November 2016 – ACS Reduc 2022

The Epic Battle Between WordPress vs Squarespace

November 28, 2016

In the battle of Designer Using WordPress vs Squarespace, which one reigns supreme? That is what we are about to find out. Both have diehard fans who insist the benefits of their favorite platform far outweigh the advantages of the other. Many think it’s wholly unnecessary to hire a web designer when you can drag and drop your way to a new online presence. So we’re going head to head: comparing features, discussing value, and giving you an honest look at which avenue is the best to take: Squarespace or WordPress. Here we go.

Round 1: Squarespace SEO vs Designer using WordPress SEO.

Squarespace states that their sites are optimized for search engines from the get-go. They already include clean article links, proper tagging, XML sitemaps and valid XHTML code. This is all true and makes it very easy for the lay person to plug and play without knowing a single thing about SEO. However, ease has it drawbacks. For example, your ability to fully customize your SEO is hampered by the turnkey aspect of Squarespace’s SEO. While you can edit the meta description (that gray text you see under website names in search results) some of Squarespace’s templates also put that description in your website’s header. This is not great for SEO. The meta description should include keywords and a call to action, namely, clicking on the site. Your header and other on-page text is meant to introduce your website/company to consumers. When Squarespace conflates these two things, you lose the ability to truly tailor your content for maximum SEO.

In contrast, WordPress handles SEO through plugins. One of the most popular SEO plugins is Yoast. Yoast allows you to see how your page will look in search engine results. You can easily customize keywords and meta descriptions, create your sitemaps and perform on-page analyses to improve SEO. Other plugins are offering similar functionality. Your knowledgeable WordPress designer can manipulate a variety of plugins to maximize SEO for your WordPress site and tailor it to your company’s needs—and that is the key. Squarespace SEO is one size fits all, and that may be a little too small or a little too big for you. The extra cost of a web designer using WordPress is paid back in better search engine optimization.

Because of the added customization and ability to differentiate meta text from on-page text, ACS Creative declares the:

Round 1: Squarespace SEO vs Design using WordPress SEO Winner to be: Designer.

Round 2: Squarespace uptime vs Design Using WordPress uptime.

This compare and contrast can get a little tricky because many WordPress sites are not hosted for free on WordPress.org. That’s for personal blogs and freelancers. If you’re a small business seeking a brand new responsive website, you should be looking at a managed hosting package, like the one ACS Creative offers web clients. Our packages not only host your site but include top security features, daily back-ups, and ongoing maintenance. You can also purchase one from hosting companies such as GoDaddy or Network Solutions, but you’ll have to maintain updates and security yourself. That’s why this particular comparison between WordPress vs Squarespace is a little apples to oranges. But our inability to compare and contrast is exactly why WordPress has the edge here. Squarespace hosts Squarespace websites. That’s how it works. You are at the mercy of Squarespace when it comes to your uptime and your security. If you want to change hosts, you usually need to rebuild your site. This may not be a deal breaker for you. You may be totally fine staying on Squarespace forever and not worrying about maintenance, backups, and security. Except Squarespace suffered an outage last April. All of their sites (over 1 million) went down. Not good if you’re banking on online sales. This should be a deal breaker.

Round 2 Winner: Designer using WordPress who offers a managed hosting package.

Round 3: Squarespace Cost vs Designer using WordPress Cost.

Here’s where there is a substantial difference. Squarespace costs less regarding upfront outlay. The company offers low-cost monthly plans that include basic themes and hosting. If you’re a micro business with no intention of growing bigger, this is probably fine. If you have your small business sights set on doubling customers and boosting revenue, the true Squarespace cost is a lack of lead generation. Again, Squarespace is, for the most part, a turnkey program designed for personal use and general business. It’s not specific to your business. WordPress website designers may cost more, they may have heftier monthly plans, but they will tailor your website to your specific business goals. They will ensure that SEO functionality is generating the results you want, and they will offer personalized customer service. At least, that’s what we do at ACS Creative. So the real question here is not how much does a designer using WordPress vs Squarespace cost? The true question is: which one will get you more value.

Round 3 Winner: Designer using WordPress who offers much more value per dollar.

Round 4: Squarespace design vs Designer using WordPress.

This one is a real easy comparison. Squarespace offers roughly 50 different templates that you can customize with your choice of colors, content, and typography. That sounds like a lot, except when you realize that there are over a million Squarespace websites out there. In contrast, the design possibilities with a designer using WordPress are virtually endless. Regarding customization potential, Squarespace can’t compete.

Round 4 winner: Designers using WordPress and their imaginations.

A designer using WordPress is the clear heavyweight champ.

