New users often find it difficult to add a Facebook pixel to their WordPress website mainly because they don’t know where to start. Facebook pixel helps you optimize your Facebook ad campaigns by gathering information about your visitors and then generating an audience that is more relevant to your business. In simpler words, Facebook Pixel helps you target your ads better and get better click-through rates and conversion rates. There are two ways you can add Facebook Pixel to your WordPress website, manually and through a Facebook pixel plugin. In this article, I will take you through both the methods and show you how you can add a Facebook pixel to your WordPress website.
How to Add Facebook Plugin ManuallyWhen you add a Facebook Pixel manually, you just copy the pixel code and paste it on the header of your WordPress website. To get started with this method, you need to create a Facebook Pixel ID first. If you haven’t created one, you can do that from here. Once you’re on this page, click on the Get Started button. You will be asked to enter your name and website. Click Continue and then click Manually add pixel code to your website Once you move forward, you will see the Pixel code that you will have to copy and paste on your WordPress website’s header. If you scroll down this page, you will see some more options to help you collect more information about your visitors. There is also an option to test your code to see if it’s working properly or not. Adding Facebook Pixel Plugin to Your WordPress Website Via a PluginFacebook pixel plugins give you more than just the ability to add the pixel code to your website; they also let you create custom audiences. For this tutorial we will be using Pixel Caffeine, a popular Facebook pixel plugin, to add a pixel to your WordPress website. Start by installing the plugin on your WordPress website. Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you will see this page. You can either start by entering your pixel ID or you can connect your Facebook account, in which case it will be easier to install the Pixel and you will get all the advanced features as well. For this tutorial, we will use Facebook Connect. Once you allow the plugin to connect with your Facebook account, you will have to choose the ad account that you want to connect to. Once you have selected the ad account, click on Apply to set up your Pixel. Pretty simple, isn’t it? Now that you have installed the pixel, click on the Dashboard tab to track the activity on your Pixel. You can also set up Custom Audiences and Conversion Events directly from your WordPress dashboard. Final WordsNow that you know how to set up Facebook Pixel to your WordPress website, you will be able to filter out your audiences and better optimize your Facebook ads. Your ads will now be more targeted and will reach the right people which will improve their click-through and conversion rates. If you think the plugin I used in this article is not the right one for you, you can also check out this list of the best WordPress Facebook pixel plugins to choose from. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/how-to-add-facebook-pixel-to-your-wordpress-website/
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Setting up an efficient helpdesk system is a crucial aspect to success when running an eCommerce business. If you have a WordPress-WooCommerce online store, there are several options to help you integrate a helpdesk. When it comes to a helpdesk or support ticket plugin, the choice that you make is dependent on a lot of specific business requirements. In this article, we will discuss some of the important features to look for in WordPress helpdesk and support ticket plugins that will help improve customer experience. We will also explore the features of some of the best solutions.
Characteristics of a good WordPress Helpdesk solutionA good helpdesk solution should essentially help in better customer experience. You need to ensure that it offers a comprehensive set of features to help you provide exceptional customer experience. First, let us try and understand some of the advanced features of a superior WordPress helpdesk solution: No restrictions in number of agents and ticketsWhen you check out some of the popular helpdesk solutions, you may see many of them have restrictions when it comes to the number of agents who can use it. This may not be a great feature when your business is going through a rapid growth phase. Paying additional charges every time a new agent is added to the team may not be a great outcome for a small business. So, look for WordPress helpdesk and support solutions with no restrictions in terms of number of agents and tickets that can be handled at a time. Simple interface to manage ticketsThe support agents will be mostly accessing the helpdesk system through the admin backend. This interface needs to be smooth and user friendly for agents to help them respond quickly to customer queries. An Ajax-based interface will quickly load tickets without reloading the page. Agents should also be able to view tickets in custom order and to sort them quickly using varied filters. Basically, if support agents are able to handle the ticket dashboard smoothly, they will be able to respond to customers quicker as well. eCommerce integrationIf you are running an eCommerce store, you have to integrate the helpdesk system to your store to make the customer support process streamlined. With the help of a support system integrated with eCommerce, your customers will be able to raise queries by associating them with specific products. Similarly, the agents will be able to see the purchase history and other details of the customers they are interacting with. The customer experience on your web store will be much superior if you have a helpdesk system that smoothly integrates with the eCommerce platform. Workflow automationIf you have a big store and a considerably large number of products, your customer support process too will be complex. There will be a set of actions that happens before a customer query is replied to and resolved. A good helpdesk system will help you automate such routine actions in your customer support workflow to make the process faster. Sending notifications, assigning to an agent or department, adding priority tags, etc.can be easily automated. Self service and canned responsesNot all customers will have the patience and time to wait for a support agent to answer to their queries. A lot of your customers will be willing to find answers on their own. By integrating with a knowledge base, you will be able to provide a good self service option through your helpdesk. In fact, this will help reduce the number of queries and make the system more efficient. Similarly, predefined answer templates or canned responses can help agents respond faster to repetitive queries. You may have to look for knowledge base integration and canned responses feature before zeroing in on a WordPress helpdesk solution. Analytics toolsGood analytics insights are key to improving any digital solution. Obviously a good analytics dashboard can help your customer support system be much more efficient. On the analytics dashboard, you should get a good view on the resolution rate, response times, individual agent performance, queries related to a specific product, etc. The WordPress helpdesk solution that you choose should have a good analytics dashboard to help you measure performance without hassles. Best WordPress Helpdesk and Support Ticket pluginsNow, let us explore the features of some of the popular WordPress helpdesk and support ticket plugins. WSDeskWSDesk is one of the most popular WordPress helpdesk and support solutions that you can choose to enhance customer experience. It integrates well with eCommerce platforms such as WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads. Even the basic version of WSDesk is feature rich with options to convert emails to tickets and unlimited agent profiles. Compared to other Saas-based solutions, WSDesk gives better control to store owners as it does not data in the cloud. The data related to your store and customers will be saved on your server itself and you need not depend on the service provider to access it. Feature highlightsHere is a quick look at some of the standout features of WSDesk.
A single site subscription of WSDesk will cost you $89. WooCommerce Help ScoutThis plugin helps you integrate your WooCommerce store to Help Scout customer support solution. That means you will have to subscribe to a Help Scout subscription plan as well to make full use of this one. With the help of a shortcode, you will be able to place a Help Scout support form anywhere on your website. Moreover, it lets you initiate a conversation with any customer right from the order details page. This is a comprehensive solution that will help you manage your customer support much more efficiently than relying on multiple tools. Feature highlightsHere are some of the exceptional features of Help Scout:
The single site subscription of the plugin has a price tag of $79. This is in addition to the Help Scout subscription. Zendesk for WordPressWith the help of a free WordPress plugin, you will be able to integrate Zendesk support system to your blog or website. On your website or blog, you can display a Zendesk feedback tab that will let users search the knowledge base, chat with an agent or submit a ticket. Users registered to your website will be automatically signed in to Zendesk as well. You will be able to turn blog comments to tickets to respond to users promptly. Please note, you will have to subscribe to a plan of Zendesk to be able to use it. Feature highlights
WPHelpdeskThis plugin will help you focus on enhancing the customer experience on your site with an organized approach to customer support. WPHelpDesk has a robust filtering system that will help you prioritize support queries. Depending on the size of your team, you will be able to customize it to get absolute control over your support workflow. With the help of add-ons, you can easily integrate it with WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads. Feature highlightsLet us take a look at some of the features of WP Helpdesk that will help you improve your support process.
