Why is it important to spread out your SEO efforts?

June 7, 2020December 2, 2019 by marissawaite

marissawaite

Hey! I’m Marissa, a freelance web designer and digital marketer. I love working with clients to take the overwhelm out of getting their business online. Thanks for stopping by and taking a look at my blog!

December 2, 2019

Why is it important to spread out your SEO efforts?

SEO is a long game. It’s a tool meant to help you reach both qualitative and quantitative web traffic goals. As with any goal, reaching traffic targets takes time, focus, and effort; you can’t just publish a website and be done with it! But there’s more to it than adding keywords to a list.

It isn’t a one-time thing, but an ongoing process that will make your site more visible to your target audience and deliver relevant, high-value traffic to your website. Here are some tips and tricks to improve your SEO game, no matter how you play!

Update Frequently

While there are many different methods to increase the visibility of your website, some overarching practices benefit any SEO plan. Updates attract web crawlers that track, review, and analyze your site.

Frequent updates mean frequent tracking. The key here? Ensure the updates are necessary and relevant. Simply updating for the sake of updating may attract web crawlers, but if the content isn’t pertinent to your website, the update may be treated as negative, you may be penalized, and your search ranking lowered.

As long as the updates are relevant and high-quality, they will be counted as a positive vote towards your website, raising your ranking, which, in turn, increases your visibility!

Be Natural

There are lots of “quick-fixes” you can try to raise your search engine rank. Keyword stuffing, link farming, the aforementioned irrelevant updates, and many other practices can boost your rank quickly, but often go against search engine guidelines.

Basically, anything considered Black Hat SEO should be avoided. Again, if it’s caught by a web crawler, your website will be penalized and your search ranking lowered.

Bot-run SEO is considered Black Hat. SEO requires real work and bots are an easy way out. Google prefers updates done by humans as there is a level of legitimacy to them. While web crawlers rank human-managed websites positively, crawlers aren’t always accurate. If you do all your SEO at once, it could be misanalyzed as “unnatural”, lowering your rank. A well-planned timeline of relevant updates not only keeps you organized, but signals to Google that a real person is behind them.

Give It Time

Reaching goals takes time. You have to constantly work at it. Whether it’s running a marathon, saving for purchase, or playing the bodhran, there is no immediate payoff. You have to train for a marathon, savings add up slowly, and learning an instrument requires practice. In each case, you have to put systems in place to help you reach the goal. Most importantly? You have to devote time.

The same can be said of SEO. There is a learning process. Different websites require different SEO plans and it may take a few tweaks before your plan works for you. As you edit and update your website, SEO best practices evolve and change. Some things become obsolete.

Digital industries are never static, as new technologies and innovations present themselves. You have to be able to adapt and willing to learn, constantly. Investing time, patience, and effort into achieving measurable goals will benefit your website in the long run.

Be Patient

As with most long-term projects, you will have to be patient in order to see the results of your SEO efforts. It may take months or it may take years. It can be discouraging to put so much work into something and not see results right away, but if you’re really investing the time and energy, little by little you’ll get closer to achieving your goals!

More to explore

Paintbox School of Art

July 8, 2024

Simpson’s Florist

July 1, 2024

Avondale Radio

June 11, 2024

apple computer, keyboard and notebook on white desk

Definitive Guide To SEO Terms

June 7, 2020November 18, 2019 by marissawaite

marissawaite

November 18, 2019

Definitive Guide To SEO Terms

Search engine optimization is a beast! It’s integral to your website’s visibility, but it isn’t just the monumental importance of SEO that makes it so monstrous. The various processes and practices, the software, the algorithms! It’s a lot to think about. With so many moving parts, it’s understandable that SEO can seem intimidating at first.

So where do you begin? Well, a good place to start learning the language. Understanding the language of SEO is the first step in discerning the purpose behind the myriad of different processes and practices that encompass SEO.

Here is a fun, comprehensive list of common SEO terminology to help you go from confused to crushing the SEO game!

Alt-Text

In it’s simplest form, alt-text is a descriptive text associated with an image. It is one of two attributes of an image included in an IMG Tag. Alt-text has several purposes. It communicates what the image contains to search engines, it gives search engines context about your website using keyword (boosting SEO!) and can act as a stand-in for an image when it cannot display.

Anchor Text

Anchor text includes any words highlighted within a sentence to feature a link. For example, did you know there is a hyperlink in this sentence? The anchor text is the line “there is a hyperlink”.

Anchor text is one part of a hyperlink. The other part is the destination anchor.

