New e-commerce sites are launching every day. Shopify and WooCommerce are two of the biggest e-commerce platforms powering millions of websites around the world. If you are considering starting a new site yourself or are making changes to your current site, you might be wondering what the difference is between Shopify and WooCommerce. Since each platform has its strengths and weaknesses, we will break down some of the key differences between them and help you decide which platform is best for your business.

Hosting

The biggest difference between Shopify and WooCommerce is that Shopify is a hosted e-commerce solution while WooCommerce is a self-hosted solution that requires a separate hosting account. 

Maintenance

Shopify manages all the core updates and security of e-commerce sites on their platform. WooCommerce on the other hand requires a much more hands-on approach to maintenance, updates and security monitoring. 

Cost

The cost of a Shopify site typically runs between $30-300 per month depending on plan. Custom themes and apps are additional one-time or subscription-based fees in addition to the monthly Shopify fees. WooCommerce is built on WordPress and is free to install but you will need to pay for hosting which typically runs between $150-500 a month depending on your resources and maintenance requirements. 

Payment Processing

Both platforms also require some form of payment processing. Shopify has its own payment processing plan but also supports other major payment processors such as PayPal and Authorize.net. WooCommerce also supports many of the major payment processors. Payment processing for both platforms typically costs between 2-3% per sale.

Features & Apps

You can add features to your site via apps in Shopify and plugins in WooCommerce. Each platform has its own repository of apps/plugins and you can also find free and paid apps/plugins on third-party party websites. 

Most of Shopify’s apps are provided by third-party app developers and are hosted on the developer’s servers. Shopify app developers are responsible for maintenance and updates of the app and have different levels of access to your store’s data. 

WooCommerce plugins are also primarily offered by third-party developers but the plugins are installed directly on the server or hosting platform running WordPress. WooCommerce plugins options include free, one-time fee or subscription based. 

You have a lot more flexibility with how your store is set up and it’s easier to add custom features to WooCommerce.

So, which platform should you use for your e-commerce website? 

The platform you choose depends on 

• What type of site you are building
• How many custom features you will be adding to the site 
• How you plan to support the site

Shopify is a great choice for standard e-commerce sites with high volume and not a lot of static pages. 

We recommend WooCommerce for sites with a lot of custom features, when clients are already familiar with WordPress or plan to have a lot of non-product pages and/or a blog alongside their e-commerce site. 

Iceberg Can Help

The e-commerce experts at Iceberg Web Design can look at how you plan to use your e-commerce site, which products you want to sell, and any requirements for custom features or 3rd party integrations. Based on this information, we can help you to decide which platform will work best for your e-commerce website. 

And when you are ready to build your e-commerce site, our specialists can work with you through every step of the process to ensure your site is exactly what your business needs.

Contact us today!

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Having an extensive website wish list isn’t a problem if your budget is limitless. But for most businesses, it’s important to keep the reins pulled in.

When business owners ask us to build a new website, they usually come with a wish list. Of course, they will want the usual pages and often features like a blog, search capabilities (sometimes sortable), galleries, integrations, e-commerce features, etc. The list can get long if you let it.

Consider Features that Make Doing Business Easier

Often people only think of websites as benefiting their marketing efforts. And they do increase your marketing prowess. But there are many other ways to use your website.

You can improve customer satisfaction through better communication and employee satisfaction by enhancing internal efficiencies with features like:

•         Optimized Sales Funnels for better leads
•         Careers Pages with applications for hiring
•         Member or Employee Portals
•         Scheduling Integrations
•         Fillable Online Forms
•         Document Library
•         Education information accessed by users via a password
•         Location Maps for your projects or business locations 
•         And more!

When You Want Too Much of a Good Thing

Having an extensive wish list isn’t a problem if your budget is limitless, but for most businesses, it’s important to keep the reigns pulled in.

