WordPress is the largest website-hosting platform in the world. With that comes a lot of eyes and expectations. For your WordPress website to function optimally with little or no issues, you will need to install appropriate plugins. Some examples of essential plugins include a backup plugin, security plugin, and cache plugin. It is highly recommended that you install a cache plugin, as this plugin is essential to the overall speed and functionality of the website. 

For old and new WordPress users who want to speed up their WordPress site, two popular cache plugins are often at the top of any list; WP-Optimize and WP Fastest Cache. But which one is the more effective cache plugin? As you will read in this blog, both WP-Optimize and WP Fastest Cache are great plugins that are used and recommended by people all over the world. But as you would expect, not all cache plugins are created equal. While there are premium version of both plugins available with lots of additional extra features and tools, this blog will compare the features available via the free versions. 

What is a cache system?

Essentially, a cache system is the rendered WordPress page that requires PHP and MySQL. The system will also need good RAM and CPU settings. However good the RAM and CPU may be, you could find that as your visitor numbers increase, users will need and consume larger and larger amounts. As a consequence of this, your pages/site will begin to render more slowly. This can be bad news for your site as Google ranks the speed of your site as one of the primary factors in its search ranking algorithm. 

As such it is highly recommended that you use a cache plugin to help improve the load time of your page – which can help improve your Google SEO ranking as a result. 

WP-Optimize

WP-Optimize is simply outstanding in how it works. The plugin is an all-in-one platform that cam perform the following tasks quickly and easily:

• Database cleaning
• Site caching
• CSS and JS minification
• Image compression

Having racked up more than one million active installations, WP-Optimize is a powerful, successful and popular plugin you should install to keep your website in the best possible shape. 

WP Fastest Cache

WP Fastest Cache is also a highly popular WordPress caching plugin that is mostly known for its simplicity. Although it also has a free version available for download, the major features most users may require – such as Mobile Cache, Widget Cache, Minify HTML Plus, Minify CSS Plus, Minify JS, Combine JS Plus, Defer Javascript, Optimize Images, Convert WebP, Database Cleanup, Google Fonts Async, and Lazy Load are only available in the premium version. 

The free version is fine to use if you just want to make some quick gains in the loading times for your WordPress site. However, as someone that wants to fully optimize your site, ‘fine’ isn’t the greatest accolade when other plugins can do so much more.

WP-Optimize and WP Fastest Cache: Feature comparison

Why is WP-Optimize a better overall caching plugin than WP Fastest Cache?

It offers more features

WP-Optimize offers more features for free. Everything from the compression of large images, to database cleaning, to site caching, is accessible on your WordPress site once you install WP-Optimize. WP Fastest Cache only provides a very limited list of features and provides the more useful and important features via it’s premium plugin. 

WP-Optimize comes with a database optimization feature

Redundant website content, including trash comments and discarded drafts are wiped clean to help keep things faster and more smoothly. WP Fastest Cache does not offer this feature via it’s free version.  

WP-Optimize compresses large websites images

With the free version of the WP-Optimize plugin, you can determine the final sizes and format of your images. All you have to do is set it to your preferred settings. WP Fastest Cache only has this feature available in its premium version. 

WP Optimize has a great customer support

With more than one million global users and thousands of 5-star ratings, WP-Optimize is committed to bringing you the best user experience possible.

Conclusion 

We encourage users to use both WP-Optimize and WP Fastest cache and evaluate the relative performance of both. While both plugins are extremely popular and both have their supporters and detractors, WP-Optimize offers a far wider range of important features that combined can help make your site run faster. This in turn can help improve your SEO score, which can lead to a higher Google ranking, more success and more interactions with your visitors.

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Your site might have lots of traffic, but if your website conversion rates are down, your bottom line will take a huge hit. It’s absolutely crucial to optimize your web design and site functionality to increase your conversion rates. All your efforts to drive traffic, like SEO or digital marketing will be futile, if that traffic will bounce away uninterested.