Backlink

A backlink is any link on another website that link’s back to your website. They are important for high-SEO rankings as credible backlinks boost your visibility. That means the anchor text should read as relevant to the content it links (ie. your homepage, blog, article, etc.)

For example, if I write “Check out Jenna Kutcher’s blog and podcast for a detailed look at SEO”, it creates a backlink to that blog, boosting its SEO ranking. (Bonus points if you thought to yourself, “oh hey, the words “Jenna Kutcher’s blog and podcast” are the anchor text.)

Destination Anchor

Where you arrive on after clicking a hyperlink. All links lead somewhere, whether to another page, another section of a page, or another website altogether.

A destination anchor is one part of a hyperlink. The other part is the anchor text.

DoFollow Link

A link that signals to web crawlers to follow it. When a web crawler follows a DoFollow Link back to your website, they track the link as a vote of quality (also known as Link Juice!). All links are Do-Follow by default unless they are given a NoFollow attribute.

Domain Name

A name unique to each website. For example, my domain is marissawaitecreative.com.

Duplicate Content

The inclusion of two different pages on your website containing similar content. This can affect SEO ranking negatively, as web crawlers may penalize your website for repeating content.

Engagement

How visitors interact with your website. High user-engagement, for example, can be considered when visitors actively engage with your website, doing things like exploring your website, clicking on links, reading content, and following calls-to-action.

Keywords

Keywords are the main descriptive words and phrases related to your website and its content. So, for example, if you created a comprehensive list of important SEO terms, your main keyword might be “SEO terms” or “SEO terminology”.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

A quantitative measurement that expresses how a website is performing. KPIs provide data that serves to ameliorate your website. A common KPI is web traffic, ie. the number of unique visits to your site. Other examples include conversion rate, number of return visitors, number of call-to-action click-throughs, length of time spent on site, etc.

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)

A process used to define secondary keywords relevant to your content. These are words that occur naturally and often in relation to your main keywords. For example, if your keyword is coffee, LSI terms might include ”bean”, ”mug”, ”latte”, as they are words related to the topic.

Link Building

Link building is the process through which your website gets backlinks. It can occur naturally/organically, when another website intentionally backlinks to yours, or actively, through deliberate efforts, like publishing content on other sites.

Meta Description

A short description of a given page, as shown in search engine results. The meta description text should include keywords and be relevant to the page and its content but does not have to be included on the pages itself. If no meta description is specified, the search engine may display a section of content pulled directly from the website instead.

Meta Keyword

A list of your main keywords and key phrases.

Meta Tags

Meta tags express the purpose of a website to a given search engine. Some examples of meta tags include title, keywords, meta description, etc.

Natural Links/Organic Links

All backlinks your page acquires naturally/organically. When another website links back to your website by their own volition, that backlink is a natural link.

NoFollow Link

The opposite of a DoFollow Link, a NoFollow Link signals to web crawlers to ignore certain links. This prevents the link from being counted as a vote of quality.

Off-page SEO

Actions taken to improve SEO that are external to your website. Example: link building.

On-page SEO

Actions taken to improve SEO that are internal to your website. Example: keyword quality and density, relevant titles, relevant tags.

Organic Search/Organic Search Results

An organic search is the action of putting a search query into a search engine. Organic Search Results are the first results (excluding ads) that appear.

Note: ads may appear above Organic Search Results but are not included.

PageRank

A Google algorithm that estimates the value of a given website based on website importance, credibility, and quality.

Sandbox Index/Supplemental Index

A secondary index of websites that are not shown in the main search results. New websites and low ranking websites are placed “in the sandbox” until their SEO rankings are considered worthy of appearing on the main results page.

Search Engine

Software that locates information on the internet through the input of search queries and keywords. Google, for example, is the most popular search engine.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The process through which to improve a website’s search ranking. SEO encompasses a vast array of different parts (hopefully made clear by this list) that work to increase ranking. From the use of keywords, to variable tags, to backlinks, and more, SEO is invaluable to increasing the visibility and credibility of your website.

Slug

A slug is a section of the URL of a given page, containing keywords specific to that page. It should be short, sweet, and related to the content. It is used for easy navigation, to categorize the page, and to differentiate it from the original homepage URL.

Title Tag

A tag that expresses a page’s purpose to a given search engine. Simply put, it’s the title presented to a search engine.

Traffic

Traffic is the number of visitors landing on your website. A high-traffic website has a lot of visitors, and while you want your site to have a lot of traffic, other important factors weigh into SEO rankings, such as bounce rate (whether or not a visitor stays or bounces from your site) and engagement.