Another reason we recommend breaking up extensive website wish lists into smaller ones is none of these features will help your business until your website is live. To give you everything on the list would take a lot longer than you want to wait to have the initial site built. So instead, we create the site with the most important features first, and then we immediately begin working on the remaining features. This allows you to use the site as soon as possible.

So, it is often a good idea to build a website that meets your needs and then add on the other features you want later. We often call this planning out your website into phases.

We may also recommend building a website in phases if your business is in a period of growth. You might anticipate the need for a particular feature during that time, but you aren’t quite sure how it will fit into your business plan yet.

How to Choose from Your Website Wish List

The first step is to meet with our salesperson, Shane Bader. Shane will talk about your business goals and what you want to get out of your website and digital marketing. He can help you sort through what features are essential now and which ones can wait until you are ready to add them later. Our goal at Iceberg Web Design is to serve your business in the way that will best help you grow now and in the future.

Contact us today to see how we can help fulfill your website Wish List!

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We have two main products that result in beautiful websites: our turn-key websites and our custom websites. The process to get there is quite different, however. Let’s look at some additional factors and how they could affect which option you choose.

Size

If your site is five to seven pages, both turn-key and custom development will work well. But once you get beyond seven pages, you would be better served by a custom site.

Time

Semi-custom websites can be launched as quickly as six weeks from kick-off. This timeline includes content, design, and buildout. We do most of the work for you on turn-key sites, so if you are busy, all you will be expected to do is a content interview, review content drafts, and provide assets and access to your site.

Custom sites take much longer than turn-key sites. How much longer depends on the site’s features, the number of pages, and numerous other factors. You will receive a timeline once we schedule the content interview or content planning session. For customers who wish to be more involved in the process, the custom is the way to go.

Features

Our semi-custom sites are perfect for businesses that want to develop an online presence with a professional website. You can add features, but keep in mind that any additional features will also add to your site’s price and timeline. You may be better off going with a custom site if you want more than one or two features.

If you would like online business tools integrated with your website, complex forms, advanced search and filtering, multiple galleries, a blog, dynamic team section, events calendar, custom animation, video background support, e-commerce, and other features, a custom site is a perfect option for you. 

Design and Development

The design and development time for a turn-key site is much faster and does not include a mock-up. It will match your branding, resulting in a professional, attractive website.

Custom websites will have a mock-up phase and will be completely customized. This is one of the reasons they take much longer than our semi-custom turn-key sites.

Price, Maintenance, and Access

There are no upfront costs for a turn-key site other than for content writing. After that, you pay a monthly payment. You do not have access to make changes to your site, but you will have 15 minutes of updates each month and quarterly plugin updates.

Custom sites cost more, and you pay for them upfront. Included in this are the more extended design and development time, hosting and full access to your site.  Depending on your monthly hosting plan you may also have 15-60 minutes of free support each month and either monthly or quarterly plugin updates.

The Choice is Yours

Both turn-key and custom sites have many advantages. The best for your business will depend on which of those advantages are most important to you. Either way, you will be pleased with the results. Contact us today to get your project started.

The post Turn-Key or Custom Website: Which is Right for Your Business? appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

Good Content is Likable

It is even more than just likable. It stands out from the crowd as having what other content on the same topic is missing. It might be a unique perspective, an expert voice, a deeper dive, or a fresh way of explaining the topic. Whatever your content has, it makes it irresistibly readable, shareable, and something that people want.

Good Content is Linkable

Your content can be the most enticing information in the world, but if you can’t link to it, search engines won’t like it and won’t rank it. Examples of this kind of content include slide shows and content that you can only access after logging in (and even then, it can’t be shared).

Good Content is Optimized for the Right Keywords

When you are trying to decide what keywords to focus on in your content, do your research. You will want keywords that are a natural part of the content. Don’t over-use them. This is called keyword stuffing. Search engines don’t like it, and they will punish websites that employ such tactics. The keywords you choose should be in demand enough that people are looking for the topic, but not so in-demand that your content will never make it to the top of the pile. It often takes a little trial and error to find your sweet spot, but you will soon get the hang of keyword research.