Website conversions are a direct indicator of sales volume. A conversion can be a click on a ‘Call to Action’ button, adding a product to a shopping cart, filling a lead generation form, or simply providing an email address to sign up for a newsletter. The ultimate conversion will always be buying a product, but you can have multiple conversions along the marketing funnel.

What is your website conversion rate? 

Conversion rate is the percentage of your web visitors that complete your desired goal. It’s a direct function of the usability and branding of your website. 

There are of course a host of tactics you can employ to improve conversion rate and SEO ranking – such as continuously improving and updating your site with new content, products, deals, videos, blogs etc. A stagnant website will miss out on many opportunities to increase revenue and fall down the SEO ranking order.

CRO – or conversion rate optimization, uses the traffic you already have to drive conversions, instead of increasing traffic to your website. This is the best way to get the most bang for your marketing buck and once you have a higher-converting website, you can start investing in driving traffic again.

Image Source

Here are eight practical and proven ways to improve website conversion rates:

1.   Use pictures

Image optimization can help instantly communicate your value proposition better than most copy. Rarely does anyone have time to read your product descriptions in full, but if you’re lucky enough to find a picture that tells all, you can change their mind and convince a potential customer to buy your product from a host of rivals. 

If you have an online video conferencing service for example, you can show a potential customer how they would look during a web meeting. Such an image will help engage the visitor further and allow you to guide them down the sales funnel with further engagement.

Here are some tips for choosing images:

1. Choose images of people using your products and not just an image of your products.
2. Don’t use stock photos, use Google advanced image search. Or better still create your own photos.
3. Edit your photos to get the best optimization and loading speed
4. Test images for landing pages
5. Choose responsive images that attract attention

2.   Include reviews, links and ratings

Customer testimonials, star ratings and reviews all play an important role in influencing buying decisions. This is due to the phenomenon of social proof, whereby consumers believe more in a product if others are also buying, using and enjoying it. 

Leveraging social proof can be one of your biggest assets to increase trust in your brand and ultimately increase ecommerce traffic and sales.

Ensuring your brand story has social proof to support it is essential to building credibility. Incorporating social proof into your web design is a fail-safe marketing strategy. 

Add customer testimonials next to your product descriptions to show potential customers that your product has been used and highly rated by others. Customers tend to be sceptical by nature, adding the element of social proof increases their confidence and can help convince them that your brand is worth investing in. Social proof on your landing pages can also be a big source of conversions and can enhance engagement on your website.

3.   Make conversions smaller commitments

It’s a busy world and if you have a higher bounce rate, it could be because the actions needed to convert are too time consuming. 

Understand that time is money and people have short attention spans. People are commitment averse; they would rather put 10 items in their shopping cart than immediately buy one.

Ask your customers for smaller commitments, especially if you have a service company or sell expensive products that require special consideration. Changing your CTA buttons to softer alternatives to immediate purchases can work wonders. 

For instance, changing a “Buy now” button to “Book a free consultation” is much friendlier for the commitment-phobic because it reassures the user that a conversation is the next step, not an ultimate purchase.

A recent test found that simply changing a main call to action to “Contact seller” from “Buy now” increased conversion rates by 73%.

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4.   Optimize UX design and copy

UX design or the user experience of your web design is perhaps the biggest decider of where a user will land. Make sure your website can be navigated smoothly and seamlessly. A great UX design is essential to increase website conversion rates.

The copy of your website goes hand in hand with your UX. Use active language and provide clickable options so users can go where they want without too much work. Expose primary navigation items at all times, so people can move through the website at will.

5.   Reduce fields in contact forms

One of the primary ways to gain leads is to have people sign up via contact forms. Filling out these forms though can be a hassle. If your form has too many fields, people might skip signing up altogether. Remove as many barriers as possible.

Let a potential customer know the benefits of filling out a form. Set out expectations so you don’t fall short. Make sure your contact forms are conversational and friendly. Forms with too many fields are intimidating and people are often wary about giving out too much personal information.

Stick to fields that are necessary for conversion and do away with all the fluff that makes form filling a hassle. You should hopefully then find that your contact form submissions will increase.

