Dec 3 2024
Maximize SEO Efforts: How To Fix Website Issues That Drain Time, Money & Performance

This post was sponsored by Bluehost. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Your website’s hosting is more than a technical decision.

It’s a cornerstone of your business’s online success that impacts everything from site speed and uptime to customer trust and overall branding.

Yet, many businesses stick with subpar hosting providers, often unaware of how much it’s costing them in time, money, and lost opportunities.

The reality is that bad hosting doesn’t just frustrate you. It frustrates your customers, hurts conversions, and can even damage your brand reputation.

The good news?

Choosing the right host can turn hosting into an investment that works for you, not against you.

Let’s explore how hosting affects your bottom line, identify common problems, and discuss what features you should look for to maximize your return on investment.

1. Start By Auditing Your Website’s Hosting Provider

The wrong hosting provider can quickly eat away at your time & efficiency.

In fact, time is the biggest cost of an insufficient hosting provider.

To start out, ask yourself:

  • Is Your Bounce Rate High?
  • Are Customers Not Converting?
  • Is Revenue Down?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, and no amount of on-page optimization seems to make a difference, it may be time to audit your website host.

Why Audit Your Web Host?

Frequent downtime, poor support, and slow server response times can disrupt workflows and create frustration for both your team and your visitors.

From an SEO & marketing perspective, a sluggish website often leads to:

  • Increased bounce rates.
  • Missed customer opportunities.
  • Wasted time troubleshooting technical issues.

Could you find workarounds for some of these problems? Sure. But they take time and money, too.

The more dashboards and tools you use, the more time you spend managing it all, and the more opportunities you’ll miss out on.

For example, hosts offering integrated domain and hosting management make overseeing your website easier and reduce administrative hassles.

Bluehost’s integrated domain services simplify website management by bringing all your hosting and domain tools into one intuitive platform.

2. Check If Your Hosting Provider Is Causing Slow Site Load Speeds

Your website is often the first interaction a customer has with your brand.

A fast, reliable website reflects professionalism and trustworthiness.

Customers associate smooth experiences with strong brands, while frequent glitches or outages send a message that you’re not dependable.

Your hosting provider should enhance your brand’s reputation, not detract from it.

How To Identify & Measure Slow Page Load Speeds

Identifying and measuring slow site and page loading speeds starts with using tools designed to analyze performance, such as Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, or Lighthouse.

These tools provide metrics like First Contentful Paint (FCP) and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which help you see how quickly key elements of your page load.

Pay attention to your site’s Time to First Byte (TTFB), a critical indicator of how fast your server responds to requests.

Regularly test your site’s performance across different devices, browsers, and internet connections to identify bottlenecks. High bounce rates or short average session durations in analytics reports can also hint at speed issues.

Bandwidth limitations can create bottlenecks for growing websites, especially during traffic spikes.

How To Find A Fast Hosting Provider

Opt for hosting providers that offer unmetered or scalable bandwidth to ensure seamless performance even during periods of high demand.

Cloud hosting is designed to deliver exceptional site and page load speeds, ensuring a seamless experience for your visitors and boosting your site’s SEO.

With advanced caching technology and optimized server configurations, Bluehost Cloud accelerates content delivery to provide fast, reliable performance even during high-traffic periods.

Its scalable infrastructure ensures your website maintains consistent speeds as your business grows, while a global Content Delivery Network (CDN) helps reduce latency for users around the world.

With Bluehost Cloud, you can trust that your site will load quickly and keep your audience engaged.

3. Check If Your Site Has Frequent Or Prolonged Downtime

Measuring and identifying downtime starts with having the right tools and a clear understanding of your site’s performance.

Tools like uptime monitoring services can track when your site is accessible and alert you to outages in real time.

You should also look at patterns.

Frequent interruptions or prolonged periods of unavailability are red flags. Check your server logs for error codes and timestamps that indicate when the site was down.

Tracking how quickly your hosting provider responds and resolves issues is also helpful, as slow resolutions can compound the problem.

Remember, even a few minutes of downtime during peak traffic hours can lead to lost revenue and customer trust, so understanding and monitoring downtime is critical for keeping your site reliable.

No matter how feature-packed your hosting provider is, unreliable uptime or poor support can undermine its value. These two factors are critical for ensuring a high-performing, efficient website.

What Your Hosting Server Should Have For Guaranteed Uptime

A Service Level Agreement (SLA) guarantees uptime, response time, and resolution time, ensuring that your site remains online and functional. Look for hosting providers that back their promises with a 100% uptime SLA.

Bluehost Cloud offers a 100% uptime SLA and 24/7 priority support, giving you peace of mind that your website will remain operational and any issues will be addressed promptly.

Our team of WordPress experts ensures quick resolutions to technical challenges, reducing downtime and optimizing your hosting ROI.

4. Check Your Host For Security Efficacy

Strong security measures protect your customers and show them you value their privacy and trust.

A single security breach can ruin your brand’s image, especially if customer data is compromised.

Hosts that lack built-in security features like SSL certificates, malware scanning, and regular backups leave your site vulnerable.

How Hosting Impacts Security

Security breaches don’t just affect your website. They affect your customers.

Whether it’s stolen data, phishing attacks, or malware, these breaches can erode trust and cause long-term damage to your business.

Recovering from a security breach is expensive and time-consuming. It often involves hiring specialists, paying fines, and repairing the damage to your reputation.

Is Your Hosting Provider Lacking Proactive Security Measures?

Assessing and measuring security vulnerabilities or a lack of proactive protection measures begins with a thorough evaluation of your hosting provider’s features and practices.

  1. Review Included Security Tools

Start by reviewing whether your provider includes essential security tools such as SSL certificates, malware scanning, firewalls, and automated backups in their standard offerings.

If these are missing or come as costly add-ons, your site may already be at risk.

  1. Leverage Brute Force Tools To Check For Vulnerabilities

Next, use website vulnerability scanning tools like Sucuri, Qualys SSL Labs, or SiteLock to identify potential weaknesses, such as outdated software, unpatched plugins, or misconfigured settings.

These tools can flag issues like weak encryption, exposed directories, or malware infections.

Monitor your site for unusual activity, such as unexpected traffic spikes or changes to critical files, which could signal a breach.

  1. Make Sure The Host Also Routinely Scans For & Eliminates Threats

It’s also crucial to evaluate how your hosting provider handles updates and threat prevention.

  • Do they offer automatic updates to patch vulnerabilities?
  • Do they monitor for emerging threats and take steps to block them proactively?

A good hosting provider takes a proactive approach to security, offering built-in protections that reduce your risks.

Look for hosting providers that include automatic SSL encryption, regular malware scans, and daily backups. These features not only protect your site but also give you peace of mind.

Bluehost offers robust security tools as part of its standard WordPress hosting package, ensuring your site stays protected without extra costs. With built-in SSL certificates and daily backups, Bluehost Cloud keeps your site secure and your customers’ trust intact.

5. Audit Your WordPress Hosting Provider’s Customer Support

Is your host delivering limited or inconsistent customer support?

Limited or inconsistent customer support can turn minor issues into major roadblocks. When hosting providers fail to offer timely, knowledgeable assistance, you’re left scrambling to resolve problems that could have been easily fixed.

Delayed responses or unhelpful support can lead to prolonged downtime, slower page speeds, and unresolved security concerns, all of which impact your business and reputation.

Reliable hosting providers should offer 24/7 priority support through multiple channels, such as chat and phone, so you can get expert help whenever you need it.

Consistent, high-quality support is essential for keeping your website running smoothly and minimizing disruptions.

Bluehost takes customer service to the next level with 24/7 priority support available via phone, chat, and email. Our team of knowledgeable experts specializes in WordPress, providing quick and effective solutions to keep your site running smoothly.

Whether you’re troubleshooting an issue, setting up your site, or optimizing performance, Bluehost’s dedicated support ensures you’re never left navigating challenges alone.

Bonus: Check Your Host For Hidden Costs For Essential Hosting Features

Hidden costs for essential hosting features like:

  • Backups.
  • SSL certificates.
  • Additional bandwidth can quickly erode the value of a seemingly affordable hosting plan.

What Does This Look Like?

For example, daily backups, which are vital for recovery after data loss or cyberattacks, may come with an unexpected monthly fee.

Similarly, SSL certificates, which are essential for encrypting data and maintaining trust with visitors, are often sold as expensive add-ons.

If your site experiences traffic spikes, additional bandwidth charges can catch you off guard, adding to your monthly costs.