Web-Crawler

Also known as a bot, crawler, or spider, a web-crawler is a piece of software that reviews web content for a search engine, in order to give the website a search ranking. It explores website’s, reviewing all content, including audio, visual, and text content, keywords, tags, and the various web pages and links related to a website

Web Host

The digital space in which your website is stored. All websites have to be located somewhere (not just inside the computer, Hansel!)

Definitive guide to SEO terms

And there you have it! SEO can seem daunting, but once you’re comfortable with the terminology, you can start moving forward to make your website the best that it can be.

If you really want to up your SEO game, take a peek at my free SEO for blogging guide here to help get you started!

More to explore

Paintbox School of Art

July 8, 2024

Simpson’s Florist

July 1, 2024

Avondale Radio

June 11, 2024

Inspiring Life

November 17, 2020November 17, 2019 by marissawaite

marissawaite

November 17, 2019

Inspiring Life

This WordPress website design was for an amazing Scottish charity raising money and awareness for mental health and depression; Inspiring Life.

Founded by a very close family friend and someone I find incredibly inspiring despite all life has thrown at her, Freda Douglas.

Freda started the charity and continues her tireless work to raise awareness of mental health and the mental health services around the Central Belt of Scotland after her daughter, Evie Douglas, completed suicide at the age of 21. The charity do so many events to help raise money for their memorial fund as well as creating a safe space for others to talk about and learn more about mental health and depression.

The work they do is amazing and I was so pleased when they asked me to build their website for them.

Home Page Sneak Peek

Head over to the Inspiring Life site to see the whole thing.

You can book a call with me here to have a chat about your own website.

More to explore

Paintbox School of Art

July 8, 2024

Simpson’s Florist

July 1, 2024

Avondale Radio

June 11, 2024

Why Websites Are About More Than Flashy Design

June 7, 2020November 4, 2019 by marissawaite

marissawaite

November 4, 2019

Why Websites Are About More Than Flashy Design

A well-designed website can be the ultimate tool to support your business. Good design, however, doesn’t always equate to extravagance!

Your website has a purpose, and very rarely is that purpose simply aesthetic. Of course you want your site to be visually appealing, but going overboard on ostentatious details and graphics can do way more harm than good.

The key is to find the balance between form and function, with the latter taking precedence.

Function Comes First

Function, your website’s reason for being (or raison d’être if we’re getting fancy), is what draws people to your page. People seek out sites like yours with a goal in mind. They want a service you offer, a product you sell, a solution to a problem, or information you can provide. But there are many other sites that offer the same thing. With so many options available, why would you delay? Give them what they want first!

Accessibility Is Essential

Think about design in terms of utility. Following conventional paths and patterns may sound boring, but when it comes to websites, user experience should be easy and straightforward. No one will stay on a site they can’t navigate. Too much choice might distract your audience, while a convoluted site structure might confuse them. The steps they take to reach their goal should be accessible. That is, a homepage should work like a homepage, and any navigation bar, drop down menu, or footer should feel effortless to operate. If innovation can be integrated into the function of a site, fantastic! But it needs to have a purpose.

Avoid Excess

Excessive buttons, links, and pop-ups are another issue. While some pop-ups are necessary and sometimes even appreciated (50% off just for signing up? Yes please!), they can also be obnoxious. Unless your audience is fully invested in reading your newsletter or making a purchase, forcing them to view pop-ups can deter a potential reader or customer.

It is extremely important to use restraint when including extras of this nature. The same can be said of links. While your audience should be able to reach every page of your site easily, a hundred different links scattering your homepage looks messy and unprofessional, while an overkill of sub-topics in a drop down menu is confusing. The key word here is streamline!

Restrain The Razzle-Dazzle

Likewise, too much flair can be a detriment. A website of full of flashy colours and graphics may discourage customers, clients, or readers from staying on your site. You want your audience to land, not bounce! A high-bounce rate shows that people aren’t sticking around. While this could be for various reasons, a web design faux-pas could be the culprit! For one, a multicoloured homepage can prove difficult for some to read.

This is where the value of knowing your audience becomes evident. Vibrant colours may draw in a younger market, but if it’s difficult to read, an older audience may skip the site altogether. As an additional point, consider the inclusion of moving visual carefully. Videos can add interest to a homepage and improve you SEO, but a slow- loading clip does nothing for you or your audience. Do your due diligence and research the best platforms before adding a video so it doesn’t leave your audience waiting.

Analyse Your Audience

All that being said, well-designed doesn’t necessarily mean minimalistic. Eye-catching design can be beneficial depending on the kind of products, services, and ideas your website provides. Bold colours, vivid imagery, movement, and animation may be exactly what your website needs.