6.   Optimize customer support

Customers are more likely to buy when their concerns are addressed during their initial “buying” period, which is usually under a minute. You should have a support team available to handle queries via live chat and other channels, and have an automated system like automatic call distribution that can send the queries and questions to the relevant departments in the case of any phone calls.

Interactive voice response (IVR) is another tech example to consider to support any phone-based customer support. IVR is a form of speech recognition technology that allows customers to interact with an organization’s contact center with the minimum of fuss.

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7.   Optimize for mobile

Given the amount of traffic that is now sourced from mobile phones, it is important that you have a dedicated mobile format for your website. Failure to do this could result in a huge chunk of your potential customers being lost. 

It is important that your mobile website is responsive and optimized for mobile use, which means button sizes and font sizes should be designed to work on mobile devices. Remember to be creative with mobile marketing – if done right and integrated with social media apps, it can help improve your conversion rate.

Make sure to also optimize any newsletters, e-mails and anything that goes through an SMTP for mobile, as they can result in new leads if formatted correctly. 

8.   Strengthen your ‘call to action’ point

The following guidelines can help create call to actions (CTAs) that will increase website conversion rates, as the right CTA can be all that’s needed to set you apart:           

• Have a clear and bright CTA on the landing page. 
• Keep your CTA simple and use active language to communicate value and urgency.
• Personalize your CTAs – Personalized CTAs perform 202% better than basic CTAs.
• Don’t use multiple CTAs on each page.
• Attract attention to CTAs by using pop ups. But remember not to be intrusive or disruptive to the customer experience.

Test before you launch

The eight examples listed above can all help boost your site performance, but all updates and changes to your site need to be tested after implementation. 

Perform A/B testing on every change you make. Web design requires you to be on your toes and make changes every so often to optimize the content, while resolving any ‘pain points’ customers may be experiencing.

When embarking on your continuous conversion rate optimization (CRO) journey, using process discovery could also be invaluable. It can help you discover processes you may be able to automate in the future to improve the user experience of your website to reduce bounce rates, gain more leads and enhance conversion rates.

Once you have reached the point where your website resonates with your target audience, you can use a SaaS retargeting strategy to directly tackle those that do not convert. This method targets that part of your traffic that bounced and shows them ads to help drive them back to your website and hopefully convert. 

If you follow all the advice above, test as you go and investigate how tech can assist you along the way, your conversion rates should improve accordingly. 

Patty Yan

Patty is the EMEA Product Marketing Manager for RingCentral Office

The post 8 ways to boost your WordPress website conversion rates appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.

We cannot overemphasize the need to backup your WordPress website. Many people have learnt the hard way how easy it is to delete essential information on their website or the entire site by clicking one button. That doesn’t have to be you. In this blog post, we will compare two WordPress backup plugins: UpdraftPlus and WP DB, as well as show you why the former is superior and ranks the best in the world. But first, what are UpdraftPlus and WP DB Backup?

UpdraftPlus

With more than three million current active users, UpdraftPlus is the most popular and highest-ranking WordPress backup plugin. To put it simply, UpdraftPlus is the best backup plugin in the world. 

The plugin doesn’t just simplify users’ databases and files backup process, it also makes the restoration as seamless as possible. With a single click of a button, everything you need to back up and restore your WordPress site is safely stowed away on the cloud. 

What’s more, with UpdraftPlus your backup can be uploaded into multiple cloud services including Dropbox, Google Drive, and Amazon S3 (or compatible).

Installing and using Updraftplus is essentially saying goodbye to the consequences of crashed servers, hacking attempts and common user glitches on your WordPress site. 

WP DB Backup

Also known as WordPress database, WP DB Backup backs-up your WordPress site database only. More basic information, such as passwords and usernames are also retained. It also stores your themes, configuration preferences, pages, posts and accompanying comments. 

While it may not be nearly as versatile as UpdraftPlus, it can serve you well in some situations, especially if your website security needs are minimal.  

Similarities between UpdraftPlus and WP DB Backup

Before we get into the details on how UpdraftPlus is superior to WP DB Backup (and every other backup plugin for that matter), it’s worth noting that they share some similarities – albeit slight. They are as follows: 

Automatic backups

Both UpdraftPlus and WP DB Backup share a feature that allows the user to backup their WordPress site automatically, as well as restore it – should they ever need to. To take advantage of this, you will have to schedule the backups to run on their own. 