Many providers, as you likely have seen, lure customers in with low entry prices, only to charge extra for services that are critical to your website’s functionality and security.

These hidden expenses not only strain your budget but also create unnecessary complexity in managing your site.

A reliable hosting provider includes these features as part of their standard offering, ensuring you have the tools you need without the surprise bills.

Which Hosting Provider Does Not Charge For Essential Features?

Bluehost is a great option, as their pricing is upfront.

Bluehost includes crucial tools like daily automated backups, SSL certificates, and unmetered bandwidth in their standard plans.

This means you won’t face surprise fees for the basic functionalities your website needs to operate securely and effectively.

Whether you’re safeguarding your site from potential data loss or ensuring encrypted, trustworthy connections for your visitors, or need unmetered bandwidth to ensure your site can handle traffic surges without penalty, you’ll gain the flexibility to scale without worrying about extra charges.

We even give WordPress users the option to bundle premium plugins together to help you save even more.

By including these features upfront, Bluehost simplifies your WordPress hosting experience and helps you maintain a predictable budget, freeing you to focus on growing your business instead of worrying about unexpected hosting costs.

Transitioning To A Better Hosting Solution: What To Consider

Switching hosting providers might seem daunting, but the right provider can make the process simple and cost-effective. Here are key considerations for transitioning to a better hosting solution:

Migration Challenges

Migrating your site to a new host can involve technical hurdles, including transferring content, preserving configurations, and minimizing downtime. A hosting provider with dedicated migration support can make this process seamless.

Cost of Switching Providers

Many businesses hesitate to switch hosts due to the cost of ending a contract early. To offset these expenses, search for hosting providers that offer migration incentives, such as contract buyouts or credit for remaining fees.

Why Bluehost Cloud Stands Out

Bluehost Cloud provides comprehensive migration support, handling every detail of the transfer to ensure a smooth transition.

Plus, our migration promotion includes $0 switching costs and credit for remaining contracts, making the move to Bluehost not only hassle-free but also financially advantageous.

Your hosting provider plays a pivotal role in the success of your WordPress site. By addressing performance issues, integrating essential features, and offering reliable support, you can maximize your hosting ROI and create a foundation for long-term success.

If your current hosting provider is falling short, it’s time to evaluate your options. Bluehost Cloud delivers performance-focused features, 100% uptime, premium support, and cost-effective migration services, ensuring your WordPress site runs smoothly and efficiently.

In addition, Bluehost has been a trusted partner of WordPress since 2005, working closely to create a hosting platform tailored to the unique needs of WordPress websites.

Beyond hosting, Bluehost empowers users through education, offering webinars, masterclasses, and resources like the WordPress Academy to help you maximize your WordPress experience and build successful websites.

Take control of your website’s performance and ROI. Visit the Bluehost Migration Page to learn how Bluehost Cloud can elevate your hosting experience.

This article has been sponsored by Bluehost, and the views presented herein represent the sponsor’s perspective.

Learn more about Bluehost’s latest migration promotion

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Bluehost. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Nov 19 2024
7 Things To Look For In An SEO-Friendly WordPress Host

This post was sponsored by Bluehost. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

When trying to improve your WordPress site’s search rankings, hosting might not be the first thing on your mind.

But your choice of hosting provider can significantly impact your SEO efforts.

A poor hosting setup can slow down your site, compromise its stability and security, and drain valuable time and resources.

The answer? Choosing the right WordPress hosting provider.

Here are seven essential features to look for in an SEO-friendly WordPress host that will help you:

1. Reliable Uptime & Speed for Consistent Performance

A website’s uptime and speed can significantly influence your site’s rankings and the success of your SEO strategies.

Users don’t like sites that suffer from significant downtime or sluggish load speeds. Not only are these sites inconvenient, but they also reflect negatively on the brand and their products and services, making them appear less trustworthy and of lower quality.

For these reasons, Google values websites that load quickly and reliably. So, if your site suffers from significant downtime or sluggish load times, it can negatively affect your site’s position in search results as well as frustrate users.

Reliable hosting with minimal downtime and fast server response times helps ensure that both users and search engines can access your content seamlessly.

Performance-focused infrastructure, optimized for fast server responses, is essential for delivering a smooth and engaging user experience.

When evaluating hosting providers, look for high uptime guarantees through a robust Service Level Agreement (SLA), which assures site availability and speed.

Bluehost Cloud, for instance, offers a 100% SLA for uptime, response time, and resolution time.

Built specifically with WordPress users in mind, Bluehost Cloud leverages an infrastructure optimized to deliver the speed and reliability that WordPress sites require, enhancing both SEO performance and user satisfaction. This guarantee provides you with peace of mind.

Your site will remain accessible and perform optimally around the clock, and you’ll spend less time troubleshooting and dealing with your host’s support team trying to get your site back online.

2. Data Center Locations & CDN Options For Global Reach

Fast load times are crucial not only for providing a better user experience but also for reducing bounce rates and boosting SEO rankings.

Since Google prioritizes websites that load quickly for users everywhere, having data centers in multiple locations and Content Delivery Network (CDN) integration is essential for WordPress sites with a global audience.

To ensure your site loads quickly for all users, no matter where they are, choose a WordPress host with a distributed network of data centers and CDN support. Consider whether it offers CDN options and data center locations that align with your audience’s geographic distribution

This setup allows your content to reach users swiftly across different regions, enhancing both user satisfaction and search engine performance.

Bluehost Cloud integrates with a CDN to accelerate content delivery across the globe. This means that whether your visitors are in North America, Europe, or Asia, they’ll experience faster load times.

By leveraging global data centers and a CDN, Bluehost Cloud ensures your site’s SEO remains strong, delivering a consistent experience for users around the world.

3. Built-In Security Features To Protect From SEO-Damaging Attacks

Security is essential for your brand, your SEO, and overall site health.

Websites that experience security breaches, malware, or frequent hacking attempts can be penalized by search engines, potentially suffering from ranking drops or even removal from search indexes.

Therefore, it’s critical to select a host that offers strong built-in security features to safeguard your website and its SEO performance.

When evaluating hosting providers, look for options that include additional security features.

Bluehost Cloud, for example, offers comprehensive security features designed to protect WordPress sites, including free SSL certificates to encrypt data, automated daily backups, and regular malware scans.

These features help maintain a secure environment, preventing security issues from impacting your potential customers, your site’s SEO, and ultimately, your bottom line.

With Bluehost Cloud, your site’s visitors, data, and search engine rankings remain secure, providing you with peace of mind and a safe foundation for SEO success.

4. Optimized Database & File Management For Fast Site Performance

A poorly managed database can slow down site performance, which affects load times and visitor experience. Therefore, efficient data handling and optimized file management are essential for fast site performance.

Choose a host with advanced database and file management tools, as well as caching solutions that enhance site speed. Bluehost Cloud supports WordPress sites with advanced database optimization, ensuring quick, efficient data handling even as your site grows.

With features like server-level caching and optimized databases, Bluehost Cloud is built to handle WordPress’ unique requirements, enabling your site to perform smoothly without additional plugins or manual adjustments.

Bluehost Cloud contributes to a better user experience and a stronger SEO foundation by keeping your WordPress site fast and efficient.

5. SEO-Friendly, Scalable Bandwidth For Growing Sites

As your site’s popularity grows, so does its bandwidth requirements. Scalable or unmetered bandwidth is vital to handle traffic spikes without slowing down your site and impacting your SERP performance.

High-growth websites, in particular, benefit from hosting providers that offer flexible bandwidth options, ensuring consistent speed and availability even during peak traffic.

To avoid disaster, select a hosting provider that offers scalable or unmetered bandwidth as part of their package. Bluehost Cloud’s unmetered bandwidth, for instance, is designed to accommodate high-traffic sites without affecting load times or user experience.

This ensures that your site remains responsive and accessible during high-traffic periods, supporting your growth and helping you maintain your SEO rankings.

For websites anticipating growth, unmetered bandwidth with Bluehost Cloud provides a reliable, flexible solution to ensure long-term performance.

6. WordPress-Specific Support & SEO Optimization Tools

WordPress has unique needs when it comes to SEO, making specialized hosting support essential.

Hosts that cater specifically to WordPress provide an added advantage by offering tools and configurations such as staging environments and one-click installations specifically for WordPress.

WordPress-specific hosting providers also have an entire team of knowledgeable support and technical experts who can help you significantly improve your WordPress site’s performance.

