Google has official announced that Google Checkout will be retired on 20th November as part of the company’s transition. After 20th Nov, merchants will not be able to accept payments through Google Checkout and they will need to move to other payment processing services that Google has partnered with, like Braintree for payment processing, Shopify for hosted online storefronts and Freshbooks for email invoicing.
Braintree’s payment processing service will make the process easier as they provide features like:

• Data Portability.
• International Payments.
• Recurring Billing.
• Credit Card Tokenization.
• Simple Interface.
• 24X7 Active Support.
• Attractive Discounted Migration Offers.

Users will get a discount when migrating to one of the three options that Google has partnered with.
Alternatives for Google Checkout
Those online merchants currently use Google Checkout to accept payments for goods and services they sell online will have to look for other service providers to handle their transactions online once Google Checkout Retires.
The following payment processing services could serve your purpose

• Braintree
• PayPal Express
• Amazon

Merchants may integrate any of the payment services mentioned above with their ecommerce solutions to continue collecting payments. Merchants could also add a proper message on their sites stating the replacement procedure for Google Checkout so their customers are informed about the alternates that are at their disposal when checking out on the website.

Google plans to replace Checkout with Google Wallet – a system that includes the Instant Buy API for U.S. merchants, and that is designed to make buying faster on Android apps and mobile to meet the demands of a multi-screen world where consumers shop at their desk and on their mobile devices.
Individuals selling their items using Google Checkout via Google Play and the Google Chrome Web Store would not have to migrate; they will be automatically switched over to Google Wallet soon.

Schema.org Markup – What is it?

Google, about two years ago, came up with Schema.org to help reduce the hectic task of marking up each, and every web page to be found (“indexed” technically) by search engines. Before that, every web page should contain a particular markup data, in order to display it in search results of particular search engines. But Schema.org was introduced with loads of short HTML tags or micro-data, “Codes” to be more common, which can create “rich snippets” of the relevant web page, and even parts of the web page, to be displayed in search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. All you have to do is to include just a couple of HTML tags from Schema.org and your web page will be ready for search engines to index properly.

Schema Markup for Organization Logos

How cool it would be if your company’s logo is displayed right next to a search result for your company? Yes! Just like how those who own a Google Authorship could show up along with a snippet of their works in search results page.

Schema.org Markup for Organization Logos was launched earlier this week, which makes connecting a website with an iconic image now officially possible. Now, one can easily direct Google to display a desired logo along with the results that contain the relevant web pages. A simple, short three-line HTML tag with the links to the Home Page and the desired image is all that is required.

Here is a sample of the code provided to the public for implementing this Schema Markup for Organization Logos:

<div itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Organization”>
<a itemprop=”url” href=”http://www.example.com/”>Home</a>
<imgitemprop=”logo” src=”http://www.example.com/logo.png” />
</div>

Here is an example of our own domain www.qualdev.com using the following code:

<div itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Organization”>
<a itemprop=”url” href=”http://www.qualdev.com/”>
<img itemprop=”logo” src=”http://www.qualdev.com/logo.jpg” alt=”Custom Ecommerce Website Design Company in NYC” />
</a>
</div>

How Schema Markup for Organization Logos can help in SEO?

A logo with a direct link to the home page of a website, which obviously will contain related content of the key word in vast, will undoubtedly add to increased visibility of any webpage. It is believed that about a 30% increase in the overall displays of the snippets could be acquired just by adding this Organization Logo Markup by Schema.org.

Get a technical expert now and insert this code in the right place of your webpage, then wait to see your website pop up in the top in no time, without missing an icon by its side!

It is an undoubted fact that the craze for online shopping is at an all-time high in the jewelry industry and is trending upward. Many retail marketing analysts will agree that adding eCommerce totheir jewelry business will increase their bottom line. Any jeweler willing to stay in the game should consider eCommerce development . Qualdev is an expert in this arena and has developed over 100 jewelry eCommerce and catalog sites.