The single site subscription of the basic version without add-ons will cost you $99. WP Support Plus Responsive Ticket System This is another WordPress plugin that will help you set up a customer support system for your business. It will let you set up a customer support system with unlimited tickets and agents. It even allows guest users to submit a ticket. The plugin is Ajax based and helps to make your customer support system extremely fast. It comes with a set of add-ons that allows you to extend the functionality and features. You can opt for the free version or one of the paid options that comes with dedicated support and multiple add- ons. Feature highlightsHere are some of the notable features of this plugin.
via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/wordpress-plugins-to-enhance-customer-experience/ You may offer high-end products with the lowest price on the web, but that doesn’t necessarily guarantee conversions or customer loyalty. There is a lot of competition out there, not just from Amazon but also smaller boutique sites that offer similar products. Customer experience is what sets you apart. It is the sum of all interactions that a customer has with your business, including interactions before and after a sale. It can include how they research products on your site, how they complete their transaction, what happens when they receive their product, and so on.
Customer experience is one of the main factors that determine whether or not consumers will buy from your brand and become loyal customers. In fact, a PwC survey found that 17% of U.S. consumers will walk away after just one bad experience. And 59% of U.S. consumers will walk away after several bad experiences even if they love the company or product. This makes it crucial to set up a game plan to ensure that you deliver a positive and meaningful experience for your customers across every interaction. That’s why you need to have an effective strategy in place so you can take a more structured approach to enhancing customer experience. In this post, you’ll discover six useful steps to create an amazing customer experience strategy. Let’s get started. 1: Have a Clear Understanding of Your CustomersUnless you thoroughly understand who your customers are, you’ll have a hard time figuring out how to deliver experiences that appeal to them. Without understanding the situations that your customers face, you won’t be able to empathize with them and provide them with viable solutions. At the same time, it’s important to note that not all of your customers will experience the same issues or have the same pain points. So you need to start by creating accurate buyer personas, which are profiles that represent a common group of people. You can include demographics data like age, interests, buying behaviors, job profile, etc. to clearly define the characteristics of each persona. For an even more accurate picture of each persona, make sure you conduct surveys to understand your different types of customers. Use this data to build a customer experience strategy that effectively addresses the needs of all of your customers. Make sure you maintain a record of all surveys and personas so every department can easily refer to them when needed. HubSpot’s Make My Persona tool simplifies this process. You can name the persona, choose an avatar, and fill out all the details relevant to it to create an attractive buyer persona. You can easily store surveys in a shared Google folder or Dropbox. 2: Map Out the Customer JourneyCustomer journey mapping is essential to get a visual overview of the customer’s interactions with your brand from start to finish. This helps you get an even better picture of the customer experience at every touch point, so you can identify their needs and perceptions. Create an accurate customer journey map for each buyer persona to outline the key steps of their journey. How do they begin the journey and how do they normally interact with your brand? You can then outline their pain points, values, and motivations to better understand how you can enhance their experience at every touch point. 3: Collect Competitive InsightsCompetitor research can help you discover what kind of customer experience your competitors are delivering. What can you learn from them and what can you do better? There are plenty of ways to collect competitive insights to enhance your customer experience strategy. You can start by finding out where and how your competitors are getting their customers using tools like SpyFu. This gives you a detailed look at the organic and paid clicks your competitors are getting as well as their top keywords. These insights will help you understand user intent by identifying the top search terms people are using to find your competitors. Additionally, the backlink data provides you with information about which websites are sending traffic to your competitors. You can try to replicate this strategy to attract your audience where they’re most likely to be. You can further research your competitors’ customer experience strategy by going through the various channels where customers interact with their brand. This includes their website, social media, app (if they have one), and so on. Get a feel for what it’s like to interact with the brand and make a note of any mistakes they might be making. See if there’s anything you can replicate or improve for your own strategy. In addition, you can also conduct social media listening to see what people are saying about your competitors and the brand sentiment around their companies. What are the biggest complaints people seem to have about their products? What are they praising them for? Tools like Mention and Sprout Social can help you with this aspect of competitor research. 4: Make Reachability and Customer Service a PriorityCommunication is a major factor that influences the overall customer experience. You have to be available to your customers no matter what channel they choose to be on. Otherwise, you could miss valuable opportunities to engage with them. For this, you have to find out which channels your customers are most active on and ensure that your brand is reachable on those channels. The best way to get a clear and accurate picture of the performance of different channels is by using UTM parameters. Tag all of the links you share on different channels with unique UTM parameters and find out how those links are performing. You can simplify the UTM creation and management processes by using tools like UTM.io. This tool lets you create UTM templates that you can easily reuse and customize for each channel. So you can maintain a uniform naming convention that’s much easier to keep track of. Once you identify the top channels that your customers are active on, you can come up with a strategy to enhance customer experience on those channels. This will involve improving service convenience on those channels in addition to being reachable. Get familiar with each of the top channels and understand how people are using them to communicate with your brand. What kind of improvements can you make to enhance the customer experience? What other channels do they want you to be present on? Maybe you already have live chat support on your website, for instance. But people also expect chat support through social media. Or maybe you have people who expect 24/7 chat support, which may not always be a viable option for most businesses. In this case, you can also provide support through chatbots during non-working hours. You can study customer behavior, reviews, and engagement to look for opportunities to make improvements. You can even ask them directly through surveys. Cuyana provides convenient customer service by enabling customers to reach them through Facebook Messenger. They even provide customers with predefined questions to choose from, minimizing the need to type everything out. 5: Improve Purchase ConvenienceThe purchase experience is another major factor that influences the overall customer experience. Factors like how easy it is to find what they’re looking for, how seamless it is to navigate your site, how simple it is to complete their purchase, etc. will all play a role. So it’s crucial to keep looking for opportunities to optimize your site or app to improve purchase convenience. Make it as easy as possible for people to complete their purchases. The basic steps include:
You can further include useful and clever tools, videos, or images to guide their purchases. Bellyroy does a great job of this by showing what kind of items you can fit inside their wallets. 6: Connect Emotionally with the AudienceHow customers feel about your brand also influences their experiences. An emotionally connected customer is more likely to enjoy their interactions with your brand and therefore, have a better overall experience. In fact, fully connected customers are 52% more valuable than customers who are just satisfied. They also have a high lifetime value and are more likely to advocate for the brand. This makes it crucial to develop an emotional connection with your customers if you want to create an effective customer experience strategy. You need to come up with a plan to enhance their emotional connections at every touch point – right from marketing and sales to post-sales service. Aside from better employee training and advocacy, you can also make improvements in the marketing aspect of your business. Switch from bland and pushy ads to more intimate and humanized marketing tactics such as micro-influencer marketing. Micro-influencers are social media users who have some authority in their areas of interest. They are relatable to the audience because they are just like everyday consumers. As a result, they also have significant and highly-engaged following. Influence.co even found that micro-influencers drive much better engagement than macro-influencers. The average engagement rate could range anywhere from 2.5% to 6% for influencers with 2000 to 100,000 followers. This rate drops gradually as the following size increases. In other words, micro-influencers can drive relevant conversations around your brand and your products. So they can help you establish strong emotional connections between your brand and your target audience. Have them present your product or services in a way that will resonate with their followers. They could share their experience using it, demonstrate how it solved a problem in their life, etc. One of the most challenging steps is in identifying the best influencers to work with. You can simplify this process by using platforms like iFluenz. All you need to do is create your campaign and wait for the best-matching influencers to apply. So instead of conducting a grueling influencer search, you’ll have the most relevant influencers come to you. Final ThoughtsThese are the basic steps involved in creating an amazing customer experience strategy. But it doesn’t just end here. You also have to keep making improvements to your strategy based on analytics insights and customer feedback. Listen to your customers, actively collect feedback, and look for opportunities to adapt your strategy according to the changing needs of your customers. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/6-steps-to-create-an-amazing-customer-experience-strategy/ Moovly announces partnership with Boxlight CorporationMoovly Announces Partnership with Boxlight Corporation VANCOUVER, CANADA — (November 20, 2019) Moovly Media Inc. (TSX VENTURE: MVY) (OTC: MVVYF) (FRANKFURT: 0PV2) (“Moovly” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it has entered into an exclusive global reseller partnership agreement with Boxlight Corporation (Nasdaq: BOXL) (“Boxlight”), based on growing demand for multimedia products in the education sector. With this agreement, Boxlight will resell the jointly branded MimioMoovly cloud-based, video creation software. With no installation or maintenance needed, the online tool will enable students and teachers to easily create videos using over 1.3 million royalty-free media assets – including photos, illustrations, video clips, sound and music – to support classroom instruction, flipped classroom videos, video assignments, media literacy workshops, and more. Offering an engaging way to increase students’ digital competencies, MimioMoovly can be used as a stand-alone video production tool or it can enhance larger interactive projects or lessons as part of the total Boxlight solution. Brendon Grunewald, Co-Founder and CEO of Moovly, commented: “We are very happy to be working with Boxlight on a global basis. We have seen substantial growth in users signing up from both schools and universities. We will offer five unique subscription plans so customers can customize the program to best fits their needs individually, by school or by district.” “The ability to easily create and share video content through social media, vlogs and other platforms is changing our way of communication and expression,” said Mark Elliott, CEO of Boxlight. “Boxlight is pleased to provide an education specific solution to leverage video creation in the classroom to enhance the learning environment. The MimioMoovly multimedia platform is a powerful tool to help prepare the next generation of students for their future careers.” To learn more, go to www.boxlight.com/mimiomoovly About Boxlight Corporation: Boxlight Corporation (Nasdaq: BOXL) (“Boxlight”) is a leading provider of technology solutions for the global learning market. The company aims to improve learning and engagement in classrooms and to help educators enhance student outcomes, by developing the products they need. The company develops, sells, and services its integrated, interactive solution suite including software, classroom technologies, professional development and support services. For more information about the Boxlight story, visit http://www.boxlight.com. About Moovly: Moovly is the leading provider of creative cloud-based tools to tell marketing, communications and training stories using videos and video presentations. Moovly’s advanced Studio Editor, with millions of assets seamlessly integrated (via partnerships with Getty Images & Storyblocks) is all you need to make engaging video content to promote, communicate or explain your product, service or message. Moovly’s API and Automator technologies allow third parties to automate parts or all of the content creation process, including mass video customization, personalized videos (video version of mail merge), automatic content creation or updating by connecting data sources. With clients including users from >300 of the Fortune 500, small businesses, freelancers and Ivy league universities, Moovly is an intuitive, cost effective choice for DIY creation of engaging video-based content. “Your story begins with Moovly”
Files are available for download in our press room at www.moovly.com/pressroom. For additional information about Moovly, please refer to www.moovly.com. Brendon Grunewald Kelsey Chin The post Moovly announces partnership with Boxlight Corporation appeared first on Moovly - Easily make videos online. from Moovly – Easily make videos online https://www.moovly.com/investors/Moovly-announces-partnership-with-boxlight-corporation via IFTTT from https://seanbrian0.blogspot.com/2019/11/moovly-announces-partnership-with.html Building a website has never been easier. The days of developers and web designers being the only people who can create a website are long behind us. Anyone can create a website in minutes without writing a single line of code. All you need to do is find a website building platform. But if you’re creating a website for the first time, you’re probably looking for the most cost-effective solution. You might want to test out different options to see what you like the best. If this sounds like your situation, then I’m sure you’re looking for a free website builder. Dozens and dozens of platforms out there will tell you that you can build a website for free. Unfortunately, building a legitimate website for free is actually not very realistic.
Most free website builders will be extremely limited or have some contingencies that require you to pay. It might start out as free, but you’ll quickly learn that it’s not truly free. This shouldn’t discourage you from trying different website builders. Free website building plans are a great way to get your feet wet with web creation. A free plan will also help you pick a platform that you ultimately want to pay for down the road. In this guide, I’ll show you the best free website builders on the market today. I’ll explain what you actually get for free, and what features require a premium membership. The Top 12 Free Website BuildersAll website builders offer free features. You’ll be able to get a free trial with nearly every website builder on the market today. But these 12 website builders have free plans that go beyond a trial period: WordPress34% of the entire Internet is powered by WordPress. It’s the most popular CMS in the world and a top choice for building a website. With WordPress, you can create a website and get it live on the web without paying anything. Free plans include hosting, themes, and a WordPress.com subdomain. Don’t expect high-level performance from the free hosting plan. The WordPress subdomain won’t be very professional either. We use WordPress here at Quick Sprout, but we have a premium plan. If we stuck with the free option, our domain would look like this: www.quicksprout.wordpress.com, which is obviously no good. You do not need a credit card to create a free WordPress site. So you won’t have to worry about an expiring trial or being charged for hidden fees. The free WordPress plan is best for getting started with something small, like a personal blog. It comes with Jetpack essential features, which has SEO tools and automation functionality. You’ll get a pre-installed SSL certificate, free templates, and 3 GB of storage. It’s worth noting that WordPress is not a traditional website builder. You should have a basic understanding of writing HTML code and how it works to use WordPress. When you’re ready to upgrade to a paid version of WordPress, these are your options:
WordPress users rely on plugins to add features and functionality to their sites. Many of these plugins require payment as well, which will add to your costs. WixWix lets you create a website for free without writing any code. It has a drag-and-drop editor that makes it easy for anyone to build something beautiful, regardless of their technical experience. All you need to do is choose a template and customize it with your own content. Here’s what you get with a free Wix plan:
The free Wix domain is even weirder than the WordPress one. It’s yourwixusername.wixsite.com/yoursiteaddress; which would look like this for us here at Quick Sprout — quicksproutadmin.wixsite.com/quicksprout. Obviously, this type of domain is not reasonable or realistic to use if you’re serious about creating a legitimate website. But it’s fine for the beginning while you’re evaluating the Wix platform. The free plan will also have Wix ads appear on every page of your website. Using Wix for free will give you an introduction to their platform, but you’ll quickly learn that it’s very limited if you’re not paying. You’ll take an action or try to do something and be prompted to upgrade your plan, which can be a bit annoying. Wix has premium plans starting at $13 per month for blogs, portfolios, and personal sites. Business and ecommerce rates start at $23 per month. WeeblyWeebly is powered by Square, making it a website builder that’s geared toward ecommerce websites. So for those of you who are looking to create an online store from scratch, Weebly would be a top choice to consider. Unfortunately, the free Weebly plan doesn’t come with any ecommerce functionality. You’ll need to upgrade for selling capabilities. Here’s what you get with Weebly for free:
Compared to other free plans we’ve seen, this one is actually pretty good. It’s still extremely limited and I wouldn’t recommend it for the long-term, but it’s a viable option for starting out. You can begin to collect customer information before your online store officially launches. For $5 per month, you can connect your own domain to eliminate the Weebly branding. Aside from that, Weebly has premium plans starting at $12, $25, and $38 per month. WebnodeWebnode is website building made easy. In minutes, you can create and publish your site on the web. It’s a great option for personal sites, businesses, and ecommerce shops. More than 30 million people have built a website using this platform. Webnode has stunning templates that you can easily customize with your own content. Unlike other free website builders, you can create an unlimited number of pages with the free plan from Webnode. You’ll also get reliable hosting and access to customer service representatives. The biggest catch is that your site will have a Webnode subdomain with your free plan. But this is pretty much the industry standard if you’re not willing to pay. I’d only use the free plan for something simple like a blog. You can create your site, publish content, and then share your work on social media. But once you’re ready to take things to the next level, you’ll need to consider one of the following paid plans:
Webnode does require an annual subscription with all plans. So this won’t be the best choice for those of you who prefer month-to-month contracts. UcraftUcraft is a bit unique compared to some of the other platforms we’ve seen so far. It’s advertised as a landing page creator, as opposed to a website builder. The free plan can be used to create simple single-page websites. If you already have a domain name, you can connect it for free. This means your free site won’t be forced to use a ucraft.net subdomain, which is a big bonus since most free website builders won’t give you this luxury. However, your website will have Ucrafted branding on the page itself. Here are some of the other features and benefits you’ll get for free with Ucraft:
For a free plan, this is actually pretty good. Again, the only catch is that you’ll be limited to building just one page. To create more than that, you’ll need to upgrade to one of the following paid plans:
All premium plans come with a 14-day free trial. No credit card required. OnepagerOnepager is a website builder marketed toward small business owners. It’s intended for people without much technical ability who want to create a site with ease. Onepager offers a “free forever” plan, which is extremely limited. Here’s a quick overview of what you get (and don’t get) for free:
You’ll still get hosting and 24/7 support, but overall, I wouldn’t recommend the free site for any serious websites. Use this plan if you’re interested in trying Onepager as an extended trial. To remove Onepager ads, use your custom domain, and activate ecommerce functionality, paid plans start at $8 per month with an annual contract. CindrBuilding a website with Cindr is about as easy as it gets. They eliminated lots of the complex features and distractions for users who prefer simplicity. You’ll be able to quickly add and publish photos, videos, music, text, and other content on your site in minutes. Designs are mobile-friendly and highly responsive. You can create a site with Cindr without providing any credit card information. In fact, Cindr has just two plans; Free and Premium. The free plan comes with:
Your free Cindr site will have Cindr ads displayed on your pages. To remove those ads, connect your own domain, and build multiple sites, you’ll need to upgrade your plan. The Premium plan is $9 per month with no long term contracts. It also comes with unlimited bandwidth and storage. Site123Similar to our previous review, Site123 also has just two plans; Free and Premium. Compared to other website builders, the free plan is actually packed with quality features. You’ll get everything included with the Premium plan, except you won’t be able to use your own custom domain. You’ll also be limited to just 500 MB of storage and 1 GB of bandwidth. Aside from that, here are some of the features that come standard for free with Site123:
This website builder is a bit different from a traditional drag-and-drop editor. But it’s still easy to use and doesn’t require any code. To get the most out of your Site123 website, upgrade to a Premium plan starting at $12.80 per month. This comes with ecommerce capabilities. StrikinglyMillions of users have used Strikingly to create a website. It stands out from the other platforms on our list because it has ecommerce capability built-in, including the free version. That’s right. For free, you can build an online store with Strikingly. There’s just one catch. You can only have one product on display per website. However, Strikingly lets you create an unlimited number of websites with the free plan. This is definitely better than some of the other options we’ve seen that restrict you to just one website or limited pages. The free plan from Strikingly also offers 5 GB of bandwidth, which is more than we’ve seen from its competition. As expected, you’ll be stuck with a Strikingly subdomain if you sign up for the free plan. To use your own domain and benefit from premium features, these are your upgrade options:
These prices are based on annual contracts. To save money, Strikingly offers long-term contracts for up to five years. All premium plans come with a 14-day free trial. WebstartsWebstarts is another popular free website builder. It’s reliable, versatile, and extremely easy to use. You can create a website with an unlimited number of pages, but Webstarts pretty limited beyond that. The free plan doesn’t allow you to use a custom domain. There’s no social integration, emails, SEO tools, contact forms, or slideshows either. Your free Webstarts site won’t be mobile-friendly and won’t give you HTML access or ecommerce capabilities. All free sites will have ads on every page. Overall, you can’t really build a legitimate site unless you upgrade to a premium plan. There are two paid options, priced at $7.16 and $19.99 per month, respectively. YolaWith Yola, you can create and publish a website online in less than 30 minutes. Unlike other free website builders, Yola won’t put ads on your pages, although you will have a Yola domain. Yola’s drag-and-drop site builder is simple and easy to use. It doesn’t require any technical experience, making it a top choice for beginners. With that said, advanced users can edit using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. The Yola free plan has 1 GB of bandwidth and 1 GB of storage. You’ll also benefit from features like:
However, there is one major contingency here. You can only build three web pages. Obviously, that’s not reasonable for those of you who want to create a full website. The three pages are only enough to test out Yola’s platform to see if you like it enough to upgrade to:
All of these plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. You can add ecommerce capabilities to any premium plan for an extra $10 per month. JimdoJimdo was born back in 2007. Since then, more than 20 million websites have been built using this platform. You can build a website for free using Jimdo, although your options will be extremely limited. All free websites will have a .jimdosite.com subdomain. You’ll get 500 MB of storage, 2 GB of bandwidth, and HTTPS security. That’s pretty much it. Jimdo will only let you build five web pages with the free plan. That’s obviously not enough to build a full website. But you’ll still be able to get your site live and see if you like the software before you upgrade. I’d treat this free website builder as a trial that never expires. If you’re happy with the platform, then you can upgrade to one of the following paid plans:
To get the most out of Jimdo, the Unlimited plan will be your best bet. It doesn’t have any restrictions and gives you better access to customer support. Jimdo also has ecommerce plans starting at $15 per month. Hidden Costs of Free Website BuildersLots of website builders say they are free, but they fail to mention any hidden costs. In reality, the majority of website builders are not truly free if you want to create and publish a legitimate website. These are some of the top hidden costs you need to keep an eye out for. Custom DomainEvery free website builder on the market will give you a free branded domain with their name somewhere in the URL. But if you’re serious about publishing your site on the web, you’ll need to buy your own domain name. There are a couple of site builders that let you connect your custom domain with a free plan, but you’ll still be paying for that elsewhere. I do not recommend buying a domain from your website builder. Check out my list of the best domain registrars for more guidance with this process. Web HostingMost free website builders will also offer free web hosting. But to be blunt—free web hosting stinks. If you plan to have site visitors at any point after your site goes live, you’ll definitely need to take web hosting more seriously. Don’t worry, web hosting isn’t that expensive. These are my top recommendations for the best cheap web hosting plans. Page LimitationsThere are plenty of website builders out there that let you build a site for free with an unlimited number of pages. Some will even let you create an unlimited number of sites with a free plan. However, there are other free website builders that restrict how many pages you can create before you’re forced to upgrade. These page limitations can be as low as one or three pages. Obviously, you can’t build a full website with those types of restrictions. Adding pages will cost you money. How to Choose the Best Website Builder For YouWith so many free website builders on the market, choosing just one can be difficult. Here is the process that you should use when narrowing down the best option for your website. UpgradesIf you want to start with a free website builder for now, that’s fine. But eventually, you’ll need to upgrade. You can’t really make a legitimate and high-quality website for free. So choose a website builder that has plenty of upgrade options to meet your needs. You don’t want to switch to a different platform when you’re ready to start paying. That’s too much of a hassle, and you’ll probably need to rebuild the majority of your site. Ease of UseYou shouldn’t be struggling to create a website. Look for platforms with drag-and-drop builders and lots of templates that you can easily customize. If you don’t have a technical background, this will make your life much easier. Basic functions like adding text, images, videos, and creating new pages shouldn’t require too much effort. Managing your site, publishing blog posts, and everything else must be simple. Some website builders, like WordPress, are extremely popular. However, WordPress doesn’t have a traditional drag-and-drop builder. So if you don’t have certain technical skills, avoid website builders that require coding knowledge. Type of WebsiteWhat kind of website are you building? Blogs, portfolios, ecommerce shops, and small business websites are all very different. You have to make sure that the website builder you choose has the ability to accommodate your needs. Just because a website builder makes it easy for you to publish blog posts, it doesn’t mean it’s a great option for your online store. If you refer to the list above, you’ll see that some builders are definitely made for creating certain types of websites. ConclusionCreating a website for free is easy. All of the website builders on our list allow you to create a website for free. But with that said, even the best free website builders are limited in some capacity. Some of these platforms will have more restrictions than others. If you’re serious about creating a website, I would not recommend building it for free. Instead, use these free builders to try different options. Think of these as extended free trials that won’t expire. Once you find a platform that you like, take a look at their paid options and upgrade to a suitable plan that meets your needs. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/best-free-website-builders/ Creating a new website from scratch is exciting. But where do you start? The first step is choosing a website builder. If you do some preliminary research, you’ll quickly learn that Squarespace and WordPress are two of the top options to consider. With that said, Squarespace and WordPress are very different. Squarespace is a traditional website builder with some of the highest quality design templates that you’ll find on the market. It has a drag-and-drop builder, which means you don’t need to know how to code if you’re using Squarespace. Squarespace is more of an all-in-one platform. You’ll be able to get your domain and web hosting plan from this provider as well. On the other hand, WordPress is not technically a website builder, but you can still use it to create your own website. WordPress is a CMS (content management) system that powers 34% of the entire Internet. We use WordPress here at Quick Sprout.