Bluehost Cloud is a WordPress-focused hosting solution that offers priority, 24/7 support from WordPress experts, ensuring any issue you encounter is dealt with effectively.

Additionally, Bluehost’s staging environments enable you to test changes and updates before going live, reducing the risk of SEO-impacting errors.

Switching to Bluehost is easy, affordable, and stress-free, too.

Bluehost offers a seamless migration service designed to make switching hosts simple and stress-free. Our dedicated migration support team handles the entire transfer process, ensuring your WordPress site’s content, settings, and configurations are moved safely and accurately.

Currently, Bluehost also covers all migration costs, so you can make the switch with zero out-of-pocket expenses. We’ll credit the remaining cost of your existing contract, making the transition financially advantageous.

You can actually save money or even gain credit by switching

7. Integrated Domain & Site Management For Simplified SEO Administration

SEO often involves managing domain settings, redirects, DNS configurations, and SSL updates, which can become complicated without centralized management.

An integrated hosting provider that allows you to manage your domain and hosting in one place simplifies these SEO tasks and makes it easier to maintain a strong SEO foundation.

When selecting a host, look for providers that integrate domain management with hosting. Bluehost offers a streamlined experience, allowing you to manage both domains and hosting from a single dashboard.

SEO-related site administration becomes more manageable, and you can focus on the things you do best: growth and optimization.

Find A SEO-Friendly WordPress Host

Choosing an SEO-friendly WordPress host can have a significant impact on your website’s search engine performance, user experience, and long-term growth.

By focusing on uptime, global data distribution, robust security, optimized database management, scalable bandwidth, WordPress-specific support, and integrated domain management, you create a solid foundation that supports both SEO and usability.

Ready to make the switch?

As a trusted WordPress partner with over 20 years of experience, Bluehost offers a hosting solution designed to meet the unique demands of WordPress sites big and small.

Our dedicated migration support team handles every detail of your transfer, ensuring your site’s content, settings, and configurations are moved accurately and securely.

Plus, we offer eligible customers a credit toward their remaining contracts, making the transition to Bluehost not only seamless but also cost-effective.

Learn how Bluehost Cloud can elevate your WordPress site. Visit us today to get started.

LEARN MORE

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Bluehost. Used with permission.

In-Post Image: Images by Bluehost. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Nov 12 2024
4 New Techniques To Speed Up Your Website & Fix Core Web Vitals via @sejournal, @DebugBear

This post was sponsored by DebugBear. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Want to make your website fast?

Luckily, many techniques and guides exist to help you speed up your website.

In fact, just in the last year, several new browser features have been released that offer:

  • New ways to optimize your website.
  • New ways to identify causes of slow performance.

All within your browser.

So, this article looks at these new browser SEO features and how you can use them to pass Google’s Core Web Vitals assessment.

Why Website Performance Is Key For User Experience & SEO

Having a fast website will make your users happier and increase conversion rates.

But performance is also a Google ranking factor.

Google has defined three user experience metrics, called the Core Web Vitals:

  • Largest Contentful Paint: how quickly does page content appear?
  • Cumulative Layout Shift: does content move around after loading?
  • Interaction to Next Paint: how responsive is the page to user input?

For each of these metrics there’s a maximum threshold that shouldn’t be exceeded to pass the web vitals assessment.

Metric thresholds for Google Core Web Vitals, October 2024

1. Add Instant Navigation With “Speculation Rules”

New Key Definitions:

When websites are slow to load that’s usually because various resources have to be loaded from the website server. But what if there was a way to achieve instant navigations, where visitors don’t have to wait?

This year Chrome launched a new feature called speculation rules, which can achieve just that. After loading the initial page on a website, other pages can be preloaded in the background. Then, when the visitor clicks on a link, the new page appears instantly.

Best of all, this feature is easy to implement just by adding a

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Oct 30 2024
The SEO Agency Guide To Efficient WordPress Hosting & Management via @sejournal, @kinsta

This post was sponsored by Kinsta. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

Managing client sites can quickly become costly in terms of time, money, and expertise, especially as your agency grows.

You’re constantly busy fixing slow WordPress performance, handling downtime, or regularly updating and backing up ecommerce sites and small blogs.

The solution to these challenges might lie in fully managed hosting for WordPress sites.

Opting for a fully managed hosting provider that specializes in WordPress and understands agency needs can save you both time and money. By making the switch, you can focus on what truly matters: serving your current clients and driving new business into your sales funnel.

WordPress Worries & How To Keep Clients Happy

For SEO agencies managing multiple client sites, ensuring consistently fast performance across the board is essential. Websites with poor performance metrics are more likely to see a dip in traffic, increased bounce rates, and lost conversion opportunities.

Managed hosting, especially hosting that specializes and is optimized for WordPress, offers agencies a way to deliver high-speed, well-performing sites without constantly battling technical issues.

Clients expect seamless performance, but handling these technical requirements for numerous websites can be a time-consuming process. While WordPress is versatile and user-friendly, it does come with performance challenges.

SEO agencies must deal with frequent updates, plugin management, security vulnerabilities, and optimization issues.

Challenges like bloated themes, inefficient plugins, and poor hosting infrastructure can lead to slow load times. You also need to ensure that client WordPress sites are secured against malware and hackers, which requires regular monitoring and updates.

With managed hosting, many of these tasks are automated, significantly reducing the workload on your team.

Managed hosting for WordPress simplifies the process by providing a full suite of performance, security, and maintenance services.

Instead of spending valuable time on manual updates, backups, and troubleshooting, you can rely on your hosting provider to handle these tasks automatically, resulting in reduced downtime, improved site performance, and a more efficient use of resources.

Ultimately, you can focus your energy on SEO strategies that drive results for your clients.

Basics Of Managed Hosting For WordPress

Managed hosting providers like Kinsta take care of all the technical aspects of running WordPress websites, including performance optimization, security, updates, backups, and server management.

We take over the responsibilities ensure the platform runs smoothly and securely without the constant need for manual intervention.

Kinsta also eliminates common performance bottlenecks in WordPress include slow-loading themes, outdated plugins, inefficient database queries, and suboptimal server configurations.

Key Benefits Of Efficient Managed Hosting For SEO

1. Performance & Speed

Core Web Vitals, Google’s user experience metrics, play a significant role in determining search rankings. Managed hosting improves metrics like LCP, FID, and CLS by offering high-performance servers and built-in caching solutions.

CDNs reduce latency by serving your website’s static files from servers closest to the user, significantly improving load times.

Kinsta, for example, uses Google Cloud’s premium tier network and C2 virtual machines, ensuring the fastest possible load times for WordPress sites. We also provide integrated CDN services, along with advanced caching configurations, which ensure that even resource-heavy WordPress sites load quickly.

And the benefits are instantly noticeable.

Before the switch, Torro Media faced performance issues, frequent downtimes, and difficulties scaling their websites to handle traffic growth. These issues negatively affected their clients’ user experience and SEO results.

After migrating to Kinsta, Torro Media saw noteable improvements:

  • Faster website performance – Site load times significantly improved, contributing to better SEO rankings and overall user experience.
  • Reduced downtime – Kinsta’s reliable infrastructure ensured that Torro Media’s websites experienced minimal downtime, keeping client websites accessible.
  • Expert support – Our support team helped Torro Media resolve technical issues efficiently, allowing the agency to focus on growth rather than troubleshooting.

As a result, Torro was able to scale its operations and deliver better results for its clients.

2. WP-Specific Security

Security is a critical component of managed hosting. Platforms like Kinsta offer automatic security patches, malware scanning, and firewalls tailored specifically for WordPress.

These features are vital to protecting your clients’ sites from cyber threats, which, if left unchecked, can lead to ranking drops due to blacklisting by search engines.

Downtime and security breaches negatively impact SEO. Google devalues sites that experience frequent downtime or security vulnerabilities.

Managed hosting providers minimize these risks by maintaining secure, stable environments with 24/7 monitoring, helping ensure that your clients’ sites remain online and safe from attacks.

3. Automatic Backups & Recovery

Automatic daily backups are a standard feature of managed hosting, protecting against data loss due to server crashes or website errors. For agencies, this means peace of mind, knowing that they can restore their clients’ sites quickly in case of a problem. The ability to quickly recover from an issue helps maintain SEO rankings, as prolonged downtime can hurt search performance.

Managed hosting providers often include advanced tools such as one-click restore points and robust disaster recovery systems. Additionally, having specialized support means that you have access to experts who understand WordPress and can help troubleshoot complex issues that affect performance and SEO.

