Without proper shopping cart solutions, no ecommerce website can succeed in a competitive environment. This fact has prompted business owners to opt for quality shopping cart software for their websites. Web design companies have woken up to this trend and are trying to offer top notch shopping cart solutions to customers.

Shopping cart systems can be purchased from third party companies or companies can opt for open-source shopping cart development. However, plenty will find customizable and secure shopping cart softwares more useful. Volusion is a shopping cart app that can help in this aspect.

Volusion is different from other ecommerce shopping cart solutions softwares in its blend of feature and performance and also reasonable pricing. From ease of use to security features, this app will please even the most finicky of web developers. It is ideal for those businesses who want their ecommerce sites to look visually appealing and aesthetic. They can make good use of the templates offered by Volusion that comes complete with zoom feature for magnifying product photos.

Setting up an online store with Volusion is a cakewalk for any web development professional. The store setup wizard is there to help out new users and customizing the online store design is quite simple. In fact, web developers with some experience in using shopping cart apps, would be able to set up a complete ecommerce site with Volusion in a few hours. This app also gives web developers the option to include a side-by-side comparison feature for the benefit of customers.

Volusion can beat many shopping cart apps with its outstanding administration features. With version 11, controlling various aspects of the website has become simpler. Every section, including inventory, marketing, reports, orders, and overall design has a lot of features for developers. Generating inventory report with this app is quite simple. There are also plenty of marketing features in this shopping cart; web developers can easily add discount coupons and promotional offers to selected products. This app can also be configured to send promotional email to encourage buyers.

Volusion scores better than many competing apps in providing shopping cart security. Besides support for SSL for secure online transaction, this app comes with an innovative Fraud Score feature, which can be used to thwart hacking attempts or fraudulent card usage.

For customer support, Volusion offers various options like live chat, email and telephone. It also comes with an extensive user manual.

There are various options available for website design professionals these days. Veterans may still prefer hand-coding for ultimate flexibility. However, newbie web developers resort to frameworks based on specific scripting language and platforms.

Website designing firms that work within tight deadlines for their projects will usually resort to feature rich web development tools like Adobe Dreamweaver. However, Dreamweaver does not come cheap. A web design company with modest resources therefore, can select the Xara Web Designer Premium 7 to create professional websites.

Xara is from Magix, a company known for few innovative multimedia apps that are ideal for web and print media publishing. This app is user-friendly and not very demanding on system resources.

Xara’s interface is quite intuitive; however, a new user may need some time in getting used to the toolset.

• The benefit of using this app is that its interface is devoid of rigidity. Designers, who need to make modifications in the website structure during the development phase, will love this app. The elements that were inserted earlier in the interface auto adjust their positions when designers insert new elements.
• Text and images can be used in various positions and alignment combinations within its interface with ease. Its automatic spell checker takes care of the accidental spelling and grammatical errors of text in the website. It is time saving too.
• Xara’s unique navigation assistant makes using navigation in websites easier for designers. Media elements like video players and Interactive photo galleries can also be used without any issue in its interface. It offers simple drag and drop support for videos and images. The videos dropped in the site pages get published without any hassles.
• When it comes to creating animations and editing images for web use, Xara comes in handy. A web designer need not invest in standalone image editing application. But, Xara’s image editing tools is good for web graphics only and not for other purposes.

• Xara also offers a number of options for making compelling ecommerce websites. Web designers can easily create elements like email newsletters, ads, perform SEO, PayPal account setting up, etc.

Xara’s website offers extensive tutorials and help files for users. However, it does not provide any telephonic support. The price is justified for intermediate to advanced designers.

Many freelance Web designers regularly struggle against one thing – Time. They have flexible working hours and yet, struggle hard to maintain the perfect balance between work and personal life. The reason is that freelancers often ignore the issue of time management, wasting a lot of precious time. As the deadline arrives, they start working like a maniac. This disrupts their family life, creating tension in both personal and professional spheres.

Here are few tips that will help web design freelancers to complete their projects within the deadline and spend some memorable moments with their families:

• Create a to-do-list

Creating a to-do-list and finishing the tasks can help freelancers to utilize their time perfectly. Break down your entire day’s work in few steps. Assign a time limit for each step and try to stick to these small deadlines. Completing the day’s work in few small steps will take off the burden from your head and allow you to relax.

• Use time management tools

If you think that you are unable to manage time on your own, opt for time management tools. These tools will keep a track of time invested in a particular project. Additionally, if you miss any deadline, they will inform you immediately. This will help you to stay on your toes, always.

• Learn to say ‘no’

As a freelancer, you may feel that your reputation heavily depends on the number of projects you handle every day. Unfortunately, taking up too many projects can have a negative impact on your physical and mental health. Additionally, your work may suffer and the client may not be happy about the result. Therefore, if you think that you cannot take up more projects right now, refuse a potential client.

• Redecorate your workspace

A poorly designed workplace (even if you are working from home) can interfere with your productivity and desire to complete a project within the deadline. For this reason, opting for a neat and comfortable workspace is important.

Designers are creative people and have quirky ways of designing their workspaces. To spice up your surroundings, you can hang interesting art-works on the wall or place decorative items on your desk.

• Remove all sources of distractions

People who have poor time management skills often get distracted in the middle of work. To minimize distractions, identify their sources and avoid them. For example, if you are a person who loves exploring the Internet, while developing designs, avoid opening browsers. Once you are done with your work, you can use the Internet.

If you plan to relax by exploring the Internet, set aside a time limit, such as 10-15 minutes. This will help you to get back to work, once the break is over.

Consider these tips to sharpen your time management skills.

Web development newbies often make mistakes while working with HTML and CSS. Sometimes, developers try to write codes too fast and make small mistakes unknowingly. If you make mistakes in coding, you have to spend extra time rectifying those errors and it’ll delay the project completion time. To help you avoid mistakes, here’s a list of common HTML and CSS you should stay away from:

HTML Mistakes

• Improper DOCTYPE- You must start the HTML document by declaring the correct DOCTYPE.
• Forgetting to Close a Tag- If you open a tag, you must close a tag – be it for a link, div, paragraph, table, or even strong, span, color, etc.
• Writing Tags in Capital- Writing tags in capital should be avoided. It won’t affect the code validation process, but if you want to follow the standard rules, then you should write <div></div>, instead of <DIV></DIV>.
• Improper Tag Nesting- You must open and close the tags in the perfect order. For instance, if you have opened <div><p><table> tags, then it must be closed as </table></p></div>. What opens first, closed last, always.
• Forgetting to Encode the Special Characters- If you want to display special characters like, “©” or “£”, use proper HTML codes for those characters. For instance, the HTML code for “©” is “&copy;” and for “£” is “&pound”.
• Inline Styles- Inline styling should be avoided as it makes the code editing process difficult. Instead of inline styling, you should use an external stylesheet for flexibility in the editing process.
• Forgetting to Open and Close Quotes- Whenever you write a quote (“), you need to use double quotes and close the quotes correctly. If you open a quote with double quote mark and forget to close it, the page won’t function properly.
• Confusing Classes With IDs- Classes are elements you will use various times in one page and IDs are for items you will use just once in one page. Wrong classification can lead to confusion.

CSS Mistakes

• Forgetting to Close Codes Properly- Every div must start with opening a second bracket and end with closing a second bracket. Each style called inside the div should end with a semicolon. Web developers often forget to use the brackets and semicolons while working in CSS.
• Not Giving Unique Names to Classes and IDs- If you don’t give unique names to your divs and classes, it will be difficult for you to identify them in the stylesheet later. For instance, a div name like “#home-right-column” is much easier to identify than a “#right”.
• Avoiding Shorthand Code- Shorthand code helps you keep the stylesheet clean and organized. For instance, instead of writing the page padding as -top, -left, -bottom, and –right, you can write “padding: 10px, 20px, 0, 20px.” Color codes such as #ffffff can be written as #fff and that helps you to clean up the CSS.
• Incorrect Positioning- In CSS, you get four positioning options: static, relative, absolute, and fixed. Depending on where you want to place an item in your webpage, you must use the positioning options carefully.

Validating your HTML and CSS files is essential to make sure that there is no coding error. Validating the HTML and CSS also helps you to find out the coding errors and fix them.

To be a web design expert, you should keep an eye on these common mistakes and try to write cleaner codes. Always check your codes for small mistakes and validate them to develop a functional website.