WordPress requires a bit more technical knowledge and basic coding ability. The upside of using WordPress is that offers complete customization—it’s virtually limitless. In short, anyone can create a beautifully designed website with Squarespace, but the functionality of the site will be limited. WordPress allows you to scale and customize your website with total freedom, but it requires more work and technical ability. There are definitely pros and cons to each of these website builders. I created this guide to help you determine the best option for your website. I’ve identified 12 evaluation categories that you should keep in mind when you’re looking for the best website builder. I’ll highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each platform and ultimately choose a winner for each category. Simplicity and Ease of UseTo evaluate the ease of use, I considered how you set up an account and get your website started from scratch. I reviewed the building features as well as editing and managing your website down the road. Squarespace Ease of UseYou don’t need to have any coding skills to use Squarespace. The drag-and-drop website builder and editing tools make it easy for anyone to create a website from scratch. To get started, you simply choose a template and start customizing the page elements to your liking. You can even edit your website from your mobile device with the Squarespace app. The best part about using Squarespace to build your website is that you can see what your changes look like in real-time. You’re dragging, adding, and moving things around directly on the page. It’s easy to add a text box or image and simply drag it exactly to where you want it on the screen. Although I don’t recommend it, you can also get your domain and hosting directly from Squarespace as well. These offers are great for people who want to manage everything in one place from the same provider. WordPress Ease of UseGetting started with WordPress requires a bit more work. You’re responsible for your own domain and hosting, which is what I would recommend regardless of the platform you choose. But unlike Squarespace, your WordPress site gets built in the backend using code. You won’t see what these changes look like in real-time. You’ll essentially be making changes in the dark and then previewing them when you’re done to see how things turned out. WordPress users will rely on plugins and coding skills to customize their websites. WordPress does offer a builder-like tool called the Gutenburg editor, which allows you to add blocks for page elements like images, text, or headers. However, this is not nearly as user-friendly and design-savvy as the drag-and-drop builder offered by Squarespace. But for those of you with coding skills, WordPress will be a breeze. Plus, it’s the easiest way for you to have ultimate control over every single aspect of your website. Best Website Builder For Beginners: SquarespaceIn terms of simplicity and ease of use, Squarespace is the winner. If you’re a developer or having coding experience, you’ll find WordPress very easy to use as well. But the average person with no technical knowledge will be lost using WordPress for the first time. Professional DesignWebsite visitors will judge the credibility and trustworthiness of your website based on its design. Your design has a major impact on user experience, engagement, and conversions. That’s why it’s crucial that you find a website builder that allows you to create an attractive and functional design. Squarespace DesignSquarespace is best-known for the quality and professionalism of their templates and designs. If you have a creative vision for your website, Squarespace will let you turn that vision into a reality. They offer templates that are clean and modern—perfect for building a website in this day and age. Finding a template for your website is easy. Just browse the list of categories to see choices for your niche. Photographers, fashion designers, musicians, artists, and anyone with a portfolio should consider Squarespace to showcase their work. But it’s also a top option for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Squarespace offers award-winning designs that are highly customizable and optimized for mobile devices. It’s easy for you to switch your template at any time. WordPress DesignWordPress has thousands of both free and paid themes for you to choose from. To find the best WordPress theme for your website, simply browse by category and determine your budget. As you can imagine, higher quality themes will cost you more money. Since it’s an open source platform, anyone can add a theme to WordPress. While this gives you more options to choose from, it also means that some of the themes are not as responsive and reliable. So you need to make sure that you choose a theme that will support your site without weighing it down or causing problems. Not every theme offered on WordPress will be optimized for mobile devices. Avoid any themes that aren’t mobile-friendly. The upside of using WordPress for design is that you can completely customize your theme using code and plugins. Although switching themes isn’t always the smoothest transition, especially if you’ve made lots of complex changes to your site. Best Website Builder For Design: SquarespaceWhile Squarespace has fewer themes than WordPress, the quality of the designs are far superior. All of the themes are all beautiful, mobile responsive, and highly customizable. Squarespace is still a bit restricted in terms of how much you can change compared to WordPress. But this category was no contest from the beginning—Squarespace is the clear winner. Built-in Features and ToolsThis category focuses on “out of the box” features offered by each platform. This will give you an idea of your capabilities and limits without having to rely on any third-party tools. Squarespace FeaturesSquarespace comes with tons of built-in features. It has virtually everything you need to build a new website from scratch. Some of the top features include:
The list goes on and on. You can check out the full Squarespace feature index here. I like Squarespace because you don’t need to install any third-party plugins or apps to build, edit, and manage your site. Everything can be controlled directly from your admin dashboard. Whenever Squarespace comes out with a new tool or feature, it will automatically be available for you to use. WordPress FeaturesOne of the reasons why WordPress is so powerful is because you can install a plugin for virtually anything and everything that you could possibly imagine. The problem is that those plugins don’t come standard when you create a WordPress account. With that said, there are still some basic features that are built-in to WordPress. Most of these features are related to publishing. WordPress has tools for things like scheduling content and editing images. You’ll also be able to add passwords to pages and manage your comments. WordPress has features for multiple contributors and multilingual settings as well. You are responsible for updating your WordPress version (we’ll talk about this in greater detail later). So any new features and tools won’t be immediately available if you aren’t updating your WordPress account. Website Builder with the Best Features: SquarespaceEverything you need with Squarespace comes standard out of the box. The features are more robust and easier to access than WordPress. While WordPress has the capability to do more overall, those tools and features aren’t built-in. Plugins, Apps, Extensions, and Add-onsNow let’s evaluate the tools and features that can be installed or added on to these website builders. Add-ons can offer more flexibility and customization when you’re creating your site. Squarespace AppsSquarespace does not have an app store or way to add building and customization capability to your website. All of its tools are already built-in to the platform, and they’re updated automatically. With that said, you can integrate certain apps and tools with your Squarespace account. But overall, you’ll be relying heavily on the built-in features when it comes to building and editing your website. The integration with third-party apps won’t really change that. WordPress PluginsAs an open source platform, anyone can create a tool and add it to WordPress. Programmers and designers can offer these tools for free or charge other WordPress users to install them. This is where WordPress shines. There are roughly 55,000 plugins available for you to download and install to your WordPress site. The capabilities here are endless. There is a plugin for nearly anything you can possibly imagine. This gives you the opportunity to add custom functionality to your website. Just be careful before you install a plugin to your site. Remember, anyone can create these. I only recommend adding plugins offered by legitimate developers. So don’t slack when it comes to due diligence for evaluating a potential plugin. To learn more about WordPress plugins and their capabilities, check out my guide on the best WordPress plugins for each essential category. This will give you a better understanding of the possibilities for your website. Website Builder with the Best Add-ons: WordPressAll of the Squarespace apps are built-in, so the platform never really had a chance at winning this category. The sheer volume of available plugins that you can add to your WordPress site is unlike any