The 7 Best Things About Wordpress Website Maintenance

Keeping your WordPress website well maintained gives you a great sense of accomplishment. But it would require you to take care of many aspects of your website, some of them easy to accomplish, some of them not so, due to their technical nature. However you wouldn’t know what to fix if you don’t know it’s broken. So today, we will talk about the various elements of your WordPress that you need to take care of, to keep it in top shape.

This blog post is mainly a handy guide to WordPress website maintenance. Implementing these best practices and tips is guaranteed to keep both search engines and visitors happier.

1. Get Backup Of Your Website Often

It is one of the most important tasks that you are supposed to do regularly, and one of the most ignored one. Even though backing up does not keep your website clean and fresh, this helps if some trouble arises. So, always have backup of your WordPress website on a monthly basis. Not only this, you can also backup daily blogs, weekly news, etc. – these are good for corporate websites. You can take a backup of your website through hosting provider or by downloading local copies of your website through FTP. WordPress plugins marketplace has numerous plugins that automatically backup your website completely. If you don’t find any plugin you can get your own custom wordpress plugin developed.

2. Keep Your Website Updated

If you are keen to maintain your WordPress website, you must update it from core. You should update installed themes, Plugins – their latest versions regularly. Luckily, WordPress brings out its latest version often to offer their users more advanced features & security fixes. What you need to do is, login to your WP site at regular intervals and update WP Plugins, themes and core WordPress files.

3. Eliminate Unused Plugins

WordPress Plugins are an ideal way to enhance functionality of WP site. But using them excessively may affect the performance as well as the security of a website itself. If you aim to have successful website, you need to delete Plugins which you have not used so far and most likely will not use in future too. You basically have to turn off the plugins and then delete them; But before you delete any plugin, take a closer look at all the plugins to see which ones you are using and which ones you aren’t.

4. Optimize Your Database

Database is where all your website content is stored. This includes blogs, images, videos, pages, settings and many things. As your website grows, your database begins to get stuffed, which in turn slows down the website’s speed. If you want to enhance your website’s performance, then you need to optimize your database. Using plugins, you can easily optimize the database of your website and improve its speed. Using a combination of different plugins you will be able to remove spam comments, unwanted posts, unwanted post revisions, etc. You can use plugins to also optimize the underlying MYSQL database tables.

5. Focus On Your WordPress Security

Majority of WP users overlook the security factor of their website. Security is one of the central factors which needs to be taken care of. If you want to safeguard your website from other security threats and hackers, you need to install reliable WP Plugins that can protect your website from malware or virus. Apart from these there are some security best practices that you should follow – delete the user account with the default username “admin” and create a new admin account with a unique username, keep the password strong with a combination of capital and small letters, numbers and special characters, limit login attempts for users to avoid brute force attack, keep all the plugins and themes always updates, etc

6. Keep A Check On Your Website Speed

If you aim to attract more visitors, you must provide them fast loading pages. It is a wll known SEO fact now that the website speed directly affects the rankings of your website on search engines. Fortunately, there is Google’s PageSpeed insight which offers a tool to grade your site’s load time and then offers tips to augment it. You can use this tool to find out your website’s speed and improve the speed using the recommendations provided.

7. Manage Website Content Regularly

Updating and managing content is very easy with WordPress; after all it is a Content Management System. You have to create content on your own, share it with your target audiences and engage with people who are commenting and reading it. Three key elements you need to think about are, 1) Publishing regularly 2) Sharing Content 3) Managing subscribers & comments. By taking care of these three points, you will be able to encourage your audiences to come back regularly.

Conclusion

As you can see from the above points, WordPress maintenance does not need to be tricky or time consuming. Follow some of the maintenance best practices and use plugins judiciously wherever you have to. But no matter how you do it, please make sure that you take care of the above points as best as you can to avoid the shock of one day finding that your website has been hacked by some hacker group and you don’t even have a backup of your old site!

7 Easy Steps To More User Experience For Ecommerce Success Sales

One of the biggest challenges in the ecommerce industry is converting casual website visitors into paying customers. And whether customers will pay for your products depends not just on the quality of the products but also on the the way the products are presented. Excellent presentation increases the perceived value of the products and makes them more desirable in the eyes of your customers.

User experience (UI) design is all about presenting your products in the best possible way, to maximize their chances of being sold. Excellent user experience makes your customers come back to your store again and again. Given below are some important user experience best practices that you must follow to increase your store’s conversion rates and acquire more paying and loyal customers.

