Skip to main content Screen Reader Website Version
Not Sure Where to Start? Start with the website you already have.

We can review the site and help identify what deserves attention first.

Website Checkup →
Different Businesses Different websites.

Structure, content and conversion paths should follow the business rather than a house template.

See Our Work →

Session Timeouts

We’re currently fixing a set of issues with a shopping cart created through a different developer for a local client. They did a pretty good job but forgot about session timeouts. A lot of developers gloss over this aspect of their ecommerce site and unfortunately customers pay the price. Sessions are what is created to essentially track you when you first log on to a ecommerce site. This isn’t the bad kind of tracking, this is used for things like keeping items in your cart, logging in and account navigation.

W3C defines them as “A PHP session variable is used to store information about, or change settings for a user session. Session variables hold information about one single user, and are available to all pages in one application.”

By default sessions usually only last 24 minutes (1440 seconds) in PHP websites, or end when the browser is closed. This is fine for many websites and applications, often desired, but not generally a good idea for ecommerce websites. Why? because why would you want to have to put everything back into your shopping cart if you’ve been inactive for 30 minutes. If you close your browser and come back to shop the next day at the same website, you want your items to still be in there, waiting for you, right?

This is a huge potential non-starter for many folks. Even if they use your website once or twice it may promote them to look elsewhere if your website is annoying or making them have to do additional tasks. Luckily session timeouts are easily rectified in a number of ways which usually depend on your server setup. You can set timeouts on-page, in a php.ini file or through server setting if provided by the host. The point is, if you have a shopping cart, make sure your customers aren’t being aggravated by short session timeouts. It’s important.

More Web Design Blog Content

Content Marketing Mistakes That Derail Your SEO

Don’t fall into the trap of content which won’t rank on search engines to go along with your sites top-flight graphics. All the effort and money poured into your website is for nothing if you don’t rank on a search engine. These are some common mistakes that can

JW Freeman Plumbing Has A New Website

JW Freeman plumbing is a new client with lots of potential. He needs something that will put him on top and Livewire is that something. We have tons of experience and dozens of happy clients that proves we have the formula for success. We don’t keep it a

Javascript called by PHP

Interesting little snippet. What is going on here? Livewire gives you the low down.    if($num_rowvs == 0){ echo ‘<script>// <![CDATA[ alert(“This is an alert message. I’m alerting you that you are totally awesome!”); // ]]></script>’; }   First, we’re creating a simple if statement in PHP.  Not entirely

A Quick Way To Kill Your Facebook Marketing

Facebook is a powerful tool. With millions upon millions of reachable users it is the social media powerhouse. Sharing content is incredibly easy and businesses can so easily engage potential customers that many businesses are putting it to work for them. There are, in fact, many ways to

WordPress Email Issues

Every now and again we run into issues with WordPress where the email functionality has stopped working. This is usually the result of corrupted core files and/or plugin conflicts. Easy enough to fix: disable plugins or upload a fresh copy of the software and you’re good to go.

TOP 3 PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS AND WHY THEY ARE SO IMPORTANT

Whether you are a Freelancer or a small business owner, you know the importance of an accurate project management, here are 3 of the best project management tools that can help you achieve your goals. 1.- Teamwork Projects Teamwork Projects is a cloud-based project management solution it allows you