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WordPress plugins:
- ShortPixel
: This handy plugin allows you to compress your images even more. This is absolutely critical in the SEO game as it allows your site to be far more responsive, minimizing the bounce rate from bored visitors. More responsive sites are also preferred by Google and Bing. At the time of writing, ShortPixel is one of the best tools out there and provides you with 100 image compressions per month for free. If you use our link, we get 100 free image compressions for free per month as well.
WordPress themes:
- Acabado by IncomeSchool: This theme is designed with their SEO style in mind: the layout needs to be clean and appealing, the theme must be responsive, with enough features to satisfy most bloggers and yet the resulting website must be stupidly fast.
Domain name providers:
It is often simpler to buy the domain name at the same time as the webhosting. This can save some effort down the road as all of the required settings are at a single location. However, when deciding the best approach, always look at the upfront fee and the renewal fee. Sometimes the supplier makes a loss in the first year and recoups it in the next decade.
It is always possible to change supplier after the initial purchase is done by transferring the domain name to a new supplier.
Best Web Hosting:
Choosing a website hosting company is possibly one of the hardest decisions that one makes early on in the development of a website. Do you go with a big brand with lots of advertising, or for a cheaper brand? Do you go for a local host, or one in another country?
Most people will do a basic search :website hosting”or “top 10 website hosting platforms”or maybe even “free web hosting” and select a solution based on some arbitrary list or personal affinity.
There are 2 main factors to consider when choosing a web host:
- Up time or availability. The cheapest, fastest provider with the most bells and whistles may not have the same up-time as a less flashy partner. Up-time is basically a promise by the supplier that your site will be available whenever a person searches for it. In the end, that is what you want when you plant your flag on the internet – a fair chance at being discovered. For the best opportunities, select a web hosting service that guarantees at least 99.99% uptime. Sure, there may be occasions when your site is not available, but that will be the exception.
- Loading Speed: We live in a culture of convenience. This means that we expect to have what we want when we want and we mean “now!”. The speed at which your website loads is critical. Most people will get annoyed if they have to wait more than 2 seconds for your page to display, so the faster the web hosting server can deliver your page, the better. This will depend on 2 items from the server side:
- Location: While the world is connected, too often, we forget that this is only really true in the more developed countries and regions within those countries. For example, in the USA, several states are poorly covered by the internet that, outside the big cities, great internet access is not guaranteed. If you live in South Africa and plan to deliver content to Europe or the USA, you would be better served by choosing a web hosting company with a server in the USA or Europe. This means that the data has less distance to travel from the server to the customer. Creating your site will be marginally slower as your data has further to travel, but how often would that happen?
- Type of server: Modern servers a fast, using solid state drives to access the stored information as fast as possible. A single server may have to process thousands of instructions per second and retrieve data stored at many locations. If the web hosting company you partnered with uses older and slower technology, your site will have a performance hit. They just run that much slower…
| Provider | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| Bluehost | + Best uptime (99.99%) + Top 5 speed (400ms) + One-Click Install for WordPress + Free Domain Name for first year + 24/7 support (chat and phone) | – Renewal price can be more expensive, so if you plan to be serious, try buying a 3-year package to lock in the savings. – 50GB storage in basic plan. This sounds like a lot and will be fine for the first few years. You will reach this cap once the site has enough pages with 3-4 images on each. |
| GoDaddy | + Good Uptime (99.97%) + Good load time (99.97%) + 100 GB website storage + Uptime guarantee for 99.90% + Cheaper renewal fees | – No site transfer – SSL & email costs extra – Lots of upsells – Slightly more expensive upfront |
| HostGator | + Best uptime (99.99%) + Top 5 speed (398ms) + Free website transfer + Multiple datacenter locations (helps with speed) + No bandwidth or storage limit + Free Domain Name for first year | – Higher renewal cost |
| Hostinger | + Top 5 load times (345ms) + Really cheap ($0.99/mo) + Datacenters in US, Europe and Asia + Cheap renawals | – No Free Domain Name. At this price, does it matter? – Limited Bandwidth on the cheapest plan. Not such an issue when you are just launching your site. – Slightly lower uptime (99.5%) |
| WestHost | + Great uptime (99.98%) + Cheap Pricing + Free Cloudflare CDN + Backups included | – Much Slower (881ms) – No free SSL or Domain Name – No CPanel or auto-installs |
Free Images:
Most images found on the web are copyrighted, to be careful when using them. Generally speaking, an image that is heavily manipulated and no longer references the original may pass the test of being unique. However, why take the risk when one can just make use of these free resources in exchange for a brief mention:
- Pexels: This site is an absolute gem, with many well stocked categories and an easy attribution policy. The risk though is of taking them for granted, so if you use many pictures from Pexels, why not create an acknowledgement page to give something back to the community.
- Pixabay: This is the first site I can across. The images are great, though somewhat limited and often the pages I searched included Shutterstock images, which does extend the scope but moves one firmly into the paying category. The attribution requirements are a bit more stringent.
- Freepik: This site is great for more advanced images such as those used in posters or info products, often being totally synthetic, but definitely modern and eye-catching. The attribution requirements are also fairly stringent, yet flexible and should one prefer, there is a premium option, which is paid for but has much better products on offer.
- Shutterstock: This is possibly the best known image resource on the net, where for a small fee one can download an image or for that matter a monthly subscription is more economical for heavy users. There is a free though watermarked option if one does not mind.