DEV Community: meredithdavisg

9 Impressive Reasons Why Squarespace is the Best Portfolio Website

meredithdavisg — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 05:45:33 +0000

Squarespace is one of the most well-known brands in the web building world. It's not only a website builder, but it's also an all-in-one content management system (CMS).

With it, you'll have access to a user-friendly platform, built-in security, analytics, 24/7 support, content hosting, and a lot more. Not to mention that it is one of the best portfolio website builders out there.

So, if you want to save a lot of time, money, and energy in building your site and making a strong presence online, then look no further.

Here are the nine impressive reasons why Squarespace is the best portfolio website:

Versatility

Squarespace is extremely versatile and can be used for several of your website's needs.

Whether you want to build a simple website with only a couple of pages, or something more, with Squarespace's features, you could either be minimal or advanced.

If you want to create something simple, then you can create a site from the ground up. It also has excellent template options.

If you wanted to sell your products and services online, you could host your online shop here as well.

Backend Design

Their tagline "Build It Beautiful" goes far beyond their design templates to the backend experience of their customers.

It lets you create an excellent brand in their ads, and then extend it to the user experience. In fact, by just clicking the admin section, you would immediately think that Squarespace is a great software.

It is like a breath of fresh air from all the other software you used in the past. As a result, it makes building your website a lot more interesting.

All-in-One Platform

All of its features are already built-in. Everything about it is owned and developed, which is why just everything about it works.

You do not have to waste your time figuring out whether this particular app or extension is compatible. You do not have to troubleshoot anything that lies outside your knowledge base and customer support, either.

Spending less time on things like research and troubleshooting means that you will get to spend more time on the stuff that matters like focusing on promotion, design, and content.

Your email, hosting, and domain can also be housed in Squarespace. It is convenient to have a single provider for all of these services.

Speed, Security, and Data Export

Squarespace has several websites that are created on their software, with the cost already included on its monthly price.

Having this bundled approach not only makes sure that your hosting is optimized and compatible, but it also handles the hosting's technical needs.

Squarespace will be the one who will take care of your website's needs as well ‒ including security. So, anyone who will try to hack through your site will be Squarespace's responsibility and not yours. You do not have to be the one who will purchase and configure your security software.

Apart from that, they will be the ones maintaining your redundancy and backups. So, if your data center burns down somewhere, you will not have to worry that your website will disappear.

User-Friendliness

Squarespace is an extremely user-friendly platform for a lot of reasons.

For one, the back-end is extremely well-designed. You can host multiple sites in a single place, and with every site, you have access to a side-bar menu that lists all your site's settings.

Second, it utilizes content blocks that you can place on a page, and drag-and-drop as you like.

Third, there is absolutely no need for plugins. Therefore, you do not have to worry about picking what plugin to install or think about how your plugins could work together.

Finally, if you want to save time and money or if there is something that you do not like about your site, you could easily edit it on your own. Doing so is a viable option than hiring a designer that will do every single bit of revision for you.

Easy SEO Implementation

These days, you know how optimizing your website's pages for SEO is crucial to boost engagement and promote a business.

But the thing is, there are a lot of SEO theories, tools, and best practices that you do not even know how to begin.

Fortunately, Squarespace includes automatically several SEO-friendly features with every single site that it hosts. It has built-in templates fit for clean indexing in all major search engines, helping web pages show higher on search results.

Social Integration

A lot of sites would have the functionality to link to other social media platforms, but customized widgets that make social streaming as part of its original design is fantastic!

You could also link Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, easily.

8.Support

If something goes wrong with your website, whether it is a weird glitch that you cannot resolve or a feature that you are trying to figure out, Squarespace has one of the most helpful customer service team.

Squarespace has a friendly, thorough, and prompt customer service team. They also have amazing tutorial videos and articles as well, making everything easy to follow along and do the steps yourself.

Ecommerce Integration

Squarespace has a simple integration with both Paypal and Stripe, making it easy to list and sell your products online via Squarespace.

It is also great for delivering digital downloads, whether it is paid or free, managing your shipping, selling your products, and a lot more.

The Takeaway

Your website is the main hub of your business, so there is no doubt that you must put in a lot of thought and strategy to building it.

Whether you are just getting started with your website, or just getting your hands on website editing and building, using Squarespace is highly recommended.

It has features that have basically everything you want. The best thing about it is that it's workable and flexible depending on your skills level.

Squarespace's aesthetically pleasing design, user-friendly setup, and SEO-friendly features are an absolute gamechanger.

