AWS, E-Commerce, WordPress for the NY Startups

Author: citymspuser

  • WordPress Performance Tweaks for Entrepreneurs

    WordPress Performance Tweaks for Entrepreneurs

    Entrepreneurs and startup CEOs need an edge. Any advantage you have over the competition can make a huge difference to your business. And WordPress performance tweaks can be the edge you need to succeed.

     

    What Is WordPress?

    WordPress is a popular free and open-source content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL. With this powerful tool, you can create a unique connection with your customers via an online site that can be interactive or static, and always fresh and new.

     

    Why Is It so Popular?

    From lightweight frameworks to elegant powerhouses, WordPress has something for everyone. The extensive selection of free and paid themes is just one of the reasons it is so popular. Other reasons include:

    Ease of use for administrators, editors and system administrators. WordPress uses a standard PHP and MySQL database configuration, along with dozens of graphical actions and plugins for just about every possible administrative need. A reasonably skilled user can build a site with SEO, social sharing, maps, e-commerce, new post types and custom site structures in just a few hours.

    Great Price and License. It is free and open-sourced for all projects, including commercial uses.

    Flexibility. Everyone makes mistakes. This application is very forgiving–you can easily fix or undo any errors made. Whether you are a “power user” or someone who is not particularly tech savvy, you will find WordPress to be a real game changer for your business.

    Plugin stability and autonomy. This great plugin system allows for thousands of mature plugins. Most of these plugins don’t need other plugins that require constant updates. This alone can save you hours of monitoring and maintenance time. Today’s businesses don’t have time to waste on downtime or costly maintenance.

    Multi-site option. This recently introduced option created quite the buzz among entrepreneurs. You can now host multiple WordPress sites on the same installation. This means you are allowed a site for each member of your team (sales agents, reps, etc.) without the need for additional websites or hosting packages.

     

    What Components Affect WordPress Performance?

    Components that affect WordPress performance include:

    The Theme. The theme is the look and feel of the site, and it determines the structure and layout of your pages. Themes can be updated to meet your requirements.

    Plugins are great. They help to extend the power of WordPress through third-parties apps. Plugins are essential to the success of your site. Not all plugins are compatible with all themes, so choose your theme carefully.

    WordPress Core. The core is the heart or engine of WordPress. It contains the complicated stuff (code) administrators need to manage the system.

    Server Software. This is the “behind-the-scenes” software that hosts your site. It can be managed by your own IT contractors or a hosting company of your choice. How you choose to host your WordPress site can have a huge effect on performance.

    Database. WordPress supports the MySQL database for data storage. Like all databases, the speed at which it runs can be optimized for particular workloads, when needed.

    External Security and Performance Services. WordPress is an example of a Content Management System, which means it is capable of supporting multiple users in a collaborative environment.

     

    Improvements to Components

    Tweak each component to perform better. Here’s how:

    Theme

    Theme files should be “minified,” which means that they should be as small as possible. This allows files to be sent from your website to the end user much faster.

    Choose a theme that uses as few images as possible. Downsize or optimize available images for faster load times.

    Your theme should have as few files as possible. The fewer needed connections, the better your website will perform.

    Plugins

    Don’t use more WordPress plugins than you absolutely need. Plugins are like wildcards–they are developed by third parties of varying skills and QA processes. If you are having performance issues with your site, definitely consider removing (not just disabling) your plugins.

    Use a Performance Optimization plugin such as W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache. These offer a large variety of performance-tuning features for optimal speed and performance.

    WordPress Core

    Do not leave your WordPress site in DEBUG mode. This is important, yet often forgotten.

    Cache servers such as Redis and Memcache. This speeds up the loading time of your site by keeping bits and pieces of previous loads close at hand.

    Keep your site updated. This will improve performance as well as make your website a tougher target for hackers.

    Database

    Make sure your database is sized correctly. Improper sizing is often the leading cause of slow loads, especially on larger sites.