1. Don’t Make Your Customers Wait To View Your Website

Nothing gets your website visitors to bounce off it faster than slow loading web pages. Slower page loading is directly proportional to fall in conversion rates. Be it a small size store, or a big one, your visitors would not wait for more than 3-5 seconds. And making them wait longer is a surefire way to make them switch to your competitors. For fast load times and smooth checkout experience, you can trim down your code. Also compress image sizes, since larger image takes a lot of time to load. Use responsive design that adapts the designs of your website to look best on all devices.

2. Understand How Customers Read Information

To understand your customers better, you should put the most important parts of website pages across the top and down the left-hand side. Normally, visitors scan web pages in “F’ pattern. So bring their attention to headlines, headers by creating an appropriate ecommerce design.

3. Make It Easy To Find Your Products

For this, you need to create an algorithm driven system that shows most relevant products to customers when they visit your website based on their account preferences, product search history, and items previously purchased or added to cart. Predictive analytics is the next big thing in ecommerce and personalized product recommendations and personalized layouts based on predictive analytics will drive the future ecommerce stores.

4. Simplify Products’ Page Layouts

Experts say that, “Keep layouts as clean and sleek as possible.” Place the fundamentals – product code, price, brief description, size/color options, photo/video gallery in the right place. Also consider simplifying reviews, ratings and shipping options – all in a simple and clean layout.

5. Keep Color Focused & Under Control

Colors are a great tool to evoke emotions and put emphasis on something. However, the usage of too many colors might make the design confusing and unmemorable. So, always try to limit color options and limited color variations. Use your brand colors along with various shades and be consistent throughout the website. The more colors you use in your website, the more off putting it may appear to your viewers. Also, ensure the color palettes match your offerings. Keep a contrast between the texts and background so that people can differentiate both.

6. Ensure Text Is Large (Readable)

Ever thought that the typography of your website can have an impact on your conversion rates? If no then it’s time you did. Text on your website must be easily readable. Ensure they are large, clean and sharp with proper line spacing. Don’t forget that, the easier it is to read your content, the more likely customers will do so and the more likely they will get the information they require and will purchase from your store.

7. Use High Quality Images & Videos

Informative and quality images and videos matter a lot when it comes to providing a better user experience. You can display a range of images on your store, specially product images. The more information you provide, the easier it is for your customers to say “Yes, We want this.”! High quality videos and images give an exact idea about what you are offering to them.

Wrapping Up

The effectiveness of the above best practices depend on how best you implement them. But you will be able to identify the ideal way of doing things only if you try them out and experiment with different options (A/B tests) to see which option works best for you. What other UX best practices you think should be incorporated in any online store? Leave your views in the comments below.

CMS vs Static Website: Which One Should You Choose

One of the most important decisions to make before having your website developed is whether to a CMS based dynamic website or static website. It is a common question business owners and individuals face every time they decide to make a website. Even though CMSs like WordPress are very popular today, static websites also have their own benefits and use. Let’s take a detailed look at what these are and which one you should prefer for your next website project.

What is a Static Website?

Static website is developed from the ground up, written in code – CSS3, HTML5, PHP and JQuery. It is built entirely by the designers and developers. With static websites, you can have more freedom in designing layouts, every element of page can be twisted, allowing great precision in the designs you create. Static website is much faster to develop, reducing designers’ workload and makes them more affordable. Usually static websites are brochure type sites where content does not need to be changed. Updates, whenever required, will normally have to be done by developers.  

Pitfalls Of Static Websites:

• There is a latent complexity in updating. Even a minor error within the code can disrupt the whole layout of the web page.
• Additional costs are required to pay to web developers for modifications.
• Search engines won’t favor static websites with static content over a similar website that has its content regularly updated.

Benefits Of Static Websites:

• Pay lower development cost. Static websites are built in a less amount of time.
• They have simple web hosting requirements. They do not require a database to store their content in.
• Easy to build own website with WYSIWYG tools. Get various cost effective software packages designed to allow users to make their own websites visually appealing, without having much knowledge of HTML.

What is a CMS (Content Management System)?

A CMS is a dynamic website, designed to be scalable when it comes to content development and most importantly its features. Users are empowered to update content at their convenient time, without breaking the website layout. Frequent content updation is always possible with web pages, blogs, photo galleries and more. The of the most popular CMS platforms include WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, in that order of popularity.  