Traditional brick and mortar jewelry stores in malls often encounter the least floor traffic compared to other merchandise stores. This is in itself a challenge to jewelry store owners or managers and over the years, different strategies have been developed to counter this challenge including eCommerce. QuaDev is an expert at providing a positive experience for online shoppers. When QualDev launches a jewelry eCommerce site, they capture the attention of potential customers through easy navigation, stunning images, and user-friendly shopping carts.

Another challenge that jewelry store owners face daily is that their locationsaren’t open 24/7. Qualdev will allow your current and potential customers to shop anytime from the comfort, privacy, and security of their own home even on public holidays and Sundays. If a potential customer visiting the online store does not make any purchases immediately, an online brand can still influence their buying decisions in the future. The concept of driving quality traffic to one’s store cannot be overlooked with the amount of competition in theretail jewelry industry.With SEO solutions from QualDev, a jewelry store can cut their advertising costs significantly. They can get a jeweler to that most coveted first page of Google on a local, national, or international level.

Many consumers opt to shop online today not only because of the time convenience, but also due to the large variety of options that they can get. There is a general sense of saving money while shopping online. With Qualdev’s Content Management System a jeweler can easily manage their onlineinventory  creating regular promotions with ease. In fact, a well-managed eCommerce jewelry business, can adopt their online campaigns in real time in response to market behavior more frequently than if they used other print, television, radio or other advertisement options.

Apart from just getting a powerful online presence and driving quality traffic to one’s jewelry website, Qualdev knows that Mobile App development cannotbe ignored, especially when millions of potential customer’s everyday utilize them on their smart devices. Qualdev can provide customized development solutions for static websites, eCommerce websites, mobile apps, content management systems, or even redesigning an existing website to improve it with additional features. To learn more please goto ww.QualDev.com or call 631-236-5408today for a demonstration.

When you’re part of the electronics industry, your clientele naturally expects you to be tech savvy. In the current market, just providing the very latest in laptops, gadgets, and entertainment systems isn’t enough. Retailers need an online presence as well, or they can run the risk of losing out on a goldmine of potential business. For those who sell electronics, investing in eCommerce development is now a necessity and the expert web developers at QualDev know this.

Many customers choose to do their business over the internet now. This is because it’s so much more convenient both in terms of time and effort. People who work long hours don’t have to rush to get to the stores before they close just to buy a new antivirus program, and those who live away from urban areas don’t have to make long trips to get a new plasma TV. An online storefront allows a business to stay open 24/7 all year round, and lets that company do business from coast to coast.

First impressions count for a lot when it will take a potential customer just one click to move away from your website, so it will take more than just a cut-and-dried, cookie-cutter website to make it on the internet. For that reason, it’s wise for even electronics experts to call in the professionals when it comes to web development, look to QualDev.

The team at QualDev takes development seriously, and they are guaranteed to deliver the quality development that their name promises. They have developed hundreds of sites for virtually every industry. Take a look at their portfolio of work, and you’ll be wowed by what they can do for their clients. They also offer the electronics industry mobile app development and custom eBay stores that will be sure to increase your businesses bottom line.

This company creates a professional, engaging, and easy-to-use website that can be viewed on practically any device your customers may be using. QualDev will also help you boost your internet marketing game through their search engine optimization services. When shopping for electronics, many consumers start with a Google or Bing, so you can see how increasing your search engine visibility is vital to your business.

When you approach QualDev for your web development needs, expect excellent service from professionals who will actually work with you to create a website or app that will fully fit your needs. They offer customization for your unique business including a stunning front end look and feel and easy back end management. In no time at all you’ll have a great website for your approval be ready for business in no time.

If you have an existing electronics ecommerce site that needs improvement or you want to launch your business make QualDev your first call at 631.236.5408 for more information.

We live in a society that is heavily reliant on the internet. So many aspects of life are handled through online means. Whether it is personal matters, school, or business situations we have become a society that communicates with one another regarding almost every aspect of life over the internet. Communication between businesses and customers are heavily reliant on online websites. Many customers prefer to make purchases by way of the internet. The jewelry industry is a perfect example of how much customers are converting to making purchases online. If a jewelry company is not invested in ecommerce development, they stand to lose many customers to other companies who are utilizing the internet to enhance their business. For jewelry companies that need assistance in developing a website that will attract customers to conduct business with them, QualDev.com is readily available to make any jewelry business standout from its competitors.

