ionadas local Blog

Local Marketing, WordPress and SEO
  • Are WordPress Websites Slow?

    The more simple answer to this is, “Maybe, but it depends a lot on your implementation.”

    Without question, a WordPress website will be slower than an identical website running on static HTML (all else equal). A WordPress site is dynamically generated by PHP scripts calling content from a database, while a static website must simply serve HTML pages and their accompanying media files.

    But, a WordPress site need not be slow, in an absolute sense. There are many steps you can take to make it faster.

    First of all, use a quality website hosting service. For a simple WordPress site, any well-regarded host will probably suffice, but I’m a fan of WP Engine. Their hosting really screams, even with very complex sites.

    Next, there are a number of plugins that can help your sites speed.

    1) WP-Optimize
    As sites get larger and/or older, there tends to be a lot of legacy entries in the database. This plugin cleans up that old data, leaving a smaller, faster database.

    2) Smush
    This plugin can reduce the file size of a website’s images, leading to much faster loading.

    3) Autoptimize
    With this plugin, you can improve your website’s speed by optimizing JS, CSS, HTML and more.

    There are alternatives to each of these plugins, but I’ve used each to great success.


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  • How do I manage my WordPress site?

    The single most important aspect of managing your WordPress site is to keep both WordPress and all plugins up to date. Both can have security vulnerabilities, and many security breaches are via older versions of WordPress or plugins.

    Beyond that, you need to stay abreast of industry developments. Many of these are mandated by Google, so if you keep any eye on their recommendations to webmasters, you’ll usually know what is happening.

    Examples of changes mandated by Google over the last few years include:

    • Mobile readiness
    • Server and page load speed
    • Secure serving via https

    If you do not wish to have the hassle of maintaining your site, please feel free to ask us about our WordPress administration services.


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  • What is NAP in Local SEO?

    NAP, in local SEO parlance, is an abbreviation of Name, Address and Phone number.

    When a web page refers to a company’s NAP, Google decides whether to consider that reference as a citation. Google uses citations to determine how important a company’s Google My Business listing is.


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  • What are local SEO citations?

    Put simply, a citation for local SEO is reference to a company’s Name, Address and Phone number (NAP in local SEO parlance) from a web page that Google knows and trusts. This is often from online databases such as Yelp or BBB, but can be from just about anywhere, really.

    Google uses these citations to determine the relative importance of a company. In short, the more citations you have, and the more important those site’s making the citation are, the more important the company is seen.

    The importance of a company is used, along with location and topical relevance, to determine rankings in Google against all the other business listings.

    A citation need not have an accompanying link, but it certainly won’t hurt.


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  • Gordon Deal Interview

    Brian Combs, founder of ionadas local LLC, was interviewed this morning by Gordon Deal for his podcast, The Small Business Report with Gordon Deal.

    Gordon and Brian discussed how WordPress can be used to empower small business owners to manage their own websites. It should run on Friday, and will be linked from here.


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