The Immense Potential of New AI-Powered WordPress Design

Reading Time: 9 minutes

We are all right in the midst of the early days of having artificial intelligence start to revolutionize some many aspects of our lives. We’re already seeing it in so many different facets of our digital lives, and the most visible of them for most people will be with the way their search query results are offering them more than just a list of search engine results pages. There is a growing need for websites to be maximum oriented to these AI-facilitated search results, and now you have the option to build an AI-powered WordPress website.

Not surprising at all that WordPress is taking the lead with staying ahead of the curve on this, as they’ve been arguably the gold standard for DIY website design and that grew out of their beginnings as an easy-to-use online publishing platform for blogs and the like. Our specialty here at 4GoodHosting has always been reliable Canadian web hosting, but for the folks at WordPress it’s a much wider umbrella and it’s been all about making it easy for people to be taking themselves online.

Many of the folks we’ve kept as customers for years upon years have WordPress business websites, and most will want the advantages of managed WordPress hosting for themselves. Faster website performance and better web security are just two of the many advantages of having this type of hosting for a WordPress site, and it’s not like it’s considerably more expensive too.

If you’re one of the folks who’s all ears when you hear of an AI-powered WordPress website you might want to look into moving over to Managed WordPress hosting if you haven’t already done so. We’ve talked a lot about the entirety of the advantages of doing that, but with this blog entry we’re going to lay out everything we know about the new WordPress AI websites and why you might want to be evenly doubly excited about them.

Apparently these types of sites are set to change everything, and considering nothing stays the same for long in the online world we say bring it on. We imagine you feel similarly, so let’s get right into it.

Building On It

WordPress has been the go-to platform for creating and managing websites for over 20 years now, and as of today the estimates are that it powers 43% of websites worldwide. That works out to nearly 10 times the number of any other platform, and as such it’s plain to see that WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system. That 20 years was a long time ago now, but it was only last year in 2023 that generative AI really started to become incorporated into web technologies of all sorts in a big way.

Especially with the way that OpenAI’s GPT-4 continues to push boundaries with every new release. There’s so much potential there and for many of us there’s no way to NOT be excited about what’s to come with this. Building your own with website with WordPress was never going to be beyond the scope of ability for anyone, but with AI-powered WordPress the reality is that anyone proceeding with that now is going to have it made even easier for them, plus seeing what’s possible increased in the biggest way.

Here’s what it can do for you:

Speedy and Prompt-Based Website Creation

With WordPress and AI you’ll be able to put together a custom website in minutes by simply typing in what you need and submitting replies to a few questions. AI provides the ‘smarts’ that will make the decisions the same way it would be the situation if you were laying out your wants and wishes to a web designer sitting in front of you.

So it really doesn’t matter if you’re a complete beginner and you know nothing of web hosting either. This feature is going to allow you to create high-quality websites without any coding quickly. Just explain what you’re looking for and see what the AI comes up with for smart website design. And if by any chance it’s not what you like, try explaining it again in a different way.

This type of smart interactivity really is a beautiful thing when it comes to AI.

AI Content Creator

A website without good content as a part of it is going to be coming up short, and in more ways that just having good searchability. But for some of you who want to build your own website with WordPress writing good content for the site may not be something you’re confident doing.

No problem at all when AI is involved in the website creation process. With AI WordPress you are now able to leverage the AI Content Creator for product descriptions, blog posts, and it will even suggest images based on your guidelines and the prompts you provide for it. This really isn’t unlike having your own content writer and designer on call 24/7. That’s not all you can do with this part of it either. Browse the Design library and easily drag and drop website sections like call-to-actions, hero banners, and other components that can go directly into your existing site pages.

AI WordPress Assistant

Despite the even-better simplicity that you’ll get by having AI help with web design you’re your new WordPress site, it may still be that some of the aspects of it are still a little much for you. That’s less of a problem now too, as you can taking advantage of the personal WordPress AI assistant in the dashboard to help guide you through some of the WordPress that are still somewhat complex for you.

Step where you’re told to step and you’ll be pleasantly surprised with just how quickly everything comes together. You’ll be going from zero to website in no time and getting more done in much less time, plus quite likely being entirely pleased with the results.

Creation & Management in One

Even for those relatively capable with all of this stuff there’s always been at least some level of tediousness and excess technicality to creating and managing a website. Plus it’s also true that WordPress has been known to have something of a steep learning curve. AI-powered WordPress is putting an immediate end to that, and that’s another huge plus that’s now available for new (or returning) users with this newly super intuitive website builder.

Indeed, what we have here is going to make website creation accessible to practically everyone. Stretching from small business owners to bloggers and creatives to people who more simply want a basic online front for promoting their hobby ventures or something similar. There is going to be no need for technical ability at all anymore, and AI will make it much more likely you find the version of the site that 100% meets your expectations so much faster.

You – and everyone else – can now create professional-grade websites with very little effort required of you.

This also applies for individuals with disabilities. AI is going to reach to them as well when it comes to building a WordPress website and making it doable for those who may not have all the same natural resources that the rest of us do. This will really apply for people who are blind or have dyslexia, with even better intuitive interfaces and the ability to have AI-generated content produced for you without needing to view and / or write it yourself.

It simplifies complex tasks in WordPress and underscores the importance of web accessibility in the evolution of digital technologies. Managed WordPress hosting with these sites is going to be the perfect pairing who wants the best in new and intelligent web design and optimal functionality for the site. You can all also be assured that as the AI continues to learn and evolve that further improvements and expanded ability with sophisticated and tailored website solutions will follow.

Everybody In

AI-powered WordPress web design is going to be such a great fit for all of you who have decided it’s time to create to your own website. This will apply to people with any type of interest for doing so, and also for any profession where the professional sees the need to have a good website for themselves. One good example would be a real estate agent who knows they need one for themselves but they don’t want to spend a ton to hire a web designer.

With one of these new smart WordPress sites they can have one that will set up property listings with detailed descriptions and images in no time. Or maybe it is a group of people who have a tech startup in its early stages. With the new WordPress version backed with AI they will be able to have everything done as efficiently as possible with maximum results, including the crafting of perfectly technical blogs and creation of perfect product pages too if they are needed.

How about fledgling fashion designers? If you’re someone who has created their own fashion line and is ready to launch it then AI can generate product descriptions, create blog posts, and design banners. New restauranters can do much the same, and they can create a website in less than a minute to see if interest is there or create buzz.

Everyone who elects to leverage AI capabilities this way will be best positioned to respond quickly to market opportunities, and having their content kept fresh and relevant. Plus it will significantly reduce the time and effort required for them for maintaining a dynamic online presence. Which works out to faster time-to-market, quicker adaptation to trends, and more efficient updates. This can – and likely will – lead to you having an edge over your competitors, and especially when you have your site on managed WordPress hosting.

The next thing that needs to be mentioned here is that as WordPress continues to be an open-source software the unmatched flexibility and control that has always come with that is going to be expanded upon big time with artificial intelligence now added to the mix. You can choose from thousands of plugins to customize and expand your website as you grow online.

While other website builders may restrict you by locking you in, WordPress always provides full control your data and you’re free to move your site to a different web hosting provider if that’s what you think is best. And keep in mind as well that with WordPress you immediately have a large, active community of developers and users who are providing support, sharing ideas, and offering solutions.

Affordability Too

We can assume that some will be thinking that AI-powered WordPress is going to be a good bit more pricey as compared to what the price for it was before artificial intelligence was incorporated into it. But we’re pleased to tell you here that’s not the case. Generative AI has been brought into the mix without too much being required of WordPress, and so the prices seen for these new platforms isn’t going to be dissuading anyone.

Most of them will be using GPT-4o, and another big gain with that is the way it prioritizes your privacy by ensuring that your prompts are not used for AI training purposes. Your data is going to stay confidential and secure, guaranteed. There is also the option to turn it off at any time, and that will be done by removing the AI plugin.

This will be a powerful tool for agencies too, and the decision makers at many have likely thought about to what extent AI will impact their business. With AI-powered WordPress, web and marketing agencies can now create initial website prototypes in seconds instead of weeks.

Let’s use an example here to provide clarification on this one; a client asks 2 different agencies for a custom website quote. The first one responds with a few examples and a description of the proposed outcome. The other agency is AI-enabled and offers 3 tailored, ready-made website variants that look ready-to-go. Who do you think that client is going to go with?

It’s going to be important for prospective users here to understand that you will still have the option to remove AI from any part of the WordPress website creation process. From where we’re sitting we can’t see any reason why you’d choose to do that, but we also know that for some there’s going to be an inclination to do things the old-fashioned way.

So it’s good for those folks to know that they can choose between the Classic and AI experience, or easily remove it from your WordPress site with just a few clicks. Doing so won’t impact the site and content you already have. Keep in mind, however, you’re your competitors might already be using AI to boost the speed and quality of the content they create. You may be choosing to put yourself at a disadvantage here. Just saying.

Managed WordPress Hosting is Best

Those who are starting at the start with all of this are probably wholly and entirely convinced of paying for an AI-assisted WordPress website design. We touched on why getting the matching web hosting for it earlier and provided 2 primary reasons why that’s such a good idea. But let’s wrap up this blog entry by going into much more detail on that end of it.

Managed WordPress hosting is simple and powerful, and with it you’ll have an intuitive dashboard and advanced features like site staging, GIT, WP-CLI and the brand new site performance monitoring. Our Managed hosting here at 4GoodHosting outperforms competitors’ offerings that cost several times more, and we’ve got what it takes to be able to make that claim.

Next up is reliability, and you’re going to be optimally backed by 4GoodHosting and our 99.9% uptime guarantee, plus 24/7 monitoring to ensure the site is operating optimally at all times. We have customer service reps standing by to lend a helping hand any time people need it here. We’re also big on sustainability here, and that’s a part of the advantage for managed hosting for new WordPress sites here too.

Our eco-friendly datacenters in both Vancouver and Toronto are powered by renewable energy, and a part of why we have the longstanding A record with the Better Business Bureau in both Provinces is because of this. But for most people these attributes are going to be admirable, but their priorities will be with having a smart design website that is serving their online interests best at all times.

We get that, and with AI-powered WordPress design and managed hosting you can be spinning up a new WordPress in a matter of minutes. Not the hours it would have taken you previously before artificial intelligence was incorporated into all of this. It does the heavy lifting for you via optimal configurations, so you can focus on publishing great content and running your business.

Generative AI is an incredible tool, and it is going to help those who want to work faster and more efficiently. We’re talking about how that’s going to relate to building a new WordPress website here, but we’ll conclude by saying that with AI there’s still going to be the need to learn to work with it. Understand its limitations may be equally important as knowing what is going to be increasingly possible because of it.

This technology has come an incredibly long way in such a short time, and the exciting thing is that this is just the beginning. Look for AI-powered WordPress to be available from this Canadian web hosting provider soon.

Canadian Marketing Tips for Local Business

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Canadian Marketing Tips for Local Business

For a good long time after the Internet got its start the only type of domain extension that was available for websites was a .com extension. It’s still the most ubiquitous and popular among them, but nowadays there are all sorts of domain extensions and the most notable ones are all the ones that are country specific. While the .org and .biz types have 3 letters to them just like the .com extension, all of the country ones will just be two letters after the dot.

A .ca extension is advisable for businesses in Canada, and we encourage you to discover the benefits of a .ca domain today. This is part of the broader topic we’re going to look at with this week’s blog entry here, and it will be more about Canadian business marketing tips online. No one is going to need to be made aware of how essential it is to have a strong online presence for a business nowadays, and here at 4GoodHosting that’s the reason we have many of the Canadian web hosting clients that we do.

