June 2016 - Design Lab

We are avid users of WordPress, we think there is no other website platform that offers the flexibility of speeding up WordPress, but every now and then comes along a new platform that is meant to wow us all, and PageCloud could be it? Let’s try and find the best platform to create a website using WordPress Vs PageCloud. PageCloud is a very new company that has been making a real big buzz and WordPress is the most popular platform.

What is PageCloud?
Page Cloud is web design software for dummies, it provides a What You See is What You Get (WYSWYG) editor for making all sorts of creative designs. It’s goal is to give the whole world the ability to create and share information without using web developers or coders (so there goes that industry).

What is WordPress?
WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and a content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL.

Let’s look at the design comparison

PageCloud
The goal is to allow users to customise up to 90% of their website. If you designed your site in Photoshop, you can easily copy layers out of any desktop design tool and paste it directly onto your pages. With PageCloud you can drag/copy video, widgets, images, spreadsheet charts and text directly onto your site.

WordPress
WordPress is not really a builder, it’s all about installing. WithWordPress you are able to install over thousands of complex themes. Both WordPress and PageCloud require no coding. There is no theme that you can’t find. You can create a Facebook styled theme, video blog styled theme, etc. You are guaranteed to find the perfect design for your website or blog.

With WordPress you don’t need to know HTML, but if you do have coding skills, then you can put them to the test. For a beginner it will take you 5 minutes to create a WordPress website because SiteGround has an automatic WordPress installation wizard. See here how to install it.

Price comparison

There is difference when it comes to price. PageCloud costs around $20 a month, which is a little on the expensive side. The good thing about WordPress is that it is free. The only thing that you need to do is get hosting and domain name registration.

Domain names

PageCloud does allow you to have a custom domain, but you have to go buy one from a domain registrar, and then they will explain to you how to point it at your PageCloud site.

Ownership comparison

When you choose your own hosting, you won’t have to worry about deleting or shutting your site down. This is why people choose WordPress, PageCloud, Squarespace, Tumblr and Wix. With WordPress you own it, and you don’t have to worry about your hard work being gone one day.

Make sure that you have your own servers and you’re not on someone else’s servers. If you read the PageCloud terms of service you will see that they reserve the right to remove your content. This is not uncommon when you don’t have your own servers.

PageCloud’s Terms below:

2.2 License to Your Stuff. You grant us, for as long as you use the Services, a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to host, copy, transmit, display, and use Your Stuff in connection with the Services.

2.3 Content Removal. You are solely responsible for Your Stuff and your use of the Services. We don’t pre-screen Your Stuff, but we and our designees (including our third-party vendors and hosting partners) have the right (but not the obligation) in our sole discretion to access, review, and monitor Your Stuff, Your Site, or any information on or made available through the Services, and if we determine in our sole and reasonable discretion, that Your Stuff violates our Acceptable Use Policy, we reserve the right to refuse, remove or delete Your Stuff, without notice.

Flexibility comparison

WordPress

WordPress is flexible. There is no other website platform that can outdo WordPress when it comes it’s flexibility. Not only does WordPress have standard features that makes your site ready to go in minutes, but they also have 30,000 of plugins that extend what your site can do. With over that many plugins you can do anything that you want. You can start an e-commerce shop, real estate listings, photography and many more.

You can start a video or music site. All that you need to do is go to the plugins section and install them mostly for free. One of the first plugins that I like installing is a SEO plugin named Yoast to boost in the search engines. Then a cache plugin for speed.

PageCloud

This is something that you will not be able to do with PageCloud. It is not spoilt in features. They offer just a regular drag and drop builder, but they don’t offer any add-ons. Plugins are such a fun part of creating a website because you get to show your creativity. PageCloud does have a very fast spot-edit though, but once again don’t expect a site that is heavy in features. WordPress is far better for the future because it lets your site grow easily.

SEO comparison
PageCloud has common SEO options like page keywords, descriptions, page titles, file name, H tags, image ALT tags, etc.

WordPress has full SEO features. You can change your breadcrumbs, URL structure,heading tags, sitemaps, image optimisation and so on. On top of that you are able to install SEO plugins.

Many popular sites are using Yoast to achieve high rankings and it is only available with WordPress. You are also able to install cache plugins that will give your site a speed boost. If you want SEO features than there is no other than WordPress.

Popularity comparison
The keyword “PageCloud” has around 18 – 20,000 monthly searches.

The keyword “WordPress” has 2,700,000 monthly searches.

