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Best website design Company, CSS Founder launches free website design cost calculator to estimate website price.

CSS Founder has created a monopoly in the web design market by providing the most transparent, cost-friendly solutions and in that pursuit has emerged as one of the best website design company globally.

Following this pursuit, the company has launched a free Website Development cost calculator for any individual to estimate the total cost of getting their website built with CSS Founder. The calculator not only transparently estimates the cost of making a website but it also has explanation pop ups for points of relevance for most commonly used terms in the website designing industry.

Whether you are eyeing to have a one page site or a corporate website with multiple pages to static and dynamic websites, one can have a clear idea about the total cost which is one of the most affordable in the website industry.

CSS Founder has emerged as a blessing in disguise for businesses, especially startups and new firms to broaden their digital reach which is in continuation to their vision of ‘website for everyone’. They are heavily increasing employment by recruiting the youth in their expansion plans by streamlining their mission of ‘Make in India’. The entire idea is to empower youth and unleash their new potential by bringing global projects and upskilling youth.

The website cost calculator is available on the CSS Founder website for free and is one of the few firms to lead this initiative. The website design cost calculator also provides for special requirements such as SEO, Social media linking, dynamic banners, content writing and many more additional services.

The website will be developed by keeping all the industry standards in mind from PHP, HTML, JQUERY, AJAX, JAVA SCRIPT, MYSQL etc.

Not only that, businesses can upload their website brief for a more accurate and customized understanding of the total cost for website creation. CSS Founder is one of the most reliable website design companies that is making a mark globally.

Their team of experts is highly skilled and brings minimum cost to the customer. Their mission is that every individual should have a website, from a vegetable seller to a startup and a giant firm, CSS believes that going digital is the best way to build a brand.

Creating a monopoly in the market, CSS Founder reigns with the message of revolutionarising individuals with the most robust website design solutions and is ranking on the top on the internet because of their global reach and word of mouth which is making their name resound globally as a top company.

With their unparalleled CSR initiatives, the firm has emerged as a leader and their digital revamps are making a mark in the website designing industry.

If you are interested in original article you can find it here

wordpress-gutenberg-14

WordPress Gutenberg 14.2 Offers Better User Experience

WordPress releases the updated Gutenberg 14.2 featuring multiple improvements to the user experience and editing flow

Gutenberg 14.2 is released and available for download. The latest version features user interface improvements including an easier workflow and performance improvements plus new header and footer blocks.

All of the new features are incremental improvements that together help to make Gutenberg a more polished and intuitive site editor.

Better User Experience

Smarter suggestions for Query Loop block variations

This improvement provides a smoother editing experience by only showing relevant Query Loop block patterns.

Improvements to Writing Flow

Gutenberg now features a more intuitive writing flow.

Three improvements:

  • “The sibling and line inserters now feature a more natural animation effect.
  • Selecting multiple blocks is now more visually consistent.
  • The block inserter is now hidden when the user is typing, reducing visual clutter.”

Better Functionality

Letter Spacing in Headings

Letter spacing refers to the space that’s between each letter in a word.

Being able to adjust the space between letters is especially important for the heading elements because with some fonts the space can be too close together.

This new setting allows a publisher to adjust how much space their is using the Global Styles interface.

Screenshot of Heading Space Control for Gutenberg

Better Calendar Block

The calendar block gains more ways to adjust how it looks and functions.

The background, link and text colors are now be set for the calendar block.

It can also now inherit text colors from the parent block and colors can now be styled through the global styles.

Editor Performance Improvement

A bug was fixed in the Enhanced List Block feature.

The feature which was introduced in August 31, 2022 for Gutenberg 14.0 contained a performance issue when list items were nested within each other.

WordPress explains the problem and the fix:

“So, if a List item was inside of a List that was inside of another List block, that block would re-render 3 times! This problem has now been fixed and the initial load performance of the editor should be improved.”

New Features

New Block Pattern Categories

Gutenberg now features two new block pattern categories that correspond to banners and footers.

Banners are described by WordPress:

“Banners” here refers to visually distinctive elements that help structure or contrast the contents of a page (including headings and “hero” elements).”