QualDev offers several web development services that are sure to make a jewelry business an attractive place to stop on the web. Their ecommerce development methods have been a success for many businesses who have already utilized their service. One service they offer is web design. A business owner must be greatly concerned with what customers see when they visit his webpage. A company’s website is a representation of the entire business. Business owners are cannot directly advocate for their business. So their website has to do the talking for the company. QualDev.com will give a website a professional yet elegant look that will speak volumes about the company it represents. Customers will see this website and feel comfortable making purchases. Remember, people need to feel comfortable with a company in order to release personal information like credit and debit card numbers for purchases. Having a shabby looking website will do nothing for anyone’s comfort level.

Another important service that QualDev offers is ecommerce solutions for businesses. Jewelry business owners should strive to make their websites as user friendly as possible. Not everyone possesses great knowledge of using computers. A jewelry company does not want these types of customers to shy away from making purchases because they cannot figure out the website. This is especially so for jewelry customers. Chances are they are spending a great deal of money for a product. The last thing any customer spending a lot of money wants to do is battle with a website as they are trying to make a purchase. QualDev has the great ability through their ecommerce solution methods to make a customer’s time on a website easy, simple and without any hassle.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important aspects of a website for a business. This is how people will discover and find a person’s business on the internet. Without the proper key words and phrases placed in the proper areas, chances are a jewelry business will be very difficult to find on the web. It is for this reason why SEO services are the most sought after web development service globally. QualDev specializes in SEO services. Their unique methods will help a jewelry business get top rankings on major search engines. This is very important to a website receiving a lot of traffic on a regular basis. The more traffic a website receives, the more opportunities the company will have to sell their product.

These are just some of the web development services QualDev offers its customers. Their highly skilled services can be the difference to a company receiving a great amount of business through the internet, or none at all. QualDev will not only draw customers to a jewelry company’s website, they will impress customers to the point where they feel comfortable making purchases with that company over the internet. No business should consider releasing their company’s website to the public without first seeking the services of QualDev. Feel free to go to www.QualDev.com or call 631.236.5408 to schedule a free demonstration of the many services Qualdev offers.

As online businesses compete to hold the title of the number one choice of consumers, custom eCommerce development has become the go-to choice for many business owners. Rather than opting for pre-designed coding, the market has transitioned into customized eCommerce design as a way to set businesses apart from leading competitors and be able to design coding that is most appropriate for achieving specific goals. Here, we will examine the top three reasons that you should choose custom eCommerce design over standard designs.

Reason# 1. Unique Reporting
Each eCommerce website has unique goals and information that should be tracked in order to know how to best serve customers and enhance revenue. With a customized eCommerce design code, businesses will be able to easier track information such as shipping and payment methods. Ultimately, this will strengthen customer service and ultimately provide a smoother function overall.

Reason# 2. More Features
Pre-designed eCommerce websites such as Magento offer a limited number of features simply because the design is intended to be universal. For some eCommerce websites, this is simply too vague and there is a need for an eCommerce design that allows more features so that the company may fine-tune specific needs. Perhaps some features work and others do not. A customized design will allow operators to play with different coding strategies. Basically, the company will be able to integrate more features that will promote development and creativity as needed over time.

Reason# 3. Marketing Advantages
When choosing a custom eCommerce design there is an option to capitalize on marketing strategies within the coding. Sites that are pre-designed already have a fixed intention when it comes to SEO, but a customized code can increase the advantages on the search engines. For instance, the coding could be used to attract a very specific demographic of people in order to boost sales and gain momentum in the market.

eCommerce websites have revolutionized into customizable portals that can be created to better serve consumers and strengthen the potential for profit. The attraction that many people have to the custom coded design is that it can encompass the necessary elements for an eCommerce business to truly thrive in the market.

Custom eCommerce development provides extended benefits to its users. You can have an upper hand over your eCommerce website without even stepping out of home. It becomes very easy to track down the requirements and online inquiries of customers and provide them what they want. A well-developed eCommerce website can offer excellent platform for merchandising of all kinds of products. Customized eCommerce solutions can emphasize your business logo and design according to the target audience.