This is one way to ensure that all recent changes are saved regularly. That is to say, backups will be automatic on your website at regular intervals. It should be noted however, that UpdraftPlus packs more automatic backup features than WP DB Backup. 

Easy configuration

Both plugins are very easy to configure and use, although UpdraftPlus is noticeably easier to install, configure and navigate. First time users and experts alike will have very little or no drawback with using both backup plugins. 

Why you should use the UpdraftPlus backup plugin

UpdraftPlus and WP DB Backup are used daily by businesses and individuals all over the world. Regardless of this, it is clear that they are not in the same league. UpdraftPlus is simply the best backup plugin available. 

Here’s why: 

It’s rated number 1 in the world

One way to pick a functional backup plugin for your WordPress website is to check how they are rated on WordPress.org. You do the same for any type of plugin, whether it’s image optimization or caching. This allows users to get a good impression on the quality of a particular plugin.

With more than 3 million active users, UpdraftPlus has a 5-star rating by 5,570 reviewers and currently ranks number 1 in the world. WP DB Backup on the other hand, doesn’t come anywhere close. 

UpdraftPlus features incremental backups

Trying to backup your whole site in one go can weigh down on your server and slow down your website’s process. By using the incremental backup option, the UpdraftPlus backup plugin is able to split your site into only the latest updates/changes, so you do not have to keep uploading the whole site and putting a large work-load on the server. WP DB Backup doesn’t employ this incremental backup option, which makes it considerably less efficient. 

UpdraftPlus has more cloud storage options

Like WP DB Backup, UpdraftPlus features multiple cloud storage options. However, while WP DB Backup supports only email, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Amazon S3 – UpdraftPlus supports more options including email, Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3 (or compatible), UpdraftVault, Rackspace Cloud, FTP, DreamObjects, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Storage, Backblaze B2, SFTP, SCP, WebDAV, and Openstack Swift. 

UpdraftPlus backups both databases and files

While the WP DB Backup plugin only backups databases, UpdraftPlus backups both databases and core files, as well as the non-WordPress files of your site. While the WP DB Backup only restores the databases, UpdraftPlus can restore the entire site – containing both databases and files. This just goes to show that UpdraftPlus is a better backup plugin for anyone that is serious about backing up their site. 

Conclusion

Although WP DP Backup is a good option – UpdraftPlus is without a doubt the better WordPress backup plugin. It comes fully packed with every backup feature you could need. There may be many to pick from out there, but if you want the best backup plugin for your WordPress website, UpdraftPlus is your best bet. 

The post UpdraftPlus vs. WP DB Backup: Which is the best WordPress backup plugin? appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.

It is late November again, which can mean only one thing. Black Friday is upon us. A time traditionally when shoppers would be trampling over each other in search of the biggest and best bargains before Christmas.

Thankfully, with UpdraftPlus, you won’t have to brave the scrum of the local shopping centre – as we are bringing the deals directly to you.

This Black Friday we are giving everyone a 20% discount for all of our major products.

20% off UpdraftPlus Premium subscription. Use the code: BFUDP20
20% off Easy Updates Manager: Use the code EUM21SiteBF
20% off WP-Optimize Premium : Use the code: WPO21BF
20% off UpdraftCentral: Use the code: Central20BF
20% off UpdraftClone Tokens: Use the code: BFClone20

This includes UpdraftPlus. The biggest, most popular and most trusted WordPress backup plugin available. With millions of active users, UpdraftPlus is the number one backup plugin for a reason. Buy UpdraftPlus premium today using the 20% off code in the description below and enjoy total peace of peace of mind and security – should your site ever crash or get hacked.

But that’s not all! Another offer we have is 20% off WP-Optimize Premium – the revolutionary, all-in-one plugin that can help optimize and speed up your WordPress site by cleaning your database, compressing your large images and caching your site.