Autocomplete Links in Blocks

Another new feature is the link autocomplete feature is available in any block. This used to be a feature that had to be activated through an opt-in but now it’s available by default in all blocks.

The feature is triggered with the “[[” shortcut.

Screenshot of Gutenberg Link Autocomplete in Blocks

Bug Fixes and Improvements

Aside from the above improvements and additions there are many more bug fixes and additional features that all cumulatively make Gutenberg a better site editor to use.

There are no big standout features, just a lot of improvements that will making creating sites with Gutenberg a better experience.

If you are interested in original article by Roger Montti you can find it here

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , |
economic-turn-seo

Why Businesses Turn To SEO In All Economic Climates

Learn how and why SEO helps businesses in all types of economic turns. Read how SEO adds value across your business today and in the future.

Consumer needs and behaviors can change dramatically depending on the current economic climate.

However, one thing always remains consistent: They always turn to SEO to help them survive and thrive.

In fact, savvy businesses can capitalize on this opportunity by recognizing that shift (turn) and adapting their content strategies to accommodate the need.

SEO insights are a great place to find the most current trends in consumer behavior and intent.

Compared to traditional and expensive media, the conventional wisdom of holding back on your marketing budget – particularly for SEO – is a short-sighted strategy that erodes your brand presence over time.

If you want to be positioned for growth during the recovery that inevitably follows a downturn or recession, the prediction stage is exactly the time to invest in SEO.

According to Gartner’s latest State of Marketing Budget And Strategy Survey 2022, SEO is top of mind for all “unpaid” channels.

Here are some of my thoughts on why.

Consumers Search In All Economic Conditions

Yes, consumer needs and behaviors can change dramatically depending on the current economic climate.

But they don’t cease, or disappear, altogether.

Your customers may have greater concerns about the household budget and display a reduced commercial intent as a result. Perhaps they’re just not in the market to buy.

They will be again one day, though.

Sales is a cycle; while some markets have demand dips, others see rises.

For some, it could be time for them to learn, plan, and educate themselves on their options.

SEO Is A Long Game & The Rules Are Constantly Changing

You cannot simply pause your SEO – well, you can, but it would mean an awful lot of catching up when you “turned it on” again.

Google’s algorithms are constantly changing and updating as the search engine strives to better meet the needs of its users.

Rather than cutting back, tough economic times are when you can focus on and invest in improving user experience, resolving persistent technical issues, and speeding up your site.

These objectives may have been lower on marketing’s priority list when times were good and sales were plenty.

At other times, however, you might find it makes sense to reconsider ad spending due to your audience’s potentially lower commercial intent in search.

In that case, you could reallocate a portion of the budget, ensuring SEO intent data and channels such as pay per click (PPC) are working.

You should also focus on technical SEO and your website journey and performance.

Experiences will matter and help you convert opportunities – opportunities that you can’t afford to miss before competitors grab them.

  • This is also a good time to audit existing content and find new opportunities to rank on different keyword terms. Update content, cluster content by topic, identify content gaps, and update calls to action (CTAs) to ensure a more cohesive journey for customers.
  • For example, if you’ve published product reviews in the past, you’ll want to revisit those. Google’s product review update targeting low-quality reviews rolled out in 2022, and it’s even more important to ensure that content is top quality.

SEO Can Drive Wins In The Short, Mid, And Long-Term

A robust SEO program forms a solid foundation for your entire web presence. But it can also help your business stay agile and responsive to rapidly-changing conditions.

Economic uncertainty might call for quick action to find marketing efficiencies.

It also helps protect the brand from external threats or move on to surfacing opportunities.

In these conditions, SEO data is imperative for keeping a finger on the market pulse.

However, activating the insights gleaned from that data is a critical next step:

  • It won’t do you much good to know that market share is shrinking and one product type is trending if you lack the resources to plan and execute campaigns around that product.
  • Prioritizing SEO by ensuring it has a stable budget and executive support keeps your resources and team in a position to act.

Remember when the initial pandemic scare shut down much of the world’s economy?

The informational needs of consumers exploded, and service delivery models changed almost overnight.