Again, this is where knowing your audience is integral. What will make the biggest impact? A stark, white homepage might be the exact opposite of the message you want to send. Research your desired market; learn their interests, their concerns, their wants and needs. Really understand who you are catering towards so you can design site to suit them. As long as design doesn’t takes precedence over utility and it helps you reach your goal, go wild!

Authenticity Is Inspiring

If I could offer any piece of advice, it would be this: Don’t design simply for the sake of design. It’s essential that you stay true to who you are. Flash and flair can be fun, and even useful, but if it’s just for the sake of show, it isn’t a good representation of what you can offer. Keep your design genuine and relevant to you and your audience, and you’ll be golden!

If you need help getting the perfect balance of flair and functionality on your website, get in touch with me to have a chat about how I can help you.

More to explore

Paintbox School of Art

July 8, 2024

Simpson’s Florist

July 1, 2024

Avondale Radio

June 11, 2024

Are You Creating Quality Content To Boost Your SEO?

June 7, 2020October 12, 2019 by marissawaite

marissawaite

October 12, 2019

Are You Creating Quality Content To Boost Your SEO?

Search engines love regularly updated websites. Fresh, relevant content indicates that your site is “alive”, catching the notice of web crawlers. The more frequently a site is updated, the more often it is indexed, which in turn affects its search engine ranking. But excessive updates and an abundance of content mean nothing if the content isn’t high-value. As with many things in life, its a matter of quality over quantity.

What is high-quality content?

High-quality content is content that is current, relevant, informative, engaging, and valuable to your audience. Keeping these factors in mind when developing content can help you achieve higher search engine rankings and draw more traffic to your website.

It needs to be current.

When it comes to web content, there is little value to be found in redundancy. Following a set format and staying on topic are key to your brand, but recycling old information over and over becomes cumbersome, for reader and writer alike. Your readers want to know what is happening now!

Sharing breaking stories and industry news is a start, as they can be linked to high-traffic sources and include many keywords, both of which can increase site visibility to web-crawlers. Plus, it keeps your readers up-to-date!

But if news isn’t on brand for you, well-researched, topical, timely posts might be more your style. The key is to make it stand out! What new information can your site offer that can’t be found anywhere else? And if it can be found elsewhere, how is your content different? Another big tip to stay current: keep up with best practices!

Challenge: Choose three subjects related to your blog and brainstorm five different blog titles on each topic. That’s 15 opportunities for new content!

It needs to be relevant.

What is your focus? Whatever content you deliver should be relevant to your website, your brand, the services or products you offer, and the information you share. Many of us have looked for recipes online, only to have 50 paragraphs of story to wade through before the actual instructions. If it isn’t the information your audience is seeking, it can be needless.

Making the desired content the main focus allows readers to find what they are looking for quickly and efficiently. This can build trust with your audience, as you deliver results without all the song and dance. That being said, it’s a sweet way to personalise a blog and connect with readers, if that is in line with your brand. A consistent brand identity is reliable and easy to recognise.

Content should parallel and support your website objectives. Posting for the sake of posting will serve neither you, nor your readers. While it may boost visibility, if the content doesn’t satisfy demands, scrap it!

Challenge: What is your website’s core message? Compare it to past content, old and new. Does it fit with your brand-identity? Write down what works and what doesn’t, what feels genuine, and what was just for a self-imposed word-quota?

It needs to be informative.

Think about what you are presenting. Is it a story? A lesson? A how-to guide? What sort of information are you sharing and why is it important? High-quality content should serve the interests of the target audience, whether they are looking to learn and develop new skills, market products and services, gain confidence, or keep up-to-date with current affairs.

A fundamental aspect of quality content is accuracy; fact-checking and research are essential. This benefits your readers foremost, but it can also be a great asset to you. Linking posts to reliable sites and credible info can increase the chance of your site being indexed, along with its search ranking.

More importantly, it positions you as an authority, building trust between you and your readers. And a strong, trusting relationship is key!

Challenge: Make a list of reliable resources you can link to. This can be authorities on different topics, blogs you follow, people you look up to, your preferred news sites, etc. The list goes on! Keep them handy for inspiration, information, and linking in the future. Some of my favourites are:

– Jenna Kutcher

– Neil Patel

– Amy Porterfield

It needs to be engaging.

What could be worse than a boring blog? Well, many things! But you can avoid boring blogs. Simply don’t read them. That is great for readers, but not so much for you. Appealing to an audience is paramount to quality content. This doesn’t mean every sentence has to be electrifying.