Importance Of An Agency-Focused Managed WordPress Hosting Provider

For SEO agencies, uptime guarantees are essential to maintaining site availability. Managed hosting providers, like Kinsta, who specialize in serving agencies, offer a 99.9% uptime SLA and multiple data center locations, ensuring that websites remain accessible to users across the globe.

Scalability and flexibility matter, too. As your agency grows, your clients’ hosting needs may evolve. Managed hosting platforms designed for agencies offer scalability, allowing you to easily add resources as your client portfolio expands.

With scalable solutions, you can handle traffic surges without worrying about site downtime or slowdowns.

Agency Dashboard - Managed Hosting for WordPress

1. The Right Dashboards

A user-friendly dashboard is crucial for managing multiple client sites efficiently. Kinsta’s MyKinsta dashboard, for example, allows agencies to monitor performance, uptime, and traffic across all sites in one centralized location, providing full visibility into each client’s website performance.

Hosting dashboards like Kinsta’s MyKinsta provide real-time insights into key performance metrics such as server response times, resource usage, and traffic spikes. These metrics are essential for ensuring that sites remain optimized for SEO.

2. Balance Costs With Performance Benefits

For agencies, managing hosting costs is always a consideration. While managed hosting may come with a higher price tag than traditional shared hosting, the benefits, such as faster performance, reduced downtime, and enhanced security, translate into better client results and long-term cost savings.

Kinsta offers flexible pricing based on traffic, resources, and features, making it easier for agencies to align their hosting solutions with client budgets.

By automating tasks like backups, updates, and security management, managed hosting allows agencies to significantly reduce the time and resources spent on day-to-day maintenance. This frees up your team to focus on delivering SEO results, ultimately improving efficiency and client satisfaction.

Don’t think it makes that big of a difference? Think again.

After migrating to Kinsta, 5Tales experienced:

  • Improved site speed – Load times dropped by over 50%, which enhanced user experience and SEO performance.
  • Better support – Kinsta’s specialized support team helped troubleshoot issues quickly and provided expert-level advice.
  • Streamlined management – With our user-friendly dashboard and automated features, 5Tales reduced the time spent on maintenance and troubleshooting.

Overall, 5Tales saw an increase in both client satisfaction and SEO rankings after moving to Kinsta.

3. Managed Hosting & Page Speed Optimization

Tools like Kinsta’s Application Performance Monitoring (APM) provide detailed insights into website performance, helping agencies identify slow-loading elements and optimize them. This level of transparency enables faster troubleshooting and more precise optimization efforts, which are critical for maintaining fast page speeds.

It’s also easy to integrate managed hosting platforms with your existing tech stack. Kinsta works seamlessly with SEO tools like Google Analytics, DebugBear, and others, allowing agencies to track site performance, analyze traffic patterns, and ensure sites are running at peak efficiency.

Conclusion

Managed hosting is not just a convenience. It’s a critical component of success for SEO agencies managing WordPress sites.

By leveraging the performance, security, and time-saving benefits of a managed hosting provider like Kinsta, agencies can improve client results, enhance their relationships, and streamline their operations.

When it comes to SEO, every second counts. A fast, secure, and well-maintained website will always perform better in search rankings. For agencies looking to deliver maximum value to their clients, investing in managed hosting is a smart, long-term decision.

Ready to make the switch?

Kinsta offers a guarantee of no-shared hosting, 99.99% uptime guarantee, and 24/7/365 support, so we’re here when you need us. Plus, we makes it easy, effortless, and free to move to Kinsta.

Our team of migration experts have experience switching from all web hosts. And when you make the switch to Kinsta, we’ll give you up to $10,000 in free hosting to ensure you avoid paying double hosting bills.

LEARN MORE

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Kinsta. Used with permission.

In-Post Image: Images by Kinsta. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Oct 24 2024
Google On Diagnosing Multi-Domain Crawling Issues via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google’s Search Advocate, John Mueller, shared insights on diagnosing widespread crawling issues.

This guidance was shared in response to a disruption reported by Adrian Schmidt on LinkedIn. Google’s crawler stopped accessing several of his domains at the same time.

Despite the interruption, Schmidt noted that live tests via Search Console continued to function without error messages.

Investigations indicated no increase in 5xx errors or issues with robots.txt requests.

What could the problem be?

Mueller’s Response

Addressing the situation, Mueller pointed to shared infrastructure as the likely cause:

“If it shared across a bunch of domains and focuses on something like crawling, it’s probably an issue with a shared piece of infrastructure. If it’s already recovering, at least it’s not urgent anymore and you have a bit of time to poke at recent changes / infrastructure logs.”

Infrastructure Investigation

All affected sites used Cloudflare as their CDN, which raised some eyebrows.

When asked about debugging, Mueller recommended checking Search Console data to determine whether DNS or failed requests were causing the problem.

Mueller stated:

“The crawl stats in Search Console will also show a bit more, perhaps help decide between say DNS vs requests failing.”

He also pointed out that the timing was a key clue:

“If it’s all at exactly the same time, it wouldn’t be robots.txt, and probably not DNS.”

Impact on Search Results

Regarding search visibility concerns, Mueller reassured this type of disruption wouldn’t cause any problems:

“If this is from today, and it just lasted a few hours, I wouldn’t expect any visible issues in search.”

Why This Matters

When Googlebot suddenly stops crawling across numerous sites simultaneously, it can be challenging to identify the root cause.

While temporary crawling pauses might not immediately impact search rankings, they can disrupt Google’s ability to discover and index new content.

The incident highlights a vulnerability organizations might face without realizing it, especially those relying on shared infrastructure.

How This Can Help You

If time Googlebot stops crawling your sites:

  • Check if the problem hits multiple sites at once
  • Look at your shared infrastructure first
  • Use Search Console data to narrow down the cause
  • Don’t rule out DNS just because regular traffic looks fine
  • Keep an eye on your logs

For anyone running multiple sites behind a CDN, make sure you:

  • Have good logging set up
  • Watch your crawl rates
  • Know who to call when things go sideways
  • Keep tabs on your infrastructure provider

Featured Image: PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Oct 22 2024
How Page Performance Hurts UX & How You Can Fix It via @sejournal, @DebugBear

This post was sponsored by DebugBear. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

From a user’s perspective, a slow website can be incredibly frustrating, creating a poor experience. But the impact of sluggish load times goes deeper than just user frustration.

Poor page performance affects search rankings, overall site engagement, E-E-A-T, and conversion rates that results in abandoned sessions, lost sales, and damaged trust.

Even if Google’s Core Web Vitals (CWV) Report is all green.

Sure, Chrome UX (CrUX) and Google’s CWV reports can indicate there’s an issue, but that’s it. They don’t provide you with enough details to identify, troubleshoot, and fix the issue.

And fixing these issues are vital to your digital success.

Core Web Vitals - DebugBear Page Performance ToolImage from DebugBear, October 2024

This article explores why slow websites are bad for user experience (UX), the challenges that cause them, and how advanced page performance tools can help fix these issues in ways that basic tools can’t.

UX, Brand Perception & Beyond

While often at the bottom of a technical SEO checklist, site speed is critical for UX. Sites that load in once second convert 2.5 to 3 times more than sites that require five seconds to load.

And yet, today, an estimated 14% of B2C ecommerce websites require five seconds or more to load.

These numbers become even more pronounced for mobile users, for whom pages load 70.9% slower. Mobile users have 31% fewer pageviews and an average of 4.8% higher bounce rate per session.

According to a recent Google study, 53% of mobile users will abandon a page if it takes more than three seconds to load.

Poor page experience can negatively other aspects of your site, too:

  • Search Rankings – Google includes page experience, of which CWV and page performance is a factor, when ranking web pages.
  • User Trust – Poor performing pages fail to meet a potential customer’s expectations. They are often perceived by users as the brand inconveniencing them, introducing stress, negative emotions, and a loss of a sense of control to the buying process. Slower pages can also cause users to forget information gained from previous pages, reducing the effectiveness of advertising, copy, and branding campaigns between clicks.
  • User Retention – Site visitors who experience slow load times may never return, reducing retention rates and customer loyalty.

Why Basic Page Performance Tools Don’t Fully Solve The Problem

Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse give valuable insights into how your website performs, but they can often be limited. They tell you that there’s an issue but often fall short of explaining what caused it or how to fix it.

Google’s Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) and Core Web Vitals have become essential in tracking website performance and user experience.