Good Content gets Updated Regularly

Don’t allow your site to sit stagnant for too long. It sends the message to site users and Google that your content isn’t fresh or relevant anymore. Instead, update your content regularly by adding to your blog, updating an event calendar, refreshing a page’s content, etc. This will send the message that you are paying attention to your content, and that means it is more trustworthy than stale content that hasn’t been changed in two months.

Professionally Written Content Makes a Difference

Iceberg Web Design offers professional SEO content writing services for custom websites, subscription sites, and SEO services. If you would like to take your business to the next level, we have the solution for you. Contact us today!

The post On-Page SEO: Why Good Content is King appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

Keep it Simple

The most important job your contact page has is to put your readers in touch with you. That’s the whole point of your website, so in a way, the contact page is the king of pages (Okay, we know that it isn’t, but it’s still essential). By keeping your contact page simple, you will let your audience quickly and easily contact you in a way they feel most comfortable.

Options, Options, Options

There are plenty of options you can offer to website users for reaching you. People often have strong feelings about these options. One person may hate forms while another loves them. Text is becoming a more popular contact method than ever, and it can be set up with an autoresponder outside of business hours. Some business owners are concerned with having an email on their website, thinking they may get a lot of spam. Thankfully, there are ways to ensuring you are being emailed by a person and not a robot.

Special Considerations to Keep in Mind

While offering options to suit most web users is ideal, you also want to consider what fits your business model and lifestyle. If you are a contractor who never checks your email more than once a day, you may want everything to go to your phone number.

Some industries are subject to specific regulations such as HIPPA laws, which affect how and when you can contact someone. Unless you are using a particular server that is secured consistent with HIPPA, providers cannot send outgoing emails. In those cases, collecting a name and phone number via a form may be the best solution, and having your phone number available for people to call your business.

Have Your Contact Information Available

You should include the addresses, phone numbers, and contact emails of your primary location and each satellite location, franchise, or alternative office. Please discuss with your web development company whether each of these locations merits its own page or not.  

Having a location map is also a good idea. If there are multiple locations, you may want to add a locator feature that allows visitors to find the location nearest to them.  

This contact page from Select Eyecare is a good example that includes multiple locations.

Keep it Consistent with the Rest of Your Site

The thoughtfulness you put into your content and design shouldn’t come to a stop when you hit the contact page. The contact page should be a natural extension of your site, naturally flowing from it, giving your readers confidence to reach out to you. It should reflect the personality and beauty they have seen up to that point. This contact page from the Animal Behavioral Clinic of New Jersey is an excellent example of that.

The Best Contact You Can Make

The best contact you can make is with Iceberg Web Design. We’re experts at helping businesses connect with customers. We have a website-based business solution for you! Contact us today. Read Our 5 Star Reviews! 

The post Creating the Perfect Contact Page For Your Website appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

To find out whether Google sees your site as mobile-friendly, you can check your site with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool. How did your site fare? If it did well, you are good to go! If it could use some improvements, read on!

Responsive and Adaptive Design

A mobile-friendly website starts with a responsive or adaptive WordPress theme. Responsive design means that as the screen narrows, so do the elements within the screen. This is ideal for smaller screen sizes such as smartphones.

Adaptive design is similar except that when the screen narrows to a specific predefined breakpoint, the elements will adapt. This works well for larger screen sizes. You can even see this at work on your desktop computer. Go to Iceberg Web Design’s home page and then slowly make the browser window smaller. As you do, you will see some changes take place. The menu changes, text, and images get smaller.

If your site is not responsive or adaptive, it was likely built before the responsive code frameworks came out. In that case, it will be easier to rebuild your site with the current code.  

Create a Mobile-Friendly Site from the Beginning.

It starts with the design of your site. It helps to keep in mind that your site will have to look good on a small screen. It isn’t just a shrunken version of the way your site looks on PC. Using a grid helps a lot with this. They make your design more balanced and appealing. They offer the ideal adaptable structure that works well for both a full-sized desktop and mobile design.