A concise set of instruction is much more practical than a heavily-worded how-to guide. If it needs to be simple, keep it simple. But don’t be afraid to step outside the box when appropriate. A comprehensive blueprint will prove more useful than a loose list of parts.

Know your audience well so you can implement a content strategy that meets their needs. Captivate your readers; excite and inform them! That’s what makes your website memorable and brings readers back.

Challenge: Choose a topic and brainstorm five different ways to present the idea. Don’t just write a list though; research and develop your ideas. Change up your tone, present a cool infographic, conduct an interview, the list goes on.

It needs to be valuable.

The most integral part of your site is what it offers. What does it provide to your audience? Be it knowledge, news, lessons, or entertainment, it was created with an intention in mind and should serve a purpose for both you and your readers.

Content should be in line with your site’s objective. That’s not to say you can’t veer off the beaten track now and then. A diverse line-up of topics can grow your following and allow for a wider range of keywords to be dispersed through your content. But use your discretion with keywords. Only include when necessary, natural, and relevant.

Of equal importance is to avoid excessive posts and updates. It’s easy to get carried away, but a few high-value posts have more worth than many frequent updates. What is integral is finding the balance!

Challenge: Brainstorm ways in which your content could change or evolve. What new avenues could prove valuable to your current audience or diversify your followers, while still staying true to your brand-identity?

In Conclusion

Without content, a website is just a blank page. You can add as much as you want to it, but if the components don’t enhance the overall value, it’s just dead weight. Don’t let it drag you down! Be discerning with your content.

You might have to experiment a bit before you find something that resonates with you and your following. Try things out and see what works for you.

Once you have a strategy for creating and delivering high quality content, the regular and valuable updates to your website will continue to improve your search engine rankings.

More to explore

Paintbox School of Art

July 8, 2024

Simpson’s Florist

July 1, 2024

Avondale Radio

June 11, 2024

6 Lifesaving Ideas For Work At Home Parents

June 7, 2020October 7, 2019 by marissawaite

marissawaite

October 7, 2019

6 Lifesaving Ideas For Work At Home Parents

WAHM. Wait; what does that even mean?

If you know, you know.

Work at home mom. Yikes! Really though, work at home parents. Is that a thing yet? It should be.

I’ll start this by being totally honest and tell you that I don’t often work from home whilst with my boys on my own. My husband is also self-employed and so mostly we split our childcare between us. Our 4 year old is in nursery most weekdays for the whole morning, and our nearly 2 year old is at home with us. We also have very supportive family who live nearby that help us when we’re overloaded with work or both have meetings/sessions in on the same days. So I count myself very lucky that this is the case!

I know some incredible parents who work at home full time and also run their businesses while looking after their children. Heroes! I find doing this even some of the time so hard. Our situation takes a lot more organising, planning and juggling than if one of us were in a full time job but even though it can feel overwhelming at times, we love it and have been so lucky to be able to spend so much time with our boys while they’re little.

Also, before I went freelance, I worked (mostly) remotely 9-5 and going freelance has allowed both my husband to take on more of the work he loves and grow his business, while I get to do work I am so much happier doing and see my kids way more. So, it’s a win-win for us.

However. Building a business while looking after young kids is tough. Like, really tough. There are some really amazing communities that have helped me feel way less alone (like the Mumpreneur Revolution and DIFTK communities on Facebook). If you’re in this situation, find your people and hold on for dear life!

In the spirit of community, I have a few little work/kid wrangling hacks I want to share because OMG anything that makes this easier is worth shouting about.

So how do you keep your kids entertained long enough to get anything done???

Some kids are really chill. And agreeable. And play on their own.

These are not my kids.

I love my boys. They’re awesome. And like I said, I’m lucky I don’t often need to do work while I have them with me. But it does happen! Depending on the week and my workload, sometimes the inevitable happens and I need an hour or two during the day to keep on top of things. So here are a few of my favourite ways I like to use to keep them happy!

1. Kids podcasts

This has been such a revelation, particularly for my 4 year old. He loves one podcast in particular, Little Stories For Tiny People. Check it out! It’s so well done. There are some others out there that we’ve tried but this one is the bee’s knees (according to him). I put it on, he lies on the couch in my office or sits quietly and listens. Almost the same effect as tv, without sitting them in front of the tv if that’s something you want to avoid.

2. Naptime

I feel like this is the most obvious one, but still needs to be said. Some days, at naptime, you just need to sit in silence with a cup of tea. Other days, you need to make the most of it, sit down and get as much done as possible.

3. Kinetic sand

I’m not going to lie to you. This stuff makes such a huge mess (if you have any advice on how to prevent the giant destructive mess, please for the love of god email me). It does also keep them busy for at least 30mins-1hour so it’s worth its weight in gold. Bonus points if you let them get their hot wheels covered in it.