You need to have quality website for your business, and it needs to have reliable web hosting behind it so that it is available to prospective customers 24 hours a day. This is because what would be considered local businesses are only local in the physical sense of the term – they’re often taking orders or however else it is they do business from all across the country and possibly even outside of it. Local business growth strategies are going to be built on the idea that not much is explicitly local anymore when it comes to all of this.

One of the things that the nature of our business provides for us is a lot of insight into what works well and what doesn’t with local SEO strategies in Canada. We say that fully aware of the fact that what defines ‘good’ SEO is changing all the time, and in fairness that’s the way it should be. If you’re looking for a provider you want the ones you see on page 1 of SERPS to be legitimately good businesses, not necessarily the ones who know how to manipulate their site so that it has better SEO. The search engines feel the same way, and they tailor and reorient their algorithms all the time to make that more likely. We think that’s a good thing as it relates to SEO for Canadian businesses.

The best approaches to online marketing is an extremely broad topic, so we’re going to keep it a little more centered here. But without going on any further with being introductory let’s get right into these Canadian marketing business tips, and say again that having that .ca domain extension really is best if it is advantageous for your customers to know that you are a Canadian business.

Visibly Canadian

Anyone who runs a business in Canada will benefit if they position themselves as a Canadian business. Doing so is key to attracting loyal customers and to keep them coming back. Businesses that operate online may not need to be persuaded of this in the same way, but for those brick and mortar business it’s equally advisable to create a blend of online and in person sales to maximize potential revenue streams for the coming year and beyond.

Go back 7 to 10 years or so and it was normal for a good number of business owners to not see the need for taking their business online. It wasn’t something many of them considered until recently even, and this was evidenced by how Shopify saw massive gross in its gross merchandise volume for Q1 of 2020. That was to the tune of 46%, and of course Shopify continues to be one of the platforms of-choice when it comes to an E-commerce setup in Canada.

What was most notable from the numbers seen at that time 4 years ago was there was research along with it that indicated the number of consumers who bought something from a merchant they had never shopped with before went up to 45%. Further, Shopify also indicated that brick-and-mortar stores had stepped in to replace 94% of in-store sales online during the pandemic. The preference for shopping online has continued to gain steam since then, and Canadians are just as enthusiastic about it as Americans.

Those numbers were correlated with store closures, and that is also a part of why the online retail trend has continued to accelerate. Many local businesses are considering how to position themselves online to take advantage, and the way it is in Canada now – and anywhere in the world for that matter – is that if you’re not meeting your customers where they are at then you’re going to be losing out on business. And where they are at is on the Internet, likely looking for whatever it is they’re after right now.

Aim High with SEO

Are they going to see your business on that first page of Google search results? Local SEO strategies for Canada are what’s going to determine whether that happens or not, and if you’re not capable of optimizing your site on your own then we have SEO experts ready to help you out here at 4GoodHosting. This paid SEO service that we make available to both our Canadian web hosting clients or others who need to have an SEO optimized website.

Getting back to starting with e-commerce for business, setting up an online store using a service like Shopify is a relatively low-cost way to test out going online. If you’d like more autonomy and a more affordable option then you can build a WordPress business website yourself and use the extremely popular and proven-effective WooCommerce plugin to set yourself up equally well.

Name, then Extension

Any business owner who’s making the decisions about taking it online should be giving plenty of thought to the best domain name for a website. Making a choice about your domain is one of the first steps and most important decisions along the way, and is definitely tied into SEO for Canadian businesses. Those with a brick and mortar business you will want their domain name to be a match with the name of their business.

Most people can come up with a practical and suitable domain name on their own, but one option you have is to use a free tool like a domain name generator. With these tools you can search available names and name ideas that could work for you, and the generator will prompt you to supply information about you and the nature of your business, your location, etc. before providing you with the suggestions you’ll receive.

After choosing the name comes the extension, and as we stressed at the beginning it may better to go with a .ca extension, even if the .com one for your domain name is available. You can always register a .ca domain name here at 4GoodHosting and you can also quickly determine if the one you have in mind is not already in use. You will always have the lowest price for domain name registration here, and we’ve been seeing to that for many years now.

There are so many advantages to using a .CA domain name for Canadian businesses and you’ll find that many of the local business growth strategies you choose to follow will be better suited for you when you do have a .ca domain name for your business. Register your domain here, then transfer your it to connect it to Shopify or any other e-commerce platform you choose. If you choose to go the WordPress website for business route you will be best served with Managed WordPress web hosting here.

Let’s look further into why a .ca domain is so advantageous. Research conducted five years ago indicated that 65% of Canadian internet users agree that Canadian businesses and organizations should use a .CA domain. And specifically because it’s a signal of security and trust. In addition to this, Canadians want to give back to their local community and.ca domains are doubly appealing for this reason.

The Right Focuses

Getting your business discovered to the extent you need it be discovered is going to require you to be strategic about how you position your business in search engines like Google. SEO is how you do this, and it’s always going to be front and center in Canadian business marketing tips these days. At least in as far as all of them related to promoting your business online is concerned.

Even without expert SEO assistance you can probably think of many of the most primary keywords that are going to correspond to the ones prospective customers will be using search terms when looking for a business like yours. Try drafting a list of keywords relevant to your industry, the products you carry, or the services you provide. Give some thought to keywords related to where your business is physically located to ensure you can be found easily.

Websites that don’t have the right keywords incorporated at the right density are going to suffer with SEO, and many of them don’t contain enough text or information to be picked up meaningfully by search engines. The first place to focus is the store or company’s about page. What information best sums up what your business does, and what keywords or key phrases are contained within that information?

You will also want to have ones related to when it was established, and why it continues to be successful to this day. Start here and then helpful contextual information that will increase the chance of your website being best positioned for visibility with customers. More than just keywords, it’s a chance to tell stories about your business and this helps to add a human touch.

Revisiting your product or service descriptions is next with improving SEO and getting the most out of your E-commerce setup in Canada. Include as much relevant information as you can, including where things were sourced, features and benefits and a call to action. It is important to explain the ‘what’ of your product or service in relation to the potential it has for your customers. It is best to write in short, compelling sentences here.

Partnerships & Collaborations

The focus here is not just on existing or long-standing businesses. Some may be starting a new business or looking to expand, and if so they should consider teaming up with another local independent business. Marketing collaboration is nearly always beneficial and especially if the businesses are in different industries but there is a natural crossover between the interests would-be customers will have for each.

This is very much in line with local business growth strategies too, and among the different ideas are to have a co-produced online event, a co-branded piece of merchandise, or one of many other creative options. Teaming up with a local business gives you benefit from their customer network and loyalty and with some partnerships there can be the benefit of sharing costs on goods and services that help you double down on your own business in the future.

There is really a lot of potential value in partnerships and collaborations for new businesses, and especially when both of them are just getting off the ground. However, it may be that you aren’t ready to collaborate with another independent business and if so consider collaborating with an influential individual in your sector to do some influencer marketing.

These types of partnerships also let merchants position their relationships with their collaborators in a positive way, and this tends to foster good sentiment to both brands. Now that you’re armed with these tips, it’s time to test out your newly acquired business promotion ideas and see how much more visibility online you’re able to get from them. Don’t delay in investing in your online presence, and getting a good paid SEO service if you are not capable enough with it on your own.

The sooner you can generate revenue from e-commerce sales you will be growing your business in the way we imagine you have envisioned for yourself. It’s not something that happens on its own, and especially if you’re a type of business where they is plenty of competition. That is the scenario for most of them, so you really do need to work hard at standing out and being more visible than your competitors.

Your website is going to be absolutely pivotal in doing that, and along with that whether or not your website comes up on the first page of SERPS for the most searched keywords related to your business. That is one aspect of this that is never going to change, and you need to do what it takes to SEO optimize a website.

How to Optimize Landing Pages for Search Engines

Reading Time: 11 minutes

How to Optimize Landing Pages for Search Engines The adage that tells us you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression doesn’t just apply to the working world or interpersonal relations of any sort. It also very much applies to the digital world and very much so for the world of online business. These days the means by which you are going to make that first impression is with your website 90+ percent of the time. So you had better have the type of landing pages that DOES make that good first impression for you and your business.

But here’s the thing; the reason that SEO services for your landing page become more important than any design or aesthetic interests related to the visuals of the page is because without SEO optimized webpages you’re not going to have the same level of opportunity to be making those good first impressions. We probably don’t need to go on at length about the point here, as most of you will be very well aware of the importance of search engine page rankings.

You’ve probably been told of how it is so massively beneficial to have your business appearing on the first page of Google search results. That’s true for any search engine really, and what makes that happen is adhering to landing page SEO best practices. If that’s beyond your capabilities then you absolutely have to pay a website SEO specialist to optimize your site. We can improve your website SEO right here at 4GoodHosting, and you can receive a free quote right now.

Plus keep in mind that you need to be revisiting your SEO at all times, as it’s not just a once-and-done thing. It needs to be an ongoing project, and it’s well worth it if you want to have maximum visibility with prospective customers for your business. And of course that IS what you want. Getting higher search engine page rankings is possible, and it is something that people with websites representing other interests are going to want to have too. Whatever it is you’re doing, you want to be at the front of the pack and being seen online.

Visibility Plus

Here in 2024 the reality is that there are so many of the same types of business fighting for the same slice of the same pie. How effective your online presence is and how it contributes to the likelihood of you getting the slice you want is in large part determined by the strength of your landing page SEO. This is why you need to know effective landing page SEO strategies.

A well-optimized landing page will boost your visibility on search engines plus enhance user engagement and conversion rates. So with this blog entry we’ll go over best practices for landing page SEO, letting you know what’s best for refining your page content, structure, and technical elements to meet both search engine guidelines and user expectations. Remember that SEO is much more than just knowing and incorporating the right keywords into page content.

You also need to have the right call-to-action (CTA) placements if you want your landing page to be serving as a powerful tool for attracting and retaining traffic. As it stands now you may not fully comprehend just how much value there is in SEO services for your landing page.

Understanding Landing Page SEO

What is always needed is a strategic approach to enhancing the visibility and effectiveness of a landing page within search engine results. Experts know how to tailor the page to meet both user needs and search engine criteria, and when that’s done right then businesses can see the results they want to have from their website – namely significantly increases their engagement and conversion rates.

Having an attractive, functional, and engaging landing page is important too and when you have that you will also have a lower landing page bounce rate – which is the rate at which people arrive at your page but then click away from it shortly thereafter. But we’re not going to talk about page design or what is or isn’t ‘attractive’ with web pages here, and as stated what we’re going to look at here is how to boost your landing page SEO today.

That is done with a careful balance of well-crafted content, technical optimization, and user experience enhancements. Integrating SEO best practices into your landing page design will revamp a page so that it attracts more of the right audience as well as delivering a compelling message that encourages action.

It may be beneficial to define what is a landing page for a website. It should be fairly self-explanatory, as when someone submits a request to the server by clicking on the link of your URL what happens when that request is answered is that their browser is redirected to your site. The landing page is what will always appear to them first. It is a standalone web page that is created specifically for marketing or advertising campaigns, and unlike general websites, landing pages are designed with a single focus or goal, known as a call to action (CTA). This focus makes landing pages the best option for increasing the conversion rates of your marketing campaigns and lowering your cost of acquiring a lead or making a sale.