If you’re a growing small business, a web design company can be your best friend. Websites like Squarespace certainly offer many benefits, but those may not be the right advantages for your company. A savvy web design company can do wonders for your business. Before you Squarespace, it’s worth checking some out.

What those “User-Friendly” Website Builders aren’t Telling You

November 21, 2016

Back in the day, a business card was the first tool in any new company’s arsenal. Now what every start up needs most is a branded online presence that generates business. Cue the onslaught of DIY website platforms like Wix, Weebly and Squarespace that promise to be the best website builder for small businesses. At ACS Creative web design company, we beg to differ. While these platforms offer drag and drop features that appeal to non techies wanting to go live in a jiffy, they have several major issues in common. So before you sign up for what seems like a too good to be true “best” website creator, check out the caveats below.

You’ll be stuck with isolationist technology.

Companies like Wix, Weebly and Squarespace rely on their own, uniquely created technologies that appear similar to WordPress, but are not WordPress. That means you have to depend entirely on that company for all your website design ideas. The problem is that more often than not, your DIY website builder will have limited functionality. For example, it may not integrate with e-commerce. It may not allow for best practice SEO strategies. Google analytics? You might have to forget that, too. And tracking of conversions? Well, that’s probably too much to ask. Essentially, when you choose these “top” website builders, the ease you think you are gaining is countered by a significant decrease in your ability to leverage your online presence to build a more successful business—which is the whole reason you need a website in the first place.

Your best website builder for small business is a web design company.

That’s because web design companies and freelance web designers almost exclusively build sites in WordPress. The latest stats show that WordPress accounts for nearly 57% of content management systems. Over 500 WordPress sites are created each day. The reason for this platform’s popularity among personal web design and those searching for the best website builder for a small business, is that it is an open source website creation tool. Translation: WordPress technology is free. It’s not owned by a private company and it’s not exclusive to users paying a monthly fee. Anyone can design in WordPress and anyone can create plugins for WordPress. (There are currently over 44,000 plugins available.) All this creates numerous benefits for small businesses.

Realize ALL your website design ideas.

Unlike those other platforms, WordPress gives web development and design companies the ultimate freedom to create a tailored site that provides just about any functionality you can dream up. These functions can really boost your business. If you think websites are just images and words, you are missing the rest of the iceberg. Modern websites are content management systems that integrate marketing functions. They can generate leads and capture consumer data. But to really harness the power of the Internet, you need a website built by experts. So unless you are a website design/developer, you should leave the website building to those experts.

Once you go with a DIY website builder, you can never leave.

There’s another drawback to using an “easy” website builder that relies on proprietary technology. If you decide that Wix, Weebly or Squarespace no longer works for you, then you have to scrap your website and start over. From scratch. You can’t transfer your site elsewhere. Other hosting companies like GoDaddy, HostGator and Network Solutions won’t be able to host it. So all that money you spent, in the end, gets you nothing. Alternately, websites built by web design companies, especially those using WordPress, can be hosted on all the major hosting companies. If your hosting plan gets too expensive or you decide the security on that server isn’t up to snuff, you can just take your website elsewhere. Simply download the files and upload them again.

Your website design has two audiences.

Most lay people assume they are building their websites for their customers. That’s only the half of it. You are also building it for Google, Bing and other search engines. Those “best web builders” allow you to easily add content and images and get your site live. You look at your spanking new site and think: “What an awesome online brochure.” The problem is, if you think of websites as virtual brochures, you are neglecting all the backend work that goes into getting a good search engine ranking. Google is your most critical audience. Web development companies understand how to harness meta descriptions, key words and other tools so that Google likes you. When Google likes you, your site ranks high and customers find you. When Google doesn’t like you, you might as well not have a website at all. Think about how many times you go past the third page of search results. You want to avoid that abyss at all costs.

Those web design quotes are a bargain. Really.

The reason most people go with an easy website builder is cost. These companies make their profits over time. There is a small upfront charge (if any) and then you pay them monthly. If you want to end the contract, then you lose your website as noted above. In contrast, a web design company will bill you up front. Many small companies balk at the initial expense. The difference can be in the thousands. However, when you consider that 1. your website will function properly as well as look good, 2. that Google will be able to find you, and 3. that you get to keep your website forever (or until technology evolves again) the upfront cost is a great value. (And you can amortize that cost. Just ask your tax accountant.) The bottom line: being stuck with a monthly fee for a site you can never own, doesn’t integrate with the majority of other technologies and isn’t as effective as it can be at generating leads, is truly the more costly option.