4. Their own workspace

I found this started to work really well at around 18 months-2 years old. They have a little desk right next to mine with sticker books, big art pads, crayons, their toy computers and phones. Just like a real life co-working space but without the price tag (and quiet time).

5. Standup desk

This has been a more recent revelation for me. I grabbed an affordable standup desk on amazon that can adjust to loads of different heights. It feels so good to stand up and not be sitting all day! And if you have a breastfeeding toddler who likes to climb onto your lap and demand to be fed if you’re sitting down all day, this one is a huge win. Seriously, buy one right this second and thank me later. They can’t get you if you’re not sitting.

6. When all else fails…..turn on the tv

Okay. I don’t sit my kids in front of the tv for 8 hours a day and forget about them. But on days when I really really have some things that need to be done and I’ve been woken up 4 times the night before, I know I can let them watch a few episodes of paw patrol to get 40 minutes with a cup of coffee and a blast through my admin work so I don’t get behind on everything. Even doing an hour of admin through the day means once they’re asleep in the evening, I can sit down for a good few hours and work on my current projects and not need to get through all of my admin tasks first, and I find it way easier to concentrate and be productive.

What else would you add?

There you have it, my tried and tested ways to keep my kids happy when I’m working from home and they’re there too. What would you add? If you have something else you’d like to throw in the mix and inspire other hardworking and heroic parents everywhere, drop me a comment below because I’m always looking for new ways to mix it up!

More to explore

Paintbox School of Art

July 8, 2024

Simpson’s Florist

July 1, 2024

Avondale Radio

June 11, 2024

Amy Lord

November 17, 2020September 17, 2019 by marissawaite

marissawaite

September 17, 2019

Amy Lord

This WordPress website build was for a beautiful Scots singer, teacher and workshop leader, Amy Lord.

I studied at the RCS in Glasgow a few years below Amy when I was younger. I was so happy to work with her when she got in touch with me about her website!

She had a previous site live that had been there for years and really needed redone. She also wanted it to be easier to manage so she could add workshop dates, change photos and add content when she wanted as well. We also added functionality so that her whole website could be in both Scots and English, and pdf downloads for her students to have access to her arrangements.

It was a total pleasure to work on this site for Amy and I’m so happy she loves it!

Home Page Sneak Peek

Head over to Amy Lord’s site to see the whole thing.

You can book a call with me here to have a chat about your own website.

More to explore

Paintbox School of Art

July 8, 2024

Simpson’s Florist

July 1, 2024

Avondale Radio

June 11, 2024

5 Things You Need To Know About WordPress

June 7, 2020July 18, 2019 by marissawaite

marissawaite

July 18, 2019

5 Things You Need To Know About WordPress

WordPress, Squarespace, Shopify, Wix, Weebly…there are so many different platforms you can use for your website! Where do you even start?!

All of the websites I build are on WordPress. I really love it but by no means think that it is always the best solution for each and every build. Every website is different and therefore you should work with a designer or developer that will produce exactly what you need and suggest the best solution for you.

There are many reasons I love WordPress so I wanted to share some of them with you so you can see why I love building on it, and hopefully learn a bit more about it if you’re trying to decide what you’d like your website to be built with.

Why exactly is WordPress so awesome?

Above all, WordPress actually has a totally amazing and really inclusive community all over the world. I didn’t realise quite how much until I went to WordCamp in Edinburgh last year, and feel like I got a tiny glimpse into why so many people love it. What an experience! It’s so fun to feel like a part of a bigger community.

Aside from that, there are a few things to consider before you choose WordPress as your website’s platform.

1.It’s easy for you to use your website once it’s live.

WordPress has a super user friendly CMS (content management system). This makes it easy for you to add blog posts and make small changes to your content as and when you need. If you have a good designer, they’ll either show you how to do this or offer you a monthly management service where they make small changes like this for you.

Also, because WordPress is open source and very popular (it currently powers around 30% of websites on the internet!), it’s easy to find tutorials and help with any problems you might run into.

It’s worth noting here that many small business owners don’t ever touch their websites once they’re live. But if you care about your online presence and want to have a website that truly represents your brand, being able to post your own blogs and tweak and test your copy is an ability that you really need to take into consideration.

2. You need to buy hosting and a domain name.

A lot of people talk about how WordPress is free. While WordPress.Com is free, WordPress.Org is a self-hosted CMS (you can read more on the difference between the two here), which means you need to take care of the hosting yourself. There are a variety of solutions for this, but most hosting solutions are usually paid for in a small monthly fee. You want to do your homework here and make sure you choose a reputable company with good support before you take out a hosting package with them!