    Enable object or database caching to minimize extra trips to the database. Fewer trips means faster loads.

    Try to add a few indexes. This will speed up your most common MySQL queries because much of the requested info will be cached.

    Server Software

    Use high-performance server software such as Nginx and turn on Webserver caching to keep files in memory. Also, size your application server properly and make sure your PHP processor caches compiled PHP code.

    External Security and Cache

    Varnish is a good choice. It can sit in front your WordPress PHP Application servers and be configured to respond to 90% or more of your traffic.

    Use a content delivery network (CDN) and a Web Application Firewall service, such as Incapsula or CloudFlare. These applications can also help with performance caching to help with the performance of your website.

  • Introduction to Website Performance and Speed for Entrepreneurs

    Introduction to Website Performance and Speed for Entrepreneurs

    Did you know more than 200 factors determine your overall website ranking — both on- and off-site? Business owners can only control the on-site factors, which is why many entrepreneurs focus on fresh content and SEO. However, website performance is also a controlled factor, so don’t ignore it. Front-end optimization improves user experience and increases your site’s speed, which in turn increases your overall rankings, conversions, and profit.

     

    Website Speed Affects Your Rankings

    Since 2010, Google has factored website speed into its search rankings. While the company notes that site performance isn’t as important as page relevance, it is still a factor. Because of this, every online entrepreneur should be concerned with their website’s overall speed and performance. A study from Backlinko determined that domains ranked in the first position of the search results were approximately 13 percent faster than those ranking in 10th position. So if you want to improve your site’s search engine page results (SERP) ranking, you need to increase your site speed.

     

    Website Speed Affects Your Bounce Rates, Conversions, and Revenue

    According to surveys completed by Akamai and Gomez.com, almost half of all internet users expect a website’s load time to be faster than two seconds, and many completely abandon a website that takes longer than three seconds to load. This results in higher bounce rates, as well as lower conversion rates and revenue. Statistics from Hubpages show just how important website speed is to your bottom line. According to them, a one-second delay results in a 7 percent reduction in conversions. So if your website makes $100,000 per day, increasing your website’s speed by one second could increase your revenue by $7,000 per day. This is because your website’s speed and performance has an effect on your customer’s happiness.

     

    Testing Your Website Speed

    Before you can improve your website’s speed and performance, you need to pinpoint areas that need improvement. Running a simple website speed test helps you:

    • Find fonts, scripts, and plug-ins causing delays in load times
    • Pinpoint large images on your site that are causing bottlenecks
    • Determine if you have any render-blocking CSS or JavaScript
    • Check your site’s rendering speed in different browsers
    • Analyze your site’s total load times, number of requests, and page sizes
    • Measure your content delivery network
    • Verify that all of your website’s assets are loading properly

     

    Testing your website’s speed is simple. Just use one of these speed tests:

    • Google
    • KeyCDN
    • Pingdom
    • Google

    Tips to Improve Your Website’s Speed Front-end optimization or website optimization is the process of tweaking your website to decrease load time and improve speed. To do this, you’ll need to make some simple changes and monitor your process going forward.

     

    Minimize your HTTP requests

    According to Yahoo, 80 percent of a web page’s loading time involves downloading the various pieces of the page itself. HTTP requests are made for each element individually, so reducing your on-page components reduces your HTTP requests, speeding up your load time. To minimize your HTTP requests:

    • Limit the number of elements used on your web pages
    • When possible, use CSS instead of uploading images
    • Combine numerous style sheets into one
    • Reduce the number of scripts your site is running, and put those scripts at the bottom of the page

     

    Reduce server response time

    Ideally, your server response time should be 200 milliseconds. However, server response times vary depending on how many websites share the server. To lower your server response time, start by reviewing your hosting package. Free and shared hosting packages typically have longer server response times because other websites are sharing server space. To reduce your server response time, consider upgrading to virtual private server hosting or dedicated hosting.