Pitfalls Of A CMS Website:

• It needs a greater cost of web development. You would also require a professional CMS developer for making your website.
• To know how to work with CMS websites, you need to learn how it is structured so you can control naming, categories, menus, etc.
• Customers who have slower bandwidth may have to wait a little longer for their CMS website to load. CMS driven websites include media like dynamic content and images and if not optimized for web, can slow down a website, hampering user experience.

Benefits Of A CMS Website:

• As a user, you get full control over the content of your website without the need for knowledge of HTML, CSS or other languages. CMS customization can be done easily, whether you do it yourself or hire someone to do it.
• It depends on what type of CMS you pick; there can be a huge collection of content types to work with beyond just text, photos, audio or video.
• It is SEO friendly. Websites that update content regularly gain more of an attention from search engines (like Google) and will often rank higher in search engine results (SER) pages that are an essential competitive aspect for business websites.

To Conclude

If you want a small website with content that probably won’t change much over time, you can go for a static website. In all other cases it is always preferable to go for a CMS driven website, for their scalability, SEO friendliness, and ease of updation.

5 Mobile Marketing Strategies For Your Ecommerce Brand

For eCommerce businesses and brands, mobile as a medium cannot be ignored anymore. Mobile marketing has become one of the most important marketing tools. The accessibility of Mobile has open up new opportunities for ecommerce marketers to reach out to customers anytime, anywhere.

In this blog, I’m going to share with you some effective mobile marketing strategies that you can use to increase traffic and sales for your online store.

1. Responsive Web Design

Responsive website design is the most important factor for an effective mobile marketing strategy. Never forget that your website is the most vital tool when it comes to communication or marketing, since it connects you with your audiences.

Responsive design can offer the best version of your eCommerce website or store for each device that customers use – from desktop to tablet to smartphone. If you are an owner of an eCommerce website then ensure your website is all set for various devices. Responsive design offers a user friendly experience to users. This is incredibly important because, it brings you to the next initiative of marketing your store.

2. Display Advertisements

The most effective strategy is to spread brand awareness and re engage your customers by displaying ads. With respect to mobile devices there are umpteen opportunities to leverage this medium and ensure the results of your efforts are as valuable as possible. By considering mobile usage throughout the design and creative process, you can ensure that your ads are optimized for small screens – short and transparent images with “buttons” which are easy to click from touch screen phones.

Present networks through Google offer advertising opportunities on mobile websites so that you can show your ads on those sites with your targeted demographics. Advertising with Google is always a wise choice; it is important to remember that the current era is of mobile ads. Through AdWords, ads can be displayed to market brands on devices like tablets, smartphones or desktops. With Google, you can always manage costs as you would like depending on your campaign requirements.

3. Social Media Marketing

Social Media marketing is an integral part of digital marketing campaigns. Majority of social media users use mobile devices; they are active on platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and others where there are great capabilities to market your brand and reach wider audiences. However, there are a lot of options available for marketers to advertise on! They can excellently drive traffic to the websites by using social media platforms as a marketing funnel.

Whether you are using usual brand promotion ad or reengaging customers with products, your objective of social media marketing must be clear. You should keep in mind that, your campaigns are viewed from mobile devices. So place your advertisement campaigns accordingly. For instance, if you are doing a video advertisement on Facebook, then by default that video ad plays silently on auto play, keep all essential information in the beginning of the video so that people don’t miss them out even if they don’t watch the full video and use a descriptive image to promote a video advertisement. This helps communicate the core message of that ad, you are trying to elicit.

4. Mobile-Friendly Email Marketing

E-mail content must be concise with easy to read text and short call to action liners. Subject line should not be cut off in inbox. With so many users on smartphones when they check their inbox, it is important that your campaigns are well optimized for mobile devices. Once you get the email address for potential customers, you can drive effective website traffic and boost sales.

Most of the buyers check their inbox from their mobile devices, not from desktops. Make sure your efforts don’t go in vain. Also ensure your email marketing is mobile friendly. For this, you can use responsive designs (just like responsive websites) for e-mails. Use easily readable fonts, compelling images, clickable icons & call to actions. E-mail content must be created with limited word counts.

5. Tailor Content for Micro-Moments

An important factor to consider when building mobile marketing strategies is your “Content”. Create content which can boost your brand’s digital presence. The solution must be served as per the needs of your users. Fulfilling your consumers’ goals through relevant content is essential to grow your brand. A great digital presence matters a lot in the industry today. These are micro moments and with the development of smart phones, content is ruling the digital era.