Another cost some don’t realise is your domain name. You’ll need to purchase this before you build your site, and you can even purchase multiple domain names to all point at the same site if you want. The price of this will depend on what domain name you want, and also on the ending (.com tends to be more expensive).

3. Themes can make or break your WordPress experience.

With WordPress, you can use or purchase any theme or plugin you need to build the website you want. There are so many to choose from, it can be totally overwhelming!

I often see people complaining about WordPress and certain styling or functionality, and the truth is that issue has come down to their theme. Anyone can build their own theme and sell it on a site like themeforest; you want to make sure you do your homework here and choose a theme that has been updated recently, is compatible with your version of WordPress, has good ratings and a decent download number.

Basically, don’t blame WordPress when the problem you’re having is because of the theme you’ve used.

4. You need to keep it updated.

Here’s another thing you really need to know about WordPress; you need to keep it up to date.

Depending how your site has been built and what’s been used, this is easy to do and doesn’t take long. You need to update three main areas on your site:

Your theme.
Your plugins.
WordPress itself.

Luckily, WordPress makes this really easy for us and you get a notification every time you log in to your website and an update needs made.

The important thing here, is that you keep on top of your updates to ensure there are no security lapses. Most designers and developers offer monthly WordPress packages where they will update and look after your WordPress website for you so that you don’t need to worry about it.

5. It’s SEO friendly.

Many people who have built their own sites on other platforms ask me about switching to WordPress as they hear it’s more SEO friendly. While having your website built on WordPress won’t magically improve your SEO results on it’s own, there are many aspects of WordPress that mean it is pretty SEO friendly straight out of the box.

It has proper HTML markup, SEO friendly permalinks (or pretty URLs, which we can talk about another time!), different heading tags, and many different plugins you can use such as Yoast or All-In-One-SEO to help you work on your onpage SEO.

WordPress also makes is super easy for you to create your own posts, which is a huge contributing factor in SEO. If you publish to your site regularly, Google knows that you’re giving more valuable information for your followers, which is something they love to see.

WordPress is the best!

All in all, there are many reasons why WordPress is awesome. For brands that want beautiful websites that also have the functionality they need to run their businesses, it can provide a really amazing solution.

Have any WordPress questions? Drop them below and I would love to help if I can.

I will leave you with this awesome infographic by WPBeginner!

More to explore

Paintbox School of Art

July 8, 2024

Simpson’s Florist

July 1, 2024

Avondale Radio

June 11, 2024

BodyWell RMT

June 8, 2020April 8, 2019 by marissawaite

marissawaite

April 8, 2019

BodyWell RMT

This was a WordPress redesign for the amazing BodyWell RMT, a registered massage therapy and yoga studio in Comox Valley, BC.

BodyWell is founded and run by my best friend of 25 years, Heather Green. Heather has always been such a huge inspiration and influence in my life and it was SO much fun to work together! It’s the most amazing feeling to work with someone you admire so much.

Heather built her own website on Weebly and used that for several years. She wanted her website to be more robust, look more modern and professional, and for it to make getting information and booking easier for her clients. With a number of new RMTs popping up in the area, she also knew moving to WordPress and optimising her site for SEO would be a big help and as SEO is a longer term strategy, she wanted to get moving with that too.

This was such a fun build for me! Working with someone inspiring on a mission to make the world a better place, with a business that feels really aligned – a dream job through and through 🙂

Home Page Sneak Peek

Head over to the BodyWell site to see the whole thing.

You can book a call with me here to have a chat about your own website.

More to explore

Paintbox School of Art

July 8, 2024

Simpson’s Florist

July 1, 2024

Avondale Radio

June 11, 2024

WordCamp Edinburgh 2018

June 8, 2020November 5, 2018 by marissawaite

marissawaite

November 5, 2018

WordCamp Edinburgh 2018

This weekend I attended my first WordCamp in Edinburgh! It was such a great experience, I wanted to post up a blog about it to encourage others to try it out and get along if it’s something you think you’d find interesting.

I recently discovered WordCamp (luckily right in time), grabbed a ticket last minute and decided to try and make it to both days of the event. To be honest, I’m pretty introverted and normally struggle to get along to social events like this by myself. It was immediately clear as soon as I arrived that I didn’t need to be nervous about anything. Anyone that’s into the WordPress community will know that it is such a welcoming, inclusive and easily accessible environment for everyone.