You should also see your landing page as the pivotal touchpoint where visitors are converted into leads after being presented with tailored offers and clear calls to action. It’s important that they don’t have any distractions and are able to focus on one specific offer. See to that and you’ll have a landing pages that is better set to increase the chances of visitor engagement and conversion.

And you will soon start to see how they are more effective for bringing potential customers into your digital marketing funnel, furthering their interest, and making it that much more likely they make a purchase or subscribe to your service.

SEO for Landing Pages Importance

You need to be amplifying the reach and impact of your marketing efforts, and improving SEO for landing pages contributes to that. When websites have their landing page optimized for search engines they quickly come to have better visibility and that is measurable with the increased volume of traffic going to the site. What is less measurable is also a big part of why landing page SEO best practices are so advisable. Specifically, that’s with the way the elements of an SEO optimized page also contribute to engagement.

That is related to having the content of the page being increasingly relevant to your target audience, something that is crucial for attracting visitors who are most likely to eventually become customers. SEO optimization on this end of the equation involves tailoring the landing page’s content, keywords, and meta tags to align with what those potential customers are known to search for. You’ll need to know what that is, but if you don’t then again it becomes a situation where you’re highly advised to pay for the services of someone who does.

You also want to have your site being identified favorably by paid search campaigns and getting better quality scores from them. This is especially true if you have invested in PPC ads that redirect potential customers to your website. Getting that SEO makeover for your website and landing page ensures it is much more like the page is seen and also that is resonates more with those potential customers. When that happens they are more likely to engage with content and take the course of action you want them to.

SEO-Friendly Landing Page Key Elements

Continuing with our look at SEO services for your landing page, we can now pinpoint the certain components of the page that need to addressed and what’s the best means of doing that for better landing page SEO.

  • Headline and Subheadings

The headline presents the initial opportunity to capture interest and improve relevancy for search engines. Effective headlines and subheadings use targeted keywords to improve the page’s SEO, while also providing clear, concise information about the benefits that will be presented in greater detail in the content below. Well-constructed headings and subheadings promote more reading and interaction, and this correlates to higher engagement and conversion rates.

  • Supporting Copy and Visuals

Having a landing page’s supporting copy succinctly convey the value of your offer is hugely advantageous, and even more so when it is complemented by relevant visuals that enhance the message. Aim to have your text and images working together to form a cohesive narrative, with visuals serving to break up text and add contextual depth. That type of formatted page layout helps to retain user interest and improve page aesthetics.

  • Keywords and Semantic Variations

Integrating primary keywords and their semantic variations throughout your landing page continues to be the foremost approach in effective landing page SEO strategies. Content that has the right keywords and associated keywords / phrases incorporated organically and at the right keyword density helps search engines understand the topic and context of your page. Then its visibility is boosted as a result.

And by organically it’s meant to use them naturally within the text to ensure the page remains readable and engaging for users and it doesn’t read like the keywords are just stuffed into the text and not being natural in the flow of it. This is also important for optimizing a landing page for search performance.

  • Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

Title tags and meta descriptions are also components you’ll want to be reviewing to see if they’re contributing favorably to your landing page’s SEO or not. You will need to be summarizing the content of the page for both search engines and potential visitors. With an optimized title tag and meta description you’ll increase the number of click-throughs you receive from search engine results pages, particularly if they’re written smartly to capture attention and highlight the key value propositions you are offering to these prospective customers.

  • URL Structure

There are certain elements of better SEO approaches that most small-time webmasters are often unaware of. Some of them are not among the primary considerations with SEO services for your landing page but still have the ability to factor into your SERPs to a much greater extent than you’d imagine. The URL for your website and how it is structured is one of them.

It’s when a URL structure is clear, concise, and includes relevant keywords that it becomes super SEO-friendly and will be assisting search engines in understanding the page content. Site user experience will be improved too. A well-structured URL can convey information about the hierarchy of a website, making it better for user navigation and for search engines to index the content. Those are 2 more big gains related to search engine optimization.

  • Image Optimization

When images are optimized they help speed up page load times, and faster page load speeds are seen very favorably by the search engines you’re looking to rank higher with. Compress images to reduce their file size without sacrificing quality, and use descriptive file names and alt attributes that include relevant keywords. This helps search engines index your images properly and improves accessibility for users with visual impairments.

Strategies to Enhance Landing Page Visibility

Start here by looking at your content relevance and search intent. As for having more relevant content, you need to make sure that you don’t have too much content you have on your landing page, and what you do have is not vague, indeterminate content that doesn’t speak very specifically to the nature of your business or whatever else it is you’re doing with the website.

Content must not only be compelling and informative but also specifically tailored to meet the needs and expectations of the target audience identified through search intent analysis. If the content can be even better than okay then it becomes possible to have it resonate with the audience. This will increase engagement, reducing bounce rates, and boosting the likelihood of conversion.

Next, aim to have an understanding of search intent categorization. This is not as much of clear, concrete step but you can look into it online yourself. It involves determining the informational, navigational, transactional, or commercial interest prerogatives that the average visitor to your website is going to have. When you have knowledge around why users search and what they hope to find, you are better equipped to craft content that precisely answers their questions or provides the solutions they seek. As a result of this the landing page becomes more relevant and attractive in search results.

Go with on-page SEO tactics, and with internal linking and alt text for images too. Internal linking strengthens on-page SEO by directing visitors to other relevant pages on your website. When they spend more time on your site that also contributes to better search engine rankings. Strategically placed links encourage deeper exploration of your site, and this offers the same benefits as it signals to search engines that your site provides valuable content. Internal linking spreads link equity across the site, which may also boost the SEO performance of individual pages, and including your landing page.

Alt text for images is a very integral part of SEO as it gives search engines some context as to what an image displays. Effective alt text should describe the image content with accuracy while incorporating relevant keywords. This helps with image indexing plus better accessibility for users with visual impairments – which is another consideration the search engine algorithm will be looking for in relation to how the site is ranked.

Conversion Optimization Techniques

We’ve really stressed in other blog entries here how it is so important to have a clear and emphatic CTA on your landing page and possibly on other pages of the website. The placement of it is strategic, and if it is contained in a button then where that button goes can influence the conversion rates for a landing page. What you should do for SEO is place CTAs both above and below for better visibility regardless of how much or little a visitor scrolls.

Try to personalize CTAs based on the visitor’s journey or interaction with the site. Dynamic CTAs that change based on the user’s past behavior can really bump up conversion rates when the offer or value proposition is more tailored to that user and the way they’ve shown themselves to have moved through the website.

Form optimization for lead capture is your next consideration here if there is a form to fill out when the user takes you up on your CTA. Simplify the form to include only essential fields, as each additional field means it is more likely the form is eventually left incomplete and unsubmitted. Use engaging language that resonates with the audience and really emphasize what users will receive in return for completing and submitting the form. It’s also a good idea to provide a reassurance to these prospective customers that the site is secure and their data will be kept private.

Tools & Resources

A keyword research tool is going to be part of the monthly marketing budget for any webmaster operating a website for their business. Tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or SEMrush will give you the valuable and up-to-date keyword information you need, identifying high-potential keywords and phrases to integrate into your landing page content so that the page more aligns with what your audience is searching for.

Utilizing these tools allows marketers to discover long-tail keywords which can attract more qualified traffic and lead to higher conversion rates due to their specific nature and lower competition.

You may want to go with an SEO and Analytics Platforms too, and ones like Google Analytics and Moz provide crucial data on your landing page’s performance with traffic sources, behavior to conversion metrics, and other very valuable insights. These platforms help identify which elements of your page are doing well, and which others are not contributing as positively.

Have a look for any collection of known successful SEO-optimized site landing pages to get a good look at what are the most effective strategies and the common themes among them. You can glean a few of the SEO best practices, from keyword optimization and compelling content to technical SEO and speedier page loads, as well as the extent the experts have seen them contributing individually to higher rankings and better user engagement.

There can be pitfalls too though. The typical spots where landing page optimization goes wrong are neglecting mobile optimization, using generic instead of targeted content, and overloading the page with too many calls-to-action. These mistakes can detract from user experience and diminish conversion rates. Make sure you’re doing none of that, and again if a mobile version of your site is beyond your abilities then it may be a good idea to use our mobile website builder here at 4GoodHosting that is available for people who choose us for their affordable web hosting in Canada.

Understanding these common errors can help marketers avoid them and instead focus on creating streamlined, focused, and user-friendly landing pages that are optimized for conversions and SEO performance.

Monitoring and Improving SEO Performance

Most webmasters tasked with keeping the company’s website in good stead will be using analytics to monitor the performance of their site’s landing page. Tracking metrics such as page views, bounce rate, and conversion rate provides insights into what’s beneficial and what may be detracting from SEO value. This data is important for making informed decisions about SEO and content strategies as they aim to always be keeping the page SEO optimized. Plus analytics platforms can alert marketers to trends and patterns that may not be so easily identified and then lead to smart adjustments that make the page perform better with SERPs.

A/B testing is fairly standard too, and is especially good for weighing changes to headlines, images, or CTAs. All in all, an ongoing process of testing and optimization is vital for keeping the SEO for your landing page at its best and responsive to user behavior and search engine algorithm changes. If you feel you need to know more about effective landing page SEO strategies one of our representatives would be happy to help you with that.

Better WordPress Page Builder – Divi or Elementor?

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Elementor or Divi: Which is better?So much to be said for simplicity nearly all the time, and then with websites there’s the way that DIY is the way to go if you’re not at all keen to pay a web developer to put together a website for you. Obviously you won’t choose that if you’re making the decisions for a big and well-established business of any sort. But if you’re in business on a significantly smaller scale and it’s not so much about branding as it is providing a quality product or service at a good price then a DIY website is often a good choice. WordPress gives you that option, and what we’ll look at here is Divi vs Elementor as the best WordPress page builder.

It’s not even a choice you need to make if all you’re after is the simplest of websites, and good examples of these are ones for recreational sports teams or maybe one where a person is showcasing their music or arts or crafts. You can use WordPress as it comes out of the box to put together the entirety of the site, but for some they’ll want more functionality with how certain pages are assembled. Divi and Elementor features both line up with being able to do this, and what we’ll aim to do is determine if one is better than the other for doing that.

As you’d expect there are Elementor vs Divi pros and cons and taking all of them into account and weighing them against each other is how we’ll come to our conclusion. There’s more than a few people who will be looking for the best drag and drop page builder, and you can be sure that at any given time there’s at least a handful of people out there who are getting set to use WordPress to build a website for the first time. That means that a topic like this can always be relevant, so without going on any further let’s start our Divi vs Elementor comparison.

CMS Considerations

A content management system (CMS) is usually a must for the creation of websites, and WordPress has been the leader of the pack there for years now. Anyone hoping to create a WordPress site that looks good and functions as intended will do well if they know how to use the right tools. And that means being in the know with the array of them, plus all the plugins and builder available for making a WordPress. But not all of them work, and of the ones that do some are decidedly better than others.

We will be evaluating two tried-and-tested themes here, Divi vs Elementor. Both page builder are good enough, and it needs to be said that both will get the job done. Which is important to be assured of, because a page builder is the way to go when it comes to building a dynamic site with ease. So choosing a WordPress page builder becomes the matter, and here’s our comparison.

Divi Builder

We can start by saying that Divi, like the Pro version of Elementor, should be seen as more than a page builder. It can serve as a theme and a theme builder, making it a multi-purpose resource for anyone looking to create dynamic websites. It is also one of the most popular WordPress themes in the world. Let’s provide definitions for a few important terms here as they relate to using these themes.

