Over the last few years, we’re fortunate to see the user-friendliness of websites improve, and as our lives get busier, we almost demand websites to be faster. If that does not happen, we tend to move to the next website.

When a website does not load quickly or work in the way you want it to, you will head over to the next business website to help you. It’s the nature of the internet these days, and as business owners, we have to find a way to improve how our users or viewers experience our site.

It might be the case that it was a delayed server or the owner’s internet service provider was slow, but the end-user will always blame your site and move on.

The reality is that we cannot play the blame game when customers’ attention and purchasing power is at stake. As the blog owner, you must understand how well your site performs in most conditions, proactively planning for downtime, and introducing the right setting and support so that every user has a fantastic browsing experience.

The browsing experience then leads to a click over to buy something you’re selling on your site.

A new trend has emerged of late where websites are not that inclusive, excluding a large part of the internet community, and that is why a recent ruling has come into play leveraging a policy called ADA. That’s precisely the topic for this blog post, and we’ll discuss how to make your website accessible for all users. Before we get into the “how,” let’s look at what ADA is.

What is ADA compliance?

The first step to improving your website’s experience and making it accessible and user friendly for everyone is to review the needs of individuals with disabilities and aim to meet those needs. It might be for a few reasons that site owners have overlooked equitable access to websites.

Therefore, many individuals cannot access the website when there are incorrect settings and features. When sites are not compliant, they do not cater to individuals who suffer from various disabilities like ADHD, blindness, and other visual impairments. That’s the main reason that many mandates have had to be put in place.

This is important for the end-user and mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Previously these mandates were not given the attention it deserved; however, more focus has been placed here and affected the American and global markets. The question you might be asking at this point: “What are the repercussions of not following the mandates?”

Let’s review this in more detail.

When sites are not compliant, then there is potential for lawsuits to occur. An excellent example of this was highlighted by Forbes, in reference to when Netflix, the Sydney Olympic Games, and Domino’s pizza had cases for not following the ADA guidelines. These popular sites did not build in the correct settings and customizations for their websites to support and aid people with disabilities to enjoy their content.

As it stands as a business owner, the best way forward is to get compliant, and in the next section, we’ll look at how you can apply simple steps to do.

Now that you understand what is the ADA and how to get compliant, we can consider some solutions to getting your blog accessible. Let’s look at some of the best ways to go about doing this.

How to Make your Website Accessible

Responsive functioning

If this doesn’t ring a bell for you, don’t worry, we’ll explain in detail what it means and how you can improve this on your site. As its name suggests, it’s really about your website being able to react quickly and respond to the end-users needs.

This becomes more important in the digital age as more devices become available such as smartphones, smart TVs, and tablets. You can see that each device has its scale and size, and your site must output the content using the right resolution and dimensions.

Keep in mind that your end-user will be happy and have a pleasant experience, and your site’s ranking on Google will also improve. Google aims to provide equitable access for all its users, and that means that Google will support you as you improve your site using tools like Mobile Site Check, which you can find here. You input your website address, and it will show you how accessible your site is based on a variety of devices.

It works because if you meet all the regulations and needs as discussed in ADA and WCAG, then your site is considered compliant, and Google shows your site as “Mobile-friendly.” If not, you will get a reason for this and how you might improve and fix these issues.

Overall, when you apply these simple yet effective methods to make your site mobile responsive, your site will benefit its users, and you will also rank higher in the search engine ranking pages (SERPs).

Online support

Another way to improve accessibility is to make it as easy as possible for all visitors and customers to get in touch with your business quickly. You want to ensure that you offer email, phone, chat support, or a how-to guide easy to access on your site. This will improve site usability as well as engagement overall. 

We’ve all been there before, where you’re ready to buy something online, but you have a question. Unfortunately, the answer isn’t readily available, so you pause your order and wait for feedback. Usually, a customer will be doing the same things, and this leads to a lost customer.

You can see how this would affect your bottom line. But the good news is that artificial intelligence and chatbots are helping to pave the way in better support.

And while most of the time, the options will not be used, it’s always a good idea to offer channels to support your customers.

We recommend the following options for best results:

• Online chat service support / Messenger service
• Live phone support service
• Email support with the communicated turn around times
• Marked frequently asked questions (FAQ)
• Social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Studies are increasingly showing that people prefer using live chat. The skew is roughly 40% of individuals; therefore, it’s best to have it available and the other channels just if the additional 60% of users want to get in touch. It’s also a good step for your business, which may not be in a position to provide all forms of support. You can then manage your customer’s expectations by mentioning your availability.

