Maximize Your Online Business with VPS Hosting: Tips for E-commerce Success

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Published: Friday, 17 February 2023 11:23

Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a hosting service that provides the user with private and dedicated resources on a server with multiple users using virtualization technology. There is usually more than one hosting plan. 

VPS hosting comes out as the more stable and secure option when compared with shared hosting. Shared hosting does not give the user a private and dedicated server space. Website owners with a medium level of traffic usually choose to use VPS hosting since the traffic they get mostly passes the lines of shared hosting plans but does not need a dedicated server.

This article will discuss maximizing website traffic and online businesses using a virtual private server. 

The benefits VPS offers E-commerce businesses

1. Scalability

Scalability must be the owner’s number one concern when the e-commerce business is heading to a breaking success. VPS hosting is essential for e-commerce sites that depend on regular traffic to generate revenue. 

The higher the number of the site’s visitors, the higher the levels of transactions. And handling high-traffic volumes needs a scalable resource to prevent downtimes. 

VPS hosting is the thing that can offer the site owner the type of scalability and resources they need. 

2. Cost reduction and efficient budget management

A dedicated server is pricier than VPS hosting, so using VPS is the more economical option since the user will only be using one server divided into multiple private ones, which will reduce the cost. The benefits and features of a dedicated server and VPS hosting are very similar; the biggest difference is that VPS is more affordable. 

Another cost and budget advantage is that the user can monitor where the budget is being spent. VPS hosting allows choosing the wanted resources, and the vendor will allocate that amount to the user accordingly. And planning allows the user to know when additional resources might be needed. 

The website owner can buy VPS with BTC or crypto, which can also be cost-effective. 

3. Better performance

VPS hosting operates as an independent dedicated server virtually, and it provides good performance for all e-commerce startups because both the website and the owner of the site have total control over the resources. And the resources can allocate to optimize performance better. 

4. A feature-rich site

A basic website is one of the biggest obstacles small to medium-sized e-commerce businesses face. Businesses like that may lack the ability to add elements like dynamic media files to their websites due to limited VPS hosting resources.

Such features can cause downtimes and make sites heavy, hampering quick loading, which is bad. And that is where VPS hosting comes in, especially the SSD one, which can increase the RAM size and enhance the CPU’s performance to drastically reduce the website’s downtime. 

An SSD VPS hosting can retrieve high-volume data so fast, thanks to its not having a spinning mechanism. This will help the e-commerce business flourish because when a site is rich in features, it attracts more customers, which also means more revenue. 

5. Offers a better security

VPS hosting is a far more safe and more secure option for hosting compared to shared hosting. Despite the server being a single one shared by all the users, the data of the website owner will remain private within their authorized environments. So there is no need to worry about data leaks or theft accidents. 

6. Improves ranking and user experience

Speed is one of the main factors for ranking high on Google. Most websites have a three-second loading window to rank high; however, for e-commerce sites, it is narrowed to two. Having SSD VPS hosting means constantly allowing users to access the site quickly. And this will naturally translate into the site ranking higher on Google.

Combining all the mentioned benefits means providing customers with the best user experience possible while browsing the e-commerce site, and a good user experience means great SEO performance. It is like a never-ending cycle. 

To conclude

E-commerce companies greatly benefit from VPS hosting. VPS hosting can lead these businesses to success by offering them performance, an affordable, customizable platform that suits their needs, and reliability. With the business growing and the traffic increasing, SSD VPN will be there to handle it all and decrease complications. 

Five Ways to Improve Ecommerce Landing Pages for SEO

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Published: Tuesday, 07 February 2023 13:52

E-commerce SEO has always been set apart. It can't be compared to SEO for non-commercial sites. That's why SEO specialists can barely find a common ground with UX experts. 

SEO professionals tend to create more optimized content and get landing page clicks. UX specialists care about products mostly. Likely, both SEOs and UXs have one goal - conversions. 

How to achieve this goal? 

SEO will help eCommerce landing pages rank better and acquire new customers. 

In this guide, you will find out five ways to improve eCommerce landing pages from an SEO standpoint. 

Let's get the ball rolling!