The companies that were able to quickly update their Google Business Profile listings with current hours of operation, the availability of curbside pickup and online ordering, etc., became the first movers.

The demand for SEO rose to an all-time high.

Not only did this translate to business won, but those companies were also able to instill a sense of stability and calm among consumers in an otherwise tumultuous time.

Brand Protection Is Essential At All Times

Consumer behavior can be unpredictable, fragmented, and even irrational during times of uncertainty.

SEO helps the brand actively listen to audiences, triage issues, and combat negative brand sentiment in real-time.

As mentioned earlier, your SEO insights are a key source of this business intelligence.

  • What are consumers searching for, and how is that evolving?
  • What do those queries tell you about the commercial or other types of intent driving search activity?
  • How are people behaving in search and on your site, and what new opportunities does that present?

Online reviews are another rich source of insight and potential liabilities if not managed correctly.

Google is clear: Businesses must respond to searcher reviews, messages, and questions as quickly as possible.

Your company’s review profile – average star rating, review volume, and recency – can impact your local rankings, too.

It’s essential that you have in place:

  • Technology to monitor reviews across all platforms relevant to your business.
  • A triage system so that serious complaints are escalated to the right person for quick intervention.
  • Policies for review response. Templates that can be personalized depending on review content can help here.

Depending on your industry, economic uncertainty might bring a greater volume of reviews. Having this foundation in place will enable you to add resources and scale up as needed.

Brand protection should come from your content team, as well.

If you’re in the financial services industry, for example, you might find that your customer base has a lot of questions about how the current conditions impact them and their families.

They may have questions and concerns about employment, taxes, stimulus, or support programs that weren’t top of mind before.

Your business can not only serve as a thought leader but deliver real, valuable solutions for customers that will win their trust and loyalty for the long term.

Ecommerce, retail, and travel brands will look for insights and trends on demand volatility and category fluctuations in goods, products, and services.

Understanding these trends early on will help content teams create and target accordingly.

You’ll need a content team skilled in producing for these opportunities, crafting targeted content, and who can utilize technologies for optimizing and promoting it for maximum impact across all of the platforms where your audience is found online.

As a bonus, this program can help you outrank any competitor (or perhaps negative content about the brand) with positive stories and helpful content instead.

Conclusion

Whether markets are high or low, SEO team talents are needed most to find new opportunities, combat immediate threats, and lay the foundation for a successful recovery.

The role of business intelligence is critical to understanding the environment in which you’re currently working.

Organizations that “put it on pause” can damage the investments you’ve already made and leave you struggling to catch up with more forward-looking competitors.

SEO can have the effect of leveling out the peaks and troughs.

The data it produces is about as close to the real-time voice of customers as you’re going to get.

Compared to other channels, it is not just the most cost-effective; it also drives incremental value across your whole business.

If you are interested in original article by Lemuel Park you can find it here

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , |
site-search

On-Site Search Best Practices For SEO & User Experience

On-site search is more than a search box; it’s an important aspect of how visitors engage with your website.

No matter how easy your website is to navigate or how clean the user experience (UX) is, an on-site search function is vital.

Your site visitors want a direct way to find exactly what they want.

On-site search is more than a search box; it’s an essential aspect of how visitors engage with your website.

Google has set the bar pretty high, and nowadays, users expect search to perform flawlessly. It means your on-site search must return relevant results, or visitors may leave, and you lose out on potential business.

So, how can you make sure your on-site search helps convert site visitors into customers?

We’ve gathered a list of on-site search best practices, how the data can inform your SEO efforts and a solution for the SEO risks involved.

On-Site Search Best Practices

Is it enough to plop a search widget on your site?

Uh, not quite.

If the search feature doesn’t meet customers’ expectations, it becomes more of a hindrance than a help.

It means you just put a barrier between users and the product they want to buy from you.

Below are seven best practices to follow when adding an on-site search to your website.

1. Search Box Placement

on-site search bar placement

Your search bar should be easy to find.

No one will scroll to the footer of your website looking for it.

When someone views your website on a desktop, it should be in a prominent spot, preferably near the top right corner.

A mobile device should have its own line at the top of the screen.