A page builder is a tool for creating attractive website layouts and doing so without the need for coding. A theme is a set of files that determines the look and layout of a WordPress site. When using a theme builder you have a tool that lets you create your own WordPress theme without having to write any code. So to cover this all together briefly a page builder is used to create individual layouts, while a theme governs the overall look of the site. A theme builder offers in-depth customization of the WordPress theme as a whole.

Our focus here is going to be on the two page builders though, and not so much on WordPress site builders. With Divi vs Elementor performance it tends to be a fairly even comparison, so if there’s other differentiators then that is where we need to focus with a Divi page builder review.

We first noted that Divi has an impressively intuitive interface, and with it you can create highly dynamic pages. In addition to its extensive library of templates to help you design these pages, it’s also easy to use and has the type of drag-and-drop functionality that a lot of users will be looking for. The other pros for Divi is that it has an advanced block page customization that is very much conducive to putting together unique sites.

Other advantages for Divi is that the builder’s design options are highly flexible, and mobile compatibility is easy to set up. Divi’s front-end mode also gets high marks with the way you can see changes you’ve made in real time. Plus the integrated page templates that are available in the builder’s library make it super easy to get started. For anyone who might have more than one WordPress website for business the single license payment is a good arrangement and that factors into our WordPress page builder comparison too.

Rounding out the pros for Divi are very efficient customer support that is available 24/7 via chat and an extensive database of video tutorials.

On the flip side of all of this, Divi is certainly pricey and you’ll have to spend over $250 for the license. This is only a one-time payment, however, and once paid there is lifetime access to build as many sites as you need. Another consideration that may not be so appealing for people looking to build you own website with WordPress is that the learning curve with Divi can be steep, especially for beginners and considering there are so many customization options to potentially work with.

Customer support is only available in English, and as you’d expect nowadays some people are offended by this. There are also reports that Divi-designed sites slow down considerably in instances where there isn’t regular optimization by images and content

Elementor Builder

If there’s one most prominent page builder for WordPress, it is Elementor. Continuing with our Divi vs Elementor comparison, Elementor is renowned for its user-friendly interface and extensive customization options. It tends to be a good fit for both beginners and experts with the way it simplifies website creation and enables users to design responsive, visually appealing sites and not asking too much of them to do that.

Elementor offers an intuitive interface in the same way Divi does, earning the same points in this evaluation of the best WordPress page builder. Go with this page builder and you will also be able to create dynamic sites with supremely usable drag-and-drop functionality. Elementor also measures up with having a variety of tools to tailor sites to your needs.

The pros for Elementor include there being a free version of Elementor that will be sufficient for most people who are aiming to build a basic website. And it is also similar to Divi in that it has a Front-End mode where users are able to preview in real time how the site will appear to site visitors. Another advantage of going with Elementor is that it offers a mobile-specific editing mode where users can identity and adjust the appearance of the site and how it will display on smartphones and tablets.

You will have fewer options than Divi, but that works out to Elementor being a more intuitive choice if you’re not at all savvy with this type of stuff. And in fairness much of what comes additionally with Divi won’t really be required if you are building a basic website and using WordPress site builders for doing that. Another plus is that customer support is available by e-mail and chat 24/7, along with plenty of articles, videos and frequently asked questions that will cover a lot of the most common basic queries users will have.

Moving onto the drawbacks for Elementor, what users find is that they reach the ceiling with the free version of Elementor quite quickly. Accessing many of the advanced features will require users to pay for the much more comprehensive Pro version. That may be a good way to go, but even with the Pro version you are limited with the number of sites you can design. 25 per year for the $199 price. As with Divi, customer support is only available in English and again some people are super offended by that.

Key Features

Continuing with our WordPress page builder comparison, we need to look at the Divi Builder Elementor. It does very well for being intuitive, but there is a steep learning curve due to the complexity and diversity of its options. Alternately, Elementor’s interface is intuitive and equally suitable for beginners or more seasoned users. If we factor price into the equation Divi may be better even though there is no free version.

With the 1-time payment for lifetime free access you have more of what you need if you are planning to build your own website and build more than one of them. With Elementor there is that free version a lot of people will be pleased to have, but the tradeoff is that functionality is limited. If it is not meeting your needs with the Elementor features you have then the alternative is to move up to the paid Pro version that will give you a lot more functionality.

The next consideration will be with creative flexibility and Divi page builder reviews go on at length about the flexibility and wide-ranging design options. With this level of advanced customization, you will be entirely equipped with what you need to create a unique site. Elementor also offers great flexibility, with simplified options that will be a fit for both beginners and experienced users.

Divi is not only just a WordPress page builder, it is also a WordPress theme in itself. With it you’re able to design a site from A to Z, without adding an external theme. There’s a basic theme designed for Elementor called Hello Elementor and you can choose to start with it or go with a range of free or paid themes.

Performance will always be a consideration too with choosing a WordPress page builder. Sites designed with Divi offer stable performance, but are known to be slower. Faster loading times can be achieved by Optimizing images and content though, although that is always essential for maintaining faster loading times with any type of website. Elementor delivers solid, fast performance and even with the most advanced features.

Adaptive and responsive design features are also going to be a part of what people are looking for with the best drag and drop page builder. Divi offers adaptive design options to ensure your site is responsive across different devices. Elementor matches that here, offering similar features to optimize adaptive design and we like how users can see changes in real time.

The consensus is that they’re pretty much evenly matched with mobile compatibility, real-time site editing, block page customization, and customer support. So accordingly with Divi vs Elementor we don’t necessarily recommend one over the other. What is likely best for anyone is to try the free version of each and see if one is better for you based on what you’re aiming to do with it. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, even though the two builders are very similar.

We’ll conclude by saying there are other page builders you may want to consider. Gutenberg, Beaver Builder, and Site Origin are also good ones that have much the same levels of workability when it comes to building WordPress pages. But if you have the budget then going with Divi or Elementor is recommended.

6 Reasons Why Regular WordPress Updates Are Advisable

Reading Time: 9 minutes

6 Reasons Why Regular WordPress Updates Are Advisable A relatively captive audience may have been a possibility in the early days of the Internet. Nowadays, however, there is very likely no shortage of others with the same to say as what you’ve got to add to any conversation on any subject. That doesn’t mean you’re any less of the expert on it if you genuinely are the expert, but if you have a WordPress blog or a WordPress website then there’s plenty to do to ensure your quality content is best positioned in the sea of content that exists out there. WordPress updates are needed.

The enduring popularity of this online publishing platform has endured for decades now, and it reflects the fact that WordPress is perennially usable for people who need a very basic means of publishing a blog online or having a DIY website that is good enough for their simpler aims with it. Some of you may have a blog or site that hasn’t had any changes to the web infrastructure of it since its inception, and if so and you are wondering why you are not getting the same traffic as before then we need to start looking at the benefits of updating WordPress.

The reason being that simply improving website SEO for WordPress isn’t the all-encompassing solution for increasing your blog or website’s visibility with the audience you’re aiming to have it be more visible to. There is plenty more that goes into the equation and with newest update there are so many new WordPress features that are going to appeal even if your aims are simpler and you just want to make your pages look better and promote greater interactivity with a – hopefully – growing audience.

So what we’re going to do with this blog entry is go over 6 reasons why WordPress updates are something you should be considering if what you’ve got on the web is in need of a makeover. We’ll also look briefly at ways to improve website speed for WordPress and what’s the best approach for WordPress bug fixes if you need them.

Mandatory Move

The fast-paced world of website management makes keeping your WordPress site up to a real necessity and it has become more than just a good practice. Some would even say it’s essential. Regular WordPress updates can provide you with the peace of mind that your site is set up for optimal function and also safe from malware threats or other undesirable outcomes. When you consider that is doesn’t require much of you to implement them, why wouldn’t you choose to give your WordPress site a quick and effective optimization from time?

The reason it’s needed is that WordPress is continually evolving, and with it comes new features, improvements and security patches bundled into each update. We’re more than 2/3 of the way through 2024 now, but over the entire course of 2023 over 75% of WordPress sites used version 6 of the platform. That’s a solid adoption rate, but we can say clearly that that the other 25% choosing to remain on older versions chose to be at a disadvantage too. Especially with the way they’re exposed to security risks plus missing out on new features.

It is important to secure your WordPress site. With regular updates your website stays secure, compatible with the latest web standards, and performs without any types of limitations based on not being up to date with the standards or other factors that will either benefit or impeded a website.

Right then, let’s move onto the 6 reasons you should always proceed with WordPress updated when they become available with the newest version of WordPress

Maintain website reputability

A website that remains outdated is going to be more vulnerable to infection with malware, and if that occurs then it is possible that criminals operating online may use your website as a vehicle to conduct attacks on other websites, and they generally tend to aim for bigger fish – financial institutions, streaming sites like Netflix, all sorts of spots connected to social media platforms like Facebook, and others. Before you’re even aware of what has happened your site or blog may end up being blacklisted by Google Safe Browsing via anti-virus software or by major browsers.

That’s going to be a headache on a large scale, and so it’s something you want to avoid and it is why WordPress security updates are so important. Again, this isn’t going to cost you anything and it’s quite simple to have WordPress updated, so be smart and prevent any type of infection before it even has a chance to start. There’s so many more of them out there nowadays, and any cyber security expert is going to tell you that the risk is only going to increase from here on out. We’ll add as well that going with the best managed WordPress hosting Canada here at 4GoodHosting is going to be better for built-in security too

Enhance Website Security

We’ll continue with that aspect, and say further that security is increasingly a top priority with website management, but that is even more important when you have a WordPress website for a business. When you update your WordPress you will be equipping your site with the latest security patches. Putting updated patches in place is everything when it comes to making website hacking or data breaches very unlikely.

The way WordPress is an open-source platform is a big part of why it’s been so successful and so widely used, but at the same time being open-source makes it a target for hackers. Regular updates will come with vital fixes for known vulnerabilities, and staying on top of those new and ever-changing viabilities is a big part of ensuring your site’s safety.

Instant Access to New Features

Regular updates give users access to the latest WordPress features and functionalities. The developers at WordPress are renowned for the way they continue rolling out new and innovative ways to make your WordPress site that much better, and with WordPress V6 they’ve done that yet again. These WordPress updates will enhance your website’s capabilities and provide you with a whole bunch more customization options.

Look no further than the advancements like the Gutenberg block editor and the Site Health tool. Each of these is continuously refined, and when you take advantage of them and all the other advancements you enable your WordPress site to spread its wings and operate at maximum capability. You just need to choose to go ahead and do it, and that’s why we are so big on the benefits of updating WordPress.

Boost Website Speed

We said we’d touch on ways to improve website speed for WordPress, and so here it is. Choosing to stick with an older version of WordPress is very likely going to slow it down. Each new version of WordPress brings performance improvements that enhance the speed that your website is capable of running at, and that is directly connected to user experience and how favorably your site is going to be regarded by these users.

This is even more important as page load speed is part of the criteria that search engines evaluate when it comes to page rankings. If you’re in business with a WordPress website, you had better be putting importance on that.

Consider this – there are studies that have shown that around 40% of visitors will leave a page if it takes more than 3 seconds for it to load on an e-commerce website. Faster websites not only offer a better user experience but also rank higher in search engine results. That’s the plain facts of the matter and it’s yet another reason why it is important to keep a WordPress site updated.