WordPress powers over 25% of the entire web. There is no other platform that comes close to this, and we believe that no other platform ever will.

Support and documentation

PageCloud

PageCloud has an answers page filled with plenty of information. You will not be lacking with their library of articles. It also has a great community forum. And they have a very quick responsive email support.

WordPress

WordPress is a large company, so it has a much larger amount of support and documentation. It has more users, more forums, more videos.

The verdict: The best for your next website.

PageCloud is not something that we haven’t seen before. There is nothing that you can get withPageCloud that you can’t get with WordPress. PageCloud is new so it needs time to grow. It does have potential, but right now WordPress is clearly (and will always be) the best.

WordPress has far better SEO options, more flexibility, more support, cheaper pricing options, more design options (I can go on). I don’t know how anyone can choose PageCloud over WordPress? We have been using WordPress for years, and it has been a blessing. We can create any type of site that suits the needs of our clients.

Talk to Spiros on 0431 926 575 anytime for your WordPress website.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a important component of any website. As a web designer or graphic designer, it’s important you understand how SEO works. There is in fact a serious lack of resources for designers who don’t know about SEO out there. Here are some easy SEO NJ tips for designers that will immediately improve the SEO on all of your websites.

Tip 1: Do Not Cheat

Do you think you could outsmart a room full of genius scientists with PHDs? No. Google has many genius scientists with PHDs, and their job is to work tiring hours a week to make sure you can’t fool Google. No matter, what you do, you can’t outsmart them. Just ignore trying to cheat Google and focus on making a web site with great content, and your site will show up fine in the search engine.

Tip 2: Use Your Keywords

Pick some keywords or phrases that describe your website. Use words related to them, whenever it’s natural to do so. Repeating keywords is no good, use them in headlines, sentences and links.

Tip 3: Yes, Content is King

Users search for content. If your website doesn’t have the content people want, then no one will look at it. It’s that simple.

Each page should lead with a relevant H1 tag with one of your keywords, and the first paragraph of text should be a summary of the rest of the page.

Tip 4: Clean Code is Searchable Code

Build your website and write clean and readable HTML. It should follow the conceptual structure of your page, this means navigation is first, followed by the H1 tag, then the first paragraph. Try to use descriptive tags when possible. For example using UL for lists, P for paragraphs, H tags for heads and STRONG for bolded text.

Your site can still look great, this is why you CSS.

Tip 5: Home Page is the Most Important Page

The home page is the secret to your website being found by Google. It has to summarise the rest of the site, and give a clear, compelling reason for a user to look at the other pages in the site. It needs to sell your product or company, see it like a advert. You have one shot only to attract the buyer.

Tip 6: Links Need to Have Meaning

Links

Search engines do pay a lot of attention to the links on your website. Never use words like “click here” or “see more” for a link. The link text needs to describe where the link will take the user, for example “examples of CSS web design” or “learn how you can improve your SEO.”

The more relevant the links on a page, the easier to find the page becomes. Don’t go overboard, and don’t link to anything irrelevant.

Tip 7: Title Tags

Every page in your website should have a title with the site name and a short description of the page. About 70 letters in total. Include one keyword. Remember the page title is what appears in Google’s search results, it should give your user a reason to click on it.

Your navigation links should have title attributes that match the titles of your pages. This looks like <a title=”name of page” href=”link”>. It’s a small thing, but it will give you a significant SEO improvement.

Tip 8: Alt Tags Do Matter

Every image on your website needs to have an alt tag, especially images that are relevant to the page. If your page is focused on clothes for example, then label a screenshot “car for sale”, this will improve your page’s searchability. Labelling it “Pic-001” or “image” will not help.

Tip 9: Ignore Meta Tags

A long time ago meta tags were the secret to good searchable SEO. Those days are behind us now. The only meta tag that really matters now is the description tag. Some search engines may use it to provide the text under the link to your page in their results, but make sure it describes the page in a way that explains why a user searching for your content would want to look at your page.

Tip 10: Must have a Site Map

Just make sure you have a site map. This is an xml file that describes the breakdown of pages in your website. Make one, and upload it to Google.

Just remember that search engines are designed to find what a user want. This means the best way to make your site findable is to design it for a dummy (make it dummy proof). Your job as a web designer is to solve a problem, not make art, or feed your ego.

Your problem is to provide your users with a website that is easy to use and have helpful information for what they’re looking for. If you can do that, then the search engines will find you.

I recommend this page also SEO Guide for Designers.

Posts archive for June, 2016

WordPress vs PageCloud