These metrics—Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)—offer valuable insights into how users perceive a website’s speed and stability.

However, CrUX and Core Web Vitals only tell part of the story. They indicate that a problem exists but don’t show the root cause or offer an immediate path for improvement.

For instance, your LCP might be poor, but without deeper page speed analysis, you wouldn’t know whether it’s due to an unoptimized image, a slow server response, or third-party scripts.

Page Performance Broken Down By Geolocation - DebugBearImage from DebugBear, October 2024

Here’s where DebugBear stands out. DebugBear digs deeper, offering more granular data and unique features that basic tools don’t provide.

Continuous Monitoring and Historical Data – Many speed testing tools only offer snapshots of performance data. DebugBear, on the other hand, allows for continuous monitoring over time, providing an ongoing view of your site’s performance. This is crucial for detecting issues that crop up unexpectedly or tracking the effectiveness of your optimizations.

Granular Breakdown by Device, Location, and Browser – Basic tools often provide aggregated data, which hides the differences between user experiences across various devices, countries, and network conditions. DebugBear lets you drill down to see how performance varies, allowing you to optimize for specific user segments.

Pinpointing Content Elements Causing Delays – One of DebugBear’s standout features is its ability to show exactly which content elements—images, scripts, or third-party code—are slowing down your website. Rather than wasting hours digging through code and experimenting with trial and error, DebugBear highlights the specific elements causing delays, allowing for targeted, efficient fixes.

Why You Need Continuous Page Speed Testing

One of the biggest pitfalls in web performance optimization is relying on single-point speed tests.

Page Performance Breakdown - Content Elements in DebugBearImage from DebugBear, October 2024

Running a one-time test may give you a snapshot of performance at that moment, but it doesn’t account for fluctuations caused by different factors, such as traffic spikes, varying user devices, or changes to site content.

Without continuous testing, you risk spending hours (or even days) trying to identify the root cause of performance issues.

DebugBear solves this problem by continuously tracking page speed across different devices and geographies, offering detailed reports that can be easily shared with team members or stakeholders.

If a performance dip occurs, DebugBear provides the data necessary to quickly identify and rectify the issue, saving you from the endless trial-and-error process of manual debugging.

Without tools like DebugBear, you’re left with only a high-level view of your website’s performance.

This means hours of trying to guess the underlying issues based on broad metrics, with no real insight into what’s dragging a site down.

Different Users Experience Performance Differently

Not all users experience your website’s performance in the same way.

Device type, geographic location, and network speed can significantly affect load times and interaction delays.

For example, a user on a fast fiberoptic connection in the U.S. may have a completely different experience than someone on a slower mobile network in India.

This variance in user experience can be hidden in aggregate data, leading you to believe your site is performing well when a significant portion of your audience is actually struggling with slow speeds.

Here’s why breaking down performance data by device, country, and browser matters:

  • Device-Specific Optimizations – Some elements, like large images or animations, may perform well on desktop but drag down speeds on mobile.
  • Geographic Performance Variations – International users may experience slower speeds due to server location or network conditions. DebugBear can highlight these differences and help you optimize your content delivery network (CDN) strategy.
  • Browser Differences – Different browsers may handle elements like JavaScript and CSS in different ways, impacting performance. DebugBear’s breakdown by browser ensures you’re not overlooking these subtleties.

Without this granular insight, you risk alienating segments of your audience and overlooking key areas for optimization.

And troubleshooting these issues becomes and expensive nightmare.

Just ask SiteCare.

WordPress web development and optimization service provider SiteCare uses DebugBear to quickly troubleshoot a full range of WordPress sites, solve performance issues faster, and monitor them for changes, providing high quality service to its clients, saving thousands of hours and dollars every year.

DebugBear offers these breakdowns, providing a clear view of how your website performs for all users, not just a select few.

Real User Monitoring: The Key To Accurate Performance Insights

In addition to synthetic testing (which mimics user interactions), real user monitoring (RUM) is another powerful feature technical SEOs and marketing teams will find valuable.

While synthetic tests offer valuable controlled insights, they don’t always reflect the real-world experiences of your users.

RUM captures data from actual users as they interact with your site, providing real-time, accurate insights into what’s working and what isn’t.

For instance, real user monitoring can help you:

  • Identify performance issues unique to specific user segments.
  • Detect trends that may not be visible in synthetic tests, such as network issues or slow third-party scripts.
  • Measure the actual experience users are having on your website, not just the theoretical one.

Without real user monitoring, you might miss critical issues that only surface under specific conditions, like a heavy user load or slow mobile networks.

If you’re not using continuous page speed testing and in-depth reports, you’re flying blind.

You may see an overall decline in performance without understanding why, or you could miss opportunities for optimization that only reveal themselves under specific conditions.

The result?

Wasted time, frustrated users, lost conversions, and a website that doesn’t perform up to its potential.

DebugBear solves this by offering both continuous monitoring and granular breakdowns, making it easier to troubleshoot issues quickly and accurately.

With detailed reports, you’ll know exactly what to fix and where to focus your optimization efforts, significantly cutting down on the time spent searching for problems.

Explore DebugBear’s innovative page performance solutions

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Shutterstock. Used with permission.

In-Post Images: Images by DebugBear. Used with permission.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Oct 4 2024
The 10 Best Headless CMS Platforms To Consider via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Headless CMSs are becoming more popular as companies want more flexible content management tools.

These systems separate the content creation from how it’s displayed, giving more options for publishing content across different platforms.

In this article, we’re reviewing ten top headless CMS options. We’re examining them based on the following criteria:

  • How well they work with other tools.
  • How easy they are for developers to use.
  • How flexible they are for organizing content.

We’ve included enterprise-level systems and free, open-source ones to cover different needs and technical skill levels. This comparison should help teams understand their options and figure out which platforms might work best for their specific projects.

Here are the best headless CMS platforms to consider.

Why Should You Use A Headless CMS Platform?

Headless CMS platforms have become increasingly popular for good reasons.

They offer several advantages over traditional content management systems, including:

  • Flexibility: Publish once, display anywhere – from websites to apps to smart devices.
  • Developer-Friendly: Devs can use their favorite tools, speeding up project timelines.
  • Performance: API-driven content delivery often means quicker load times.
  • Future-Proof: Easily adapt to new tech without overhauling your whole system.
  • Security: Backend separation reduces exposure to potential threats.
  • Scaling: Grow your content or expand to new markets without hitting technical roadblocks.
  • Teamwork: Features like real-time editing streamline the content creation process.

While not a one-size-fits-all solution, a headless CMS is worth considering if you need a flexible, scalable content system that can keep up with changing tech.

10 Best Headless CMS Platforms

1. Sanity

Screenshot from: sanity.io, July 2024.

Sanity is a good fit for small to medium-sized teams prioritizing real-time collaboration and a customizable content studio.

In practice, Sanity works well for structuring and managing content, such as product information, for e-commerce sites. Its GROQ query language allows for flexible content retrieval and filtering.

Why It’s Good:

  • Real-time collaboration with live multi-user editing.
  • Flexible, schema-driven content modeling for structured content.
  • Customizable Content Studio for intuitive editorial experience.
  • Pay-as-you-go pricing is suitable for scaling projects.

Potential Drawbacks:

  • Steeper learning curve for non-technical users compared to traditional CMSs.
  • Requires development resources for initial setup and ongoing maintenance.

Tips and Tricks:

  • Use GROQ queries for flexible content retrieval and filtering.
  • Leverage Portable Text for rich text content with embedded objects.
  • Customize input components in Content Studio for optimal editorial UX.

Best Hack:

  • Set up a real-time preview using Next.js and Sanity’s Listener. Changes in the Content Studio will instantly update the front end, providing a true WYSIWYG editing experience for content teams.

2. Storyblok

Screenshot from: storyblok.com, July 2024.

Storyblok’s key selling point is its visual editor, which empowers marketers to create and manage content independently.

It’s been successfully used for multilingual corporate sites. The visual editor simplifies content updates, while features like field-level translations streamline localization.

Why It’s Good:

  • Visual editor for drag-and-drop page building.
  • Reusable block system for modular content creation.
  • Field-level translations for multi-language content.
  • Roles and permissions for content governance.

Potential Drawbacks:

  • Some technical setup is required to fully leverage the visual editor.
  • Pricing can add up for larger-scale projects with higher content needs.

Tips and Tricks:

  • Utilize nested components for flexible, reusable page sections.
  • Set up Language Fallbacks to gracefully handle missing translations.
  • Integrate with Sketch/Figma for a design-to-CMS workflow.