Make your content Mobile Friendly

Remove distractions on the page. This is clutter on the page that slows load time and makes it harder for users to get to the information they want to find. You can help users find what they need most by showing your most important information at the top of the page. Then, offer additional information when people ask for it.

Use large, standard fonts to make copy easy to read and buttons that are large and ideally at the bottom of the screen and opposite of the thumb.

Don’t just shrink the screen. Stack it.

When adapting a page for mobile, you may come across columns that become too narrow to be of any practical use. You should stack one on top of the other to create a more visually appealing, mobile-friendly page.

Adapt your images for Mobile

As your screen-size gets smaller, you will want to reduce the size of icons, images, and other visual elements. Play around with it a bit because you don’t want these design elements to become so small that they are useless.

Pay Attention to Your Navigation Menu

A full menu isn’t going to span your smartphone’s screen the way it does your desktop screen. It would be much too small to read. At Iceberg, we use something known as a “hamburger menu.” It’s different from the one at your favorite drive-thru. The hamburger menu compresses your menu into a vertical, tappable, drop-down menu.

Keep the Mobile User in Mind.

Desktop users are sitting at home or in their office. Mobile users are usually on the go. It’s essential to keep this in mind when designing your site. On desktop computers, it’s common to see a call to action asking the user to download something free such as an article (usually in exchange for their email address). On a mobile phone, that’s not practical. Sometimes changes must be made right down to the content. In this case, when the screen is a mobile configuration, the call-to-action can change to request “Get the Free Article.” You still request their email address, and the article gets sent to them so they can download or print it later at their convenience.

The post Ways to Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

It also means that they didn’t do anything to initiate a relationship with your business. They didn’t buy anything, subscribe, view any ads, etc.

How Do You Know What Your Bounce Rate Is?

Use a tool like Google Analytics, which can it tell you what your bounce rate is overall. It can also break the statistics down by location, source of traffic, medium, mobile vs. desktop, browser, landing page, etc. If you only serve one place, sources from other areas you don’t serve will bounce right away—and that’s okay! They aren’t potential customers, anyway.

In Google Analytics, you can look at your bounce rate overall or from within any or all of these other parameters to draw your conclusions about your bounce rate. If your rate is higher than those listed below, work to lower it.

Here are some general guidelines

Retail Sites                                      20%-40%

Simple Landing Page                   70%-90%

Portal Sites                                     10%-30%

FAQ Sites                                         10%-30%

High Content Sites                       40%-60%

Lead Generation Sites                60%-70%

Increase your Load Time

People bounce when a site takes a long time to load. By ramping up your load time, you will retain visitors longer. 47% of people expect a page to load within two seconds, while 40% will leave if it takes longer than three seconds to load. To learn how long your visitors are waiting for your site to load, go to Google Page Speed Insights to run a speed test. Be sure to test both mobile and desktop speeds. If your rate is below 70, there is room for improvement. They will let you know what to focus on. It is often pretty technical, so you may want to talk to your developer about making some changes to speed things up.

Consider What People are Coming to Your Site to See- and Showcase it Right Away.

If visitors don’t see what they are looking for right away, they will bounce and go back to the search engine results page to see if another site will have what they are looking for. That’s why your home page or landing page (and even your Google listing) should match whatever they clicked on to get there. If there is a disconnect, you will want to make some changes to match them more accurately. People don’t like to sift through many images, information, or opt-ins to find what they are looking for.

This also happens when they arrive at your site from a source that tells them they will be finding out about something, and then visitors get to your site, and it isn’t anything like what they expected. Not only do they bounce, but they also feel like your business is shady. You don’t want to get that reputation.

No matter what, your page should be clear about what you offer, what you do, and why readers should keep reading.