Offer Text Alternatives (alt text) for HTML websites

As many of your website users might have different disadvantages when accessing your site, you have to consider providing text alternatives, especially for your website’s photos and videos. For example, if someone does have a visual impairment, the alt text will come in handy and help them understand what was on that image and make sense.

This can usually be done editing your site’s codes or incorporated in individual pieces of content; you should tell your designer to update it accordingly. Or you could use an automated web accessibility software that provides improvement to the content such as larger scales, magnifiers, and improve the color scheme for individuals who have visual disabilities.

Through the use of their artificial intelligence platform, their solution and web accessibility tools are learning and improving all the time — thus allowing for improved user experiences on a daily basis. The most data and usage the platform learns from, the more it can provide assistance in translating different forms of content to those in need of such a solution.

Give users options to customize their experience

Most users will love the options available to view the site precisely the way they want to. This is especially true for disabled visitors.

When you offer alternatives like page orientation, text size options, or contrast options, your users will be happier with this, and they can choose their best view of the website. Navigation tends to become more accessible.

Additionally, many individuals who are disabled might be challenged in using a mouse or trackpad. Therefore, you have to allow for them to use keyboard shortcuts and support. This means that there should be an option to switch to keyboard mode and allow specific keys to be the selector instead of the mouse pad. This process can also be quickly completed using accessible tools that will enable you to customize controls within your website.

Solutions like accessiBe allow you to customize your website and enable the end-user to choose how they would like to view your website. They can choose to update fonts, colors, and activate audio reading. Although, if you don’t have this tool, the option is also to code these design features into your website by doing it yourself or hiring a web designer.

Final Thoughts on ADA Compliance

Statistics show that over 60 million Americans currently have a form of disability, which directly affects how they engage with a website. Generally, when sites understand the impact of their site’s interface on the end-user, they can then consider how this will impact individuals with special needs.

Many companies are taking swift action to make sure they can cater to the needs of all audiences, while also making sure they are ADA compliant in the process. On the other side of an improved site are happy customers who can now visit the site and take advantage of the features and deals that were previously unavailable to them.

This is just another example of a significant and positive trend that we can learn from. If you choose to focus your time and energy on improving your site either using AI technology or manually updating your site, you will be ADA and WCAG compliant. Generally, it means that you are saying to your site visitors that this site is open to everyone, no matter their situation. The result is that all users have a positive experience and are more likely to return and refer you to others.

We recommend using a combination of the methods indicated here for the best results. It is commonly said that it pays to audit your site, understand the vulnerabilities, create a list of actions, and then start tackling them one by one.

We hope this post gave you a better understanding of ADA compliance and how you can improve your site for a better user experience for everyone who visits. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them below!

A company blog is a fantastic platform for informing and persuading readers to purchase a product or service, or simply building trust and thought leadership. While many company leaders know having a blog is key, they don’t always know how to properly implement one. This leads to mistakes that often turn consumers away.

But what exactly do these companies get wrong on their site? Below, 16 professionals from YEC explore some of the most common mistakes and issues they’ve seen with company blogs, and suggest ways to address those problems and help ensure blogging success.

1. Generating Content for the Sake of It

I see blogs that seem to generate content for the sake of churning out content. It’s crucial that blogs be part of a strategic communication plan, delivering the right information to the right leads at the right time. I’d encourage companies that utilize this type of “marketing by fire” to take a step back to understand their ideal leads and develop a strategy that speaks to their target audience.

– Traci Beach, Craft Impact

2. Trying to Publish Too Many Blogs

Trying to publish too many blogs doesn’t help. We made this mistake in the beginning and corrected it later. First, you should spend time researching the topics that are relevant to your audience and then write good, engaging content. Don’t try to write a blog in one or two hours and publish it. Once you write good content, you need to do some social marketing for it, as well.

– Piyush Jain, SIMpalm

3. Failing to Organize Your Content

Many company blogs fail to organize and publish their content accordingly. Trying to plan their content marketing strategy is a hassle because they don’t use an editorial calendar to track their progress. If you’re going to start a blog, then organization is necessary to ensure you receive the engagement and views you deserve. – Jared Atchison, WPForms

4. Lacking a Thoroughly Developed Funnel

A common mistake I see is the lack of a thoroughly developed funnel. Crafting chaotic content would not deliver marketing or sales results at the end of the day. Breaking content pieces across the different stages of the funnel enables the marketing team to create extensive campaigns that flow leads through different stages, including remarketing and lead generation efforts through multiple hoops.

– Mario Peshev, DevriX

5. Not Having a Consistent Schedule

I often see blogs making the mistake of not being consistent. As part of our digital marketing services, we review company blogs on a regular basis. The typical issue is inconsistency — the last blog post was two months ago and the previous one was six months ago. To fix it, set up a content calendar to consistently post to your blog.