I had a really great weekend and met lots of new people, as well as meeting a few people that I’ve chatted to through some online freelancing groups. I think there can be so much negativity about social media these days, but seeing it manifest in these ways is awesome! It was so cool to meet and put a face to some of the people I see popping up in my Twitter feed and Facebook groups.

Talks on Day 1

There were two different rooms with a variety of speakers on over the weekend; a community track and a development track. I was tempted to move around but ended up spending the whole weekend in the community track, though it was really hard to choose between some of the talks.

Saturday morning kicked off with probably my favourite session of the whole weekend. Kenda MacDonald of Automation Ninjas gave a talk all about behavioural and buyer psychology and WordPress. Honestly, this talk blew my mind so much I’m not even sure I’ve totally digested everything she had to say yet! She spoke a lot about current trends in consumer behaviour and psychology, and how we as businesses get to a place that consumers want to be while still building on business needs. She also delved pretty deep into creating quality content to position your brand as well as how to make the most of marketing automation. There was so much to take in here, and I’m really looking forward to getting into their content to take it all in a bit more. I also had a quick chat with Kenda about how their company started and how they work, which left me feeling really inspired.

Next was a great talk about improving UX on WordPress sites by Neil Scott. I’m really interested in UX and have been thinking of looking into some training in this area so was looking forward to taking his talk in. Neil co-founded the monthly UX Glasgow meetups, and he gave a really great talk with tons of real world examples demonstrating general rules of good UX on WordPress sites. He was kind enough to have a quick chat with me afterwards and answered a few of my questions too. I’m definitely planning on getting along to their meetups; it looks like another great place to learn some more about UX and get advice.

After a quick coffee break, Claire Brotherton spoke about the user experience and accessibility of Gutenberg followed by a talk by Jeremy Davis about how to choose a plugin. Claire’s information and insight about Gutenberg was really interesting. I confess I’m late to the party here and actually haven’t looked at Gutenberg yet! It’s on my list to look at before it’s release in a coupe of weeks. The interface appears (to me) a little off-putting at first, but I imagine just as anytime a new version is released on a much loved platform, with time it will feel more normal. Jeremy’s talk was full of good, practical advice about choosing plugins too, and had lots of information about important points to keep in mind when you’re trawling through endless search results in the WordPress plugin section.

The last two talks of the day were by Ross Steedman and Steven Jones. Ross has worked with WordPress for years, and runs a design agency in Edinburgh. His talk was giving practical advice on WordPress after 10 years in business. It was filled with lots of great bits of advice on life and project lifecycles in an agency, and things that anyone who works in WordPress should know. Finally, Steven spoke about how to kick a WordPress project off the right way. This focused a lot on project scope as well as understanding a business’s requirements properly to be able to build them the perfect solution. His measured and exact approach definitely left me with lots of aspects to try and incorporate into my project management process and initial client work. As a freelancer, it’s also so cool and inspiring to hear from someone who’s been freelancing for so long.

At this point I had to skip the lightning talks at the end of the day and head home for a break before day 2!

Talks on Day 2

Day 2 kicked off a little later, and first up for the day was a practical workshop all about making a website given by Kayleigh from 34sp.com. This took us from the very beginning of how to set up basic settings, themes and plugins in WordPress. Definitely a great refresher to make sure you’re doing things right!

After lunch there was a panel discussion with Kenda MacDonald, Kayleigh Thorpe and Colin Gray about how to create amazing content on WordPress. I am all about the importance of quality content creation and marketing, so this was right up my alley. There was lots of great chat about how vital it is to create good, high quality long form content for your brand, as well as how popular good quality micro content is becoming. It’s so hard to keep up on something like marketing which feels like it’s changing all the time, and this panel about content covered a ton of bases and was really interesting.

The day finished up with an hour long Happiness Bar, where we got to discuss any problems we were having or questions we wanted to ask. I had a couple of problems on sites that I needed help with, and it was great to get someone to take a look with me. As a freelancer, it can get pretty lonely working on my own and solving all of the problems with anything on my own. Aside from that, it’s hard not having anyone to bounce any ideas off of and talk through things with! So it was really good to be able to talk to other designers and get some advice. I think heading along to monthly WordPress meetups would be great for this as well.

I’ll be back!

All in all, my first WordCamp experience was such a positive one. I learnt so much and had such a fun time geeking out about all things WordPress all weekend, I can’t wait for the next one! I’m feeling excited, inspired, and totally shattered. Worth it for a great weekend! I’ve got a ton of notes and recordings to get through now, but I think I’ll leave it until later in the week once I’ve had time to let it all sink in a bit.

Have you ever gone to a WordCamp or WordPress meetup? What was your experience like? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.