Category Pages Types

There are two main types of category pages:

• Category listing pages (these categories that list categories)

• Product listing pages (these categories that list products)

You can see the first type of pages (CLP) across many popular eCommerce online shops. CLP tends to be placed higher up within the hierarchy of the site. 

Here is an example of CLP on FOREVER21:

And here is an example of FOREVER21's PLP:

You might wonder - what is the difference between CLPs and PLPs? 

The difference is the following:

CLP - they target general topics (e.g. women's clothing)

PLP - they target more specific requests (e.g. boots + booties)

Now, let's move to the tips that will help improve eCommerce landing pages. 

1. Create useful content 

Content is king. It is a well-known fact. The content aims to provide users with helpful information. That's why marketers use all possible online channels to spread it across the web. They even try to identify the best time when the information will be shown to the audience (a social media scheduler helps with that perfectly.)

In the world of eCommerce, content makes a direct impact on a customer's decision. So, it is important to provide customers with fresh and unique content that gives value. This is when AI marketing comes in handy. There are many AI-powered writing tools that can help you to write content that meets customers’ needs.

However, don't delude yourself with the topics you believe would make sense to cover. 

For instance, you have a category page "karate gi." There is no need to write a post that shares the history behind a karate gi. Instead, you should help potential customers with getting answers to the next questions:

• What dress material has been used for karate gi? 

• What design of karate gi can be chosen? 

• etc.

You can cover this information briefly. Plus, the additional information can be added in the FAQ section down below. 

This action provides users with more detailed information about the product. Besides, it helps Google understand the content on the page. 

By the way, John Mueller has stated that:

• When the ecommerce category pages don’t have any other content at all, other than links to the products, then it’s really hard for us to rank those pages

• I’m not saying all of that text at the bottom of your page is bad, but maybe 90%, 95% of that text is unnecessary. But some amount of text is useful to have on a page so that we can understand what this page is about.

• Our algorithms sometimes get confused when they have a list of products on top and essentially a giant article on the bottom when our algorithms have to figure out the intent of this page.

Here are main points regarding a content creation for category pages:

• It should answer questions

• Be short and sweet

2. Internal linking

Internal linking is important. Both for the category and product landing pages. It makes sense to use automated linking and manual one. 

If you are an owner of a large eCommerce site without automation, it will be difficult to proceed with linking. 

Especially, if you used localization services to embrace more international markets. 

Why?

Because each area splits into cities. For example, a US market covers regions across the US. These regions consist of cities. Finally, each city suggests categories of the product your potential customers may look for.

Likely, automation helps identify a "parent/child" connection between categories. That makes the process of linking easier. 

The benefits of automated linking are:

• Avoid orphan categories

• By creating a new subcategory and setting a parent category - the last one will link to the subcategory automatically

• Internal links help with indicating a site structure

• Google understands the site structure better

Why do you need to use manual linking? 

Manual linking helps you put pages with a high level of search opportunity in the first place. Thus, both users and crawlers will be able to stumble upon them in a blink of an eye. 

3. Work on creating long-tail categories 

You can improve category pages by creating long-tail variations of them. 

How to do this? 

First and foremost, you should use one of the SEO tools that can help conduct keyword research. In this case, Keywords Explorer from Ahrefs will work. 

For example, you have a broad category "fashion jewelry":

You need to click the "Matching terms" report and review the "Parent topics" column:

As you can see, the tool suggests tons of long-tail variations with the search volume numbers. Go ahead and choose the most promising opportunities to apply them for categories. 

4. Take care of URL structure

The best URL format is the one you won't need to change. Besides, you can never know how long it will take for Google to notice the changes in the URL. 

The reason to change URLs might be rebranding or some other fundamental technical aspects, like changing eCommerce hosting. 

URLs may be structured based on parent/child relationships between category pages:

• www.domain.com/collections/

• www.domain.com/collections/neckless

• www.domain.com/collections/neckless/kundan-necklace

As you can see, the URLs of the category pages are simple.

5. Include links to detailed guides

Category pages lack content that would be the final nudge for users in making their purchasing decision. However, according to pieces of advice from John Mueller - the information on CLPs should be short and sweet. 

What is the solution? 

Add links to the detailed guides that would cover the information regarding certain products. 

To Sum Up

SEO and eCommerce can co-exist. SEO can increase the number of sales for sure. Nevertheless, there are some technical aspects you should consider. 

