Posts Tagged ‘wordpress’

Since the dawn of time, one question has troubled and perplexed man: which is better, WordPress or blogger? 

Ok, so maybe it wasn’t ‘since the dawn of time’; but it has been quite a while. WordPress launched in 2003, following the 1999 launch of the Blogger platform; I’d say the debate started pretty soon after this. Blogger and WordPress consistently emerge as two of the leading blogging platforms around, so it’s time to see how they stack up when pitted against each other.

WordPress is often pegged as the more complex of the two, and following Blogger’s recent updates, this is more true than ever before. Don’t make the mistake of associating a complex interface with more features; blogger packs an impressive punch once you get below the surface.

User Experience

Blogger is so darn simple to use, it’s the inescapable fact that makes it the clear winner in this category. If you’re running a personal blog, or a small business website, look no further than the blogging platform from Google. If you’re familiar with other Google products, then you’ll have no trouble familiarising yourself with your blog.

WordPress may require a little training to get you started. It’s worth it though, as WordPress is a highly professional looking platform to host your blog or business website.

The Winner: blogger

Customisation

WordPress offers nearly 200 beautiful and professional themes to make your blog stand out. The majority are then customisable with backgrounds, headers and widgets to make your site unique. There’s no limit to the creative options available.

Blogger offers fewer official templates, but you can find many free templates online. You can also tinker with the HTML code for your site to get everything looking exactly how you want. Widgets (called gadgets on blogger) are just as simple as on WordPress. This is a huge advantage over WordPress, as you have to pay for the privilege of playing with the back end code on WP.

The Winner: It’s a tie! blogger (free) WordPress (paid)

Search Friendly

While WordPress is fully compatible with Google Analytics and does a pretty good job of getting your site indexed by search engines, there’s no competing with blogger when it comes to search. When you sign up a blogger account you’re instantly signed up to Webmaster tools, and hooking up analytics couldn’t be easier. On WordPress, you’d have to pay for this privilege.

That said, WordPress has its own stats service that will more than fulfil your curiosity about your visitors if you’re simply running a blog. However, I’ve had a fair amount of difficulty getting my Google+ account author verified. So on this occasion, blogger wins.

The Winner: blogger

Costs

Blogger is free free free, there’s really no limit to your storage, because you’ll be using your Picasa account to store images, and if you decide you want a dot com address, it will only set you back $10 a year.

WordPress is free, but this kind of account has its limitations. For $99 a year you can have full customisation, and this includes domain registration and mapping. Once you upgrade you’ll also be opening up a world of possibility with plugins, and on this occasion, blogger simply cannot compete.

The Winner: WordPress

The Verdict

It seems like there are half a dozen arguments either way. If you want simplicity and a low (free) price tag, then blogger is a clear winner. It’s ideal for blogs, freelance portfolios and small business websites.

If you want more power and features, and don’t mind shelling out $99 a year, then WordPress is your friend!

Part 2 in a series of posts about hooking up your WordPress site with search analytics. Read part 1 here. 

I’ve already covered how to link your free wordpress website with Google & Bing Webmaster tools. This will enable to to see limited features such as search traffic, but more importantly it will let you know if there are any problems that might prevent your site from being indexed.

If you want to delve deeper into the analytics then you’ll need to upgrade your WordPress account in order to access the full tools available in Google analytics. If you thought WordPress analytics were extensive, you’re in for a treat. Google analytics turns me into a kid at Christmas.

Getting Analytical with WordPress

While WordPress may give you information about how many people visit your site, where they’e from, and what they click on, this is nothing compared to the information available on Google analytics. You’ll get to see how long people spend on your site, the path they take as they wander through your site, and also where they enter and leave your site. This is all invaluable to optimising your content for your audience.

Step One: Sign up for a free Google Analytics account here.

Step Two: From the Admin panel click on ‘New Account’.

Step Three: Fill in the information form and click submit.

Step Four: You will be given a snippet of HTML code which needs to be inserted into your site. There are several ways you can achieve this.

1. Paste the code directly into the php code. Don’t be intimidated by this, you won’t have to make any changes. Simply copy the code and paste it into the footer.php file above the </body> tag.

2. Paste the following code into the functions.php file, don’t forget to add your Google Analytics tracking code, which you can find under All Accounts/ Account Name/ Tracking Code

<?php

2	add_action('wp_footer', 'add_googleanalytics');

3	functionadd_googleanalytics() { ?>

4	// Paste your Google Analytics code from Step 6 here

5	<?php } ?>

3. Alternatively, you can install a WordPress plugin which will allow you to see Google analytics within your WordPress CMS. Google Analytics for WordPress is one such plugin. This will simply require you to paste your tracking code and the rest will be taking care of.

Once you’re linked, expect to wait a couple of days before the data starts pouring in. Happy data obsessing!

Part 1 in a series of posts about hooking up your WordPress site with search analytics. 

WordPress is ideal for hosting high-quality, search engine optimised websites. The interface is easy to get to grips with, your whole team can update and contribute to the site, and you won’t have to worry about any back-end code getting in the way of doing what you do best:  publishing great content.

When you create your first site, you may be completely satisfied with the customisable themes and the range of site stats available, and with good reason. With a free website you’ll have access to information such as page views, referrals, post popularity, search engine terms and site clicks. And with a touch of creativity there’s no end to the possibilities when it comes to website design.