Times are Changing. 9 Search Engine Tips to Rethink

November 14, 2016

Search Engine Tips & Tactics That Have Gone from Wins to Fails

Back when there were few players in the game, most SEO optimization tips worked and were somewhat simple. But with the exponential growth of users and abusers, some of the old techniques don’t work so well anymore. Even worse, a few are now actually penalized by Google. Here are the biggest offenders:

Write keyword heavy content.

You’re probably aware by now that Google penalizes the practice of cramming as many keywords into a website’s text and meta descriptions as possible (“keyword stuffing”), and has done so for the past five-plus years. What you may not know is that it’s not necessary to force exact match keyword phrases into your text at all.

Google’s latent semantic indexing will identify the most common words and phrases of the entire page, no matter what order they appear in, as well as synonyms and related terms. This leaves you free to write quality content that not only brings in the traffic, it converts them to customers.

Don’t bother with SEO content.

Some people have taken the above statement to mean that you don’t have to optimize your content, period. You still need the search engines to find it, though. Make it easy for them to do that with effective page URLs, meta data and site architecture as well as well researched, judiciously deployed keywords.

Don’t bother with images.

This idea came into being because search engines can’t actually see images. But they can see the image’s file name, title, caption, alt text and description. If these are well done with relevant keywords, they can have a significant impact on your website’s optimization.

We’re not saying you should just throw any old stock photo or video onto your website. The importance of visual content to your overall branding and marketing strategy can’t be overestimated. Choose unique, powerful images that help sell your business and have a better chance of being seen.

Add more pages to increase traffic.

Unless those additional pages have great content, they won’t help you at all. Again, Google rankings now depend on the quality, not quantity, of the user experience. The Panda algorithm update of 2011 was the death knell of the junk site whose only reason for existence was to display PPC ads. In fact, multiple pages with duplicate, little or no content may even bring a Google penalty down on your head.

Add more links to improve ranking.

It’s true that a substantial amount of inbound and outbound links will help your SEO ranking; it’s still one of the top five most important ranking factors. But this has led to numerous abuses, such as buying/selling links, links hidden in widgets, bait and switch links, and more.

In 2013 with the Penguin 2.0 algorithm, Google began clamping down on those SEO optimization tips by examining the quality of the link and the domain it was obtained from. So now your best strategy is to earn links the old-fashioned way, by offering webmasters, bloggers, editors and publishers a genuine reason to add a link back to your website. That means making substantive comments, guest blogs and similar means of developing a real relationship.

Ignore social media.

There’s a lot of argument about whether social media popularity affects search engine rankings. But we don’t think it’s a coincidence that the websites with the best rankings are also the ones that have a big social media following. These days, not even B2B companies can succeed by focusing solely on their own website’s SEO content, architecture and coding.

And remember, the goal of any SEO optimization tips are to drive traffic to your website. Social media can achieve that same goal by putting your business in front of more eyeballs and producing more backlinks. Why waste this opportunity?

Ignore mobile optimization.

If your website can’t be easily loaded and viewed on mobile device screens, you’re losing out on the majority of your potential customers. The statistics tell the tale:
• More Google searches are performed on mobile phones than desktop computers.
• Mobile represents 65% of digital media time.
• Mobile users are nearly twice as likely as desktop users to share content

Indeed, some marketing experts are saying that desktop computers should now be considered the secondary device. We think the handwriting went on the wall with Google’s introduction of Accelerated Mobile Pages. Although Google still calculates rankings according to desktop searches, we believe the inclusion of mobile page versions in organic search results is not too far in the future.

Ignore local SEO.

You may think that because you don’t have a brick-and-mortar location, you won’t benefit from local SEO strategy. But if you have customers or prospects in that city, you should make yourself visible to local searches.

Some steps that you can take to improve local SEO are:
• Create a landing page for local searches
• Add location keywords within your website
• Get a local listing on Google Business
• Publish locally oriented blog posts
• Ask for inbound links from local businesses

Higher rank equals higher traffic.

It’s all too easy to focus on where your website is placed in search results pages. After all, the reason you’re doing SEO in the first place is to increase your visibility to potential customers. But just because more people see your listing, doesn’t mean you will get more click-throughs. And of the people who do click through, how many of them are truly qualified sales leads?

Google constantly harps on the theme of quality over quantity, and it applies here, too. Make sure you don’t get people clicking through in response to irrelevant keywords. Also check your meta descriptions: are they interesting and enticing, or just boring lists of keywords? The first check keeps timewasters out, the second encourages legitimate prospects to come in. All in all, focusing on your visitor experience, rather than search engine ranking, will deliver a better return on your investment.