Best Hack:

  • With Storyblok’s Visual Composer within Content Stages, you can build and preview pages in a draft stage before pushing them live.

3. Hygraph

Screenshot from: hygraph.com, July 2024.

Formerly GraphCMS, Hygraph stands out for its GraphQL-native approach and Content Federation capabilities for unifying data from disparate sources.

Hygraph has been used to power blogs with user-generated content. Authors can submit posts via forms, which are managed in Hygraph. Content Federation allows merging this with e-commerce data to create shoppable posts.

Why It’s Good:

  • Intuitive GraphQL API for efficient content querying.
  • Visual schema builder for modeling content without code.
  • Content Federation is used to unify data from multiple sources.
  • Webhooks and API extensions for custom integrations.

Potential Drawbacks:

  • Content preview capabilities are limited compared to some other headless CMSs.
  • GraphQL learning curve for teams new to this query language.

Tips and Tricks:

  • Leverage remote fields to enrich content with external API data.
  • Use Scheduled Publishing to automate content releases.
  • Set up Webhooks to trigger external actions based on content changes.

Best Hack:

  • Combine Hygraph’s Content Stages with Vercel’s Preview Deployments. Configure a webhook to trigger a new preview deployment whenever content is updated in a draft stage. This allows stakeholders to review changes in a live environment before publishing.

4. Contentful

Screenshot from: contentful.com, July 2024.

Contentful is an API-first headless CMS geared towards large organizations with complex content requirements.

It’s well-suited for global, multi-site content platforms. Content types and relationships allow for well-structured, multi-locale content. The app framework enables customizing the editorial experience.

Why It’s Good:

  • Flexible content modeling with validations and relationships.
  • App framework for extending functionality.
  • Localization features for multi-language content.
  • Multiple API options (REST, GraphQL, Content Delivery API).

Potential Drawbacks:

  • Higher learning curve due to extensive features and concepts.
  • Pricing can be prohibitive for smaller projects.

Tips and Tricks:

  • Use Link Fields to model content relationships and references.
  • Leverage Environment Aliases to streamline content promotion across spaces.
  • Extend editorial capabilities with app framework and UI extensions.

Best Hack:

  • Integrate Contentful with Gatsby Cloud for a powerful JAMstack setup. Contentful’s webhook triggers a new build in Gatsby whenever content changes, ensuring the static front end displays the latest published content.

5. Contentstack

Screenshot from: contentstack.com, July 2024.

Contentstack is another enterprise-focused headless CMS, with strengths in content localization and publishing workflows.

It’s been successfully used to build global product catalogs. Content types mirror hierarchical product data, varying by locale. Workflows enable synchronized multi-region releases, with granular roles and permissions ensuring proper governance.

Why It’s Good:

  • Roles & permissions for fine-grained access control.
  • Localization features for managing global, multi-language content.
  • Content scheduling and versioning capabilities.
  • Stackable per-locale publishing for phasing releases across regions.

Potential Drawbacks:

  • UI can feel complex for content teams used to simpler traditional CMSs.
  • There are some limitations around content relationships compared to other enterprise CMSs.

Tips and Tricks:

  • Utilize the pre-built Field Editor extensions to customize the editorial interface.
  • Leverage webhooks to trigger external processes or rebuild content changes.
  • Use the CDN-powered Content Delivery APIs for optimal performance.

Best Hack:

  • Combine Contentstack’s Release Workflows with Netlify’s Deploy Previews. Create a workflow automatically generating a deploy preview whenever content is moved to a new workflow stage.

6. Strapi

Screenshot from: strapi.co, July 2024.

Strapi is a popular open-source headless CMS that prioritizes developer experience and customization.

It’s been used as a backend for developer-focused SaaS applications. Custom content types mirror application data structures, while the plugin system allows application-specific features to be added to the admin panel.

Why It’s Good:

  • Fully customizable API with the ability to define endpoints and logic.
  • Extensive plugin library for extending functionality.
  • Open-source, self-hosted option for maximum control.
  • GraphQL support is available in addition to REST and JSON:API.

Potential Drawbacks:

  • It requires more technical setup and maintenance than hosted solutions.
  • Less built-in functionality out-of-the-box compared to paid options.

Tips and Tricks:

  • Utilize Community and Custom Plugins to add project-specific features.
  • Leverage Strapi’s JWT authentication to secure API access.
  • Use Strapi’s Draft System for content staging and approval workflows.

Best Hack:

  • Deploy Strapi on Heroku with PostgreSQL database. Set up GitHub integration in Heroku to automatically deploy from a repository branch. Any custom plugin code changes pushed to GitHub will trigger a rebuild of the Strapi backend on Heroku.

7. Directus

Screenshot from: directus.io, July 2024.

Directus is a unique headless CMS that sits on top of new or existing SQL databases, instantly providing RESTful API and GraphQL endpoints.

It’s proven helpful for projects with existing SQL databases. Installing Directus on top provides an instant content management layer and API without data migration. The platform allows for tailoring the admin panel to project needs.

Why It’s Good:

  • Instantly generates APIs from new and existing SQL databases.
  • Supports various SQL databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS-SQL, Oracle).
  • Extensible platform with custom endpoints, webhooks, and event hooks.
  • Open Data Platform for powering data-driven projects beyond typical CMS use cases.

Potential Drawbacks:

  • Requires SQL database skills for initial setup and data modeling.
  • Less content-focused out-of-the-box compared to other headless options.

Tips and Tricks:

  • Use Directus Fields to shape how your database data is presented in the admin.
  • Leverage Flows for automating data processing tasks on backend events.
  • Enable Data Accountability for granular activity tracking and versioning.

Best Hack:

  • Connect Directus to Metabase for powerful data visualization. By leveraging Directus’ SQL mirroring, Metabase can query and chart your content data directly, enabling advanced content analytics and reporting dashboards.

8. Umbraco Heartcore

Screenshot from: umbraco.com/products/umbraco-heartcore/, July 2024.

Umbraco Heartcore is the headless offering from the team behind the popular open-source Umbraco CMS.

It’s a natural fit for existing Umbraco users looking to adopt a headless architecture.

Document Types and Templates from the standard Umbraco CMS can be reused in Heartcore, easing the transition for content editors and .NET developers.

Why It’s Good:

  • Smooth transition path for existing Umbraco users.
  • .NET-based for integrating with Microsoft stack.
  • Umbraco Cloud for managed hosting and deployment.
  • Familiar, feature-rich editor experience.

Potential Drawbacks:

  • Less adoption compared to some other headless options.
  • Requires .NET development skills for implementation.

Tips and Tricks:

  • Use Umbraco’s Compositions for reusable content structures.
  • Leverage Umbraco Deploy for moving content and configuration between environments.
  • Explore the Umbraco Marketplace for editor and developer tools.

Best Hack:

  • Integrate Umbraco Heartcore with Azure Cognitive Services for AI-powered content features. By calling Azure’s APIs from an Umbraco Controller, you can add capabilities like automated tagging, sentiment analysis, and image recognition to your editorial workflow.

9. Kontent.ai

Screenshot from: kontent.ai, July 2024.

Kontent.ai differentiates itself with features geared towards content operations and planning. It’s been successfully used for large-scale content marketing initiatives.

The content calendar provides a high-level overview of content across channels while ‘Assignments’ and ‘Tasks’ keep teams in sync.

Why It’s Good:

  • Structured, reusable content models and components.
  • Collaboration features like suggestions and comments.
  • AI-powered content insights for optimizing content performance.

Potential Drawbacks:

  • Relatively higher pricing compared to some other options.
  • Less developer-focused compared to highly extensible options like Strapi.

Tips and Tricks:

  • Use Linked Items to connect related content across your project.
  • Set up Webhooks to trigger builds or notifications on content changes.
  • Customize the Web Spotlight interface for a tailored, inline preview experience.

Best Hack:

  • Sync Kontent with Airtable for a versatile content planning setup. Use the Kontent webhooks to send content data to Airtable. Then, leverage Airtable’s views, filters, and fields to plan and track your content production pipeline.

10. Prismic

Screenshot from: prismic.io, July 2024.

Prismic is a developer-friendly headless CMS focusing on sliced-based content modeling and multi-language support.

It’s been used for multilingual documentation sites with modern frameworks like Nuxt.

Prismic’s slices allow for componentizing common elements like code snippets and callouts, while the localization features enable translation management.

