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Is WordPress Right For Me?

June 16, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Website

When creating a website, there are a lot of choices to be made. One of the first and most important of these choices is which method or you will use. Whereas in the past many websites were built from the bare bones using coding methods like HTML, nowadays there are many different ways to construct websites. One of the most popular ways to do this is with a Content Management System, such as, for example, Joomla, Drupal, or WordPress. While a Content Management System (or CMS) is undoubtedly in most cases easier and faster than doing all of the coding yourself, all of them have their benefits and disadvantages. In this article, we will be comparing the positive and negative aspects of the most popular CMS–WordPress.

Advantages of WordPress

  1. WordPress is easy to use. WordPress is one of the easiest platforms to use, because it is designed to be user-friendly, particularly for beginners who do not already have experience building websites.
  2. WordPress is cheap. There are few costs involved in creating a website via WordPress. The only entirely necessary cost of running a website using WordPress is the small cost of domain and hosting. You may choose to buy extra themes and plugins, but these are not necessary as thousands of themes and plugins come entirely free.
  3. WordPress is popular and thus has a large support community. Because WordPress is so popular, the online community backing it up is exceptionally large and knowledgeable. If you are having a technical problem, the odds are you will be able to fix it easily.

Disadvantages of WordPress

  1. WordPress lacks the advanced functionality of some other platforms. Many platforms come equipped from the start with a number of functions that, on WordPress, you would have download extra plugins in order to use. This makes advanced changes to your website longer and more difficult to make.
  2. WordPress is not always lightning-fast. The way that WordPress is run, along with the sheer number of plugins you will likely want to download, can sometimes result in less-than-optimal loading times and overall lethargic behavior on the part of your site.
  3. WordPress is subject to greater security threats than other platforms. Simply because it is the most popular and widely used platform, the odds its security being compromised is higher than with many other, less popular systems. This is not to say WordPress is unsafe, by any means–it simply means that web administrators may wish to place an extra emphasis on security if they are using WordPress.
Filed Under: SEO, Web Hosting, WordPress Tagged With: , ,

8 Tips for Choosing the Perfect Domain Name

May 30, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Domain Name

If you’re planning on starting a website of your own, one of the first items you will need to consider is your domain name. In this day and age, availability if obviously going to play a role in what domain you end up selecting. That being said, there still exists quite a bit of autonomy when it comes to selecting a domain name, and the decision warrants a fair amount of thought and careful consideration. Here are 8 quick tips for choosing the perfect domain name.

  1. Begin by brainstorming keywords related to your industry/interest group in order to keep your domain name relevant.
  2. Avoid selecting names that are too similar to already existing websites.
  3. Keep your name short and easy to spell—this will make branding far easier.
  4. Select a name that is memorable and original.
  5. On a related note, avoid hyphens and numbers, as they can confuse (and thus drive away) potential traffic.
  6. Do your research in order to avoid copyright infringement.
  7. If your business is based in a physical location, consider targeting that area in your name.
  8. Generally speaking, dot com is the way to go.

By following these tips, you will be able to find a domain name that accomplishes several tasks all at once. The perfect domain name should capture the attention of your audience while also sticking in their minds due to its memorability. It should give your audience an idea of what kind of website it is. It should lend itself to further branding without being too reminiscent of another company. And it should be easy to type in order to accumulate direct traffic. If your potential name fulfills all of those requirements, it’s time to see if that name is available!

Filed Under: revive, SEO, Web Design, Web Hosting, Website Tagged With: , , ,

6 Reasons Why Your Business Needs a Professional Website

April 30, 2016 by Leave a Comment

prowebsite

In today’s world, owning and operating a professional website is a necessity for any business. Here’s why:

  1. Establish credibility. Having a website is crucial to credibility. Many potential customers and clients will be hesitant to trust a business that does not have an online presence, or that has a very unprofessional online presence.
  2. Customer service. An increasing number of people now turn to the internet to find important information about the businesses they patronize. Having an online presence will help your customers get the information they need, keeping them happy as well as giving your customer service team a lighter load.
  3. Round-the-clock accessibility. Web sites are available 24/7. If you don’t have one, you can rest assured that any potential customer or client who is searching for information during non-business hours will end up finding a competitor who does operate a website.
  4. Reach new audiences. A website can help you reach people outside your normal sphere of contacts.
  5. Showcase what makes you special. Web sites are highly customizable and can host nearly any type of content. Therefore, they provide an excellent platform to show your customers and clients what makes you so special.
  6. Market efficiently. Following with the preceding point: a website is hands-down one of the most cost-effective ways of getting your name out there.

Let us help you make your website the best it can be! Having reliable hosting service for your website is non-compromisable.  A website that consistently crashes or goes down due to serving issues is going to appear very unprofessional and could very well cost you customers and clients. RFE Hosting understands this, which is why we are dedicated to offering the best technology and the most outstanding customer service. Let’s obtain success together! Contact RFE Hosting today for more information on the multiple server options that we offer. We look forward to hearing from you!