other website builder on the market. Plugins are the reason why people love WordPress so much. It’s the best way to truly customize your website exactly the way you want to by adding specific functions. SEO FriendlyIn order for your website to be successful, it needs to be visible and rank high in SERPs. You should definitely look for a website builder that has tools and features that focus on SEO. Squarespace SEOSquarespace has SEO best practices built-in to its platform. It has automatic sitemaps, auto redirects, canonical tags, robots.txt files, and plenty of other ways to boost your site’s SEO. The nice part about using Squarespace is that you won’t have to go out and install any apps to deliver these SEO capabilities. You won’t have to think twice about your website being SEO-friendly because Squarespace handles everything for you. WordPress SEOWordPress is fully optimized for SEO on the backend. You can make changes to nearly every aspect of your website to make your content more appealing to search engines. Modifying permalinks, creating a sitemap, header tags, meta descriptions, and robots.txt are all areas where WordPress excels. WordPress is the ultimate website builder for the technical side of SEO. Plus, you can always add on plugins to improve your SEO strategy even further. Yoast SEO has more than five million active installations. It gives you complete customization and control over your WordPress site from an SEO perspective. Best Website Builder for SEO: WordPressSquarespace is an SEO-friendly website builder, but it’s no match for WordPress. The flexibility of WordPress and the ability to add SEO plugins will give you an advantage when it comes to ranking organically in search engines. Blogging CapabilityAll websites should have a blog. But there’s a difference between a blogging website and website that features a blog as a supporting element. I’ve taken both of these scenarios into consideration when evaluating Squarespace and WordPress for blogging. Squarespace BloggingSquarespace offers basic blogging capabilities. You can choose the layout and appearance of your blog while allowing multiple contributors as well. You can tag your blogs, segment them into categories, and edit them at any time. Squarespace also lets you set up automatic posting on social media any time you publish a new blog. The best part about using Squarespace for blogging is that you’ll get stylish templates for free. But you won’t have the ability to access the HTML code of your blog, which is a problem if you really want to customize your content. Overall, the Squarespace blogging tools are suitable for niche websites that also have a blog. For example, if you’re a photographer and use Squarespace to showcase your portfolio, you can add a basic blog as well. WordPress BloggingWordPress is built for bloggers. We publish hundreds of blogs per year here at Quick Sprout, and that’s one of the many reasons why we trust WordPress as our website builder and CMS. Unlike Squarespace, WordPress lets you access the HTML code of your blog. You may not need to take advantage of this often, but at least it’s available when you need to. WordPress is by far the most popular blogging platform on the market. As you can see, Squarespace owns just a fraction of this market share. Another benefit of using WordPress for your blog is the ability for you to manage comments. You have complete control over who can comment on your blog. WordPress also offers plenty of plugins to customize and improve the blog on your website. Best Website Builder For Blogging: WordPressIf blogging is the primary feature of your website, WordPress is definitely your best bet. Squarespace offers a basic blogging platform, but the fact that you can’t access the HTML code of your content is a huge downside. Ecommerce FunctionalityAre you planning to sell products or services online? You need to find a website builder that makes this as easy as possible for you. Squarespace EcommerceModern layouts and simple designs make Squarespace a frontrunner for selling online. You can easily build an ecommerce shop using Squarespace since ecommerce functionality is built-in to the platform. Squarespace makes it easy for you to sell products, services, subscriptions, and digital content. You can also sync your online inventory with your physical store locations to improve in-person selling. You’ll also benefit from features like built-in tax tools, gift cards, discount codes, and flexible checkout pages. This is everything you need to optimize your ecommerce shop for conversions. Squarespace offers easy ecommerce integrations with platforms like PayPal, FedEx, UPS, Stripe, Apple Pay, USPS, and many more. WordPress EcommerceWordPress is not optimized for ecommerce out of the box. You’ll need to install a plugin for ecommerce functionality. There are tons of options to choose from, but WooCommerce is the most popular and it’s what I would recommend. Once you install WooCommerce to your WordPress site, selling online is simple. You’ll have the ability to completely customize your store, instead of relying on cookie-cutter designs and templates. It’s possible to add any function to your ecommerce site with WordPress. You can work with a developer or programmer to create these functionalities for you if you can’t find a plugin that meets your needs. With WooCommerce (and other plugins), it will take you a bit longer to build a store from scratch. Updates to the plugin and your WordPress version aren’t always smooth. Best Website Builder For Ecommerce: SquarespaceSquarespace is the winner for ecommerce because the capabilities are already built-in to the platform. You can start selling products and services with Squarespace out of the box with no hurdles in the setup process. WordPress ultimately offers better flexibility and customization for your ecommerce store, but it’s reliant on plugins. If you already have a WordPress site, then installing WooCommerce is a no-brainer. But if you’re building a new ecommerce store from scratch, you’ll be better off with Squarespace. Maintenance and UpdatesWhen evaluating the best website builders, you need to look beyond the initial creation process. It’s important to choose a platform that makes it easy for you to manage, maintain, and update your content for the lifetime of your website. Squarespace MaintenanceOngoing maintenance with Squarespace is about as easy as it gets. There is nothing that needs to be done on your end. Squarespace regularly tests updates and automatically applies them to your website. In most instances, you won’t even know that anything has happened. This allows you to spend your time focusing on more important tasks related to owning and operating a website. WordPress MaintenanceWordPress is constantly coming out with new updates. They do this in order to improve the security and performance of the platform. Failing to update your WordPress version can put your site at risk for malware and attacks. In addition to updating WordPress, you also need to keep up with updates for all of your plugins. Sometimes plugins aren’t updated as frequently as they should be, which can cause compatibility issues with your WordPress version. You can take advantage of automatic updates, but it still requires you to stay on top of everything. Best Website Builder For Maintenance: SquarespaceSquarespace maintenance is hassle-free. They handle all of the updates for you, which is a big edge over WordPress. Keeping up with WordPress updates can be a pain, but it’s really not that difficult. Just don’t ignore them because you can put your website at risk for problems related to security and performance. SecurityUnfortunately, security needs to be a top concern for every website. There are too many bad people out there that target websites with malware, spam, and hacks in an attempt to steal information related from to business, customers, and website visitors. Every website is at risk, no matter what platform you’re using to create and manage your site. But some platforms offer more advanced security capabilities and features than others. Squarespace SecuritySquarespace includes an SSL certificate with your plan. They handle all of the security for you. Since Squarespace is a popular website builder, hackers will occasionally target it. But overall, it’s not as big of a target as more popular platforms. WordPress SecurityWith WordPress, the security of your site is completely in your control. This has its pros and cons. On the one hand, you can take steps to set up your website to be a fortress. But on the other hand, if you do nothing, your site will be susceptible to attacks. The benefit of using WordPress is that you can install security plugins, like Wordfence, to handle all of this for you as well. If you’re using WordPress, check out my list of the best WordPress security plugins to see some alternative options. But since WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS, it’s also the most attacked platform by hackers and cybercriminals. Best Website Builder For Security: SquarespaceThis was a tough one, but Squarespace is more secure compared to WordPress. Squarespace sites aren’t as vulnerable to attacks and the Squarespace team handles everything for you. The fact that an SSL certificate comes standard with your plan is a bonus as well. WordPress is still secure if you know how to set up everything properly. But it’s not the safest option out of the