Why It’s Good:

  • Content Slices for modular, reusable page components.
  • Strong multi-language features with built-in translation management.
  • API browsers and development kits for popular frameworks.
  • Simple, clean UI for content editors.

Potential Drawbacks:

  • Fewer collaboration and workflow features compared to some enterprise options.
  • Slice-based model can take some getting used to for traditional CMS users.

Tips and Tricks:

  • Utilize Slice Machine for local Slice development and testing.
  • Set up preview URLs to preview on-page content before publishing.
  • Use Prismic’s Integration Fields with tools like Shopify and Magento for e-commerce projects.

Best Hack:

  • Integrate Prismic with Cloudinary for advanced media management. Using a webhook to send Prismic image data to Cloudinary, you can leverage Cloudinary’s transformation and optimization capabilities while managing images within your CMS.

Choosing The Right Headless CMS For Your Needs

To select the ideal headless CMS, consider these factors:

  • Content Complexity: Match your content structure needs with platform capabilities (e.g., Contentful for complex hierarchies, Strapi for customizable architecture).
  • Team Skills: Align with your team’s tech expertise (e.g., Hygraph for GraphQL users, Directus for SQL pros).
  • Localization: For multilingual content, prioritize platforms with strong localization features, such as Contentstack or Contentful.
  • Integration: Ensure compatibility with your existing tech stack through APIs, SDKs, or plugins.
  • Collaboration: For large teams, consider platforms with advanced workflow management (e.g., Kontent.ai) or real-time collaboration (e.g., Sanity).
  • Pricing and Scalability: Balance cost with features and growth potential. Open-source options like Strapi offer savings, while enterprise solutions like Contentful provide high-end features.

Explore options, run proof of concepts (POCs), and gather team feedback before deciding.

A well-chosen headless CMS and ongoing optimization will equip you to handle current and future content challenges.

More resources: 

Featured Image: A9 STUDIO/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Sep 10 2024
Google Chrome Drops Support For First Input Delay: What It Means via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google Chrome has officially ended support for the First Input Delay (FID) metric, marking a transition to prioritizing Interaction to Next Paint (INP).

The announcement by Rick Viscomi, who oversees web performance developer relations for the Chrome team, confirms INP as the core metric for evaluating interaction responsiveness.

Today’s announcement follows the replacement of FID with INP as a Core Web Vital in May.

The following tools will stop reporting FID data over the next few days:

  • PageSpeed Insights
  • Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX)
  • web-vitals.js
  • Web Vitals extension

Background

The move to replace FID with INP stems from limitations in capturing the full scope of interaction responsiveness on the web.

FID only measured the delay between a user’s input and the browser’s response, overlooking other critical phases.

INP takes a more holistic approach by measuring the entire process, from user input to visual updates on the screen.

Transition Period

While the web-vitals.js library will receive a version bump (5.0) to accommodate the change, most other tools will stop reporting FID data without a version update.

The CrUX BigQuery project will remove FID-related fields from its schema starting with the 202409 dataset, scheduled for release in October.

To aid developers in the transition, the Chrome team is also retiring the “Optimize FID” documentation, redirecting users to the updated “Optimize INP” guidance.

What To Do Next

Here are some steps to take to in light of the transition from FID to INP:

  1. Familiarize yourself with the INP metric by reviewing the official documentation on web.dev. Understand how INP measures the full lifecycle of an interaction from input to visual update.
  2. Audit your site’s current INP performance using tools like PageSpeed Insights or real-user monitoring services that support INP. Identify areas where interaction responsiveness needs improvement.
  3. Consult the “Optimize INP” guidance on web.dev for best practices on reducing input delay, optimizing event handling, minimizing layout thrashing, and other techniques to enhance INP.
  4. Update any performance monitoring tools or custom scripts that currently rely on the deprecated FID metric to use INP instead. For web-vitals.js users, be prepared for the breaking change in version 5.0.
  5. If leveraging the CrUX BigQuery dataset, plan to update data pipelines to handle the schema changes, removing FID fields after the 202409 release in October.

By taking these steps, you can ensure a smooth migration to INP.

Featured Image: Mojahid Mottakin/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Aug 2 2024
What Are Breadcrumbs & Why Do They Matter For SEO? via @sejournal, @sejournal

Breadcrumbs are a navigational feature for your website, and they can greatly impact SEO and user experience.

Many websites still don’t implement breadcrumbs, which is a huge mistake. Not only do breadcrumbs impact SEO, but they are also pretty easy to implement.

Here’s what you need to know about breadcrumbs, how they impact SEO, and common mistakes to avoid.

What Are Breadcrumbs In SEO?

Breadcrumbs are automated internal links that allow users to track their location on a website and their distance from the homepage.

You’ll usually find them at the top of a website or just under the navigation bar.

Just like internal links, they help keep users on a website and help them find the information they are looking for. If they feel disoriented, they can use breadcrumbs links to go one level up and continue their journey on the website rather than clicking a browser’s back button.

Here’s an example of breadcrumbs from eBay’s website:

men's clothing on ebayScreenshot from eBay, June 2024

It shows exactly what categories I clicked on to land on the page I am viewing.

The breadcrumbs make it easy to backtrack to a previous page if I need to.

4 Common Types Of Breadcrumbs

Not all breadcrumbs are created equal!

There are four main types of breadcrumbs, each with their own purpose.

Before adding breadcrumbs to your site, determine which type will be the best fit for user experience.

1. Hierarchy-Based Breadcrumbs (a.k.a., Location-Based Breadcrumbs)

The most common type of breadcrumbs that tell users where they are in the site structure and how to get back to the homepage.

For example: Home > California > San Francisco

Used cars for sale on cars.comScreenshot from cars.com, June 2024

2. Attribute-Based Breadcrumbs

These breadcrumbs are commonly used on ecommerce sites to show what attributes the user has clicked.

For example: Home > Shoes > Hiking > Womens

Attribute based breadcrumbs Screenshot from eBay, June 2024

Please note how smartly eBay handles breadcrumbs for attributes when the trail is too long.

It shows the last three items following the home page and truncates previous ones under a three-dot menu; you can see all previous items in the breadcrumbs upon clicking.

3. Forward Or Look-Ahead Breadcrumbs

This type of breadcrumb not only shows the user’s current path within a website’s hierarchy but also provides a preview of the next steps they can take.

Here is an example from the Statista website, which illustrates how useful it can be by giving users a preview of other sections of the subsection.

Statista's look ahead breadcrumbs exampleScreenshot from Statista, June 2024

4. History-Based Breadcrumbs

This type of breadcrumb is rarely used and shows users what other pages on the site they have visited, similar to a browser history.

For example, if you were searching for SEO news and read three different articles, the breadcrumbs might look like this: Home > SEO article 1 > SEO article 2 > Current page.

But I recommend avoiding this because it may confuse users. Users may navigate to the same destination through different journeys, which means you will show a different breadcrumb structure each time, confusing users.

Additionally, you can’t markup with schema such as breadcrumbs and benefit from rich results because of its random nature.

3 Benefits of Using Breadcrumbs

This all sounds great, you’re thinking.

But what will breadcrumbs actually do?

If you’re unsure breadcrumbs are worth the hassle (spoiler, they totally are!), then you’ll want to read the section below.

1. Breadcrumbs Improve UX

Breadcrumbs make it easier for users to navigate a website and encourage them to browse other sections.

For example, if you want to learn more about Nestle, you head to its site and end up on the Nestle company history page.

nestle's breadcrumbsScreenshot from Nestle, June 2024

Using its breadcrumbs, you can easily navigate back to About Us, History, or even its homepage.

It’s a handy way to help users easily find what they are looking for – and hopefully draw them deeper into your website.

2. Keep People Onsite Longer

Bounce rate is not a ranking factor. But keeping users from bouncing can still help SEO as it helps users click and navigate through the website, an engagement signal that Google uses for ranking purposes.

Say, you are looking for a new pair of sneakers on Adidas’s website.

Addidas breadcrumpsScreenshot from Adidas, June 2024

Using Adidas’s breadcrumbs, you can easily navigate back to the boots category and look for a different pair.

This is great for Adidas because it will likely keep you from returning to Google and landing on another shoe website.

That’s the power of the humble breadcrumb!

A case study on Moz shows what happened when it added breadcrumbs to a site and made several other changes.

Sessions drastically increased in just a few months.

breadcrumbs seo site trafficScreenshot from Moz, June 2024

Granted, they also added meta descriptions and eliminated a few other UX issues, but breadcrumbs also played a part.