Without a doubt, it is a productive choice that will help you build your own website and launch your own business.

Web Hosting: 7 Common Drawbacks of Shared Web Hosting

meredithdavisg — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 01:50:46 +0000

By far, shared hosting is the most common web hosting solution used by new businesses. That’s because it is relatively inexpensive. But is it worth your time and money?

Let's have a quick look first of what shared web hosting means.
What is Shared Hosting?
Shared web hosting involves a primary web server that is being used to host various websites. Usually, this involves hundreds of sites that are being hosted in a single server.

As of the moment, there has been a debate regarding the viability of shared hosting. A lot of people consider it an important asset in the digital industry letting anyone establish an online presence. Some, however, view it as a recipe for disaster.

Before you decide to jump to a shared hosting plan, it is vital to understand the seven most common drawbacks of shared web hosting.

Slower loading time

Your type of web host can affect your website’s loading speed. Keep in mind that most of the components of shared hosting service are shared, meaning, these components are not distributed evenly.

As a result, your site performance will be significantly reduced because of the websites in the server, giving you a slower loading time.

We all know the consequences of the slow loading time is. Even a one-second delay can cause a significant impact on your conversions. That’s why it is crucial to pick the right hosting provider.

This is where review sites could come in handy. Say, you want to know which between Bluehost vs. Siteground is a better web host in terms of speed and performance. Online review sites can help you get a hand of an unbiased review of these web hosts’ performance.

Insufficient Resources

A shared hosting site means that all websites are run with a single server. Thus, that server is more prone to congestions and performance hits.

Let's say one website experience a spike of traffic, and the server is not designed to handle this. The overall result could be damaging to other sites that are hosted on that server.

As mentioned previously, this could potentially slow down your site, causing your website's performance to be limited. In some cases, it could even lead to website crashes.

That's the last thing that you want to happen to your site.

Crashing

Server or system crashes are fairly common in a shared web host, and still largely remains a problem. When a load of multiple sites is on the server, then it can cause the system to crash.

Although there are several reputable web hosts out there, when it comes to shared vs. dedicated hosting, the former has always been questionable.

No matter what proactive measures you take, if there are thousands of sites that are in a single server, then it could lead to failure and eventually crash.

When looking at a shared hosting provider, it is crucial to look through their previous history and SLA guarantees for downtime. You can even search through their social media pages and web hosting forums to search for more information.

Poor customer support

Shared hosting platforms depend on tools that are automated, as well as general questions to serve an extensive client base. If a customer encounters a problem or an issue, they might need to open up a support ticket.

Depending on the type of hosting package that they choose, the support team might take a while to respond. But if you have a business, every second count and a critical issue that you might encounter might affect your reputation in the market. If that scenario happens, there is little can be done but just to wait and watch.

On the other hand, these problems can easily be handled by a dedicated hosting provider with a dedicated support team to ensure that a site is up and running.

Performance

Another issue can be your site's performance. Let's say, you are experiencing moderate traffic on your site. Then, another user that's utilizing your shared hosting provider gets a sudden spike of traffic, then the overall performance of your page can be significantly affected.

Taking a long time for your pages to load can be so frustrating for your web visitors, and in the long run, you might lose out that precious traffic as your site visitors might decide to look for information elsewhere.

Fewer features

Although it might be one of the cheapest options out there, if you are lacking in features and customization options that are associated with these plans, then it can significantly affect the quality of your website, app, and your business. The lack of features may also mean that it will be difficult for you to fix SEO issues on your website.

This can significantly affect your user experience as well, making it less likely for people to come back to your site again. If you have a dedicated hosting package, then you will likely have more features to work with and customize according to your preference.

Also, your resources are being spread too thin because of your bandwidth, data, and other usages are all going to be divided equally among you.

Let's say you have opted for a dedicated hosting platform on the other hand. Well, rest assured, you only have a single client account. Meaning, all the resources you have will be yours and yours alone.

Security

Probably the most important thing that you have to take into consideration when choosing a web hosting provider is security.

It only takes one mistake for the webmasters for your shared hosting plan to misuse your .htaccess, and it might cause server glitches. It can also bring about all sorts of chaos in your site, as well as a host of security issues.

Hackers and malicious individuals might gain access to your data, causing your site to be blacklisted because of malpractice that is being recognized by the server.

Hopefully, you have understood how shared web hosting works as well as one of the biggest drawbacks with shared hosting plans.