Why You Should Recycle Old Posts For More Traffic and Leads

November 7, 2016

Recycle Old Posts for Maximum Traffic Exposure with Minimum Effort

You’ve probably heard (in this blog and elsewhere) that one of Google’s criteria for giving a website high search engine results page placement is the regular addition of fresh content. What’s more, as everyone follows Google’s dictates and floods the internet with staggering volumes of new content, in-bound links from social media pages become an easier way to drive traffic to a website. So, for both search engines and social media, frequent updates are key.

This is a problem for many businesses who either don’t have the resources for such an endeavor, or just don’t have news to share that often. How can they keep the content wheels turning in the slow periods between new posts? One way is to rework or repurpose content.

Decide What Content to Recycle

Audit.
Look at every page on your website from the perspective of possible spin-offs or updates.

Analyze.
Time-sensitive content (news items, blog posts): Which pages have been performing well, and which less so? Anything that’s no longer pulling its weight should be a candidate for reworking.

Evergreen content (product/service pages, corporate info): How can it be leveraged in multiple formats and channels? The same info bite can keep people coming to your website from many different directions.

If a page is no longer useful at all, like a discontinued product or job listing, take this opportunity to remove it from your site. Remember to set up a 301 redirect so that people landing on the old URL are taken to a new, relevant page.

Transport It: Intra-Site Recycling

Instead of thinking up new topics or writing an article from scratch, do a quick rewrite of assets already in your content bank.

Update it.
Some of your older blog articles may refer to trends, statistics, regulations, etc. that aren’t current anymore. Repurpose content with the same talking points but more recent information. Also, update your evergreen content where necessary. This could be anything from a new manager bio on the “About Us” page to revised product specs.

Atomize it.
Divide up a “Ten Tips” type of article and expand each one of the tips into its own article. For example, the section you’re reading now could become a stand-alone article on content recycling techniques.

Invert it.
Rewrite a “How to” article as a “How Not to” discussion; or vice versa. Example: “Best Practices” inverts into “Worst Mistakes.”

Visualize it.
Turn a text-only article into one that replaces some of the verbiage with infographics or videos. If that’s not feasible, add subheads, bullet lists and similar devices to break up the text and make it more visually appealing.

Upgrade it.
Add quality and authority to an article with new statistics, quotes from experts and links to their websites.

Expand it.
Spin the information from a product page or user manual into a blog article. You’re probably already doing this with new product introductions, but don’t miss the opportunity to explain every one of your products and services. Google loves useful content like this.

Import/Export It: Extra-Site Recycling

Get more return on your content writing services investment by populating multiple platforms with it. The backlinks will provide a nice boost to your SEO ranking.

Social media.
Posts to your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media pages should appear on your website, and vice versa. In this case, and up to a point, you can simply duplicate the content.

Publishing sites.
Newsworthy content, such as product launches or management appointments, should be submitted to news services such as PR Newswire. Any and everything else can go on sites like HubPages.

Guest posts.
Add contributions that you’ve made to discussion groups, forums, other people’s blogs or social media to your own website. Expand, condense or explain as necessary.

Collateral.
Digitize and upload any white papers, catalogs, brochures and other company literature that isn’t already on your site. Extracts from long white papers make excellent blog posts.

Atomize it, part 2.
In the section above, we suggested taking one talking point from an article and expanding it into its own article. You can also keep the talking point as is and put this quick bite on social media sites like Twitter with a link back to the original article.

Audio/video versions.
Take your repurpose content to new audiences, especially those who don’t have time to read long articles. Make an audio recording of yourself reading an article and turn it into a podcast. Add some slides and make a PowerPoint presentation. Produce a video webinar.

Recycle Old Posts SEO Tips for Success

Since the whole purpose of recycling content is for search engine optimization, make sure you have it configured to Google’s liking.

Keywords.
You’ve probably done additional keyword research since that old content was published. Apply the new findings to your recycled article.

Internal links.
The longer visitors stay on your site, the better Google loves you. Keep them clicking around with links on every page to every other relevant page. In addition to including links in your recycled content, you can also link from the original article to the recycled one, i.e. “See more (or newer) information here.”

Meta data.
Google dislikes duplicate meta data as much as duplicate content. Don’t forget to change up the tags and descriptions on your recycled page.

Retain page seniority.
With this trick, you don’t actually change the content, just its publishing date. Reposting an old, formerly successful article on the same URL will improve traffic to it because it’s re-archived closer to your home page, yet Google won’t perceive it as a duplicate. It won’t equal truly fresh content, but might give your SEO performance a little help.

Conclusion

Sure, repurpose content is an easy way to fill the gaps between posts of fresh content: to “fake it ’til you make it.” But it’s more than that. Your content is a valuable asset that can and should be exploited in every way possible to maximize your return on investment.