– Jean Ginzburg, JeanGinzburg.com

6. Lacking Exciting Content

There is a real lack of exciting content. Just because one can blog does not mean one should blog. If you are going to put your company on the line (online) via a blog, make it worth your reader’s time. Get creative, show interesting content, make the content unique. Give your supporters a reason to follow along.

– Zach Binder, Bell + Ivy

7. Keeping a Narrow Focus

A company blog shouldn’t be too narrow. Remember, an entire lifestyle surrounds most industries. If you sell yoga mats, you’re in your wheelhouse to talk about the best herbal teas for wellness. If you sell coolers, a list of barbecue recipes for the perfect tailgate is a great piece. A blog is a place to inform about your products and services, but it’s also your company’s space to branch out.

– Tyler Bray, TK Trailer Parts

8. Not Creating Real Unique Value

Not creating any real unique value in the blog is a big mistake. It’s better when the content is, at a minimum, thematically focused. Ideally, you want to present information that is interesting — a lot of people just go after keywords and don’t really find real value. Another big issue is credibility and proper sourcing — it’s a terrible thing to not source information properly and instead claim it as your own.

– Nicole Munoz, Nicole Munoz Consulting, Inc.

9. Posting Only Promotional Content

Many company blogs only publish promotional content. If you’re trying to sell your product in every single post, readers can get turned off. Instead, provide a mix of promotional content and informational content that helps readers with their pain points and goals.

– Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster

10. Not Adding Actionable Advice

I’ve noticed that plenty of blogs fail to add actionable advice to their posts. When consumers find your content, they are likely looking for answers and a clear sense of direction. Before clicking the publish button, ask yourself, “Did I explain to my readers how to put my advice into practice?” If you’re still not sure, have someone outside of your industry read the post for clarity.

– Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights

11. Not Including a Call to Action

A mistake I often see blogs make is not including a call to action. The purpose of a blog is to nurture and build trust with your prospective clients or customers. If you don’t give them an easy option to subscribe or download a gated piece of content so that you have permission to contact them again, you are decreasing the chances they ever return. Make sure your blog is set up to convert readers into contacts!

– Kelsey Raymond, Influence & Co.

12. Failing to Optimize for SEO

Many blogs fail to optimize for SEO or create succinct and catchy titles. Google will rank your blogs depending on how well they appeal to readers, and you can reach more people as the top result for a certain keyword. Viewers will also see your title first. You want to appeal to them, so a catchy title designed for SEO will do the trick.

– Duran Inci, Optimum7

13. Not Including Personalization

Bloggers and business owners are missing out on a big opportunity by not including personalization in their content strategy. Consumers like getting recommendations for unique products, but content also plays a role in this situation. Group together relevant blog posts and offer content that matches users’ behavior on site.

– John Turner, SeedProd LLC

14. Using Poor Grammar and Spelling

I find so many company blogs that have grammatical errors. This is a problem that can be fixed very easily by taking an extra five minutes to read over the content or by hiring a proofreader.

– Kristin Kimberly Marquet, Marquet Media, LLC

15. Failing to Provide Context

Failing to provide context and links to other content on their site is something we see when we first start working with clients. Your blog does not need to be a novel with one running narrative, but it does need to refer back to itself and your guiding principles and products frequently for links and for context.

– Matthew Capala, Alphametic

16. Being Too Professional

A lot of company blogs tend to be too professional. Your company blog shouldn’t read like an essay, it should be more like a conversation between two friends: you and the reader. Your writing should be more casual — this will help you connect with your potential customers more effectively.

– Josh Kohlbach, Wholesale Suite

How to Improve Your Site Content and Make It Even Better!

If you want to stand out from the crowd and make sure your site content is better than what’s already out there, you need to not only focus on your own content, but what’s already out there. Instead of pushing out as much content as possible, focus your efforts on creating better and longer articles and marketing them as much as possible.

With more than a billion active websites and blogs on the internet today, it’s now more important than ever before to make sure your content is of the highest quality and value possible. Be sure to follow all of the expert tips above to accomplish this in the best way possible.

Your website’s hosting is a crucial determinant of its success, reach, and visibility. Hosting providers decide the bandwidth you get, the RAM space you can use, and the maximum storage area your website may occupy. These features, along with multiple other aspects, decide how fast websites load for different audiences around the world. Generally, WordPress websites require a complete set of hosting assets that the hosting company has optimized to meet WordPress needs.