Filed Under: revive, SEO, Web Design, Web Hosting Tagged With: , , , , ,

SEO Beginners Tips to Get Started

April 14, 2016 by Leave a Comment

seo

SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) can be overwhelming. There are entire companies dedicated to maximizing SEO for websites all over the internet. There is a lot to know, but for those ‘DIYers’ that are trying to get started in the world of SEO here are some great tips to set your website up for success:

Monitor Your Efforts

You can do everything just right or be doing everything wrong. You won’t know what SEO efforts are working unless you have a way to monitor your success. Make sure to take advantage of free online tools like Google’s Toolbar to find out what is working best for your website. Other awesome tools like NewRelic and Site24X7 great ways to keep an eye on how healthy your website traffic is.

Know and Use Your Keywords

Make sure you know what keywords work best with your industry and the words that are going to bring people to your website when they type them into search engines. Once you know what those keywords are, make sure you work them in throughout your website for the best results. Name your pages, titles, and pictures using these keywords and try to work them in throughout the text on your website. Make sure that you do it tastefully, however. Spamming your own website with unnecessarily placed keywords might make it show up a little higher in search engines, but will be difficult to read and unattractive to customers.

Use Searchable Phrases

While keywords are super important, don’t underestimate the power of searchable phrases as well. Try to use phrases that you would type into the search bar to find information about your industry. Use locations, city names, and other specific identifiers to help lead people to the information you are trying to show them.

Add a Blog

Blogs are one of the greatest tools any website can have for the SEO arsenal. Providing fresh, new, quality content gives your customers a reason to visit your website and makes sure search engines know that your site is not only relevant but a site to watch.

Link Yourself

One of the easiest ways to help your search engine rankings is to link back to pages on your own website. This is another reason why blogs are so helpful for SEO for websites; they give you things to link back to on your own site! Just like with keywords, don’t over do it to ensure you don’t annoy the customers visiting your website.

Keep Your Website SEO Friendly

While Flash based websites are beautiful and ‘flashy’, remember that the search engine ‘crawlers’ (the parts that actually gather information about your website to know how and where to show it to people looking for information related to your content) can’t read beautiful images and video. Crawlers can see and read text, so make sure that your website design doesn’t underestimate the power of the good old fashion ‘word’.

Don’t Forget to Submit Your Website

While the process can still take a few weeks, it’s important to submit your website to the major search engines. The process isn’t difficult; simply fill out the easy to use web form for Google and Bing (or any other search engine that you find will be beneficial).

Filed Under: revive, SEO, SEO Tagged With: , , , ,

Creating SEO-Friendly WordPress URLS

March 24, 2016 by Leave a Comment

shutterstock_145549093

If you’re reading this article, the odds are good that you take SEO seriously.  Perhaps you’ve even created some great content, done some research on Google Analytics, and used your social media accounts to promote it all.  If so, then congratulations!  You’re well on your way to great search engine rankings!  However, even if you’ve done all of this, there is still one very simple problem that could be holding you back a great deal–your URL.  In this article, we’ll explain how URL can affect search engine rankings, discuss the best URLs to choose for your website, and the provide simple instructions on how to create such a URL for your WordPress content.

URL and SEO

Contrary to what some web developers may tell you, not all URLs are created equal.  Sure–no matter what URL you choose for your website, it’s not going to affect your pages crawlability, its speed, or any other technical matter.  What it will affect, though, is the ability of web users and search engines to determine what topics each page deals with. It’s anyone’s guess what:

example.com/rygn39_eue_569

is going to feature, and this hurts SEO.  On the other hand, you can probably guess what

example.com/Improve-your-SEO

is going to be about. Search engines appreciate this, and they will reward you for it!

Choosing the best URL

As mentioned above, a URL that is genuinely descriptive of a page’s content will produce better rankings. Apart from being descriptive, however, it’s also important that your URLs be “pretty.”  What exactly does this mean?

Use-hyphens-between-words, instead_of_underscores.

Don’t include unnecessary numbers or symbols. (They’re&really^^annoying.656666)

Keep it short!

Creating a URL for your WordPress

WordPress URLs are better nowadays than they were in the past, as the site now the title of each post in that post’s URL.  However, these URLs are generally not pretty.  Thankfully, this problem is easy to fix–and, in fact, you can even standardize the format for all of your posts in order to make SEO-friendly URLS easy!  Here’s how to do it:

In the admin menu, go to settings and click on permalink.  From there, you’ll be offered a list of “common settings,” as well as the option to choose a custom setting.  Under “common settings,” you’ll notice that the first option is “plain,” and this is the default option for wordpress users.  After that you will see “day and name,” as well as “month and name.”  These options are worth considering if you are a news blog, however for most users they add an unnecessary length to the URLs without contributing anything meaningful.  “Numeric” adds the number of each post, which is also unnecessary. For most users, “post name” is the best option, as it structures the URL around the post name without including any other data.   Though some “custom” options may be worth pursuing for advanced users, the simplicity and length of “post name” is difficult to beat, and we recommend it for most users.

Filed Under: revive, SEO, SEO, WordPress Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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