Make Your Pages Easy to Read

This means black text on a white background and a more minimalistic design. And of course, you must optimize the mobile pages, where half of the people do their searching. By the way, Georgia and Arial, set at 14-18 pt. fonts are the easiest to read on mobile. Set your line-height at 150%. Have clear links with stylized buttons to help visitors keep searching your site. Use headers and sub-headers to organize your post. This makes it easier to help your reader find what they are looking for. Also, when possible, make a list post. They have the lowest bounce rate. Incorporate bullets when it makes sense to help these key points stand out.

Minimalism Doesn’t Mean You Shouldn’t Have Images.

Whether you use images, video, or audio files, they will break up the text, making the page more visually appealing. They will also offer your visitors another way to learn about the topic or product you are showcasing. Also, videos will keep visitors on your site much longer. Just don’t set your video to autoplay and be sure to find a nice thumbnail. The brain processes visual information much easier than text. Utilize this!

Cross-Link

Once you sprinkle your site with links that can take your reader to other pages relevant to them, you increase the chances that the visitor will continue to look at your site and may even make it a go-to reference for their needs. This creates the ideal user experience. Give your visitors a holistic experience around the thing they have come to your site to get. Have FAQs, engaging content, video, audio, great images, etc. This will meet them where they are at.

Use Caution with Pop-ups

People tend to get annoyed with pop-ups. They have their place but be sure to use them with caution. Exit pop-ups, on the other hand, can be helpful. These show up when the site sees that you are moving your cursor toward the back or exit button. At that time, the pop-up will appear to allow your visitor to rethink whether they are going to leave or not. It is at this time when you can effectively use a lead generator.

What if your bounce rate is super low?

A bounce rate of less than 20% can indicate an improper analytics set-up. While this low bounce rate might make you feel great for a while until you figure it out, it is a false sense of security and won’t help your traffic or ranking in the long run. So, look into it.

At Iceberg, we would love to create a site for you that will connect to your customers. We can maximize the effectiveness of your site and lead generation efforts. Contact us today to find out how!

The post What’s a Bounce Rate, and how Do I Lower it? | Iceberg Web Design appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

Quality Content written for your website user, not for search engines

Quality content isn’t for the bots sent out by search engines to crawl your site (How is that for a mental image?). It’s for the readers of your website. After all, if your readers don’t see the value in your content, they won’t ever return to your site, recommend it to their friends, or share it on social media. Quality content is written in an interesting way with the information that your readers want. Consistently offering your readers quality content is the best way to increase your readership.

Help Google find your content

You will want to make your wonderful content easy for Google and other search engines to find so that when readers search a topic which you have written about, they can find it on your site. The best way to do this is to submit a sitemap to Google for your website. A sitemap tells search engines about new or changed pages on your site. 

Links to your site from other pages can also help people find your site. Building relationships with sites related to your site can be beneficial for both parties. Linking to one another’s sites can help readers find relevant content and help Google see where your site fits in among the sites on the worldwide web.

Describing your page’s content

It’s important to choose a title that accurately communicates the topic of the page’s content. Sometimes content creators try to be more clever than true, leaving both readers and search engines baffled about what they will find when they open the link. Because of this, it is important that each page has a unique title as well as a unique keyword. This helps search engines know how a page is distinct from others on your site. Avoid using lengthy titles that may not be seen as matching a user’s search query. Also, avoid “stuffing” keywords into your title tags.

Meta Tags

One example of important coding is your page’s meta tag. It summarizes what the page is about for search engines (hence, readers, as well). It could be a sentence or a short paragraph. As a tag, it is placed within the <head> element of your HTML document.

Google might use description meta tags as snippets for your pages or Google may choose to use a relevant section of your page’s visible text, particularly if it does a good job of matching up with a user’s query.

It’s also important to secure your site with HTTPS

No doubt your hosting service has talked with you about HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure), since it is a premium product that costs extra. It’s worth it, though.