SEO for eCommerce landing pages has different approaches to apply. You have just got familiar with five basic ones. Likely, the suggested ways of improving eCommerce landing pages work like a charm. 

Go ahead and try to apply them by yourself!

Call Tracking and Dedicated Toll-Free Numbers: A Winning Combination for E-commerce

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Published: Wednesday, 01 February 2023 10:12

Running an e-commerce store in today's competitive market can be challenging. To attract new customers and increase sales, store owners invest in a variety of marketing tactics. They might create an engaging website, build a social media presence, send out email newsletters, and use traditional marketing methods like print ads and business cards.

Speaking of traditional methods, it's also smart to get a toll-free number and display it prominently on both digital and print ads. When asked what their favorite form of business communication was, 22% of 18-39-year-olds said they would rather use a phone, and this percentage only goes up with age.

This means if you do the same, you could get a lot of phone calls, but without a way to track the sources of these leads, you will be left guessing where your customers are coming from. This can make it difficult to decide where to allocate your marketing budget. In this article, we will explore the importance of dedicated phone numbers and call tracking for e-commerce store owners.

What is Call Tracking?

Call tracking has actually been around for ages. When you were asked to mention you heard about a product on the radio or when a customer service agent asked, "How did you hear about us?" a business was tracking their calls manually. Some still do, but your business doesn't have to because call tracking is automatic with the right type of technology.

With the modern, automated version of call tracking, a customer calls your business, and the call is routed through a call tracking system that records information about the call, like the date and time, the phone number, the duration of the call, and more. Call tracking can be used in a variety of ways, such as tracking calls from specific marketing campaigns, tracking calls from specific geographic regions, and identifying the most effective marketing channels. It can also be used to identify issues that arise during customer interactions to help improve customer service.

Why are Dedicated Toll-Free Numbers Important?

Dedicated phone numbers, also called tracking numbers, are crucial for call tracking because they allow businesses to analyze phone calls separately for each marketing campaign or advertising channel. By using a dedicated phone number for each advertising channel, businesses can track the effectiveness of their marketing efforts and make better decisions about where to allocate their budget.

Getting a dedicated toll-free number rather than a local number has many benefits, including:

• Toll-free numbers can be used as a marketing tool, allowing businesses to create a memorable brand.

• Toll-free numbers are often associated with larger, more established businesses and can help to enhance a company's professional image.

• Toll-free numbers allow customers to call a business without incurring long-distance charges, making it more likely that they will call.

What are the Benefits of Call Tracking?

Call tracking can revolutionize the way your e-commerce business approaches marketing, customer service, and customer retention. When you track your incoming phone calls, it can provide your business with valuable data that can help:

• Identify effective marketing channels: With a dedicated tracking number for each marketing channel, you will learn which generates the most leads, optimize your marketing efforts, and allocate budgets accordingly.

• Improve customer service: Call tracking can tell you how long a call lasts, how many calls are missed, which agents handle the most calls, and more metrics that will help you find and address customer service issues.

• Identify sales opportunities: Tracking your calls will help you find new sales opportunities and upsell or cross-sell products and services.

• Measure marketing ROI: When using dedicated phone numbers with call tracking, you can easily measure the return on investment for your business's marketing efforts.

• Learn more about your customers: Call tracking allows you to gather data on your customers, like their geographic location, gender, age, and interests, which can be used to tailor future marketing efforts to specific demographics.

Phone calls are still popular with a large segment of consumers and are still a very effective way to generate leads and convert them into paying customers. But if you aren't using call tracking and dedicated toll-free numbers, you're left guessing where the call came from or using the old manual method of asking every customer how they heard about your business. With call tracking, you will understand what channels are driving your leads, who your customers are, and how satisfied they are with your company.

7 Web Development Tools to Streamline Your Workflow in 2023

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Published: Monday, 30 January 2023 14:32

Developing a website takes a lot of work. From the early stages, you'll have to think of the design, coding, security measures, and a whole lot more. Consequently, you must constantly have your audiences in mind to ensure that the end product is something they'll love.