Do you need a new ecommerce design for a new or existing website? Contact us today or call 631.236.5408 / 631.220.7423. QualDev is a full service web development in New York specializing in an array of web solutions.

Not sure if you need a mobile website? Test your website using this FREE Preview tool and see how it would look on a mobile device. Test Your Site

What is Responsive Web Design
Ethan Marcotte introduced the world to the concept that allows for websites to be designed for viewing on any device i.e. desktops, laptops, mobiles or tablets without resorting to developing individual pages suitable for viewing on each device – or losing the consistency of the feel and look of the original content and visuals. In other words, websites created using other concepts may look different on various gadgets whereas, those created using the concept of responsive web design would maintain their consistency across all the devices.

Why RWD? The Rationale Fueling The Concept
The problem and huge expenses of creating separate pages or entire websites for each type of device lead to the development of this concept. With new advanced devices hitting the market daily, and consumers turning to feature rich smart phones and tablets to surf the net and socialize, developers were hard pressed trying to keep pace with developing websites that would ensure that businesses were well exposed on all these new devices. The Responsive Web Design Concept is an amalgamation of technologies and ideas and not just a single platform.

Elements of Responsive Web Design
1.) CSS3 media queries, which adapt the layout to the viewing environment using fluid proportion-based grids and flexible images

2.) Media queries facilitate designers, allowing the use of various CSS style rules depending upon the device

3.) With the exploitation of the fluid grid concept, the page element sizing can be in relative units like percentages or EMs.

Benefits Of This Design
Designing websites based on the responsive web design concept is not only helps web designers save on time but also proves to be a blessing for end consumers in the following ways to name a few:

1.) Less expensive as it only requires the maintenance of a single code base

2.) Helps merchants improve their SEO

3.) Offers a single URL for all devices and a consistent experience across all devices

4.) Significant boost to popularity as a huge volume of web traffic comes from mobile devices

5.)Provides easier navigation and readability for users irrespective of the device being used

Deficiencies Of The Concept
Deficiencies in the concept mainly stem from the fact that it is relatively new and requires a bit of skill to pull of creating a winning product. Remedies to shortcomings like these below are emerging with each passing day:

1.) One of the challenges comes in the form of customization. If a designer wants to create a feel of native application, it would be very difficult to get desktop-website feel on larger screens.

2.) Designing and developing the initial structure based on this concept takes time as the teams involved need to consider and plan the structure of the site so that nothing gets overlooked or left out.

Responsive web design is an emerging concept in the web design and development world. However, as the concept is an elixir distilled from practices that have repeatedly borne fruit – it is set to revolutionize web development and provide assured returns on investments to online business globally.

1.) Do reach out to inactive subscribers to see if they still want to be included on your list; doing so decreases the likelihood that they will flag you as spam and keeps your list current clean.

2.) Do ask for feedback from your inactive or infrequently active subscribers to see if you can re-engage them.

3.) Do use double opt-in. This means after someone subscribes, you should send them an email with a confirmation link ensuring they want to receive email communications from you.

4.) Do ask your subscribers to white list you. Spam filters are more aggressive than ever, and sometimes email people value still end up in spam boxes. By asking your subscribers to add you to their address book, it tells spam filters to back off.

5.) Do include a clear unsubscribe link and a physical mailing address in your email footer.

6.) Do use a familiar sender name to decrease the likelihood recipients won’t recognize you in their inbox.

7.) Do include your recipient’s name in the ‘To’: field so spam filters know that you do, indeed know your recipient.

8.) Do offer both an HTML and a plain text version of your emails; it is not only an indicator of legitimacy to ISPs, but it also makes your emails more reader friendly.

9.) Do keep emails short; too much copy is another red flag for spam filters.

10.) Do include the date somewhere in the body of your email to show your message is current.

11.) Do test emails you send with the email clients your subscribers use to ensure they deliver successfully to all of them.

12.) Do get email sender accreditation from a third party so ISPs know you are a trusted sender.