5 Ways to Clean Up Your Website

meredithdavisg — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 07:51:19 +0000

Creative chaos is not a myth. Quite the opposite, actually. Even though it is sometimes embarrassing to admit, we have been living this truth in one way or another. It could be your inbox, or it could be one of the chairs that is the closest to your closet.

It is not uncommon for creative chaos to appear on your website, either. Unlike the ones no one can see as they are tucked away nicely in your bedroom or your downloads folder, the mess on your website deserves your attention ever so often. Just like the clothes you carefully picked for that important business meeting, your site deserves to be in its best shape as it represents you and your business. You want it to be impeccable, polished, and impressive. That way, you can reap the benefits of blogging on your website as much as you can.

How do you accomplish that, though? You can't take your website to the hairdresser. Still, here are five things you could do to make your website look and perform at its best.

1.Freshen it up

If your website is running on WordPress, you are most surely using at least one theme and several plugins. If you are using it, why not make sure you are using and taking advantage of the newest model at your disposal?

Updates are annoying, and you might feel that they are slowing you down. While they are a menace, they also bring a lot to the table when you finally get the process over with for the time being. Update everything, and you will soon see the benefits of your, rather short, attention and care.

2.Put on the visitor's shoes

Is everything on your website running as well as it should? You are running your business, and it is likely taking too much of your time already, but take the time to give your website another look, this time as if you were the customer.

You know the drill. You go to another website to purchase something, and you find the button that seemed to be the road to the solution you were looking for. However, when you click on it, it takes you somewhere else. Or, the copy is of poor quality, so you have no idea how to get where you wanted to get. Let's not mention broken links that are just plain frustrating.

Turn the same critical eye to your website, and double check if there are any frustrating aspects to it. Any broken links or buttons? Does your form bring pleasure and joy to fill in? More likely, you will find out that the same form is the nuisance to others, that has them clicking on the back button and searching for the solution elsewhere.

If you don't feel like you could be objective on the topic - find a friend that doesn't shy away from giving positive criticism, and ask them to do it for you.

3. Get some fresh ingredients

Content gets outdated more often than you would think, so make sure you toss out the old and get the new. Hiring a professional photographer to get you a fresh set of images for your website would be a thing to do. If you feel like that would be enough, you could also do a complete makeover.

Hiring a designer to revamp your whole website is another option. It won't cost you an arm and a leg, but it will bring you many new customers. Before you do it, make sure to remove all of the old content or pages that are no longer relevant, so that the result won't be awkward.

Make sure that the design you get is also responsive on mobile devices. There is nothing more annoying when the search for information, services, or product turns into endless scrolling, zooming in and out with every click. Everybody is carrying a computer in their back pocket - make sure your website will look perfect on those screens as well.

4. Time is money

If you waited for ages for your website to load while in your customer's shoes, you already know you are in trouble. The statistics are clear on this one - if the site takes longer than four seconds to load, people will likely hit the back button and look for another solution.

The speed of your website is rarely your fault, and there could be a bunch of culprits for this kind of behavior. It could be that the videos or images on your website are too big so it takes a lot to load them. If you have a carousel on your landing page, the trouble is even more significant. It could also be your hosting provider that is the reason behind the turtle-ish speed of your website.

In any case, this deserves your attention as often as possible. Replace the images, double check the videos, and if needed, get another hosting provider or upgrade to a better plan. If your website is fast enough, Google will reward it with a better ranking, and your site will get many new visitors.

5. Start a new

If the double-checking of your website was altogether a dreadful experience, or if you are looking to revamp it in another direction, then starting from scratch might be the best way to clean up your site. This solution is rather an obvious one, especially if the back end of your website is such a mess, that even if you tried it would take you ages to clean up.

It is no easy task, and it is hard to admit to yourself that your site is beyond saving. Still, it would be the right thing to do, instead of waiting for statistics on the visitors and traffic to go up through sheer miracle.

All it takes to start from scratch is one press of a button - with the right plugin, of course. If you need to go to these extremes, install WP Reset. Starting again with this plugin is the least painful experience you could imagine. There is no need to delete everything manually. Instead, click the "Reset" button and give yourself the opportunity for a fresh start.

Lookin' good!

Just like with any other chaos, the one piling up on your website needs your attention, too. Getting rid of the unnecessary things, polishing it up now and then and keeping it relevant is probably the reason why your business will succeed. Think of it as a salesperson of your product or service, and it will be easy to see why you would want it neat and tidy. Drop the reading and get started!

Hello

meredithdavisg — Fri, 05 Jul 2019 07:25:43 +0000

Hello