Be careful not to place the search box too close to other boxes, like a newsletter sign-up, as that may confuse users.

2. Search Box Design

search bar call to action

Similarly, it should be immediately apparent what the search box does.

There are three design elements: a search box, a search button, and a magnifying glass.

The search box is where users type queries.

If the input field is too short, people can’t see all of their text, making it hard to edit their query easily.

A good rule of thumb is to have a 27-character text input, which accommodates the majority of user search queries.

Adding a search button to your design helps users understand there’s an additional step to trigger the search action.

The magnifying glass is essential to include because it is a widely recognized symbol for “search.”

The icon should be large enough to provide a clear signal to the consumer, even on a mobile device.

3. Add Placeholder Text

It is a good idea to include placeholder text in the search box to give users an example of what they can search.

on-site search box example_SEJ screenshotScreenshot from SearchEngineJournal.com, June 2022

4. Auto-Complete

categories within on-site search

Auto-complete predicts what the on-site search user is searching based on popular or suggested search queries.

The search box will recommend an item or category the user may be interested in by anticipating the search query, saving them the time and effort of typing.

This feature is not about making the search process faster; it is to help users ask better search queries.

Be careful not to overwhelm users with excessive suggestions; up to 10 results is best practice.

5. Custom Ranking Option

faceted on-site search filtersComposite image created by Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal, July 2022; images sourced from yelp.com

Now, let’s talk about what happens after the search.

Your user finds the search box easily, enters text, hits the search button, and lands on the search results page.

As the website owner, you want to control (or prioritize) which pages rank at the top of your on-site search results.

The ability to manually rank pages provides the control necessary for promoting seasonal products or specials.

6. No Results Page

zero results page optimisationComposite image created by Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal, July 2022; images sourced from kohls.com

What you don’t want to happen is a “no results” page.

A “no results” page feels like a dead end.

When visitors see “no results,” they may think your site doesn’t have what they’re looking for – and leave.

Providing visitors with a path forward is the best practice.

Under the “zero results” message, try adding a few related products or categories that may pique visitors’ interest.

7. Simplify Results

An on-site search aims to find what you’re looking for quickly.

It means that on-site search results need to be simplified.

Filters allow customers to refine their searches to find what they’re searching.

Amazing ecom landing page exampleScreenshot from asos.com, July 2022

For example, someone searching for “wedding guest plus size dresses” is likely to want to narrow the results down by size in stock, color, price, etc.

How On-Site Search Is Good For SEO

As marketers, we are piecing together first-party data and third-party data, trying this tool and that tool, all to understand how to improve communication with our audience.

The beauty of on-site search is that you don’t have to wonder what a user is up to when they visit your website.

Users will type into your on-site search box exactly what they are searching.

And according to Forrester Research, online visitors who use the search box are two to three times more likely to convert than non-searchers.

Now, the intel on what people, who are three times more likely to convert, are doing on your site is something to notice.

Regularly monitoring data from your on-site search will allow you to support your SEO efforts in the following ways:

  • Site UX.
  • Keyword Research.
  • Gaps in content.
  • SERP Feature: Sitelinks Search Box.

Site UX

If you notice a trend in searches beginning from a particular page, something is missing from a navigational standpoint.

Take a look at that page and experiment with making the trending search query a more prominent focus on the page.

For example, if the majority of on-search search begins from your homepage and the majority of search is for the query “login,” you will want to test ways of making the login button more prominent on the homepage.

Keyword Research

Alright, I’m going to share a quick SEO analyst’s secret.

Users will input what they’re looking for into your on-site search box.

These on-site search queries are most likely similar to what they originally typed into Google search.

The people who search these queries are more likely to convert into paying customers.

These are your “grand slam keywords,” bringing in three times the heat.

Use on-site search to your advantage in keyword research.

Gaps In Content

If you see terms with unique high searches and high exit rates, people are looking for this information but can’t find it.

At least not easily.

This data tells you where to develop new content your audience came to find.

Sitelink Search Box

If your website homepage appears as a search result, Google Search may show a scoped search box to your website.

However, this doesn’t guarantee that a sitelinks search box will be shown in search results.