However, if you want to make double sure that your website it getting listed up with the big boys, you’ll need to spend a bit of time linking up your sites. One of the easiest ways to do this is with Google and Bing Webmaster tools; it’s so simple, there really is no excuse for not doing this anyway.

Go to your WordPress dashboard and click on Tools, then Available Tools. Follow the links to the Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools.

You will need a Google and Bing account to set both of these up – simply follow the directions for signing up. Once you’ve signed up or logged in, follow the directions below to add your site.

Google: Click Add Site, then enter the URL of your website. This will generate a Meta tag which you will need to copy and paste into the field on the WordPress tools page. Save the tools page and head back to Google Webmaster tools to verify your site.

Bing: Click Add New Site, then enter your website URL, then you’ll want to select option 2. Copy the meta tag and paste it into the Bing Webmaster Center field on WordPress tools, then select ‘save’. Once this is done hit verify back on the Bing page and your website should be added to your list.

Your information won’t be added instantly, as the search bots will have to crawl your site, you should expect to wait around 3 days before your data populates.

What will this show me?

One of the most important features included with both Webmaster tools is the crawl index; this is the best way to make sure your site is effectively crawled by search bots. It will let you know if there are any crawling errors, and also give you a basic overview of search terms and impressions.

Coming Soon: submitting a Site Map, How to Use Google Webmaster Tools, Upgrading to Paid Services, and Integrating Google Analytics. 

When developing a website for your company or as a personal portfolio, it may be tempting to spend days, or even months, perfecting the layout, colours, font and content before going live. Not necessary. Here are some top tips for getting your website up and running in 1 hour. Yes, it may be a little rough around the edges, but once it’s live you’ll be far more motivated to get things ironed out. These tips can also apply to spring-cleaning or stream-lining your current website.

1 – Every website has an aim, don’t upload anything until you’ve determined what yours is. You may be thinking: “well, I just want to provide information”, but try to think beyond this to establish what you want your user to do with that information.

• Are you building a database of contacts – so should you be asking for information from your users?
• Are you generating leads – so do you want users to request a call back?
• Are you letting people know where you are – so should you be handing out directions so people will visit your premises?

Your call to action should be the focus of your site – don’t leave your visitors wondering if they should call, visit, or leave a message.

2 – Keep navigation to a mimimum, and make all pages accessible from the home page. If you have a lot of content, make use of drop down menus to keep things tidy. To make the user experience more enjoyable, keep the number of clicks to find relevant information to an absolute minimum – no one likes getting lost in the Minotaur’s maze trying to find contact information.

3 – Use a site like WordPress to buid your site and make sure it’s clean and professional looking. By differentiating between posts and pages you can create a sleek and professional website which is easy to update, maintain, and optimise for search.

4 – Hire someone else to write your website copy – a good professional writer will be able to get a feel for your company and come up with a few options for your website content. Outside eyes are the only way to guarantee that you’re saying everything you need to say in as few words as possible.

5 – Don’t go bonkers with all the added extras – social media sharing buttons are enough. If you feel that you just can’t live without that embedded HTML5 video, add it at a later date when you’ve received the first round of feedback from your customers.

WordPress is easily one of the most user friendly and attractive places to host your website; and for only $30 a year you can have full control over every aspect of the look and feel of your site. Additionally, you can purchase a custom theme which will allow you to have a professional and functioning website for a fraction of the cost of hiring a web developer and then paying for hosting, the URL, and maintenance.

The only problem is: once you hand over the back-end control to WordPress, your SEO efforts become a little more challenging. While WordPress does allow – and even encourages – search engines to crawl your blog, the only thing it will be looking at is content, tags and categories. It also offers features which will help your SEO efforts, such as allowing you to select the format for your post URLs. That said, it’s nice to have a little more say in the SEO process, so how can you claw back some of that control and up your page ranking?

There are many WordPress plugins available that can help with your SEO strategy; some aim to do everything automatically, while others leave you with complete control. Here are some of the top 3 I’ve found which are available to download at the moment:

‘All in One SEO Pack’

This plugin can automatically create your META tags, and optimises your page titles for search engines. It also claims to be the ‘ONLY plugin to provide SEO Integration for WP e-Commerce sites.’ It’s fully compatible with Google Analytics too. With over 10 million downloads so far and an average rating of just under 4 out of 5 stars, it’s a highly popular plugin.

WordPress SEO by Yoast

This plugin offers a little more functionality, and some incredible features. This plugin gives a snippet view of how things will look in search engines results, offers a page analysis, and allows you to choose which pages show in search engines, among many other features. I has a rating of just under 5 out of 5 stars and has been downloaded more than 1.2 million times.

SEO Ultimate

Dubbed as the ultimate all-in-one SEO plugin, this particular one packs an impressive punch. It allows you to take back control of your title and meta tags, has a slug optimiser and allows you to add HTML to your head tag. It’s the slightly more technical of the three options, so it’s perfect for those who like to get into the nitty gritty code and can work their way around HTML. Lagging slightly behind with 600,000 downloads and a 4 star rating, it’s still work a look just for the impressive features.

Happy Easter Everyone!