Users expect a secure and private online experience. HTTPS provides this protecting the integrity and confidentiality of data between the user’s computer and the site three ways:

Data sent using HTTPS is secured via Transport Layer Security protocol (TLS). This provides three key layers of protection:

1. Encryption—keeps conversations safe from eavesdroppers and those who would steal the user’s information.
2. Data integrity—protects data from modification or corruption during transfer.
3. Authentication—proves that your users are communicating with the intended website. This builds user trust.

Regardless of the content on your site, it’s important to safeguard your users’ connections to it.

A Beginner’s Look at SEO Includes Optimizing Your Images

Over 20% of all U.S. web searches happen on Google Images. Without proper image optimization, you’re wasting a valuable SEO asset.

• Images should be formatted as either PNG or JPG images.

PNG: These files are larger but produce better quality images. They also allow for transparency so are often used for logo files.

JPEG: These are lower quality but don’t take up as much space, which is an important factor in how quickly your website loads.

• Another way to reduce the bloat on your website is to compress images before uploading them to your website. You can use a graphics program for this such as Photoshop or Gimp. There are also some WordPress plugins that will allow you to optimize your images.
• Use original, unique images to add value to your site. Original images also protect you from a copyright infringement lawsuit. When you use an image that you didn’t create yourself, make sure that you have the legal right to use the image in the way you intend to.
• Make your images mobile-friendly, meaning they automatically resize for different screen and device sizes.
• Use keyword-rich, descriptive file names as well as alt tags for images. Alt tags describe the image (briefly) so that if the image can’t be viewed, whether due to a disability or because the image won’t load, the user and search engines know what the image contains.

Hiring an SEO Expert

You may want to consider hiring an SEO professional to audit your pages. An SEO expert can save you valuable time and improve the visibility of your site on search engines. They can improve the structure of your website and offer technical advice on things such as: hosting, redirects, error pages, and the use of JavaScript. They are also skilled in keyword research and content development as well as much more!

If you’re considering a site redesign or planning to launch a new site, it’s the perfect time to talk with an SEO expert. They can help your site be search engine-friendly from the bottom up. They can also improve an existing site. Contact us today to find out how we can improve your SEO.

The post A Beginner’s Look at SEO appeared first on Iceberg Web Design.

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What was in vogue as early as last year is not always still relevant. Tying into the rapid changes in technology is the rapid change of people’s aesthetic preferences. An extreme way to make this point is to point you towards Wayback Machine, which allows people to see how their favorite websites looked in the past using a cataloged archive of screenshots. It’s amazing to see how websites like Google started out, and how they’ve evolved over the years.

But it’s not just humans who care about design…you also have to take into consideration how a search engine sees your page. And you have to design for both sets of “eyes.”

Thanks to the latest update of Google, affectionately known as “Mobilegeddon,” businesses are scrambling to make their websites more mobile-friendly. A failure to adapt might mean losing valuable organic search traffic. If you’re using Google Adwords to drive more people to your business, this could mean increased spend on pay-per-click advertising. So whether you’re trying to please a human or a search engine, it might be time to reconsider the design of your website. Click here to learn more about responsive design to make a website mobile-friendly.

Besides changing for new technology or to spruce up an old design, you may want to redesign your website for normal business changes. One thing that tends to change often is the offering of new products or services or the discontinuation of others. A lot of your old content may focus on these outdated products and services and may make no mention of the new ones. SEO is an important consideration with content, and you want to make sure that the traffic coming to your website is qualified in some way. If people are coming to your website and not finding what they need or expect, they might leave before investigating further, which is a huge lost opportunity. Besides the changing of products and services, your leadership and employees may cause a natural shift in values. If all of your content is written in a way that reflects outdated values, people may get the wrong impression of your business. It’s important that available branding be consistent, as it helps to establish trust in the company. Learn more here about how SEO works and how it affects your traffic.

So whether you’re trying to adapt to the latest technologies, update for design, or change content around to reflect newer business values, a redesign for your website might make sense. Iceberg Web Design has plenty of different options to address any changes, small or large. Contact us for more information!

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