Indexing Site Search Pages: The Risks

I’m hoping, at this point, you are onboard with on-site search!

Before you implement this on your website, there is an SEO risk that you need to be aware of.

Some consequences can impact your site’s performance if you allow internal site search URLs to be indexed.

Webmaster guidelines clearly explain Google’s stance on this topic:

Robots.txt for search result pages_screenshot of Google webmaster guidelinesScreenshot from Google Webmaster Guidelines, July 2022

The image reads, “Use the robots.txt file on your web server to manage your crawling budget by preventing crawling of infinite spaces such as search result pages.”

There’s a whole lot of internet out there!

So, Google sets aside a certain amount of time to crawl each site (known as the “crawl budget“) to keep things moving.

How much time (crawl budget) your site gets depends on the size and health of your website.

And, having many internal site search URLs to crawl is not optimal.

Mark your internal search results pages as no-index.

Final Thoughts

Make sure the search box is easy to find and how to use it is clear on desktop and mobile.

Look for an on-site search widget that allows you to customize results.

Don’t slack on the “no results” page; use it as an opportunity to communicate related categories of interest.

Remember to no-index your search result pages to preserve your crawl budget.

And last but not least, use this treasure trove of data to your advantage.

High-quality data tip: Add a GA filter to ensure all search terms are tracked in lower case. This way, it doesn’t matter if a user types “TERM X” or “term x”; your reporting data will not split.

If you are interested in original article by Kayle Larkin you can find it here

Bruce-Clay-pig-fly

Putting lipstick on a pig: Fix the website or fail at SEO

If a website is not performing well, optimizing it is just putting lipstick on a pig. Here’s what to do to ensure your site succeeds in SEO.

You’ve landed a new client and you’re digging into the website. One look tells you this is not going to be easy.

Sure, you could do some SEO activities to make the client happy. But there’s bigger fish to fry. 

The information is out of date, it’s not well written and the formatting is hard to read. The website looks old and the CMS is clunky.

The client has big expectations of your SEO program. What do you do?

There’s an old saying about putting lipstick on a pig. Sure, you can “do some SEO.” But you and I both know that we need to address the fundamental problems if we want to succeed in SEO and rank on Page 1 out of millions of results.

At this point, you need to get real with the client. This can be a hard conversation; what if they don’t have the budget for what you are proposing?

You have to prepare to walk away from the project or else get creative with the budget. Because neither one of you will win if you don’t get it right.

That said, there are two major categories you need to fix in any website before you kick an SEO program into high gear:

  1. The content on the website
  2. The technical back-end of the website

I’ll touch on what to look for in each category next.

Updating the content

A common lipstick-on-a-pig mistake is when a client asks for more and more new content and fails to address the content they already have on the website. I encourage clients to divert equal resources to updating their old content in addition to creating new. 

How often to update the content on a website depends on the topic. In general, there are three things to consider:

  1. If the topic is evergreen. Some topics are evergreen, meaning the information can stay relevant for a long time. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t tweak and optimize evergreen pages for best results. It simply means that there will likely be less work.
  2. If the query deserves freshness. You will need the most up-to-date content for a website if it is targeting queries or keywords that require the freshest content in the search results. A social or political event is one example. Google discusses that here.
  3. If the topic is deemed “your money or your life” (YMYL). Google discusses YMYL topics in its Search Quality Rater guidelines (think financial or medical advice) and holds webpages that contain them to a higher standard.

In addition to updating the content itself, websites need a strategy for how they will organize the content to get the most SEO value from it — and to create a better user experience.

This includes things like the navigation and how you link pages internally. SEO siloing and internal linking best practices are foundational SEO strategies that will streamline your SEO program’s efforts if done well early on.

Updating the website

At first glance, does the website look trustworthy? Or does it have an outdated look and feel? What about the performance of the website — does it provide a good user experience?

These are the fundamentals we must get right before driving more traffic to a website. 