Resolve Bugs & Issues

Next we go to WordPress bug fixes, and that capability is another part of why these updates are so recommended. Updates are vital for fixing bugs that may occur in major releases, and when they are fixed then your site’s stability and functionality is improved. Even minor WordPress releases focus on resolving specific issues, and that is essential for a seamless user experience too.

If you’ve ever spent any time reading through WordPress forums you’ll see that getting the lates WordPress update is often what is suggested as a first step in troubleshooting bugs. Want to be as bug-free as possible for your site, and have that be the case for the long foreseeable future? Get the latest version of WordPress.

Maintain Compatibility

Regular updates of all WordPress components, including themes, plugins, and your WordPress core ensures they’re all from the same ‘generation’ and cross-compatible for your site. Updating some components and leave others as they are and you may find you now have incompatibilities that are hindering your website.

If you have a complex website that uses several plugins, it is recommended to wait a few weeks before upgrading as major upgrades may break some plugins/themes.

How to Update a WordPress Site

All of you who are now persuaded to update can do so from either your WordPress dashboard or cPanel. As we said it is a pretty straightforward process to do it yourself, and if not then you can pay a webmaster to do it for you. Talk to our customer support staff here with the best web hosting in Canada at 4GoodHosting.

The one thing you do need to do is ensure you have a working backup before making any changes. By having the backup in place you can quickly revert to your previous installation if any problems occur. We’ll recommend managed WordPress hosting here too, because with it you can create a staging site to test out the new version. This will create a copy of your live website in a separate staging environment for testing.

Considerations Before the Update

Before you go ahead and implement any of the WordPress updates it’s important to take care of a few things first so you avoid potential risks. Here’s what you need to consider before getting started.

  1. Plugin/Theme Incompatibility – not all plugins or themes may be compatible with the newest WordPress update. You may have your eye on some of them and be planning to have the worked into your site following the update, but a mismatch can sometimes cause issues with your website’s functionality.
  2. Bugs – unfortunately new updates may have their own set of bugs. WordPress is on top of this stuff, and they will remedy the situation quickly if so but you still need to be prepared to deal with this and if you go to WordPress support forums you may be able to be tipped off to them.
  3. Importance of Backups – Again, be sure to back up your site before proceeding with any updates. You’re creating a safety net by doing so, allowing you to restore your site to its previous state if there are any problems down the road.
  4. Use a Staging Site – Anyone with a more complex website with numerous plugins are advised to test their updates on a staging site first. This approach helps identify and resolve issues before they impact your site once it goes live with the update in place.

Tracking Update Availability

The official WordPress website is going to be your primary source for staying informed with new WordPress releases. You’ll have a cPanel made available to you through your Canadian web hosting provider. Go there by pressing the WP icon you see with the interface in the Admin panel. Once it opens you’ll see whether or not a new WordPress update is available.

What’s good about this is you can select to receive automatic updates for your site. Of course we think that’s your best choice, and what’s also good is that you can make customizations to your updates.

Auto-update is recommended for minor versions. The consensus is that manual testing is advisable for major versions before updating. And provided plugins are reputable and trustworthy then auto-update is good for those too. But for plugins with dependencies – including the super popular WooCommerce for WordPress that is a standard choice for eCommerce websites – it is going to best to do your updates manually. The same will go for custom themes, and especially those with child themes.

FAQs

Why should I update my WordPress site regularly?

The two primary reasons you should get regular updates for a WordPress site as soon as they become available are improved functionality and better web security. Updates will include improved structure for plugin functionality plus the latest and best patches to address bugs and / or security risks.

Will updating WordPress affect my website’s speed?

Yes, and beneficially so. WordPress updates will ensure that your pages load with as much speed as possible, and this is beneficial for both user experience and page rankings via search engines like Google and Bing. You can test your website speed after an update and it is quite likely it will be faster after the update.

Can updating WordPress resolve existing bugs on my site?

Yes. WordPress bug fixes are always a leading focus for the developers when they are putting together the most recent WordPress updates. You can expect to see existing bugs addressed along with any of them that may be the result of a previous update. This is all part of the appeal of keeping a WordPress site current with updates.

Is it safe to auto-update WordPress plugins?

Choosing auto-updates for WordPress plugins is only recommended for plugins that are known to be reputable and trustworthy, and one way to determine this is to only consider plugins that are among the most used ones through WordPress. This information as well as reviews of the security of WordPress plugins can be easily found online.

How can I backup my WordPress site before updating?

You have two options here: you can backup the website using your hosting via SiteGround, or you can do it a WordPress plugin like All in One WP Site Migration. It is important to do a site-wide backup before updating WordPress or any major plugins. It is also advisable to conduct a full when you are choosing to update any more than 6 WordPress plugins at the same time.

Choose WordPress Over Shopify as Your Online eCommerce Platform

Reading Time: 9 minutes

Choose WordPress Over Shopify as Your Online eCommerce Platform Long gone are the days when a storefront had to be at least a 3-walled location and with a shopkeeper behind a counter in front of one of them. That was the only means you have of selling products up until nearly 30 years ago, but since then the advent of the Internet has given us eCommerce. You can do all of that selling online now if that’s what you choose to do. For many people it’s exactly what they choose to do, because it’s a more cost-efficient means of doing business and it means expanding your customer base in a way that is simply unmatchable by any other means.

What we’re going to do here with this entry is compare WordPress vs Shopify for anyone who is set to take their store online, and is trying to decide on the best platform for an online store. We’ll be right up front and say for us it is WordPress, and there’s plenty of reasons why that’s the way we feel.

The aim here will be to have you thinking similarly once you’ve read through the entirety of this blog, because there are Shopify alternatives. If you are willing to put in just a bit of work to optimize your WordPress site you’ll be amazed at how it can be just a conducive to selling a lot of whatever it is you’re bringing to the online market. One thing is not debatable is that you will be taking on much less monthly operating costs when you do business online with a WordPress site rather than getting Shopify’s services.

But cost savings are just the smallest part of the advantage here with WordPress for eCommerce. The newest version of WordPress is even more user-friendly and intuitive for users as well as putting much more capability in their hands. That applies to WordPress sites for online stores too, and the value in going this route is even more pronounced for smaller businesses and especially ones for people who are running a small business entirely on their own and selling what they make online.

You can optimize your store with WordPress, and if you’re already doing relatively well with having your website rank for related keywords you can see nearly immediate benefits when you take advantage of what the new WordPress has to offer. So without going on any further setting this up let’s get right into this WordPress vs Shopify comparison and really compared the two.

Launch & Thrive

The one thing that everyone will agree on is that launching an online store is easier and more convenient than ever nowadays, and there are also WooCommerce benefits to consider although we won’t touch on those here. Instead our look at the best platform for online store is going to be a showdown between Shopify and WordPress, and with either the prospect of opening an online business and selling products online is entirely doable for anyone.

Let’s begin by looking at Shopify, and it’s not difficult to see why this platform has had such a level of success in gathering and retaining online store owners who were looking for the easiest way to have success selling products online. Very few people if any start out in any business with lots of money to work with and an operating budget that has no limits to it. For most it is going to be best if starting up is done as affordably and inexpensively as possible, and Shopify is great for that.

It’s also much more hands-off than going the WordPress website for eCommerce route, and for some people that is going to be worth the added cost. That may be especially true when the people who are doing the webmaster work for the site are also the ones producing the products. For a smaller business that has a person doing marketing and operations separately there is a lot to be said for going with WordPress for eCommerce.

But back to laying out the pluses for Shopify. It is an e-commerce platform that has the bulk of its appeal in the way it is an all-in-one solution for creating an online store. Ease of use is definitely the big selling point for Shopify, and it is straightforward for even the most novice users to manage their online business with a user-friendly interface and streamlined inventory and order management process that has received high marks from users all over the world.

Again, though, we have to remind you that this ease of use and proven reliability does come with more cost for the user in comparison to WordPress. There is a $51 CAD monthly fee for the basic package and users will encounter limited flexibility and not much with ability to customize the site. There are definitely more affordable online store solutions, and from where we’re sitting you absolutely have to consider WordPress for this reason.

Heart of a CMS

What makes WordPress so great and our choice here in a WordPress vs Shopify comparison is that at its heart it is – and always will be – a content management system (CMS). Not only does this give you a very proven path for website creation and setting the site up for future success based on the content you feature on it, but it also lends itself to giving users a virtually unlimited level of flexibility.

Now it is important to understand that you will need to know exactly what type of content you’re going to feature on the site, and that will cover everything from the product descriptions to the blog content you publish to share insight into the products and their applications. You will need to be knowledgeable about what you’re selling in the same way you’d need to be if you had an actual storefront.

WordPress is also especially good here because of its open source software and the way that also contributes to it being a complete solution for online businesses. Thanks to a wide range of features, WordPress is impressively adaptable to users’ needs. If you want to create a showcase site, a blog, a portfolio or an online store, WordPress gives you comprehensive options at a much lower price.

The unmatched flexibility and customization really is huge, and this is where we think the most decisive aspect of our finding is seen. WordPress, along with its WooCommerce plugin, provides almost unlimited flexibility and customization. Shopify is different in that it is much more prescriptive, while with WordPress there is the possibility to assemble an online store that is more fully in line with what you envision for it. This freedom to customize every aspect of your site is one of the main reasons why many people prefer WordPress.

Affordability and Site Control

We talked earlier about how it’s very common for $$ resources to be limited when people are launching a business or an online store. It’s clear that WordPress is the better choice here based on more options and lower cost. And we also mentioned how Shopify has that CA$51 per month up-front investment required and right from the start. Plus the fact that Shopify may charge a transaction fee every time a sale as made, along with charging for adding certain features.

Hosting and domain name fees will apply for WordPress, but they’re much lower and you’ll have control over these costs. After that it’s all free if you’re using the basic version of the platform and for many people it meets all of their needs quite nicely. You always have the option of investing in premium features, but even if you do running an online store with a WordPress site isn’t likely to cost you more than a hundred dollars a year.

And even if I did the unlimited scalability you’ll get would make it worth the price if you’re selling quality products at fair price. It’s important not to look past that part of what you’re doing too, and not rely on any Shopify alternatives for an online store platform to make up for sales that are really lacking because you’re not offering a good product.

WordPress wins for site control too, and especially with the absolute control it gives users over both the site and its content. Simply contacting the webhost to resolve the issue is all that will be needed if there is a problem with web hosting, and the host can often remedy any arisen situation very quickly. You also have the final say on your site’s performance and security solutions: you choose the options that really meet your needs.

With Shopify it’s really not quite as good, as it is more of a turnkey solution and hosts everything on its own servers. There are benefits to that, but inevitably you lose control over a number of technical aspects. Your choice should be based on individual preferences and needs in terms of site control and management.

Search Engine Optimization Interests

SEO is always going to be of paramount importance for any website serving eCommerce interests, and you want your site to be ranking high in search results at all time. The advantages of SEO with WordPress are another huge part of what should be swaying online store owners to that platform as compared to Shopify. Unlike Shopify, WordPress offers built-in features specifically designed to optimize content and if you use Yoast for WordPress SEO you are almost certain to be gaining greater improvements for your site and how well it ranks. That really is just the simple fact of the matter here.

Having full access to the source code is a huge plus too when you go with WordPress as an online eCommerce platform. Having it means you are so much more able to optimize everything you’d like to with the site, and nearly every online shop owner is going to want to make significant changes from time to time. With Shopify all you have is the ability modify title tags, meta descriptions and so on.