There is also a 20% off code available for UpdraftClone tokens – an incredibly useful service that allows users to create a cloned test site instantly and directly from UpdraftPlus. 

We also have 20% off UpdraftCentral – A hosted WordPress management solution that makes it quicker and easier than ever to use UpdraftPlus. With UpdraftCentral, you can manage your WordPress plugin and theme updates and backup and restore all your WordPress websites from one central dashboard.

 And finally, we have Easy Updates Manager Premium – An incredibly useful plugin that allows users to automatically keep their sites up to date and bug-free. The Premium version.gives users a range of enhancements and extended features that make a great plugin even better. 

Remember to get your 20% off, just copy the code for your purchase and paste it in the coupon code box to receive your Black Friday discount. 

The post UpdraftPlus Black Friday sale appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.

A WordPress backup plugin is something anyone that owns and runs a WordPress based website should have installed. We have all heard stories of those unfortunate people that have spent a significant amount of time and money on their site, only to lose everything due to an unexpected crash. Once your site has gone, it is almost impossible to retrieve and restore it back to its former working version. There is a simple way however to prevent this; by installing a WordPress backup plugin.

In this blog, we will compare and review two of the most popular WordPress backup and restore plugins: UpdraftPlus and BackWPup.

When looking for any kind of plugin, be it a backup service, caching, image optimization etc, WP.org should always be your first stop. Here you can check out all the most popular and highly rated plugins. When comparing the best backup plugins WP.org has to offer. 

UpdraftPlus currently ranks at number 1, with over 3 million active installs and a top rated 5 star ranking from 5,570 reviews. 

BackWPup is currently ranked 3rd in WP.org, with 700,000 active installs, a 4.5 star rating from 984 reviews. 

From the WP.org ranking and reviews, we can see that UpdraftPlus isn’t only above BackWPup in the backup rankings, but it comes in at number 1 in the overall rankings for the hugely competitive ‘backup’ plugin market – even above Automattic’s own Jetpack backup plugin. 

Both plugins have been on the market for around 10 years, showing that they are established and that the developers have kept up with updates during that time. As both plugins offer free and premium versions, we will be evaluating and comparing the free options for UpdraftPlus and BackWPup as they offer similar services and options. 

Remote storage options

Even with the free version of UpdraftPlus, users are able to backup large sites and can use its proprietary cloud backup storage service. BackWPup does not have a proprietary storage option and have to be made via external backup locations, unless you have the space needed on your server. 

UpdraftPlus has a wide range of external remote storage backup options, including the following:

BackWPup does not offer such a wide range and leaves users limited to the following remote storage options:

UpdraftPlus has a clear advantage over BackWPup when it comes to remote storage options, with several big name backup locations that are missing from BackWPup. 

Encryption

When backing up your files and databases, UpdraftPlus utilizes advanced encryption techniques to help keep your backup secure and encrypts every database backup. If you transfer any of your files or databases to a remote cloud storage option, such as Google Drive, it will automatically encrypt the data, keeping it secure and safe. 

BackWPup also gives you the option to encrypt your files as you are backing up with symmetric and asymmetric procedures. However these procedures can be complex and difficult to follow, even with the instructions provided, making UpdraftPlus the better and easier option. 

Conclusion

If you review the rankings, features and services of UpdraftPlus and BackWPup, UpdraftPlus comes out as the clear winner in a straight comparison.

While the free version of UpdraftPlus offers various benefits and advantages over BackWPup, it has lots of additional features and add-ons that BackWPup lacks, such as UpdraftClone, Migrator and further remote storage options. This increased functionality gives users the option to take full control of their WordPress site with the UpdraftPlus plugin. As BackWPup has no property storage location or migration or cloning options in it’s premium version either, UpdraftPlus emerges as clearly the better and more user friendly plugin, with an extensive collection of additional functionality options, should you ever need them.

The post UpdraftPlus vs. BackWPup – Which is the best WordPress backup plugin? appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.

We may be slightly biased, but we believe that installing a reliable and user-friendly backup plugin is something everyone who has set-up and runs a WordPress site should do. There are so many backup plugins to choose from, that it can be difficult to figure out which is the right one for you. In this blog, we will compare two of the most popular and biggest WordPress backup plugins: UpdraftPlus and WP Vivid.

