November 2016 – WP Smush
This month we are sharing WP Smush, another one of our favorites. This plugin helps “smush” your images. No no, not in a bad – distorted image – kind of way. WP Smush works to compress your images, which in turn helps to optimize your site and increase your page speed. It basically does all the work for you.
Don’t compromise your site, you can now have both a fast website and beautiful images with WP Smush!
Does your high traffic website lack conversion? Are you struggling to keep your website visitors from straying to other sites? Do you worry your website visitors are leaving without even browsing the content, resulting in high bounce rate?
Bounce rate is one of the most powerful metrics used to measure the quality of your website content or landing page. It indicates whether or not visitors are hanging around or bouncing back from the landing page. If visitors bounce, it shows either the web page content is not relevant or the page is not user friendly.
A high bounce rate can be alarming and may suggest that visitors are not engaging with content, or your call-to-action is not easily found or converting into leads. It’s a clear signal that your site content and user experience need some help.
Here are 4 recommendations to help reduce the bounce rate of your website:
The first deciding factor for a visitor to stay or leave is the design. Good UI engages visitors and evokes a curiosity to continue exploring a site. Great UI combined with great UX is a huge plus. You want visitors to find what they are looking for easily and you want the site navigation to be as simple as possible. Don’t frustrate users and complicate their journey. Remember to always keep the user in mind when thinking about your site’s UI and UX, we even recommend getting some friends or colleagues to test out a website and provide feedback before going live. It’s always helpful to have a second set of eyes to test out your site.
Another way to keep your visitors browsing longer is search functionality. Your website needs to have a search bar to help users get to what they are looking for. You don’t want to lose customers because you don’t offer search. Make sure to keep your search results accurate and relevant to help users find desired content easily and quickly.
The landing page holds an important role in deciding whether your visitors will stay or leave. Keep your content relevant and have a compelling call-to-action. Your landing page shouldn’t mislead the visitors to read irrelevant content.
Popups can be obtrusive and annoying, as they disrupt the reader and could potentially cause someone to leave. They can also be very distracting and may increase your bounce rate. Avoiding irrelevant and excessive use of popups builds the reputation of your site and encourages visitors to stay longer.
October 2016 – Maps Builder
This month we’re sharing our favorite maps plugin, Maps Builder. It truly is the simplest way to add google maps to your WordPress site, plain and simple.
Some features we like include… the ability to adjust map settings to zoom, see the street view, and move the map to see other points and locations. We also love the customization features and how it works with Snazzy Maps to make super rad looking maps! And did we mention it’s super user friendly, no matter what your skill level is.
So, if you’ve been trying to find a way to show your business location, an event location, or any other destination we highly recommend trying this plugin. You’ll thank us later 😉
September 2016 – W3 Total Cache
Want to reduce your download times and boost your server performance? This is the plugin for you!
This month we’re sharing our favorite plugin for performance, W3 Total Cache. It will cache your search results, your database objects, CSS, JavaScript and more. It practically caches your whole website, which will inturn better your user experience. It also integrates an undetectable content delivery network (CDN) increasing your site’s speed.
If you want more conversions and to keep your visitors happy and browsing your site longer, we would highly recommend using W3 Total Cache plugin.
Ask and you shall receive. Deep search has arrived and it’s AWESOME!
Traditionally SearchIQ has only allowed 5 search fields – author, tags, category, body and title, but now we can index custom fields for any post type you’d like. What does this mean you ask? Let’s say you have a recipe website and your visitor is looking for a cookie recipe. This visitor can’t just make any old cookie recipe, they need gluten free cookies with no nuts, and they want the cookies to be low in fat. With deep search they’ll be able to find a cookie recipe that meets their specified criteria and get to what they’re looking for much faster than before. This feature is great for ecommerce sites, recipe sites, and anyone needing specific search for their website.
In addition to deep search, we’ve also made it easier for you to install a search bar on your WordPress site. We now offer a widget where all you have to do is grab the “SearchIQ searchbox” from the widgets menu, then drag and drop it wherever you want it. It will automatically install on your website. The second option is for folks who would rather have a search icon on their menu. To install the search icon all you have to do is go into SearchIQ options, select the menu where you would like the icon to be (header, footer, main, etc.) and finally, select save. The icon will show automatically at the end of the menu you have chosen.
We’re excited to provide these new search features and we hope they’ll make your site’s search functionality even easier and even more relevant.
Happy searching!