     

    Optimize images

    Optimizing images typically yields big results because images often account for the most downloaded bytes on a page, according to Google. Before using an image, consider its type, size, number of pixels, and resolution. If you want to use an image that doesn’t meet your requirements, use a convert tool, such as ImageMagick, to optimize your image.

     

    Optimize CSS delivery

    When CSS is poorly delivered, it drastically slows down your website. To optimize your CSS delivery:

    • Combine any CSS scripts you’re able to combine • Use a CSS compressor to reduce the amount of data downloaded by each user
    • Use a critical CSS generator to extract all necessary pieces of your CSS script
    • Place the extracted snippets of script in-line within your site’s HTML
    • Set the rest of your compressed script to defer load

     

    Move to a Cloud Provider

    If you’re like most online entrepreneurs, you aren’t an information technology expert. Consider cloud computing for your business to optimize your website’s performance. When you use cloud computing, the software company you choose manages the technical aspects of your website, including its speed and performance. Both Google Compute and Amazon AWS offer 12-month free trials to get you started, and Microsoft Azure offers a 30-day free trial that includes a sizable credit to let you explore the more customizable options.

  • Deciding on the Right Web Framework for Your Startup 

    Deciding on the Right Web Framework for Your Startup 

    If you’re currently developing and growing a startup, why choose any one web framework over another? 

    While answering this question, you can determine the best possible option, based on your specific objectives, as well as your short- and long-term goals. 

     

    What Is a Web Framework?

    To decide which web framework is best suited for you and your startup, you must first understand what this term means. Web application frameworks, or web frameworks for short, is a software that supports the development of websites, apps and web-related services. 

    Intended to simplify the development process, key structuring tools and features allow you to ‘pull’ aspects of your website or application from the initial framework. Overall, an effective web framework can save you time, improve maintenance and even enhance security. 

     

    What Are Some of the Most Useful Features to Consider?

    Based on your current needs, you will want to consider various features and components. Depending on your objectives, budget and level of experience, here are some factors to consider when developing your next startup project. 

    Built-in features — Also known as libraries, when features are built into the framework, this will enhance the development process, saving time. Making the process easier, an effective web framework allows developers to write an app without ‘reinventing’ the wheel. 

    Cost — Although this was not always the case, most frameworks today are open source and free. An open-source framework simply means that the licensed holder provides the rights to change and distribute the software. In comparison, commercial frameworks require developers to pay for the rights to use a specific software. In some cases, commercial software will offer options that an open-source community does not support. When comparing the two, the best option really depends on your specific needs and objectives. 

    Community — When choosing a web framework, the size of the community matters. When accessing a framework with a larger community, there’s a greater chance that you’ll benefit from additional resources. While working with an open-source framework, for instance, the community will likely be your main support system. 

    Third-Party Extensions or Support — Again, in order to simplify the process, especially when creating the backend of your application, third-party tools can offer enhanced support. When you’re able to utilize aspects of your program that you do not need to build yourself, this will allow you to focus on what really matters — your core objectives. 

    Develop Cost and Hiring Pool — In terms of the hiring process, certain platforms and languages are more expensive, based on a higher average salary. In other cases, such as PHP language and frameworks, the hiring pool is large and therefore easy to hire for. With that being said, it can sometimes be challenging to find the right fit. 

     

    The Most Popular Web Frameworks

    In order to choose the right framework for your needs, it’s important to know what’s available. Here is a detailed comparison of your current options, in addition to their main benefits. 

    1. PHP Web Frameworks

    Helping developers create dynamic websites and applications, PHP is an open-source scripting language that is particularly well-suited for web development. Of course, the fact that this server-side scripting language is free makes it a popular choice, but that’s just the beginning. 

    Easy to learn, PHP offers maximum control and, best of all, can be edited with ease. Based on its popularity, the PHP community is large and willing to help. Supporting all servers, PHP is also platform independent, meaning it supports all major web browsers in a fast, secure and reliable manner. 