Otherwise, website users may experience exceptionally slow website speeds and performance. One such website hosting preferred by WordPress developers is Rocket.net. The hosting service has increased in popularity over the years. However, the crucial question remains – is it the fastest WordPress Hosting Solution. This article considers this debate in great depth.

Rocket.net is the Best Optimized Solution

Rocket.net offers the best and most comprehensive solution for WordPress websites today. Everything, from the servers to the software, is synchronized to improve WordPress-powered websites’ performance. Multiple features make this hosting provide fast service:

1. It offers three different tiers of hosting services. Additionally, each tier focuses on the projected traffic of the business. For example, if your business is amongst the top-tier brands that receive thousands of page views every day, you can purchase the Upper-tier service. This way, you get the resources that a heavily visited site requires to maintain page speed.
2. The most crucial tier is the middle-range tier. It supplies the user with ample bandwidth, RAM performance, and hard disk space for any website to work at the best specifications. Additionally, you get the liberty to install many plugins.
3. WordPress websites depend heavily on certain features other than the development itself to the word at full speed. For example, caching and SSL usage. The hosting offers complete usage of these features along with an integration of automatic updates, more than 200+ Edge locations, and a full-page caching system. 
4. Most users face difficulty in managing the resources of their backend system. Such resource management is crucial to ensure maximum WordPress website performance. To counter this issue, Rocket.net provides the user with a beautiful and easy to use customer panel. Here, you can spot-check your website’s performance statistics easily. Thus, your usage of the hosting resources improves magnanimously.

What about the servers? 

The location and quality of your hosting’s servers prove crucial in determining your WordPress website’s speed. Here, Rocket.net has a significant advantage. The service is part of the Global Edge Network. As such, the chances of a slow-speed performance at any location around the world are minimal. Let us sum up how the network works.

Currently, the servers of Rocket.net hosting have 15 different locations around the world. Additionally, they are adding more sites to their portfolio. Thus, accessing your website from any area will be served the webpage from the closest physical server location. This aspect reduces the data transfer issues, making your WordPress website super fast. 

Additionally, you can scale and specify the physical locations you are more interested in providing your website. As such, your website gets located on the location that is nearest to your physical market. For example, most of your customers are from New York. You require your website to be placed closest to New York to minimize the delivery time in such cases. Rocket.net allows you to accommodate this placement.

Furthermore, you do not get a stand-alone server without any protection. Instead, every server is malware and hacking protected. Consequently, the files of your WordPress hosting remain safe. This aspect resolves one of the major issues for faulty and slow WordPress websites: corrupt and hacked files.

Do Customers Consider Rocket.net to be the fastest WordPress hosting?

Trustpilot Reviews of Rocket.net WordPress hosting are generally positive, with most people commending its fast speed. One customer claimed that the difference in speed could be noticed as soon as you transfer your website to Rocket.net. Similarly, they provide an inbuilt Content Delivery Network system that optimizes WordPress content and website delivery speed.

In most cases, gtmetrix.com recommends that the site developer employs a CDN’s services to speed up their website. However, such CDN services can be costly if the developer purchases them from elsewhere. This issue gets solved with Rocket.net WordPress hosting that offers such CDN services as an inbuilt package. One customer mentioned this aspect as the prime reason he could focus on other aspects of his business, helping him make considerable returns.

Additionally, another customer placed Rocekt.net ahead of Cloudways, Flywheel, and Wordify in the fastest WordPress hosting services list. He focused on the exceptional technology and performance-optimized servers the company offers. Similarly, another customer considered his WordPress blog’s breakneck speed on Rocket.net’s servers to be the prime reason for high organic traffic diverting to his website. Thus, most customer reviews place Rocket.net at the top-tier of fast WordPress hosting services.

The Fast Service Comes At A Price

There are a few drawbacks of using Rocket.net WordPress hosting. The system does not provide the developer with an inbuilt file manager. Such a manager may not be required by amateur or new developers. However, certain high-level developers need access to the files to introduce custom changes to their platform.

Additionally, the user may have to use a file manager plugin within WordPress to counter the issue. In such cases, the site becomes prone to malware attacks as such plugins induce a vulnerability in your website that allows access to files.

Similarly, Rocekt.net does not offer an inbuilt email handling system. Consequently, you have to purchase either Outlook365 or G-suite services to get a working email for your website. This aspect increases the financial burden on the website owner.

Finally, a WordPress hosting server works only for WordPress websites. If you wish to host any other platform that powers your website, you will need to consider alternate hosting plans.

Final Verdict

The top-notch features and customer satisfaction shows that Rocket.net is amongst the fastest WordPress optimized hosting solution available today. If the platform’s drawbacks do not affect your business’s requirements, we strongly recommend that you give this hosting a try.