emails and messages, and also determine how long you want to keep them.

The design of G Suite is such that you don’t need to be a web expert or a technical genius to get your work done. You just need to be a bit creative with a basic sense of using Google tools, and this, coupled with attractive and user-friendly UI, indeed makes the G Suite the perfect match for your needs.

cPanel: The Works and Functions

cPanel is a web-based control panel that is designed with built-in development tools to aid you in the management of your website. You get to monitor everything through a graphical user interface or GUI and don’t need to be a certified website developer to get things done – in a nutshell, think of it as the settings for your own domain.

From dealing with the criticalities of email and file management to creating your own domain address and WordPress installation, are all possible via the cPanel.

The following are a quick study of how to go through the most useful features of cPanel:

• Adding a new domain requires you to hit the “Addon Domain” button and then adding the domain that you have bought to the present hosting account.
• For emails, go to the Email section and hit “Email Accounts”. You can then create an email using any name you desire.
• File Manager helps you to keep track of and manage your files. Click on “File Manager” and then choose which website’s files you wish to manage and click on ‘Go’.
• With QuickInstall, you are given the freedom to install content management systems like WordPress on your domain with ease.
• Also, under the “Files”, there is the “FTP settings” page, with which you can set up FTP accounts or edit existing ones.

Whenever there is a need to add a new domain to your personal hosting account, there is a “Domains” that helps you do that. You are also able to handle redirections, and construct subdomains that may be utilized towards building a new website.

There is also a well-defined backup facility that cPanel is created with, that is available in the “File” section, and with this, you can have useful backups that are snapshot-based. You can, in fact, effectively have a backup of the entire thing in a single archive.

Migrating from one hosting platform to another can be quite complicated and time consuming, except when you do it via cPanel.

Why It’s Important to Stay Up to Date with Your Website Software

Your vigilance is necessary to keeping your WordPress website at the top of its game, both in terms of security and performance. Your website consists of not only the platform, which is WordPress but also the theme and plugins.

Plugins are software such as slideshows, social media feeds or forms, among others, that help make your website truly streamlined. Creators will continue to regularly build latest updates for these that would remedy security or performance issues. Such updates serve to prevent hacks or speeds up slow-loading pages.

The immense popularity of WordPress makes it a prime target for cyberterrorists. You need to know that if they could find and exploit the weakness of a single website, they could potentially do the same with many more websites which share the same disadvantage. To combat this, developers release new patches and fixes regularly to provide you with a measure of defense against hackers and their malware.

Developers are always at war with hackers, in that they detect intrusions actively and immediately take steps to patch it up. These developers go on to create valuable software updates and fixes to make sure that that particular breach can never be exploited again.

In addition to stopping hacks, WordPress and plugin updates are also needed for the smooth running of a website, ensuring continued compatibility between the CMS and associated plugins. A word of caution though is that upgrades to just the CMS without updating plugins would lead to major vulnerabilities and instabilities to the website.