Six things which will make your WordPress site run smoothly

                           Crucial WordPress Tasks to Perform

Everything in this world be it machines or humans need maintenance to keep running and performing to their best of the ability. Let me draw an analogy between a healthy human body and word press site to give you insights about the importance of maintenance. A healthy human body requires proper diet and proper exercise (which we obviously hate to adhere but are compelled by circumstances) to adapt and inculcate in our lives to keep our body fit and working similarly certain tasks need to be accomplished to keep the WordPress site running smoothly. WordPress is most popular medium as 73% websites in the world are made in WordPress which makes the websites designed through this technology prime target for all spammers, hackers besides security there are host of issues that affect the functioning of WordPress in short run as well long run. For a WordPress website owner, these factors are critical as they have the tendency to derail the websites and divert the web traffic to the competitors posing an existential threat to the survival of the company.

                                                                        So if you are one of those guys who hates to keep abreast with times, its right time to change for the good by following these practices

Security Management

The virtual world in which we are operating is uncertain and possess lot risks from hackers and spammers and it has become more important to protect our WordPress Website in presence of these threats. The first step which you can take to eliminate these threats is continuously change and update the admin password of the WordPress website. The password Set should not be an easy guess for every pedestrian. To generate a difficult one, you can use free password generators available online.

                                    Besides this setting a logging limit for a particular IP may prove helpful again brute force attacks in which a hacker try to break your password by logging multiple times. To increase the security of the site, one can install a WordPress scanner which alerts the admin about any malicious code and infected plugins on the site. Sucuri Site check, Code Guard & Theme Authenticity Checker may prove helpful in this regard.

Back up your critical Data

People often ask me why the need to backup when strong security measures have already been taken. Agreed that you have installed the most sophisticated firewall and set a strong password but still, you cannot take a risk when the survival of your business is at stake. We are living in a virtual world and every big or small business is having an online presence in the form of a websites, most of which are made in WordPress due to its user-friendly nature.

                                                                           In this dynamic world, virtual eyes either of hackers or your competitors are monitoring your website closely and working tirelessly to steal the data, increase downtime or may pose any other harm which may suit their interests. This is where a properly scheduled backup plan comes to your rescue .It lets you retrieve all your data that might be lost during a website crash. Tools like Backup buddy and Blog Vault can prove very handy in setting an automated backup for your WordPress website.

Keep your website updated    

WordPress most often than not releases a number of updates necessary to keep website running as smooth as silk. Most of these updates which are free to install protect our websites and customers who frequently access our websites from malicious intrusion. These updates come with different functionality from speed to security and you can update only what is relevant to your website.

Clean the Muck

Honestly saying, without plugins your word press website will look like an ugly and worthless piece on the internet. WordPress plugins let you customize your website thereby helping you to increase your revenue by engaging the clients for longer duration of time. Having said that, we should use plugins judiciously and always desist from installing free premium plugins from suspicious and unknown sites. These Premium plugins may act as a bait to penetrate into your website and steal your data.

As soon as particular plugin becomes redundant or a theme is not in use, it is better to clean them from your site. Doing this will help you in a great way in boosting the speed of the website. You and your visitors will also be protected from an imminent threat from these unused infected plugins.

Be visible

In today’s virtual world, success is mostly the consequence of your online presence and that is not a cakewalk for a novice. As per latest findings, 75 % of users never scroll past the first page and only 8.5% of all the traffic on the web make it past the first page.

Shocking revelations! Aren’t they but consequence may be more terrible for your business in the long run, if you don’t find a place on first-page of search engine result page. This is where Yoast Seo and all in one Seo comes to your rescue. Besides taking the help of these plugins you can always write fresh, engaging & SEO friendly content. Do in-depth keyword research to target your customers and solve all the technical issues and remove barriers that might have crept due to Bad URL scheme, unstable site architecture, duplicate content etc. These issues might be hampering search engine ability to crawl, interpret, and index the pages of your website.

Sometimes these steps too fail to grab the eyeballs of the target audience and fail to bring the traffic. In that case, you can make a blog with unique content and keep sharing the link to the blog on social media channels quite often to attract the traffic from these sources.

Loading time

Speed has taken center stage in our lives because it reduces the time of a process and increases efficiency According to the latest finding customers hardly wait for more than 5 seconds for a website to open. They swiftly switch to the competitor making it worse for the website owner even if former is offering a better deal than latter. So if your website is rich in multimedia and takes too much to load better upgrade your space on a Web Server. You can switch to a new host (from HostGator to GoDaddy) if increasing the space on a Web server doesn’t work.

                                             

                                                                    In a nutshell, if you want your business to take a lead & outperform the competitors then don’t neglect to conduct the above-mentioned crucial WordPress tasks of your websites. The websites enforcing these tasks religiously are bound to succeed and attract more visitors and potentials leads over the long run.