    1. ASP.NET

    Created and built by Microsoft, ASP.NET is both open source and free. Mainly used within Microsoft server environments and intranets, it is considered to be very well designed. In that sense, if you have already committed to the Microsoft ecosystem, then this option will be ideal. 

    While addressing your long-term vision, it’s also important to consider hiring for your ASP.Net application. Considering Microsoft has always attracted a highly skilled developer community, there will also be plenty of talent to choose from. In terms of building your team, this is something to consider. 

    1. Java Web Frameworks

    Also a highly popular programming language, Java is more geared toward large, established companies. This is based on its stability and reliable online technical support. In comparison to PHP frameworks, web frameworks built using Java tend to be more complex and formal. 

    When looking at Java frameworks in closer detail, JavaServer Faces (JSF) and JavaServer Pages (JSP) are the most common. Although JSF is a newer technology, created in order to provide developers with the ability to program specific Java applications, JSP is still widely used. 

    1. Node.js Web Frameworks

    Initially released in 2009, Node.js is one of the newer environments. Being a JavaScript-based environment, it utilizes the most commonly used language in your browser. Since many developers are already comfortable with JavaScript, many opt for this framework based on their ability to experience optimal performance and superior design. 

    1. Python Web Frameworks

    Focusing on ease-of-use, Python is one of the most-used languages. An example is Django — a free, open-source web framework that allows developers to create complex websites using less code. While reviewing sites such as Instagram and the Washington Post, Django emphasizes rapid development and reusability. 

    1. Ruby Web Frameworks

    Written in Ruby, Ruby on Rails is a model-view-controller framework that offers a ‘full-stack’ approach. This means that the developer is provided with everything they need in order to successfully complete the job. Offering everything you’d need to build an impressive application, some classic examples include Square, Shopify and Airbnb. 

    Free to use, one of the greatest benefits is the passionate community behind this software. In fact, more than 4,500 people have already contributed code. This is an ideal choice for those who are new to programming and would like to make rapid progress before actually learning a programming language. 

     

    Which Framework Is the Best?

    When it comes down to the “best” option, developers tend to swear by one language or framework. In that sense, in terms of project and business success, a highly skilled development team is more important than the language used. Overall, while focusing on productivity, here are the highlights and advantages for each environment. 

    PHP — With thousands of pre-made solutions, PHP is easier to modify. 

    ASP.Net — Microsoft offers a wide spectrum of support tools and services. While using Windows OS, ASP.Net provides careful design and integration. 

    Java — With assets offered from corporate users, Java is a mature environment with a strong language. 

    Node.js — With thousands of reusable scripts and its large community, Node.js is ideal for developers with strong JavaScript skills. 

    Django — One of the easiest languages to use from the options listed. 

    Rails — Comes with a passionate community that has already done a lot of the heavy lifting, based on the code already contributed. 

    While focusing on your startup’s objectives, choose the framework that best suits your needs based on productivity, available features and your budget. 

  • What does Machine Learning Mean for Today’s Entrepreneur?

    What does Machine Learning Mean for Today’s Entrepreneur?

    What is Machine Learning?

    Machine learning is a form of artificial intelligence in which a computer is able to learn and improve its programs and processes based on its experience. With machine learning, a computer program accesses data on its own and uses it without being explicitly programmed for these tasks.

    In the process of machine learning, a computer starts with data gained through experience, instruction or observation and looks for patterns so it can improve the choices it makes going forward. As computers begin to learn automatically, they can continue to improve their abilities with limited or even no human intervention.

    As a result of the mainstreaming of machine learning over the past year or so, tasks that once had to be done manually can now be automated. In addition, major companies and startups alike are creating services and products through machine learning.

     

    How are Entrepreneurs Using Machine Learning?