Using the right tools to make the development process easier and more efficient is a good measure. Although sticking to tried and tested methods is a safe approach, bear in mind that as technologies evolve, so do the tools used in web development. And today, many of them focus on providing smart solutions to help you speed up your workflow, reduce errors, and deploy great projects.

Yet, with the countless options available in the market, it can take time to identify which of them are worth your while. To help you with that, we've prepared a list of the seven web development tools to streamline your workflow in 2023. Read on and find out which ones meet your needs the best.

Basecamp

Basecamp may not be an app made specifically for web development, but it's still worth mentioning because of how much it can help streamline your workflow. This project management tool allows you to organize a variety of tasks, communicate with other team members and collaborators, and keep track of project progress – all in one place.

Suppose you want to cooperate with Go software development services or any other remote team. All you need to do is add members to a project in Basecamp, and everyone will be able to see what's going on with each task at all times. 

Aside from that, overseeing everything from one place makes working on a website much more manageable.

Sublime Text

Sublime Text is a powerful cross-platform text editor widely used for web development. It supports multiple programming languages, including HTML and CSS, and has an easy-to-use user interface with tons of customization options. This makes it ideal for coding quickly without sacrificing readability or efficiency.

What makes Sublime Text stand out is its plugin system, which lets you add to the editor's features. You can use plugins for everything from code completion to syntax checking and many more in between.

After long hours of non-stop coding, you can also rest assured knowing that Sublime Text has a powerful search and replace feature to help you quickly find whatever you need at the moment.

Chrome Dev Tools

When it comes to making your day more convenient, Chrome Dev Tools are a must-have for all web developers. This tool is included in the Google Chrome browser and allows you to inspect and debug your code quickly, view page elements, change CSS styles on the fly, and more.

Chrome Dev Tools also come with an integrated JavaScript console that lets you measure the performance of your website or application, allowing you to optimize it accordingly. You can use this feature to pinpoint specific parts of your code on which optimization efforts should be focused for better results.

Adobe Dreamweaver CC

When it comes to web development, Adobe Dreamweaver CC is another excellent option. This popular software has been around for a while and provides developers with the tools they need to create stunning websites quickly and easily. While it isn't a tool made for large and complex projects, it still offers many features that can make web development much more straightforward.

Dreamweaver CC lets you work with both HTML and CSS and preview your code in real-time to see how it looks on different devices. In addition, it comes with an integrated FTP client that lets you quickly upload files to your server and a built-in code editor with syntax highlighting and auto-completion.

Sass (Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets)

Sass is a preprocessor language that helps developers save lots of time. It's designed to make writing CSS nearly effortless and more efficient by providing shortcuts – variables, nesting, and mixins, for example – and all these can be a great time-saver.

Sass puts emphasis on clean code, too. It will compress your code for you, meaning that it'll reduce the size of the final CSS file to improve page loading speed. It also supports multiple syntaxes, which means that you can choose whichever works best for you and start writing in no time.

Notion

At first glance, Notion is just another note-taking app. However, it's much more than that. This tool allows you to create documents and databases for everything from your web development tasks to design drafts or code snippets. 

The embedded array of templates lets you create new pages quickly – and if that's not enough, you can make your own models! As a result, you can quickly get started on your knowledge base or time-tracking page.

What makes Notion particularly useful is its integration with other apps, such as Dropbox and Google Calendar. As such, you can access all the information you need without leaving Notion. Last but not least, you can easily collaborate with other teams using quick links while still maintaining granular control over who has access to your data.

Team Compass

Team Compass is an onboarding and project management tool designed to help teams work better together. This app makes it easy to keep your web development projects organized by allowing you, as the team leader, to assign tasks and track progress in real-time – from daily objectives to quarterly goals.

It also comes with an interactive dashboard that you can customize according to your needs. Here, you'll be able to access project progress, such as individual and team performance reports, budgeting information, or contact lists, all of which will help streamline the web development process.

In Conclusion

Streamlining your web development workflow is all about finding the right tools for the job. Keeping track of all these different applications can be a daunting task, but it's an integral part of improving your efficiency and getting better results in less time.

Whether you need an app like Notion to organize your notes or Sublime Text to write high-quality code, the tools on this list should be enough to help you out. Just make sure that whatever tool you choose serves the purpose of making your workflow smoother and faster. Happy developing!