Some things to work on right away include:

  • Spider-friendly code: The website needs clean, streamlined code the search engine spiders can crawl with ease.
  • The content management system: That custom CMS the client built may have been great at first, but it has SEO problems, and you can’t easily update things inside it. There’s a reason why WordPress is the most popular content management system because it is always up to date.
  • Site speed: How fast a webpage loads impacts the user experience, which is why it’s a part of Google’s ranking algorithm.
  • Mobile usability: Most websites have a large number of people visiting from a mobile device. Websites need to be responsive to desktop and mobile users.
  • Robots.txt: Robots.txt can block unnecessary crawling to reduce the strain on a server and help bots more efficiently find good content.
  • XML sitemaps: It’s a best practice to tell search engines about the pages, images and videos on a website with an XML sitemap.
  • 301 redirects: 301s prevent error pages by redirecting old pages to newer, more relevant content as needed. This can improve user experience.
  • Fully qualified URLs: When you link internally and include the full URL starting with the “https:” instead of a relative URL it can fix certain crawl issues.
  • Canonical tags: The canonical link element tells search engines which version of a URL you want in the search results and can resolve duplicate content issues.
  • Server maintenance: Server diagnostic reports help you address common errors right away to improve the user experience.
  • Plugins: For security reasons, update all plugins.
  • The design: Make sure the web design/user interface is in keeping with modern functionality and trends. Usually, an update every three to five years works.

Of course, there are more ways to address the technical aspects of a website, but this is the minimum to give an old website some new life. For more, an SEO checklist can help.

Just say “no” to pigs

I believe as SEO professionals, we have a duty to advise potential clients in a way that sets them up for success.

If we know that what the client is asking for is merely putting lipstick on a pig, then we need to be upfront about it. Cosmetic changes can add curb appeal, and may be needed — but don’t let the work stop there if the site is still just a pig.

SEOs must go beyond the lipstick and help create a good user experience to succeed. Updated content, Core Web Vitals, and especially page speed are examples of how SEO changes the pig into something better.

And, we should be prepared to either walk away from a potential client who does not want to follow our advice, or get creative and know how to make the most impact with their budget.

That may mean you address the fundamental problems of the website bit by bit on a slower timeline before kicking it into high gear. It’s not the job of SEO to make a pig fly … it’s the job of SEO to transform a website so that it becomes an eagle.

If you are interested in original article by Bruce Clay Inc you can find it here

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , |

Hackers Exploit Zero-Day in WordPress BackupBuddy Plugin in ~5 Million Attempts

A zero-day flaw in a WordPress plugin called BackupBuddy is being actively exploited, WordPress security company Wordfence has disclosed.

“This vulnerability makes it possible for unauthenticated users to download arbitrary files from the affected site which can include sensitive information,” it said.

BackupBuddy allows users to back up their entire WordPress installation from within the dashboard, including theme files, pages, posts, widgets, users, and media files, among others.

The plugin is estimated to have around 140,000 active installations, with the flaw (CVE-2022-31474, CVSS score: 7.5) affecting versions 8.5.8.0 to 8.7.4.1. It’s been addressed in version 8.7.5 released on September 2, 2022.

The issue is rooted in the function called “Local Directory Copy” that’s designed to store a local copy of the backups. According to Wordfence, the vulnerability is the result of an insecure implementation, which enables an unauthenticated threat actor to download any arbitrary file on the server.

WordPress BackupBuddy Plugin

Additional details about the flaw have been withheld in light of active in-the-wild abuse and its ease of exploitation.

“This vulnerability could allow an attacker to view the contents of any file on your server that can be read by your WordPress installation,” the plugin’s developer, iThemes, said. “This could include the WordPress wp-config.php file and, depending on your server setup, sensitive files like /etc/passwd.”

Wordfence noted that the targeting of CVE-2022-31474 commenced on August 26, 2022, and that it has blocked nearly five million attacks in the intervening time period. Most of the intrusions have attempted to read the below files –

  • /etc/passwd
  • /wp-config.php
  • .my.cnf
  • .accesshash

Users of the BackupBuddy plugin are advised to upgrade to the latest version. Should users determine that they may have been compromised, it’s recommended to reset the database password, change WordPress Salts, and rotate API keys stored in wp-config.php.

If you are interested in original article by Ravie Lakshmanan you can find it here