    Machine learning is starting to pervade numerous firms, and not just digital natives such as Google or Amazon. Approximately $20 to $30 billion was invested in AI and machine learning in 2016 alone, with about 60 percent of that coming from outside investors, and more is pouring into AI ventures currently. [Bughin, Hazan, et al. Artificial Intelligence: The Next Digital Frontier. McKinsey Global Institute, McKinsey & Company. 2017]

    Take a look at some of the varied entrepreneurial fields using machine learning: • FinTech. PayPal is currently using machine learning to push back against money laundering operations. Onfido is applying machine learning to the world of background checks. Sift’s AI is focused on preventing online fraud and chargebacks. • Consumer Services. Forkable’s Lunchbot uses machine learning algorithms to figure out what office workers want for lunch, then delivers it. Target continues to innovate its consumer marketing, using machine learning to target advertising narrowly towards its customers. Nova uses machine learning to write personalized sales emails, tweaking the content as the computer learns what works best. • IT. Dark Trace’s machine learning algorithms listen to your network traffic, using the data to pinpoint emergent threats. Deep Instinct is similarly focused on detecting malware through machine learning algorithms. • Publishing.Pinterest uses machine learning to suggest highly personalized pins to individual users. • Agriculture. Blue River Technology is using computer vision paired with machine learning to diagnose ailing plants and to propose and deliver treatments.

    • Health Care. Much of the focus in the health care field is on detecting disease. Medecision can predict hospitalization in diabetes patients, allowing preventative care in time to help them. Zebra Medical Vision is focused on predicting and preventing various diseases.

    • Legal Services. TrademarkVision helps startups to work their way through the potential legal confusion involved with getting new ideas off the ground. In any of these fields, the basic machine learning workflow follows similar steps.

    1. Collecting Data. Machine learning relies on data — lots of data. The better the quality and the higher the quantity of the data, the more the machine learning process is likely to be successful.

    2. Preparing Data. Any data set will contain outliers and missing data. Analysis of the data’s nuances helps streamline the path the computer will have to take.

    3. Building the Model. Developing the appropriate algorithms to crunch the data is a key element of machine learning. The prepared data is used to train the model.

    4. Evaluating the Model. Once the machine learning model has been built and tried, it must be tested for accuracy. Using new data at this point can help to verify the algorithm’s precision.

    5. Improving the Model’s Performance. New algorithms may be needed, or new data may need to be tested to verify the efficiency and accuracy of the model before turning the computer loose on real data.

    What Challenges Do Entrepreneurs Face Regarding Machine Learning? Surprisingly, one of the challenges many entrepreneurs face regarding machine learning is dealing with data. There’s simply so much of it. Data is collected on every detail of every customer interaction, and the growth in raw data is only going to get exponentially stronger. Experts predict a 4300 percent increase in data generated over the next three years. Sifting through all that data and determining what to focus on — or what to ask computers to focus on — is an increasingly vital challenge.

    In addition, even with the AI field burgeoning, there aren’t enough experts to go around. As a result, the costs of hiring true AI and machine learning experts is increasing rapidly. One response to these increased expenses is the phenomenon of “acqui-hires,” in which a large company will swallow up a smaller company just to gain access to its AI experts.

    Add to this the fact that the entire machine learning field is growing with extreme speed, and there are plenty of hurdles for entrepreneurs to overcome.

     

    What’s the Future of Machine Learning for Entrepreneurs?

    Entrepreneurs looking to start new companies in the AI or machine learning space need to focus on a few specific areas. • Reducing human labor. Entrepreneurs should look for ways to automate tasks that have traditionally been done by humans and that are considered hard to automate. Amazon’s constant efforts to improve door-to-door delivery are an example of this type of automation.

    • Real-time optimization. Where do people need immediate, real-time data to make decisions? Uber takes advantage of machine learning in choosing routes, and both Waze and Google Maps put this same functionality in the hands of everyday drivers.

    • New products and services. As machine learning continues to deepen its development, products or services that were previously not cost-effective will become easy. Looking for this “white space” is a potentially profitable path for entrepreneurs.