We said we wouldn’t talk about WooCommerce itself, but we will make a quick mention of the WooCommerce plugin for WordPress here because it is such a potent addition for anyone who wants to be best positioned for sales and increased visibility as business online. If you’re weighing WordPress vs Shopify, the use of plugins for WordPress really needs to be factoring into your comparison and these WooCommerce benefits aren’t to be overlooked.

The free basic version of WooCommerce is a good place to start, and it will make the process of creating your store a lot simpler. Although some premium features require an investment, you can design a very viable store using only the basic version. Once you create product listings and create the link to a payment processing system like PayPal or Stripe then you are set to start selling online. From there you also have the option to add a number of features to enhance the shopping experience.

Dynamic Ecosystem

Another aspect of WordPress ecosystem that makes it so rich is the vast community and many active forum where users can find a wealth of resources and plugins. That can range from advanced e-commerce functionality to social networking integrations to analytics tools, and WordPress also those super-valuable plugins that have always been a huge part of its appeal for DIY website types. This diversity isn’t seen the same way with Shopify, where options are more limited and users are operating in what is really a more rigid framework.

The only thing detracting from WordPress for eCommerce a little bit is the fact that there is a steeper learning curve with it. There is no disputing the way it is more versatile and relatively easy to use once you get the hang of it, but Shopify is a much simpler way to go if you’re looking for a way to set up an online shop that doesn’t require much of you. As we’ve mentioned that simplicity and hands-off nature does come at a cost though. Back to WordPress, there is also the issue for some of having difficulty with tech support.

We will agree that Shopify might be best for those looking for the benefit of an all-in-one, integrated solution, and are willing to pay for it. The conclusion you reach after a WordPress vs Shopify comparison will depend on your needs and comfort level. Those who have customization and flexibility for their online store as priorities are probably going to see WordPress with the WooCommerce Plugin as the best platform for online stores.

FAQs

Why should I choose WordPress over Shopify for my Online Store?

WordPress has a free basic version that covers all of what most online store operators will need, and it offers superior flexibility and customization options plus the ability to pair with the WooCommerce plugin that quickly and automatically optimizes a site for use as an online storefront.

How does WordPress handle SEO compared to Shopify?

WordPress gives users more ability to SEO optimize their eCommerce website with built-in features specifically designed to optimize content along with the Yoast Plugin for WordPress that is well-known for delivering proven results with SEO optimization for a site. With WordPress you will also have access to the source code, and this also promotes more ability to improve SEO for the site through different approaches.

Is WordPress more affordable than Shopify?

Yes. The entry-level price for a Shopify packages is $51 CAD per month, whereas you can have the basic WordPress version for free and higher tiers will still cost less than what you would pay for one year of basic Shopify service for your eCommerce website.

Do I need technical knowledge to use WordPress for my online store?

There is no need for an especially high level of technical knowledge to use WordPress, and for most users they are able to learn what they need to simply by using the platform and getting to know how it works. There is something of a learning curve to it though, so those without a basic understanding of website functionality and how a CMS (content management system) works as the basis for website platform may have some difficulty in the beginning.

Yoast SEO: How to Optimize Your Website’s Referencing

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Yoast SEO: How to Optimize Your Website’s Referencing Anyone who simply browses the Internet and / or peruses what it has to offer and doesn’t have a website on the Information superhighway is going to have a different prerogative with using the web. At least compared to those who do have a website and especially if that site is giving online visibility to their business as well as a means for customers to make purchases without visiting a brick & mortar storefront of any sort. If that’s the scenario for you and you website you’re not going to need to have the acronym SERPs explained to you, or why there is an ongoing need to improve website SEO.

But maybe you’re not familiar with that grouping of characters, and if so we’ll explain; SERP stands for search engine results page. Let’s make an example. Someone who has a business selling custom sports team jerseys is going to know it’s important that their website is on the first page of SERP pages every time someone searches custom sports team jerseys *city name*. And preferably high up on that page, and ideally in the first spot. SEO optimization for a website is the determinant for whether or not that happens.

You either have it, or you don’t. And if you don’t then your site isn’t going to be on that all-important first pages of SERPs, and definitely not at the top of it. For our example business owner that means it is VERY unlikely anyone is going to be ordering their custom sports team jerseys from the owner’s business. Being maximum visible online is of paramount importance for any business these days, because 9-plus times out of 10 that is where customers find their provider. This is how it is in the 21st century, and it’s going to be this way from now on.

This is why WordPress SEO optimization is so important if you have a WordPress website for your business, and if so we highly recommend looking through a Yoast SEO guide. Yoast is definitely the best plugin for improving search engine rankings for a WordPress website, and that’s what we’re going to look at here with this week’s blog entry. 4GoodHosting is always your best choice for the best managed WordPress hosting Canada, and that goes double if the website is the online storefront or service front for your business.

Near-Instant Expert SEO Fix

It’s natural to think that there’s no way improving your site’s search engine rankings could ever be a quick and easy process. That’s true, but it’s also true that it can be done a lot more easily than you might think if you know which SEO tools for WordPress to use. We’re going to point you right in the direction of Yoast SEO, a WordPress plugin that’s perfect for those new to SEO.

Yoast SEO for WordPress is available as a free or premium version, and it is a powerful means of optimizing a website’s content for better search engine results. Available with it are a wide range of features for optimization of titles, keywords, readability and more. We know from speaking to web hosting in Canada clients that nearly everyone opts to go with the free version of Yoast for WordPress SEO, so we’re going to focus on that one exclusively here.

Starting at the start with this Yoast SEO guide means talking about installation and configuration. You start by using the WordPress content management system, and that should be fairly obvious considering you can’t use Yoast for Wix or any other website builder platform.

Go and download the Yoast SEO plugin and install it on your site. After it’s set in place you need to configure the basic settings. This is done by going to the Yoast SEO section of the control panel and clicking on ‘general’. Follow each step carefully, and be sure that you’ve taken the time to read the instructions. For those who have setup shouldn’t be too difficult, and they’re likely to get it right the first time.

Target Query Focus

You use Yoast for WordPress SEO optimization by focusing on target queries, and doing so one query at a time. Here’s your definition for that; a target query is one or several words that a user types into a search engine. An example might be someone writing an article describing the use of a ketogenic diet for weight loss, and their target query might be ‘benefits’, ‘alternative dietary weight loss approach’, or ‘benefits of a keto diet.’

Their target query there is actually the main keyword of the page (not the site), and for each page, post or product created on WordPress they will need to find and specify the target query representing the content displayed. One thing when using Yoast SEO for WordPress is that word order is very importance with any target query. You will also be better served by it if you diversify your queries. Don’t ever us two identical target queries for different pages on your site. Doing so will mean your pages will cannibalize each other and it becomes possible your site doesn’t rank is SERPS at all.

One of the advantages of using Yoast Premium is that you will be able to rank well for the keywords indicated in your content. This makes it easier to raise the query, and once you’ve located it you then go head and plug it in where indicated in the Yoast SEO section at the bottom of your content.

Optimizing Titles & Meta Descriptions

You get your maximum SEO boost from Yoast when you optimize titles and meta descriptions, and the way the plugin is designed is great because optimizing titles and description tags is supremely easy with Yoast. It’s best to keep your page title short and include the target query in it, and after that you should be putting your focus on the ‘slug’. What’s that? It is the part of the URL after the domain name, and it serves to synthesizes the content of a specific page on a website.

You’ll also want to see to it the target query is found in the slug. The site’s meta description is a very concise summary containing the main query that will appear below the page title in the search results and serving to provide an overview of the page’s content. It should also be presented in a way that encourages users to click on it. You can always refer to the analysis at the bottom of your page to see whether the optimization of certain elements is working or not.

Next the focus moves to internal and external links, and integrating them into a page or article effectively goes a long to helping a site ranks well and show up higher in SERPs, which as we’ve explained is what SEO is all about! Internal linking means integrating a link to another page on your site based on a phrase or word that is related to the subject. External links are the same but point to other websites. Make sure you choose credible sites for them or the search engines will catch you and you’ll have SEO value taken away from your site.

Part of using SEO tools for WordPress is to carefully plan the links you wish to use and then integrating them subtly. Another good tip is to occasionally check your links and determine whether they’re still linking properly or not. To avoid 404 errors.

Looking at Legibility

Search engines evaluate both content and the container that is containing and then delivering the content. The way the site is written very much impacts your ranking too, and we’re not just talking about organic keyword incorporation either. Yoast SEO for WordPress comes with a readability analysis tool that is very helpful for determining if your site is good enough in that regard, evaluating sentences length, diction used, sufficient use of transition words, correct use of passive / active voice, title hierarchy, and the lengths of paragraphs.

With Yoast it’s fairly simple to see how you’ve done with each based on their use of color-coded dots and smiley faces. Green means you’re in line with good SEO optimization, with orange there’s room for improvement, and red means you’ve got it wrong. You’ll also be provided with a Flesch readability score – an index for assessing the readability of a text.

A higher rating means the text is deemed to be accessible. A lower rating means the text is complex the way it is written. For good website SEO you want the highest possible rating. Image optimization is important too, and if you read any Yoast SEO guide you’ll have them harping on the importance of optimizing the various tags in your images.

Yoast will determine if this has been done properly, or not. File names, Alt tags and other image attributes all influence SEO. Effective image optimization will allow your site to come up in search engines’ image search function, and when this happens it becomes much more likely that a higher flow of traffic make its way to your business WordPress website.

Yoast SEO Checklist

Here’s a summative checklist you’ll want to tick the entirety of if you want to be assured of maximum WordPress SEO optimization via Yoast:

  1. Install Yoast SEO
  2. Complete basic configuration setup
  3. Define the target query
  4. Choose a page title
  5. Draft the Meta Description
  6. Slug creation
  7. Determine content readability
  8. Add internal and external links
  9. Optimize images

We’ll conclude this entry by stating that Yoast offers many other possibilities that are not covered here. The Premium version does put a lot more in your hands in the way of SEO tools for WordPress, and that greater capacity can be the difference between very good and excellent site optimization.

But it is best to see masting SEO for WordPress as a big-picture task that is much more complex than just using an SEO plugin for your website. There are technical and editorial skills needed for good SEO that one can only build up through a lot of learning and practice. But Yoast is a great tool if you don’t have the time for that, or you’re not inclined to pay for the time of someone who is and having them optimize your website for SEO.

If you optimize each of the previous elements for your pages, articles and products, you’ll probably see your rankings in SERPs improve. And remember that it may take some time for changes to be indexed by search engines, so don’t be dismayed if you don’t see the improvements right away. To improve website SEO if often a long game anyways, and you’ll need to be revisiting your SEO optimization again in the future even if you are seeing good improvements now.

WordPress 6.5 Arrival with New Features

Reading Time: 6 minutes

WordPress 6.5 Arrival with New Features Twenty plus years and counting since WordPress made its arrival and quickly became the platform of choice for anyone who felt that what they had to say was worth sharing on the World Wide Web. The reason it caught on so thoroughly was because of the simplicity it offered for publishing content in a form that was doable for the Internet, and since then WordPress expanded its horizons to become a website creation and launching platform too. Here we are in the middle of 2024 and it’s now possible to upgrade to WordPress 6.5.

This new WordPress update is getting a good bit of fanfare, and for legitimate reasons as it has expanded those horizons yet again and is set to enable users to do even more with creating websites and publishing content online. For the first decade and then some of its existence the predominant value for WordPress was in its vast array of plugins that made customizing pages a cinch and really allowed you to add design flair to the site with no need for web design capability or savvy at all.