box. Retaining Rights to Your ContentContent ownership might not be the first thing you think of when you’re creating a website. But you should always review the policies of whatever platform you’re using to publish content on the web. Without realizing it, you may inadvertently lose the rights to work that you thought was your own. Squarespace Content OwnershipAnything you publish on Squarespace is your content. If you decide to move to another platform, you can take all of it with you. However, the templates are licensed to you; they aren’t actually owned. So even if you paid for a template, you won’t be able to keep it if you leave Squarespace. Here are a couple of excerpts from the Squarespace terms of service page that are worth reviewing in greater detail. In short, everything on your website is being licensed to Squarespace. This means that they can modify, store, publish, and reproduce your work. Under this agreement, they also have the right to use your website as an example for marketing and promotion of their platform. Some of you might be turned off by this, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Big companies like Squarespace will always try to keep their customers happy. It doesn’t benefit them to steal your content outright. This terms of service agreement is pretty standard if you compare it to social media networks like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. WordPress Content OwnershipWordPress is a free and open source platform. All of the source code on WordPress is free for anyone to distribute, modify, and use as their own. That’s what makes WordPress so great. It’s perfect for adapting and customizing functions to your specific needs. Since WordPress is set up this way, all of your content is 100% yours. WordPress does not impose licensing terms similar to Squarespace. This means you have total control and ownership of your content with no strings attached. Keep in mind, WordPress users are responsible for their own web hosting. So your web hosting provider might include content ownership terms that are similar to Squarespace. Best Website Builder For Owning Content: WordPressWordPress has better terms than Squarespace when it comes to owning content. If you use WordPress, then you don’t have any licensing contingencies in your terms of service. You won’t be able to keep your site themes or templates, regardless of which platform you use. Site MigrationsIn a perfect world, you’ll build your website on a platform and stick with it forever. But for one reason or another, you may decide to migrate your site to a new platform. Maybe you want to move from WordPress to Squarespace. Or maybe you’re trying to migrate for Squarespace to WordPress. You could potentially migrate your site to a different platform altogether. Website builders don’t always make it easy on you when you’re leaving. So this evaluation category primarily focuses on exporting your site during a migration. Squarespace MigrationsMigrating your site from Squarespace to another platform can be tricky. Squarespace limits what you’re able to move and retain during a migration. You’ll be able to migrate all of the basics like your pages, blog, comments, galleries, image blocks, and text blocks. But beyond that, you’ll have to rebuild quite a bit on the new platform when the migration is complete. Squarespace offers step-by-step instructions to guide you through the migration process, which is definitely helpful. The complexity of your migration will depend on the type of website you have. For example, it will be easier to migrate a Squarespace blog than a Squarespace ecommerce store. WordPress MigrationsMigrating content to or from WordPress is a bit easier. Since it’s the platform is so popular and widely used, it’s compatible with whatever formats you were previously using or plan to use moving forward. In some cases, your web hosting provider can handle WordPress migrations for you. Depending on the plan you have, this could be free or for a small fee of around $100. If an expert is able to migrate your WordPress site for you, then I’d definitely take advantage of it. Even if you have to pay, it’s worth getting it done properly. Best Website Builder For Site Migrations: WordPressMigrations are a pain no matter what platform you’re using. Exporting and importing on both ends is usually a hassle. I’ve never met anyone who enjoys this. But with that said, WordPress has the edge here because of its popularity. It’s more compatible with other platforms than Squarespace. Customer SupportI always use customer service as a factor when I’m evaluating a product or service. I want my provider to be there for me whenever I need help or assistance. Squarespace SupportSquarespace has excellent support. They have a dedicated IT team available 24/7 via live chat and email. They also have an extensive knowledge base that’s easy to use for troubleshooting on your own. Squarespace offers webinars to teach you how to use their platform and improve your website. As an all-in-one platform, Squarespace offers things like security, hosting, and a CDN standard with all plans. They handle all of the backend functions of your site so you won’t have to worry about anything. WordPress SupportIf you’re using WordPress, you need to be good at finding answers on your own. Fortunately, WordPress has a massive community of users. So there are tons of forums and help articles available online. Not every WordPress user has access to live support. Only paid plans will have this option, and the level of support offered depends on how much your paying. Best Website Builder For Customer Service: SquarespaceThe 24/7 live chat and email support offered by Squarespace is unbeatable. There is definitely more information about how to use WordPress on the web. But in terms of a dedicated support team, Squarespace is the winner. PriceWe can’t evaluate these website building platforms without comparing the prices. Squarespace PriceSquarespace has four different plans, starting as low as $12 per month. Here’s a brief overview of the pricing tiers. The plan you choose will depend on the type of website that you’re building. For example, if you plan on selling online, you’ll need the Basic Commerce plan, at a minimum. But if you are running a small, simple, personal portfolio site, you can get away with the Personal plan, which is very cost-effective. WordPress PriceWordPress is free. But if you want to upgrade to a premium plan, these are your options: If you’re just running a small blog, you can stick with the free plan or upgrade to the cheapest plan. But any other website should consider the Premium option, at a minimum. Upgrading your WordPress plan gives you access to features like premium templates, marketing tools, and support. The amount of storage you need will affect which plan you choose. Best Value Website Builder: WordPressThe fact that you can use WordPress for free is a great option for new websites. The two entry-level WordPress plans are cheaper than the lowest Squarespace plan. WordPress can cost as much or as little as you’d like. Some plugins will require payment, which adds on to your base cost. Who is Squarespace For?Squarespace is the best website builder for artists, musicians, photographers, fashion designers, and entrepreneurs. If you’re creative, but not technically-inclined, then you can build a beautiful website on Squarespace with the drag-and-drop builder. As an all-in-one platform, Squarespace is very easy to manage and maintain. All of the features and tools come built-in, so you never have to worry about adding anything on. Who is WordPress For?WordPress is best for developers, programmers, bloggers, and webmasters who know how to code. If you want complete control over the look and feel of your website, WordPress gives you the ultimate ability to customize. WordPress is pretty bare and limited out of the box. So it’s up to you to add plugins and code the site to meet your standards. It requires a bit more work, but the possibilities are endless. Final Verdict: Which is Better?Now to the burning question—which website builder is better? Squarespace or WordPress? Here’s a quick recap of the categories we evaluated above:
Each website builder has its upsides and pitfalls. It all depends on what you’re looking for and what’s important to you. Based on these factors alone, Squarespace wins 7-5. But with that said, WordPress is still a great option for lots of websites. We use WordPress at Quick Sprout, and I haven’t considered switching because it handles everything we could possibly need. But what’s best for me may not be best for you. If you’re building a new website from scratch and you don’t have any coding experience, Squarespace will probably be your best option. Still not sold on either of these platforms? Check out my guide on the best website builders for plenty of alternative solutions. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/squarespace-vs-wordpress/ As a small business owner, it’s crucial for you to stay up to date with the latest technology and trends. Yet there are still so many businesses out there using traditional phones for work purposes. The fact that you’ve landed on this page means that you’ve at least recognized the need for a change. Business VoIP phone services are increasing in popularity. This relatively new technology offers an alternative option to traditional phone lines. What is a VoIP phone service?