    • Radical personalization. Large companies like Target and Amazon are already optimizing data to personalize customer engagement, and Google Adwords provides valuable data to help much smaller entrepreneurs step into this space as well. • Predictive analysis. This is already happening in the automotive and health care industries, where machine learning algorithms can let you know when your car — or your body — is about to break down. Entrepreneurs who can translate these machine learning abilities to other specific analytical ventures may find plenty of willing users. As you explore entrepreneurial opportunities in machine learning, look for the expertise to help you make wise and forward-looking decisions, while staying abreast of what the competition is doing and planning a sound business strategy.

  • High Availability : Keeping your Business Website Running at All Times?

    High Availability : Keeping your Business Website Running at All Times?

    Why Your Website Should Be Available 24/7

    In this 24/7 world, your customers and clients expect your website to work at all times. If they want to shop or get information at 3:00 a.m., your site needs to be up and running. If it’s not available, you plant seeds of doubt in your customers’ minds. A simple error message can make a customer doubt the integrity of your entire business or its ability to fulfill simple orders. If the customer is checking on the status of an existing order, a non-functioning website can cause them to question whether it’s safe to do business with you. After all, if you can’t deliver as promised, surely one of your competitors can.

    Because of this, your website must be reliable around the clock. Any time your site is down, you need to figure out the cause and fix it as quickly as possible. It doesn’t matter how appealing or highly featured your site is if it doesn’t work reliably. When your website boasts high availability, it can be relied on for higher than average periods of uptime. Uptime of 99.999 percent is optimal. This high-end uptime, sometimes known as “five nines” uptime, results in about five minutes of downtime per year. The next level, “four nines,” or 99.99 percent uptime, results in 526 minutes of unavailability each year.

    While it’s your web host’s responsibility to provide and guarantee that uptime, it’s your business that suffers if expectations aren’t met.

     

    Issues That Can Derail Your Website’s Availability

    What do you have to look out for to keep your website up and running? Here are some key issues that can affect your website’s availability. • Compromised Security. Hackers often compromise sites, especially those that aren’t well-maintained. If you learn that some of your customers are being spammed, supposedly by your site, you’ve been compromised. If this occurs, your site needs a full security audit and repair before its reputation is ruined with search engines and with your customers.

    • More Traffic Than Expected. When this occurs, generally it’s good news: you’re going viral, or your marketing is working and visitors are flocking to your site. The bad news happens when your site crashes as a result. To prevent this, your site needs to be scalable, growing and shrinking as needed. Optimizing website code and servers are ways to approach this happy problem. • DDoS attacks. Being hit with a Distributed Denial of Service attack can come as a shock. When this occurs, you’re essentially being held for ransom as attackers flood your site with bad data. A DDoS mitigation service is the only way to filter out the bad data so your customers can still find you.

    • Coding errors. Sometimes the problems don’t come from outside. If you have errors in your site’s code, you can see crashes and delays across the board. Often

    these errors make themselves known to customers during critical transactions, and may result in you losing their business. Auditing and analyzing your code is necessary to make the appropriate fixes.

    • Maintenance. You may think downtime for software and server maintenance is a given, but redundant services can keep your site going even while maintenance is being performed. An analysis of your site’s traffic will help determine when to schedule maintenance. Because power or server outages can cause further downtime problems, you need 24/7 monitoring to catch these issues the instant they occur.

     

    How to Keep Your Website Available

    Fortunately, there is a wealth of resources available to maintain high availability on your business website. Start with automatic daily backups, not just for your site, but for all your databases. Content distribution networks can help with DDoS attacks and unexpected spikes in traffic. Best-in-class web application firewalls also protect against DDoS attacks, and you should research what protection your cloud server provides. Check out hardening tools like Net Registry, and monitoring tools including Updown and Pingometer.

    On a deeper level, you need formal, ongoing code quality processes in place, including continuous integration, code reviews, and static code analysis.