That part of the appeal of WordPress is still there, but the new slate of WordPress 6.5 features takes this appeal to a whole new level. And does so based on so much more in the way of accessible functionality for people who choose to build a website with WordPress. That’s a good number of people, and more all the time considering the way that it’s not just businesses or bloggers that need to have a website these days.

There are all sorts of creative ventures out there that need a website for promotion and visibility, and that’s just one of example of many where the growth and vitality of society and culture have so many people deciding they need a simple yet attractive – and inexpensive – website for themselves. We imagine they’ll be keen to get started with WordPress 6.5, and we’ll lay out why that is here with this blog entry where we go into dtail about the newest iteration of WordPress and what makes it so great.

Super Enhancements

The WordPress 6.5 release was the first major one for 2024, and coming loaded with multiple enhancements that have been designed to streamline your website design and management experience. It can be a good fit for either those building their first website without coding knowledge or for seasoned developers who build websites from scratch. Going with WordPress 6.5 is going to make the process maximum user-friendly and efficient.

There are so many standout features that can benefit your site that it is hard to know where to start in lauding all of them, but we’ll just go ahead and choose one and it is the new and expanded font library that is included in the latest WordPress update. It really is a standout addition with typography that is tailored to you. With it you have the ability to directly upload or install your favorite Google Fonts.

This provides so much more capability with personalizing a site’s typography without the need for additional plugins. That’s something that is in line with establishing brand identity nowadays, especially considering how visual detail is so much more of accessory part of brand identity building.

The fonts you currently have installed on your WordPress theme are displayed by default with this feature. Adding additional fonts from your computer is immediately possible by moving them to the Upload tab. And if you’d like to use Google Fonts for the site all you need to do is click on the Install Fonts tab to connect your website to Google Fonts.

Interactivity API: Upping User Engagement

Another of the WordPress 6.5 improvements that everyone is taking real notice of is the way users can transform your site with the Interactivity API. It’s a wonder of a tool that is designed to make your pages more dynamic and engaging. This API gives users the ability to implement real-time interactions without needing a page to reload. For example, you can make color changes such as color changes to a product. What this does is create a smoother and more interactive experience for your visitors.

If you go to the WordPress website you can view a demo website that showcases the new update’s capabilities and what is possible with these WordPress 6.5 tools. Smoother drag & drop is another one of them. It is so much easier to move things around with less friction and you’ll also receive visual cues when an object is displaced. If that happens you can properly reposition to any location within your workplace so much more easily now.

Pattern duplication is another one of the WordPress 6.5 features that’s worth getting excited about. With it you can easily duplicate patterns on your site, including the ability to have synced patterns. This is a powerful tool for simplifying the process of creating consistent layouts. Consider improved list view too. With this feature users can access block settings with a right-click and rename blocks directly from the list view, making for a more intuitive navigation and editing experience.

Next up with WordPress 6.5 improvements is the optimized site editor. With it you can enjoy a cleaner, more organized site editor interface with personalized presentation options. Take advantage of the options that include bulk editing capabilities, filtering, and sorting. It seems users that have already taken 6.5 for a spin are also quite enthused about the new aspect ration and box shadow for blocks features too.

With these you can customize the appearance of your cover blocks with aspect ratio controls and make images so much better with real depth. Columns with box-shadow support are visually superior too, and this is something that users will quickly agree with once they seen them. Gallery and social block updates are especially welcome additions too.

Benefit from the new randomize feature in the Gallery block and an updated icon for Patreon in the Social block that enhances visual dynamics and improves on the social connectivity that is possible for the site.

Simpler & More Insightful Updates

We’ll go even further encouraging an upgrade to WordPress 6.5 here. The new features that are rolled out with it make it so much more versatile, and that’s building on an existing WordPress platform that was pretty darn versatile to begin with. We haven’t talked about all the WordPress 6.5 features yet, so we’ll continue doing just that. The greater ability users have with site icon changes now is a big plus too.

They can update their WordPress site icon with ease and make the change directly from the General Settings. This applies to both block and classic themes. Lots to be said for enhanced link management with WordPress 6.5 too, With this improved feature you have immediate access to link settings upon addition, and this is hugely beneficial for streamlining content creation. The same goes for style revision insights, which increase the ease and intuitiveness that users have with deciding on design changes. Using the style revision feature you will see how it offers descriptions and timestamps for each modification.

Making the Move to WordPress 6.5

The reasons people continue to look to 4GoodHosting for the best managed WordPress hosting in Canada are varied, but a part of it is the way we don’t miss a beat in being receptive to the latest WordPress updates and making it so that our WordPress site host clients can take full advantage of them right away. We’ve made WordPress 6.5 available on our Web Hosting and Managed WordPress plans.

The one thing we’ll mention though is that for complex website with several plugins in use it may be best to stall a bit before upgrading because some are reporting that major upgrades may break some plugins or themes. Once it’s all systems go for an upgrade you can initiate it from your WordPress dashboard or cPanel.

Those who’ve opted to go with a Managed WordPress plans may want to try testing out the new version through a staging site. What this does i create a copy of your live website in a separate staging environment for testing and it won’t affect your production site. Another big advantage with the new WordPress update.

We’ll conclude by saying that WordPress 6.5 is so well put together, and it’s so easy to agree that it can and likely will take your website customizing experience to enjoyable new heights with new functionalities and design enhancements. This stretches from typography freedom with the Font Library to interactive user experiences via the Interactivity API. With 6.5 you are so much more empowered to make your site more attractive, functional, and much more inviting for those who want to interact with after choosing to visit.

Better Web Accessibility for a WordPress Site

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Better Web Accessibility for a WordPress Site There are all sorts of references in life to knowing what goes on when you’re not around, and of course there’s an entire industry built around remedying the problem and providing that insight for you. Remote cameras do work especially well for that, but when it comes to hosting a website there’s no camera or anything else of the sort that is going to make you aware of someone being unable to visit your website when you’re not monitoring it. Which is going to be upwards of 98% of the time, provided you’re a normal business owner.

And we mention the business owners rather than the hobbyist website owner or any other type here because it is people with a WordPress website serving business interests that have most to lose when WordPress web accessibility is an issue. Most big corporations are going to have websites built on platforms that are much more mammoth – and expensive – than the relative simplicity that you get with WordPress.

But there are plenty of websites serving businesses built on WordPress, and no matter what size of business you’re running it’s likely you don’t want to miss even one sale or order because you didn’t have any accessible WordPress site for whatever reason. The consensus is going to be that can’t happen, or at least everything that can be done to prevent it from happening should be done.

The first thing to that end is to make sure you have reliable web hosting, and the best Managed WordPress Hosting in Canada is recommended. But from there it becomes a matter of taking advantage of the ability to have command of your website’s performance through the control panel and elsewhere, and doing what’s needed to improve WordPress web accessibility. That’s what we’ll look at here with this week’s blog entry, and it’s a topic that people with WordPress websites for business will definitely be interested in.

All In, All the Time

It’s fair to say that few if any people have checked on their website’s accessibility level lately. But perhaps they should, as today it is very necessary for the web to be accessible to everyone. Web accessibility is an important aspect that people seem to put an insufficient amount of focus on. And to reinforce that let’s consider that there are studies showing that over 25% of Canadians aged 15 and older report have reported at least one disability.

There is lots out there emphasizing web accessibility and underscoring its importance, and there are ways you can help make your WordPress website accessible to everyone. We can start by providing a definition for what is web accessibility. Let’s try doing that with an analogy. Web accessibility is like hosting a party where everyone who’s invited can actually come and participate.

But in more realistic terms web Accessibility is the practice of ensuring websites work for everyone, and that includes people with disabilities. There needs to be a focus on designing and creating sites that can be used by anyone, and independent of how they interact with the web—like using a keyboard instead of a mouse or needing text to be read aloud because they can’t see the screen well. Barriers to anyone who wants to visit and interact with your website need to be eliminated. All of them.

Importance of Web Accessibility

It is important for ALL users be able to navigate, understand, and interact with the web, regardless of their abilities. Accessible websites also contribute to your website’s ability to enhance user experience (UX) across the board, and when that accessibility is done right with the right infrastructure and other factors you will be increasing reach and market penetration. This is what happens when you making your content available to a wider audience and adhere to the right web accessibility guidelines.

As for what else you can expect to see improvements with, the two most notable are improvements with you site’s SEO rankings as search engines prioritize accessible websites, and also with having legal risks better mitigated as you get your site more in line with the standards of the Accessible Canada Act. It can be good for you to look at WordPress web accessibility in the bigger picture too, and these are 2 ways you can do that.

Let’s now move to looking at this from the angle of how it relates to W3C and WCAG. We know the importance of making your website accessible and usable by everyone, but what about where those accessibility guidelines and standards come from and why there are implemented in the first place?

W3C stands for World Wide Web Consortium, and this organization plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of the web. This consortium gathers experts from around the world to develop protocols, standards and guidelines to ensure the web’s long-term growth. W3C is front and center in the extent to which the web is open, functional, and accessible for everyone, and this correlates to why there is such a big focus on accessible WordPress sites.

Understanding WCAG

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) was developed by W3C in 2008, and they are the cornerstone of web accessibility efforts worldwide. Functioning much like the blueprint of inclusion on the web. These guidelines have evolved through several updates to cover a wider spectrum of disabilities that may prevent certain individuals from having the extent of access to information on the web that they need to have. Access that is common and no issue for others without those disabilities.

The focus has been on measuring accessibility with 3 conformance levels – Level A deems that a website needs to meet the basic web accessibility features. Level AA represents the typical standard required by laws and regulations worldwide, stipulating a website addresses the major requirements for disability access. With level AAA you have the most stringent level of conformance, and laying out the requirement that a website meets the highest standard of web accessibility.

Ideally, this is the standard recommended for a website as per these web accessibility guidelines. The Accessible Canada Act requires all organizations under federal jurisdiction including all federal departments and agencies to make their websites and digital content accessible at a Level AA.

POUR Principles

The POUR principles are a framework created by the W3C that give a relatable example of how the infrastructure for an accessible website should work. The acronym represents 4 key aspects of web accessibility. P is for perceivable – users are able to access and understand a site’s content, and do so through sight, sound, or touch​​. Site design should include captions in videos and transcripts to audio files designed for deaf or hearing-impaired users.

Alt tags (alternative text) should be in place for all images so visually impaired users can view them. O is for operable – the accessible WordPress site should work for everyone, regardless of how they navigate it. To do this site designers need to make sure that users have multiple ways to interact with the website. An example could be using a keyboard instead of a mouse for scrolling up and down pages, and designers also need to aim to be giving clear instructions or error recovery options that can be controlled regardless of abilities. As for what not to be doing, you can skip elements that require drag-and-drop interactions unless there is an accessible alternative.

U is for understandable. The website and its content should be easy to navigate, read or understand. Everything from information to how the site works should be straightforward​. This is done through different means, including choosing a language level that’s easy to read and understand. The general part of this web accessibility guidelines is to have it at around an 8th-grade reading level if writing for the general public.

Also aim for shorter supplements of information, such as TLDR summaries or excerpts before long articles or written descriptions for charts or graphs. Functions and elements that are easy to understand are better choices too, and it is best to be consistent with font styles, colors, and sizing across all website pages. R is for robust. A site that scores high marks for accessibility should work well with different technologies, including browsers and assistive tools​​.