3. Breadcrumbs Improve Internal Linking

Breadcrumbs are not just a navigational utility; they play a crucial role in enhancing a website’s internal linking structure. Google uses breadcrumbs to determine the relationship between different pages which are deeper in the site structure.

By implementing breadcrumbs’s structured data markup, you can help search engines understand the site’s architecture.

Read: Site Structure & Internal Linking in SEO: Why It’s Important

4. Rich Snippets In SERPs

As discussed, breadcrumbs make site navigation easier, but they do a lot more so as Google displays rich snippets in the search results.

Screenshot from Google.comScreenshot from Google.com

But this doesn’t happen until you markup your breadcrumbs with structured data so Google can pick it up and surface it in search engine results pages (SERP).

Here is a JSON-LD structured data code example for a breadcrumb that matched the rich snippet from the screenshot:

[{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@id": "https://www.example.com/#breadcrump", 
  "@type": "BreadcrumbList",
    "itemListElement": [
    {
       "@type": "ListItem",
       "position": 1,
       "item":   "@id": "https://www.example.com/",      
       "name": "Home"       
   },
   {
       "@type": "ListItem",
       "position": 2,
       "item": "https://www.example.com/real-estate/",
       "name": "Real estate"
  },
  {
       "@type": "ListItem",
       "position": 3,
       "item": "https://www.example.com/en/paris/",
       "name": "Paris"
  },
  {
      "@type": "ListItem",
      "position": 4,
      "item": "https://www.example.com/en/paris/apartment/",
      "name": "Apartment"
   },
  {
     "@type": "ListItem",
     "position": 5,
     "item": "https://www.example.com/en/paris/apartment/affordable",
     "name": "Affordable rentals Paris"      
    }
   ]
}]

Here is a breakdown of each attribute in the breadcrumb JSON-LD schema.

Attribute Description
@context This tells search engines where to find the definitions of the structured data
@type Defines the type of schema used, in this case, “BreadcrumbList”
itemListElement An array of list items representing a breadcrumb.
itemListElement[position] Indicates the position of the breadcrumb in the list, starting from 1.
itemListElement[item] The URL of the breadcrumb’s target page
itemListElement[name] The visible name of the breadcrumb as it appears to users.

Please note that you can’t game Google by having structured data on the website without having an actual breadcrumb visible to users.

If Google detects such manipulations, violating Google’s guidelines, you may get a manual penalty. However, that doesn’t cause a drop in rankings, but your website will not be eligible for any kind of rich snippets in search results.

So, the golden rule is that every schema markup you have on the website has to exist on the page and be visible to users.

4 Common Mistakes When Using Breadcrumbs For SEO

Implementing breadcrumbs is a straightforward way to improve a site’s SEO and provide better UX.

However, sometimes, implementing breadcrumbs could cause more harm than good.

Here are a few breadcrumb mistakes you’ll want to avoid.

1. Don’t Go Too Big or Too Small – Aim For Just Right

Breadcrumbs should be easy to see but unobtrusive.

A slightly smaller font is fine, but too small text will be hard to see and hard to click on mobile devices.

Position them at the top of the page, beneath the hero image, or just above the H1 title so they are easy to find.

2. Don’t Just Repeat Your Navigation Bar

If the breadcrumbs just duplicate what is already in your navbar, they might not serve any additional purpose.

There’s no need to add more coding (and take up room!) if it doesn’t help.

3. Don’t Ditch Your Navigation Bar In Favor Of Breadcrumbs

While you don’t want to repeat navigation, you also don’t want to rely entirely on breadcrumbs.

They serve as a supplement, not a replacement for other navigational features.

4. Use The Right Type Of Breadcrumbs

Location breadcrumbs are the most common type, but they might not be the best choice for your site.

Don’t use location breadcrumbs if your site doesn’t use a nested structure where most pages fit under a few categories.

In that case, history-based breadcrumbs might be more beneficial.

How To Implement Breadcrumbs In WordPress

Breadcrumbs are an incredibly useful navigation element for both users and search engines — and they are easy to add to your site.

Here are a few ways to add these useful features to your site.

Yoast breadcrumbsScreenshot from Yoast SEO, June 2024
  • Use Yoast SEO: If you already use Yoast, adding breadcrumbs will only take a few steps. Simply log in and follow these steps to implement breadcrumbs.
  • WordPress Plugins: If you use WordPress, there are several plugins that can add breadcrumbs in a few steps. I like Breadcrumb NavXT because it is easy to implement and generates locational breadcrumbs that can be customized as needed.
  • WooCommerce Breadcrumb Plugin: If you have an ecommerce site that uses Woocommerce, consider using their breadcrumb plugin, which allows you to restyle the built-in WooCommerce breadcrumbs.

Finally, your site builder or WordPress theme might have a built-in breadcrumb feature.

Shopify, Wix, or Squarespace sites have built-in features you can enable on their settings page.

Breadcrumbs Are An Easy-to-Grasp Way To Navigate Your Website

Think of breadcrumbs as the butter to your bread. The Kermit to your Miss Piggy. The animal sauce to your In N’ Out burger.

You get the point.

Breadcrumbs are a simple change that can help your site stand out on the search results page.

Though they won’t guarantee a significant boost to SERPs, they are helpful to users and search engines alike.

As an added bonus, breadcrumbs are easy to implement using a plugin like Yoast.

In just a few clicks, you could make your site easier to navigate and maybe rank higher in SERPs.

More resources:

Featured Image: BestForBest/Shutterstock

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Aug 1 2024
Google Introduces INP Improvement For Publisher Tag Ads Library via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google has released an update to its Publisher Tag Ads Library, introducing a new feature to improve Interaction to Next Paint (INP) scores.

The update focuses on yielding during out-of-viewport ad slot insertions when using Single Request Architecture (SRA).

INP Improvement: Focus On Ad Loading Efficiency

The new feature allows for more strategic ad loading, particularly for ad slots not immediately visible to users.

The ad library prioritizes more immediate content and interactions by yielding to these out-of-viewport insertions, potentially improving INP scores.

Gilberto Cocchi was first to notice this update:

New adYield Config Option Introduced

Google has also introduced an adYield Config option, giving publishers additional control over ad loading behavior.

This setting allows publishers to extend yielding to all ad slots, including those within the viewport, offering more flexibility in managing site performance.

Potential Impact On INP Scores

The update may affect INP scores, a Core Web Vital metric that measures page responsiveness to user interactions.

Lower INP scores generally indicate better performance, which can influence search engine rankings and user experience.

Upcoming August CrUX Report

The full impact of this update will become more apparent with the release of the next Chrome User Experience (CrUX) report, expected on September 10th.

This report will provide data on INP measurements across websites using the updated Google Publisher Tag Ads Library.

It should provide concrete data on how this update affects real-world INP scores.

INP’s Relevance For Publishers

Since its introduction as a Core Web Vital, INP has become an important metric.

It reflects a site’s responsiveness to user actions and can influence user engagement.

As Google continues emphasizing page experience in ranking systems, INP improvements could affect search visibility.

Implementing The New Feature

Publishers can access this new functionality by updating their Google Publisher Tag implementation.

The adYield Config options are detailed in the library’s documentation. Google advises testing various configurations to determine the best setup for individual site needs.

This update to the Google Publisher Tag Ads Library represents efforts needed to address the balance between ad delivery, site performance, and user experience in digital publishing.

FAQ

How does the new Google Publisher Tag Ads Library update improve Interaction to Next Paint (INP) scores?

This update improves smart ad loading, especially for ads off-screen. It prioritizes visible content and user interactions to boost INP scores, potentially helping SEO.

The new adYield Config lets publishers extend ad-yielding to all ad slots, including visible ones, for better performance control.

What is the adYield Config option, and how does it benefit publishers?

Google’s new adYield Config setting gives publishers better control over ad loading. It extends yield to all ad slots, even those immediately visible.

Key benefits:

  • More ad loading control
  • Flexible performance management
  • Potential UX and page responsiveness boost

This could indirectly improve INP scores and search visibility.

What is the potential impact of the Google Publisher Tag Ads Library update on INP scores?

This update aims to boost INP scores by delaying ad insertions outside the visible screen area. Better INP scores mean more responsive pages, which can impact search rankings and user experience. Publishers who use this update might see better search visibility.

The full impact will be shown in the next CrUX report, due September 10th.

Featured image: se_vector/Shutterstock

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