13.) Do monitor your sender reputation. DNSstuff.com lets you check on whether you are a blacklisted sender, something many unlucky email marketers are not even aware.

14.) Do honor unsubscribed; it is not only good for you as a self-scrubbing mechanism, but it is also illegal.

15.) Do stay up to date on changes in email sending laws, ISP behavior, and spam filter technology. Email marketing is constantly evolving, and staying aware helps to ensure you are always following best practices (and the law!).

1.) Don’t buy or rent lists. Yes, you can legally purchase lists of people who have agreed to email communications, but they aren’t likely to actually want your emails, increasing the likelihood they will mark you as spam.

2.) Don’t scrape sites for email addresses. This is always illegal.

3.) Don’t use all caps anywhere in your email or its subject line.

4.) Don’t use video, Flash, or JavaScript within your email.

5.) Don’t forget to include alt text in emails with images so they can be easily read by all email clients.

6.) Don’t embed forms in your emails; send recipients to a landing page on your site instead.

7.) Don’t use spam trigger words like “free,” “guarantee,” and “no obligation” in your subject line or email body. A good rule of thumb is, if it sounds like something a used car salesman would say, it’s probably a spam trigger word.

8.) Don’t use a red font when drafting your email. And not that a legitimate email marketer would, but also refrain from using a white font on top of a white background.

9.) Don’t use exclamation points!!!!!

10.) Don’t forget to use spell check; misspellings are yet another spam indicator in your email copy.

11.) Don’t jam pack your email copy with keywords.

12.) Don’t use tons of images, or very large images. And remember, all images should have associated alt text!

13.) Don’t email people who have bounced repeatedly; it can cause your IP address to be blacklisted.

14.) Don’t include attachments to your emails. Just as with landing pages, send recipients to a page on your site to download whatever it is you want to send.

HTML 5 – The latest standard to HTML is rapidly being used nowadays to create a number of websites. Although the foundation of HTML 5 was laid way back in 2004, it came in to the limelight when Adobe announced that it will halt the development of Flash for mobile browsers in 2011.

How different is HTML 5 from HTML?
If you think that HTML 5 is something highly complicated, then you are hugely mistaken. It is basically the plain old HTML accompanied by Javascript and CSS3. Also, HTML 5 contains new and improved elements and attributes, offers full CSS3 support, easy to use audio/video tags, 2D/3D support, web storage, local SQL database, web app and a special type of media element called Canvas. These small but significant changes are the main factors that distinguish HTML 5 from its predecessors.

What is the need for HTML 5?
There are certain reasons which make HTML 5’s presence a necessity even for a layman’s point of view. These reasons are – an ever growing number of smartphone and tablet users who use their devices to access the internet, support from leading companies, rich features and functionalities, multimedia support and its simplicity.
All these reasons along with various advantages make HTML 5 a complete package for creating websites, which can be accessed from any device.

Main advantages of HTML 5
• Reduces the need for external plug-ins, which was not the case with Flash. This means you need not download any plug-ins in order to view a multimedia object or using interactive elements on a web page.

• Device independent and offers cross-platform compatibility. This means you can run HTML 5 based websites on any device.

• Compatible with almost all the latest web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, IE 9, Google Chrome, Safari etc. This means you needn’t open any particular browser to view certain websites.

• It is the future of web apps owing to its responsive design features.

These are some main advantages of HTML 5. However, like a coin that has two sides, it has its share of disadvantages as well. Let us take a look at some of the disadvantages of HTML 5.

Disadvantages of HTML 5.
• Since HTML 5 is still in the “development phase”, there can be some issues when it comes to redesigning a particular website.

• The current HTML 5 version provides very poor browser support. This is one of its grey areas and developers are working on it.

• It is true that the latest browsers do support HTML 5. But what about those who are still using older versions of the same browsers (which do not support HTML 5).

All these above mentioned information formed the crux of HTML 5. If you want to know in-depth about it from a developer’s point of view, you can check different sites, which teach how to the HTML 5 script. Trust me, the more you will know about this wonderful web standard, the more you will be amazed by it!