Five things you must consider while designing a website

                         Five Things You Must Consider While Designing a Website

The advancement of internet has brought a paradigm shift as a whole almost covering every industry. The market is no longer a physical rigid place where buyers & sellers meet but a virtual space without any demographic, geographic distinctions. The physical place that has been replaced by virtual space needs a well decorated and designed shop (i.e. website) so that more and more customers are attracted and converted into buyers. . In order to create a happening website that engages & starts a conversation with the clients, you need to consider following things;

Domain Name & Hosting

Selection of a domain name can be very laborious for companies who are conscious of their brand image and repercussions that a bad domain name might bring, so due care must be taken while selecting one. In order to be effective, a domain name should be short, easy to remember & represent brand voice with precision, for instance, www.tcs.com www.techcurve.com.Also, the domain name should be SEO friendly because visibility of your website in the virtual world is very imperative for your business. The more you are visible to the online user the higher traffic will come to your website.

                                         If the domain name is the address of the house, hosting is the space available in that house where you will keep your furniture (data in case of website).Web hosting companies have numbers of plans that cater the needs of small to big organizations. While choosing yours, certain questions need to be asked.

ü  Speed & security of a server that will be hosting your website?

ü  How much traffic will be coming to the website?

ü  Type of content website will be having (videos, images etc.)?

ü   Do they have active or reactive customer support?

ü   Are third party reviews on social media in favor of the hosting company?

Content management system

While you have got the addresses of the house (domain name) and the space available but you are not sure how frequently to add the furniture (data) to the website and at first place does the requirement for CMS exists . All you need to know is whether the website is static or dynamic.

                                            
                                                   If you are creating an informational website about a company that usually won’t get updated over a period of time, you probably don’t require a CMS but for dynamic websites like techcurve.com, News portals etc. you have to create a user friendly customized CMS which enables end user to update their respective websites with ease .for instance magento an ecommerce dynamic website building engine has inbuilt CMS for content management.

Clean design

Nobody is denying the fact that high-quality graphics play their part in retaining the client on the website for a longer duration but displaying too much flashy graphic may distract the client from main message i.e. a buying a product or subscribing to a service. Customers visit the website to the check the content which is the king maker in the virtual world and through graphics content is presented in a better way. A clean design should not only infuse trust into the visitor but leave a positive image of your brand.

Functionality

Well. The trick has worked for you! Yes, you heard it right. Impressed with inimitable content and creative graphics customer on your website customer is ready to buy your product or subscribe to your service but when he attempts to purchase that product  or make final submission something goes wrong which irritates the client leaving the site with bad image & never comes back . Make sure every button on the website from product view to payment integration is working well. Ensure the functionality of feedback form as well as subscription form.

Agile

The future of mobile is the future of online and this is not a myth but reality as mobile phone devices have literally dominated the traffic over internet occupying center stage in our lives. So, if you have the business that is in search of virtual customers, then mobile users need to be tapped and one way to tap them is through a responsive website. Responsive designs are becoming the talk of the town and why not! Responsive designs will allow your customers easily shift from laptop to mobile without shelling extra money for  mobile apps development.

Calls to actions

A good website not only engages the clients but prompt them for further action. By displaying direct chat box or flashing contact us icon or subscription to email, you are making an attempt to remain connected with the client or prospective clients thereby signifying the dynamic nature of the website which is considered very important.

    As a lay man, I often used to wonder how certain websites topped Google search engine page list and others languished at the bottom of the result page despite of the fact that the latter had bespoke design and precise content. I was curious to know the science or the logic that was working behind the screens. As I pondered and researched more, I came to know that even if we have the most ideal website having perfect design and enticing content, it still has to reach the audience and without interacting with the audience it is working in isolation. Isn’t!

And who provides that audience to the website and allows it to climb the ladder of search engine page list, it’s no other than Seo.

Seo involves a series of tools and practices with the help of which a website attains top rank on search engine result page.

According to latest finding

    75 % of users never scroll past first page.

    8.5% of all the traffic on web make it past first page.

    80% of users online prefer organic search (i.e. Seo).

Seo uses a wide variety of tools to bring traffic to your website and makes it interactive.

The visibility of your website in the virtual world is very imperative for the business. The more a website is visible to the online user the higher traffic will come to the website.

To make sure a website does not looks like a drop in the ocean but a pearl in the sea, a digital marketing analyst is assigned the job to employ all the Seo tools that are available at its disposal. A digital marketing analyst conducts a website audit, detects problems a website is currently facing and accordingly formulates a strategy that is custom designed for a particular website and executes it.

The strategy may include the role of the content writer who is assigned to write fresh, appealing enticing and more importantly Seo friendly content but is it enough.

Not really. Creative content may not be enough as the content may be creative and appealing but not grabbing the eyeballs. To attract maximum audience in-depth keyword research is done and accordingly, content is inserted into the website.

Also, there are numbers of issues that might be hampering search engine ability to crawl, interpret, and index the pages of a website like Bad URL scheme, unstable site architecture, and duplicate content. These issues need to be fixed so that whenever a query related to your business is typed in Google your website comes on top the search engine page list.