More specifically, the site should function equally well across many current and future devices, operating systems, and browsers. Designers should also consider supporting some outdated operating systems and browser versions given some users are less likely to have the most up-to-date versions of their browser installed or coming with their operating system.

WordPress & Web Accessibility

To tout WordPress even further, it is a top choice for building accessible websites and that is because of its flexible architecture, built-in tools that meet international standards, and team support that puts tools in place with a focus on keeping web inclusivity front and center. You can be assured that WordPress offers tools and features that help ensure your site meets accessibility standards.

If you’re starting out and building a WordPress website from scratch then one thing you can do that’s easy and will have you building right is to choose an accessibility-ready theme. Choosing the right one is always important, as it forms the foundation of the accessibility features we’ve been talking about. There is no shortage of accessibility-ready WordPress themes available through the platform, and ones built with accessibility in mind from the outset will make it significantly easier to achieve and maintain compliance with WCAG standards.

This is the way to go if you want to ensure ensuring your accessible WordPress site is just that – accessible to all users. You should also focus on leveraging accessibility plug-ins. It’s possible to enhance a website’s accessibility by using plugins designed to improve various aspects of it. You also need to put an emphasis on creating accessible content, and the best approaches for doing that are to use Alt Text for every image to describe what the image shows. With WordPress this is possible by adding them directly in the media uploader.

Then structure your content with proper heading tags (H1, H2, H3) to organize and describe the main topics of a page. Also ensure all your videos have captions and all audio content features transcripts so that users with hearing impairments are accommodated in the way they need to be.

Testing your website for web accessibility needs to be a priority and focus too. In addition to the W3C’s self-evaluation checklist for your website you can also use AI-powered tools like AccessScan, AccessBird, or AccessibilityChecker for reliable site analysis and then follow the recommendations you get from any of them. With chatGPT, Accessibility Testing GPT is a tool for scanning web pages and identifying any issues. Lastly, keep your WordPress and plugins updated as these updates will usually come with improvements in accessibility features.

Commitment to Web Accessibility

WHC is dedicated to WordPress web accessibility, and that for websites of other build types too. For many web hosting providers these guidelines are taken into account with the way website builders can be used when building a WordPress website, and the guidelines will apply to other site types as well. The focus is always going to be on meeting WCAG Level AA requirements. Do your best to meet this standard and working to ensure all parts of a website are equally accessible. We imagine that you agree every Canadian should be able to succeed online, and adherence with a site goes a long way in making that happen.

The advice is to not see accessibility as just a legal requirement. Instead see it as a promise to make the web a welcoming place for everyone. Tearing down barriers and making the web more inclusive is a worthwhile aim and an outcome that is entirely doable. Start making small improvements and work towards WordPress web accessibility.

FAQs

What is web accessibility?

Web accessibility is having a website being available for the same degree of use, interaction, and gained knowledge or usability for all users. Independent of any disabilities or barriers to usage that may exist based on these factors in comparison to what would be the case for an average user who is not incapacitated with their use of the site by any such disability.

Why is web accessibility important for my WordPress site?

Web accessibility is important for any website of any build type – including WordPress websites – because of the agreed-upon need that the information made available on the World Wide Web must be equally available and consumable by all users. This is based on the understanding that we live in a digital world and that critical information and life tools are increasingly only made immediately available through the Internet.

What are some common web accessibility features?

Common web accessibility features include ALT text for images, and proper tag headings with H1, H2, and H3 formats for headings. It is also advisable to have all your videos paired with captions and all audio content featuring transcripts for hearing impaired users who are visiting the website and interacting with it.

How can I test my website for accessibility?

There are a number of external tools that webmaster can use to determine if their site matches up to the standards for web accessibility. The most well-known ones are AI-powered tools like AccessScan, AccessBird, or AccessibilityChecker.

How often should I test my site for accessibility?

The general consensus in the industry is that webmasters should test their site and be determining if it meets web accessibility standards at least once every year. This is based on the fact that the general guidelines for web accessibility do change, but don’t do so frequently and the changes are usually very minor.

Data Security: Best Practices for VPS Servers

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Data Security: Best Practices for VPS ServersPeople draw curtains or close blinds because they want privacy, and in other instances it’s because they’re looking to be kept out of the light of the sun. But when they lock doors they are taking it to a different level and no part of their interest is in shade from anything. They’re wanting to have an uncrossable barrier between themselves and the outside world, and one of the principal appeal points of being indoors is being able to have that. It can keep you safe, and it can also make sure your belongings stay in your possession.

Both aspects of that can be related to when we frame that from the perspective of cyber security. The reason that website security protocols and the like are necessary is because there are more cyber security threats than ever before and without these protocols there will be unauthorized access to your website. And once the threat actors are in there is no telling what they might get up to.

One of the more serious risks is data theft from a website, and assuring people you have the means of defending against that is going to be expected with VPS hosting Canada with 24/7 support. Web hosting providers need to have web security protocols built into their hosting servers and these days it’s necessary to offer this to prospective customers. We’re able to provide that assurance with out VPS web hosting here at 4GoodHosting, and we put a real emphasis on staying at the forefront with secure web hosting in Canada.

So what we’re going to do with this week’s blog entry here is talk about the best data security practices for VPS servers. It is a topic that will be of interest for anyone who has a website for a growing business that is moving to VPS hosting because their current shared hosting arrangement isn’t a fit because of traffic spikes to the website – a good problem to have to be sure if you have an ecommerce website and you’re online to promote the growth of your business. More high-performance web hosting is where they need to be looking.

Look To AI for Best Defense

AIOps (artificial intelligence for IT operations) are the true difference now when it comes to cyber security, and it is cloud automation tools that are really standing and ready to lead the charge against the ever-increasing and ever-complex array of cyber threats that are facing websites nowadays. The fact of the matter is that websites –especially ecommerce ones – have no choice but to contain sensitive data. If that data is exposed with a security breach there are potentially huge problems that can become realities very quickly.

This is especially true for VPS hosting Canada with 24/7 support because today’s sprawling tech stacks are eating up so much of a developer’s time with tedious maintenance tasks. Far too many working hours may often be spent managing and maintaining infrastructure, taking away from the focus on application development and innovation. Coordinating and managing all of the different pieces of software is a complex task that’s often onerous too

And that onerous nature becomes even more pronounced because there’s a heaviness to all of this; a misstep or two can leave a business’ website open to an attack. It makes it understandable that many corporate IT departments feel overwhelmed. They’re expected to add new features and capabilities to a complex system of applications and infrastructure, but any mistakes that could disrupt the entire business are not acceptable at all and the expectation is that no such a mistake will ever be made.

This is where AI’s arrival into the digital world and the realm of business as a whole has been quite timely. Artificial intelligence automation tools can save your staff hours of repetitive work. These tools can significantly reduce the burden of routine infrastructure management tasks, freeing up significant blocks of time for developers.

Transforming System Administration

It’s not the situation anymore where a software update meant weeks of planning, and in the end hoping it all works out for the best. There are some new and powerful generative AI solutions on the market that provide solutions for the bulk of these issues. They are able to take large volumes of information, collect and correlate it, and the offer up new insights for individuals that provide smarter looks into their infrastructure performance. As well as addressing potential emerging problems.

We talked about AIOps earlier, and the use of them for automating system administration tasks is such a powerful development here when it comes to better cyber security via your web hosting provider. These AI-driven tools can automate repetitive tasks like system monitoring, security updates, and even data backups, and the technology is making inroads pretty much everywhere.

First and foremost has been on the application development front end and through to backend backup and recovery. Software testing is a part of security with high-performance web hosting Canada too, and AIOps are extremely helpful here too. For starters it means much less of the testing, testing, and more testing approach that web security developers have known for a long time.

That was a crucial process to ensure a new feature doesn’t unleash a troublemaker that throws the system into chaos. Creating and running all those tests takes way too much time though, and doing it yourself means that it’s easy to let a mistake get past you. But now AI-powered tool can now act as your super-efficient testing assistant, automatically generating regression, unit, and integration tests and analyzing the mountains of data generated by these tests.

This is what you can get with VPS hosting Canada with 24/7 support – built-in security platforms that have been designed with AI for superior software quality and reliability. Faster deployments of cyber security measures / infrastructure with minimized risk. These include tools like Jenkins and Ansible, augmenting your IT department’s capabilities and providing deeper insights into the health of the cyber security software. Along with faster development cycles and fewer bugs.

Cloud-Based Convenience with Complex Configurations

Before all of this setting up new software meant manually configuring every aspect of the needed infrastructure, starting with the network layer and moving up from there. It was a time-consuming process if there ever was one. Add AI for website security to the mix and now creating new resources is smooth and frictionless.

Crafting a new server environment can be as simple as a few taps on a cell phone. Automated tools in the cloud do the heavy lifting, instantly deploying the necessary resources based on the user’s request. Delays are pretty much unheard of and the time to market is sped up nicely.

Choose automated monitoring tools like Zabbix, Up-Time Kuma, and Prometheus and you can have them continuously analyzing performance and resource usage, plus identifying potential bottlenecks in advance of those becoming problems. When you use automated monitoring tools as part of security for a web hosting server you shift from reactive to proactive system maintenance, and this means you avoid most delays and speed up resolutions to the ones and other challenges you do come across.

Your web hosting security for servers is much more robust, and that’s exactly what you want to have with VPS web hosting in Canada. So let’s move to spend the rest of this blog entry focusing on security more exclusively.

Superior Security Solutions

Traditional ad hoc security methods often come up short for efficiency and scalability. Legacy security systems rely on continuous monitoring, and massive amounts of data are generated as a result. Analyzing this data manually to identify potential threats was a hugely inefficient process, and still would be if AI hadn’t arrived on the scene. Here it is with high-performance web hosting Canada that we see automated security tools transforming the way web hosts do threat detection and response.

These tools offer enhanced efficiency and accuracy. With ones like UTunnel VPN, OpenVPN, pfSense, Fortigate, and Passbolt there are regular scans and vulnerability assessments so that potential weaknesses in the system infrastructure are identified. Rather than sifting through mountains of data, these tools utilize advanced algorithms to pinpoint suspicious activities.

Managing user accounts and permissions can be a significant challenge for IT teams, especially in dynamic environments with frequent employee turnover and evolving applications. Automation has revolutionized user provisioning and permission management, and as a result IT teams can be more streamlined with account creation, enforcing consistent policies, and minimizing the chances of human error compromising security.

Log management is majorly improved as a part of better web hosting security too. AIOps solutions not only collect data, but they also continuously analyze logs for anomalies so they can identify potential issues and alert IT teams of security breach risks long before they become a more immediate possibility. This streamlines problem identification, allowing teams to address issues faster and focus on proactive maintenance.

Patch automation is much better too. With suppliers constantly releasing new versions, maintaining consistent, up-to-date software across all systems can be challenging. Missing out on the latest security patches becomes more of a possibility if you miss an update, and if that happens you are more at risk of having your cyber security being a little less solid than it was before, and opening your operations to possible intrusion.

With automation tools for web hosting security, patching software is as simple as setting a timer. They regularly schedule and deploy patches across entire organizations to make sure all systems are updated consistently and efficiently.

The sum of all of this is super important and creates real needs in response to a complex and ever-changing technology infrastructure when it comes to providing better security for VPS web hosting and making it a reliable part of the web host’s server infrastructure. AIOps make all the difference here now, and go beyond simply ensuring resources are available when needed. The mix of smarts and reach mean much better – and much more proactive – built in security for websites that have the best VPS hosting.