    Redundancy is a basic principle of all IT. When your site and applications are being run from many servers in a cluster, everything can keep working even if any single server or computer crashes. When your services are all redundant, no single point of failure can bring down your entire site.

    Call us to learn more about our solutions for maintaining your business website’s availability. Our goal is to keep your site running around the clock and our engineers are available 24/365 as well.

  • Is an Open-Source CRM Right For My Business?

    Is an Open-Source CRM Right For My Business?

    What is CRM?

    A customer relationship management (CRM) system is software that lets you manage your current relationships with your customers while facilitating the development and addition of new customers. With a CRM system in place, you can analyze customer preferences and needs and track your marketing campaigns. CRM systems help you amass and crunch data to retain current customers and drive your sales growth.

    A CRM system compiles data about your customers from just about every communication channel you use, including email, live chat, and social media. As you learn more about your customers, you can tweak your marketing to meet their needs and communicate to them more effectively. Account-based marketing systems also rely heavily on the data gleaned from CRM systems. Because it costs less to retain existing customers than to gain new ones, use of CRM can be vital in generating profit, particularly when reaching the 40 to 50 percent of customers who show some loyalty to your brand but who are also probably shopping with the competition.

    However, while CRM systems can be invaluable to businesses, often their cost puts them out of reach for smaller companies. As a result, many open-source CRM options have arisen to help small businesses take advantage of the benefits of a CRM system.

     

    Benefits of an Open-source CRM

    Open-source CRM may not be right for every business, but many small companies find it ideal to help them with customer retention and acquisition. Take a look at some of the benefits of using open-source CRM.

    • Cost. Open-source CRM is generally free. Typically you can modify them, or developers may charge a nominal amount to make modifications or provide expert support.

    • Ability to Modify. Commercial CRM software can be very complex. If it does what you need it to do, you’re in good shape; if not, you have to adapt. With open-source CRM software, however, you can make the modifications you need to get exactly the features you need. Since off-the-rack CRM software has to apply to every industry, it may not offer the features you need most. The ability to make changes also lets you stay nimble, adapting your customer engagement strategies to whatever your research highlights and whatever the marketplace demands.

    • Ability to Switch.Most commercial CRMs demand a commitment to the software, which open-source software doesn’t require. Use it as long as it works for you, then switch to another platform if you prefer.

    • Simple Management. If you need to install open-source CRM software at multiple locations, you don’t have to hassle with issues about licensing or pay extra for the convenience. You can copy the software as needed and use it as you wish.

     

    Open-source CRM Options

    Several open-source CRM options are available to get you started. One of the most well-known is SugarCRM, which has been around for more than 10 years. Because of this, it’s been refined and tweaked over the years to provide full functionality with lots of features. Some people find it frustrating, however, since there’s a fair amount of pressure to upgrade to the paid version. Other open-source CRMs were built on the SugarCRM code. SuiteCRM, for instance, is a mature program that’s very stable and an excellent choice for handling and tracking sales.

    If you’re looking for more features already in place, including email and marketing automation and workflow, check out EspoCRM. OroCRM provides cloud and e-commerce integrations, and SplendidCRM is particularly useful if you need to integrate your CRM tool into an existing Microsoft stack. If your business is OS-based, check out VTiger, which offers plenty of marketing and email automation features and is easy to integrate with third party providers.

     

    How to Get Your Business Started With an Open-Source CRM

    If you go with an open-source CRM, pick one that works for your business as it is right now and as you expect it to grow in the immediate future. Especially when you’re using an open-source CRM, you’re not making a lifelong commitment to it, so you can always change systems as you need to grow. You can also sample several systems since the open-source nature of the system means you have the flexibility to shop around and try a few.

    Look for the core features you need, and think about what changes you need to make to the system. If you don’t have the coding talent on staff to make the changes yourself, seek the help you need to implement changes and upgrades.

    A CRM system can put the power of data and analysis into your customer engagement and retention efforts. Consider an open-source system that provides you with flexibility and options to help your business grow.