With content, you can be much quicker than before; you must deliver value and at the same time you should be relevant. So as to leverage “I-want-to-buy” moments, it is must to customize your content. You can form messages which surround the mind of your consumers, creating informal content that speaks to the unique requirements of your target audiences. Users don’t read long paragraphs on their mobiles. Your potential customers look for accurate replies and the simple way to find your products.

Set Off A Mobile Marketing Strategy

Mobile marketing is rapidly emerging as a core marketing focus for many brands. A smart strategy requires the right amalgamation of imagination and creativity with a data-driven mindset. Majority of them need a commitment to offering the best end users experience possible. A well produced mobile strategy can be a game changer. Without taking your audiences into consideration, better strategy can’t be built.

7 CMS Myths You Should Be Aware Of

The world of CMS has been growing tremendously in the past couple of decades, more so since the launch of open source CMS frameworks like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. What was once the expertise of few IT companies became abundant and free and led to the explosion in the web development market.

Companies nowadays have an easy way to create dynamic websites, add content and graphics and do revisions and editing at will. CMS simplifies the content management process and offers a framework for keeping everything well organized. Not only this, it also streamlines collaboration among staff members so that everyone can be on the same page from different locations.

Over the years, there have been a lot of misconceptions about CMS in general and individual CMS frameworks in particular. Here are 7 of the most common CMS myths that need to be dispelled right now.

Myth #1: You Can Make Text Updates In A CMS

Majority of people believe that using CMS, they can only make text updates. However, this couldn’t be far from the truth, since most of the platforms allow you to update almost any part of the website including text, images, videos, page layout, menu items, sidebar widgets, etc. Any good CMS offers lot of flexibility in terms of what you can add or edit which means you can create media rich textual content to reach to the wide audiences without any hassle.

Myth #2: Open Source CMS Systems Are Easier To Use Than Proprietary Systems

One of the worst myths is the notion that everything open source is free and easy. Just because the source code of a system is available to everyone doesn’t make it easy to use. There are hundreds of open source CMS systems and there are even more proprietary systems. They all have their strengths and weaknesses and have their own level of complexity. Some are easy, some are not. For example Drupal, even though an open source and popular CMS, is quite complex in its structure and difficult to use.

Myth #3: A CMS Needs Extensive Maintenance

Maintenance of a CMS is rather simple because of its flexible features and functionalities if you choose the right CMS for your organization. Any good content management system reduces task redundancy, tasks that are laborious and tedious are completed with a much greater level of efficiency and accuracy.

Myth #4: There Are Security Threats Involved in CMS

Security threat is a real problem for any online system that stores data, not just CMS. Content management systems like WordPress get a bad name for security attacks simply because of the sheer number of websites powered by WordPress. With more number, the chances of getting hacked is also more. To avoid hacking attempts, user authentications with strict password types along with other security measures go a long way. Any good CMS has extensive security parameters which safeguard your content and protect critical content assets powerfully.

Myth #5: Open Source CMS Systems Are Cheap

This one of the most enduring myths in the CMS world and the primary reason why everyone seems to go for open source CMS platforms. Sure, the open source software is free. But that’s not enough for you to get a workable website. For that you need someone to design and develop your website, you need a server to host the website and again, someone to maintain the website. All these involve real costs and sometime these can add up to a significant amount.

Myth #6: CMS Is Not For Small Businesses

Many people think that Content Management System is not a viable solution for a small businesses who don’t have enough content to update on their website. They would rather have a static website than a full fledged CMS. The truth is a good CMS system can benefit even the smallest of businesses. With the help of CMS, small businesses can streamline content placement, staff can make better use of their time while controlling content from a central location. As your company expands from small to big, you definitely need content management system which can simplify your business process and minimize those growing pain points. Not just that if you have a scalable content platform you can easily create content and use it for SEO and online marketing to get more traffic.

Myth #7: Using a CMS Means That You Don’t Need A Developer

It is true that All popular CMS platforms make website development quite easy and often don’t need development skills. But to customize a CMS as per your unique requirements and design style does require programming skills like any other system and you need a good CMS developer for that. CMS systems are standardized and have a huge range of features. You may not use all of these features or you may have unique requirements that are not covered in standard features.

Making A Final Choice Of CMS

When it comes to choosing the best CMS, it is essential to be aware of all the facts. There should be proper research and study before making a final choice for CMS. One should not be misled by a few myths and get carried away.