As you would do for any piece of software you are going to install, users should always check out the reviews and user feedback as it can give a ‘real-world’ analysis and level of usability better than any review could. Currently UpdraftPlus has over 3 million active installs, with a top mark 5 star ranking from 5,539 reviews. The UpdraftPlus plugin is being constantly updated, so you can be confident that no vulnerabilities or compatibility issues will arise. WP Vivid currently only has 100,000 active installs, also has a 5 star rating, but only has 474 reviews. WP Vivid, like UpdraftPlus has also received constant updates, removing any potential compatibility issues for newer versions of WordPress. 

In this comparison, we will be looking at the free version of UpdraftPlus and WP Vivid. There are several premium packages of UpdraftPlus and Vivid also available, offering similar services and features for similar prices.

Features

Both UpdraftPlus and WP Vivid offer many of the same features, including the following:

• Easy to backup your site at the press of a button
• WordPress site Migration – Copy your WordPress site and migrate it to a new domain.
• Staging sites – Both UpdraftPlus and WP Vivid allow you to create a clone of your site in order to create a staging site in which to test updates, new plugins etc.
• Backup schedule – Select how often you wish to backup your WordPress site and how many copies you wish to keep with this feature that is available in both plugins.
• Remote storage option – Both UpdraftPlus and WP Vivid allow you to choose from a selection of personal remote storage options.
• Simple restore with a single click – Just go to your backup and press restore. Both plugins will then restore your site.

Remote storage options

With the free version of UpdraftPlus and WP Vivid, you can either save it to the localhost – which saves your backup files to the same server your website is hosted on, or you can save it to a remote storage location. This gives the user an extra level of security, peace of mind and space needed for larger websites. 

UpdraftPlus remote storage options

• UpdraftPlus Vault
• DropBox
• Google Drive
• Amazon S3
• Dream Objects
• OpenStack Swift
• Rackspace
• SFTP, FTP and Email.

WP Vivid remote storage options

• Dropbox
• Google Drive
• Microsoft OneDrive
• Amazon S3, 
• DigitalOcean Spaces

As can be seen from the list above, UpdraftPlus gives users a more comprehensive list of backup options for the free version of the plugin. UpdraftPlus will also allow users to backup to their own email address. This is a feature that many users have found particularly useful, as it allows them to keep track of their backup records.

Conclusion

UpdraftPlus and WP Vivid are very similar backup plugin options and offer broadly the same kind of services and features. However, for extra peace of mind, confidence in a long standing market leader and a wider range of remote storage backup options, UpdraftPlus should be your first choice as your backup plugin.

UpdraftPlus allows you to easily, quickly and safely backup your website to the remote storage location of your choice and restore in just a press of a button. Download UpdraftPlus today and backup your WordPress site. 

Be sure to check out all of our WordPress backup comparison pages:

UpdraftPlus vs. BackupWordPress comparison
UpdraftPlus vs. BackupBuddy comparison
UpdraftPlus vs. Akeeba comparison
UpdraftPlus vs. Jetpack comparison 

Get it from	WordPress.Org	UpdraftPlus.Com Buy It Now!	Basic – Private website
Backup WordPress files and database
Translated into over 16 languages
Restore from backup
Backup to remote storage
Dropbox, Google Drive, FTP, S3, Rackspace, Email
Incremental Backups
Free 1Gb for UpdraftVault
WebDAV, Microsoft OneDrive, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, SFTP/SCP, encrypted FTP, BackBlaze
Backup extra files and databases
Migrate / clone (i.e. copy) websites
Basic email reporting
Advanced reporting features
Automatic backup when updating WP/plugins/themes
Send backups to multiple remote destinations
Database encryption
Restore backups from other plugins
No advertising links on settings page
Scheduled backups
Fix backup time
Network/Multisite support
Lock settings access
Browse backup contents in WordPress
Download individual files from backup in WordPress
Personal support
Run from WP-CLI
Restore a backup from other plugins

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