The acronym stands for “voice over Internet protocol.” In simple terms, this is a phone service that operates over the Internet. A VoIP creates a digital signal from any incoming or outgoing call. Then it converts that signal to reach any non-VoIP numbers as well. This cloud-based solution allows you to receive calls from a computer, VoIP phone, any phone with a VoIP adaptor, or mobile hotspot. Here’s a visual explanation of how it works. But if you run a quick search for the best VoIP phone services, you’ll quickly learn that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of options to choose from. That’s what inspired me to write this guide. I’ve identified the top phone service providers for small businesses. I’ll explain all of the benefits and show you the methodology for my conclusions. You can use this information to upgrade the phones at your company. The Value of a Business Phone ServiceWhy do you need a business VoIP phone service? Most small business owners rely on traditional landlines or mobile phones for communication. But landlines can take up lots of extra space around the office. Plus, you can’t take those with you on the go. The majority of you might be using your personal cell numbers to handle business calls. While the system might work for you, it’s not as professional. Sure—you could always get a business plan from a traditional wireless carrier. But those plans are pricey, especially when you add more lines. These are some of the top benefits of using a business phone service:
Most business VoIP phone services also come with features like call recording, call waiting, call forwarding, and call routing. Overall, a business phone service can add professionalism to any small business or website. It can improve communication in-house as well as with your customers. The Best Business Phone Service ProvidersNot every business phone service is the same. To find the best choice for your situation, read through the reviews of the best phone service providers for small businesses below. You can compare the pricing, plans, and features of each one to identify the best fit for your small business. RingCentralWith more than 350,000 businesses using RingCentral for VoIP phone services, it’s one of the most popular solutions in the industry. I like RingCentral because they have plans that have been specifically designed for small businesses. It’s reliable, secure, easy to use, and delivers high-quality voice for crystal clear calls. RingCentral is also affordable. You can save over 30% if you sign up and prepay with an annual plan as opposed to a month-to-month contract. Here’s a quick overview of the plans and pricing: Essentials
Standard
Premium
Ultimate
As you can see, RingCentral has a plan for everyone. You can also customize your plan to pay extra for things like additional toll-free numbers, vanity numbers, international numbers, and international toll-free calling. All of the plans come with basic features like unlimited business SMS and MMS, mobile apps for iOS and Android, HD voice, team collaboration, call log reports, and 24/7 customer support. The plan you choose will largely depend on how many toll-free minutes you plan to use as well as the number of users you’re going to onboard. GrasshopperGrasshopper is another popular option made for small businesses and entrepreneurs alike. More than 135,000 users trust Grasshopper as their business phone service. The provider is responsible for over 140 million calls per year. Grasshopper makes it easy for you to find toll free numbers, vanity numbers, 800 numbers, local numbers, and more. This simple solution is a great way to add professionalism to your business. Here’s a quick breakdown of the plans and pricing:
The solo plan is the best option for an entrepreneur who has a small side business. You’ll want to upgrade to the partner plan if you have a small group of up to three employees working for you. For anything more than that, you’ll need the small business plan to accommodate your needs. All Grasshopper plans come standard with the following features:
Unlike other business phone services on the market, Grasshopper doesn’t have any restrictions for calling limits. You’ll also benefit from 24/7 live support. Grasshopper also gives you the option to integrate your business interactions into one inbox that’s easy to manage. You can access your emails, texts, business calls, and contacts in one place. NextivaNextiva is an industry leader in the business phone service space. More than 1 billion calls were made on their network in 2018. That is an astronomical number. Overall, Nextiva is a larger company compared to some of the other providers on our list. They have more than 1,000 dedicated staff members on their team, which explains why they have a 94% customer satisfaction rating. Nextiva has three simple plans. The price depends on the number of users and the length of your contract. There are plans to accommodate businesses of all shapes and sizes, with options for businesses with 1-4 users, all the way up to 100+ users. Here are the starting rates for each plan, per user, for an annual contract:
These are the most affordable enterprise-level plans that we’ve seen so far. Some other highlights of Nextiva’s small business phone service include:
Unfortunately, some sought-after features are not included in the basic plan. If you want to use the Nextiva app, get unlimited conference calls, pre-recorded greetings, and text messaging, you’ll need to upgrade to the pro plan. Call recording, voice analytics, and voicemail to text delivery are only available on the enterprise plan. Phone.comPhone.com offers some of the most straightforward and simple VoIP business phone plans that you can find. The simplicity is one of the main reasons why their rates are so affordable. You can sign up and get started in minutes. Building and managing your entire business phone system from the intuitive dashboard is easy for anyone, regardless of their technical skill level. Phone.com has more than 50 standard features, including:
You’ll also benefit from E911 dialing, which is not offered by all VoIP providers. Premium features like caller analytics, call recording, video conferencing, and CRM integration cost extra. Phone.com is HIPAA and HITECH compliant, which means it’s safe to use if your company is in the medical field. Compared to other business phone services that we’ve seen, Phone.com offers a unique pricing structure. They have standard plans with unlimited minutes starting at $24.99, $32.99, and $49.99 per month with an annual contract. Each tier comes with extra numbers, extra text messages, and added features that you would expect with the price increase. However, Phone.com also has pay per minute plans starting as low as $9.99 per month. This is the lowest monthly rate that you’ll find from a reputable VoIP phone service provider. These plans are reserved for businesses that don’t need lots of minutes. The pay per minute plans offer 300 monthly minutes, 500 monthly minutes, and 1,000 monthly minutes, respectively. So if your calls are relatively short and infrequent, you can definitely save some money with one of these budget plans. VonageVonage is a reputable and well-recognized name in the phone industry. They have been in business for nearly 20 years. Back in 2003, Vonage became the first VoIP platform for 911 calls. While the company has a rich history, they just recently started providing business solutions. They offer three different plans, with rates based on the number of lines you need. Here’s a brief overview of the plans and costs. Mobile This plan lets you make and receive calls from your mobile device and desktop computer. It’s best for smaller businesses that don’t need office phones.
Premium The Premium plan is made for traditional office teams. It allows for calls from any device, including desk phones.
Advanced This is the best option for businesses that need a phone service for team setups and onboarding.
If you want CRM integrations, you’ll need to sign up for the Premium or Advanced plan. The Advanced plan also comes with on-demand call recording, group calls, and virtual voicemail. All plans come with a 14-day free trial. OomaOoma has VoIP phone plans that are specifically made for small businesses. It’s an ideal solution for businesses with traditional offices that need desk phones. They have an extremely appealing pricing structure for new businesses. Just pay a flat rate of $19.95 per month per user. There are no contracts and you can cancel at any time. However, there is a catch. The monthly rates don’t include hardware costs. If you compare these to similar hardware offered by other providers, you’ll see that Ooma is definitely on the more expensive end of the spectrum. This balances out the lower monthly rates. Ooma does have a mobile app, which allows you and your staff to make calls on the go from your smartphones. So theoretically, you could opt to go mobile-only and skip the hardware costs. Although I would not recommend this. There are better options out there if you’re looking for a business VoIP phone service without any hardware. So stick with Ooma if you want straightforward rates for your office phone. For those of you with a growing team, Ooma can scale with you. It’s easy to add on users, devices, and manage everything on your own. Your plan will come with unlimited calling, a toll-free number, low international rates, and a virtual receptionist. Ooma also has exceptional customer support if you have any trouble setting up the hardware or managing your service. JiveJive is one of the best VoIP business phone services for those of you who want lots of all-inclusive features. I like Jive because they strive to make enterprise-level communication available for small businesses. Their system is very easy to use, no matter how large or small your team is. With Jive, you’ll get basic features like:
Other providers make you pay extra for some of these. Jive makes it easy for you and your entire team to connect to your phone system from any computer or mobile device with an Internet connection. This is ideal for those of you who aren’t always tied to a traditional office setting. Pricing for these plans is based on users. Here’s an overview of Jive’s tiered-pricing structure. As you can see, the more users you have, the less you’ll pay per month. But even the entry-level plans are affordable. When you factor in the premium features that are all-inclusive, it makes Jive a more appealing option than some other providers on the market. Jive phones are extremely easy to set up. All you need to do is plug them in and you’ll be ready to make calls in minutes. 1-VoIP1-VoIP is cost-effective and flexible. It’s a great option for small businesses on a tight budget that want a reliable phone service provider. With plans starting as low as $14.97 per month, 1-VoIP doesn’t have the absolute cheapest rates that we’ve seen in this guide, but it’s very close. If you don’t make calls often, you can take advantage of 1-VoIP’s metered pricing structure. Only pay for what you use. In this case, you’ll be charged just $0.02 per minute. Unlike other providers on the market, 1-VoIP doesn’t cut out basic features if you sign up for the metered plan. You’ll still have all of the features that come with the other plans, including:
Altogether, there are 40+ features that come standard. If you’re only using up to 200 minutes per month, the metered plan will be your best bet. Otherwise, they have package plans starting at $19.97 and $29.97 per month per extension. How to Find the Best Business Phone Services For YouNow that you are more familiar with some of the top business phone services on the market, it’s time for you to choose a plan for your small business. To make this easier for you, I’ll explain the process that we used to evaluate the plans and services on our list. You can use the same criteria to find the best business phone service for you. Business sizeThe first thing you need to do is figure out how many lines and users you’ll need. There are certain plans out there that are geared toward small businesses with just a handful of people, while other options are best for teams of 20, 50, or more. In most cases, you’ll pay less per month per line if you have more users. