If you thought that WordPress can only be used as a platform for blogging, this post will unravel yet another interesting aspect of WordPress which is its integration with e-commerce. WordPress makes it easier than ever to set up a simple e-shop.

Here are some plug-ins that would help you turn WordPress into an e- shop

WP-osCommerce

This shopping cart plug-in is a modified version of osCommerce. The plug-in allows you to integrate osCommerce with your existing WordPress website. The plug-in displays latest products, random products, top 10 best sellers and much more directly in your WordPress blog. It also adds a dynamic widget in your blogs sidebar to help you display your products.

WP Auctions

This revolutionary plug-in allows you to host auctions on your blog or website and in turn sell your products free. The plug-in makes use of AJAX powered popup in order to provide optimum user experience. It also lets you run your very own personal auction site.

eShop

This plug-in provides you the ability to add a PayPal powered store to your WordPress site. You could make use of your pages or posts to create new products. It also offers features like the ability to list multiple products and create an add-to-cart function. Also, this plug-in offers a number of payment options that include- Paypal, Authorize.net, Payson, eProcessingNetwork, Webtopay and Cash/Cheque.

Artpal

ArtPal is a free Wordpress plug-in, that helps you to integrate PayPal with your Wordpress blogs, enabling you to sell your work online.

•    Easy PayPal integration – all you need to supply is your PayPal email address!
•    Real-time sales updates – as soon as your item sells, ArtPal will disable it from being sold.
•    Professional support –Digital Sublimity provides commercial support, so you can be rest assured that your critical application will stay up and running when you need it.

FatFreeCart

This plug-in allows you to add “Add to Cart” and “View Cart” buttons on your blog posts, enabling you to sell your products through your blog post. With this plug-in, you can create your own e-commerce store because the plug-in has features like easy integration with PayPal and Google Checkout, Shipping handling, product variations,s and Sales Tax.

eStore

This plug-in offers you fully-automated selling capability for your products. By using this plug-in you can deliver products without directing buyers to a webpage to download. The buyers will receive an encrypted download link in their email.

WP e-Commerce

This fully featured plug-in for WordPress is suitable for selling your products and services. It is a Web 2.0 application that is designed with usability, aesthetics, and presentation in mind.

WP Auctions

This easy to use plug-in enables you to host auctions on your blog for anything you wish to sell, completely fee free!

MiniCart

This plug-in helps you embeds your shopping cart into your blog posts and thus you can use the plug-in to ask for donations to your favorite cause in the process.

Are PayPal

This plug-in is used to monetize your blog content using PayPal. Designed to sell your knowledge, you can  use this plug-in to set the content as hidden for unregistered users and visible for registered-paid users.

Hope that these plug-ins will enable you to sell your products and services through your WordPress  blog in an easy and hassle- free manner. Please share your suggestions and feedback with us.

Coppermine, a multi-lingual, multi-purpose and integrated photo gallery web application enables users to upload pictures with web interface or ftp. This open source software is written in PHP and MySQL and thus facilitates arrangement of pictures in categories and albums. It also provides support for GD Graphics Library and ImageMagick. It’s also compatible with most web server software.

Creating your own Coppermine gallery on LimeDomains is an easy task. All you have to do is register yourself with us. As soon as you register yourself with us, you can create your Coppermine gallery with just a single click.

The steps to setup your website on LimeDomains using Coppermine image gallery are listed as below:

Step 1: In the ‘Hosting Management’ section, click on ‘Install an Application’. Following screen will be displayed:

Step 2: Select Coppermine from the menu and then click on ‘Install Now’. Enter the exact URL in the ‘Installation Path’ at which you want to access your application. Under ‘Show Advanced Details, you get a list of pre filled fields which you can customize as per your requirements.

Step 3: Once you click on ‘Finish’, it is recommended to save your account details and change your admin password to maintain privacy of your account. Click on the “Installation URL” provided on the application management page, your Coppermine login page will appear. Enter the admin username, password and email address. After that enter the database details. Click on ” Let’s Go ! ” The following screen will be displayed

Step4: Click on ” Let’s Continue ! ” Hey your Coppermine image gallery is successfully setup on LimeDomains now.

Start  now!

Monitoring and measuring your brand on social media is essential for the success of your business. It helps you ascertain what people are talking about and how you can make them talk about your products and services. Although there is some overlap and similarity in business goals, both monitor and measure are two different words that are often interchanged.

Let’s take a look at each one in a bit more detail.

Social Media Monitoring

Monitoring is the process of being aware of the conversations taking place on various social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn with the aim of learning, engaging, helping and collaborating. You can monitor your competition, industry leaders, partners, customers, or others. Typically, monitoring has a stronger real-time implication than measurement because it lets you respond in real-time and helps you protect your brand from negative word-of-mouth.

How Monitoring works: Monitoring is performed on a keywords basis. Relevant keywords are included in your brand name, product name, etc. And, based on your these keywords, your monitoring system goes out to the social networks you specify, grabs and arranges the relevant articles and messages for you to plan your strategy.

It’s important: Monitoring helps you know what people want from a certain category of product. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your products and how you can better it? It also gives an insight as to what your competition is doing, helping you draft a correct plan of action or your products.

Social Media Measurement

Unlike monitoring, measurement is more concerned with metrics over a specified time period. While monitoring answers questions like “Who is talking about what?” “What are people saying?” “How does my keyword perform over time?” “How does that compare to my competitors?” and “What are some trends that I can use to make my product more usable?”, measurement tabulates the data gathered and helps you prepare a report.

How Measurement works: Your measurement system goes out and looks for articles where that specific combination of keywords occurs. It then tabulates these occurrences and presents them to you in the form of a report. It enables you to categorize your data by source, by date, and other dimensions.

It’s important: Measurement enables you to present a matrix of your data and compare it to see whether your products performance is on the rise or not. Constant benchmarking is the only surefire way to know if things are working. It also helps you change your strategy if the figures state a negative outcome.

Thus, it can be inferred that monitoring, lets you listen and respond quickly, enabling you to protect the image of your brand, while measurement helps you draw comparisons of the data collected. And, so both monitoring and measurement should be a significant part of your social media strategy.

Please share your suggestions and feedback on the same.

Do you own a websites that offers online ordering facility or processes confidential data ? If yes, you would need an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate installed on your website to secure your confidential data from any kind of phishing attack.

People nowadays look for websites that feature an “HTTPS” prefix, a padlock icon, or a green address bar in the browser before submitting any kind of confidential information online.

SSL certificates help  in securing private and confidential data. When a person navigates to a
website that has an SSL Certificate, a “handshake” between the browser and server takes place, resulting in a secure session with a unique session key. Every SSL session consists of a Public key used to encrypt the information and a Private Key used to decrypt the information and restore it to its original format. All this happens behind the scene without interrupting the user’s experience.

LimeDomains offers three kinds of SSL Certificates to its customers:

•     RapidSSL® : stable and easier to install than a chained root install certificate, Rapid SSL is ideal for websites conducting lower level of e-commerce.  Also, Rapid SSL certificates have a lower price as compared to the other certificates and delivered within 10 minutes

•    GeoTrust® True BusinessID Certificate:  These certificates are suitable for mid tier business websites. True BusinessID SSL certificates Include GeoTrust® True Site seal with dynamic
date and time display, helping in increasing customer trust and confidence.

•    GeoTrust® True BusinessID with EV: It is the most recommended SSL certificate, as it offers the maximum security and offer extended domain and organization information validation. This certificate
includes a dynamic GeoTrust® True Site Seal with your company name and a dynamic date/time stamp and the Green browser bar indication.

Choose the SSL certificate that meets your needs and requirements in the best possible manner.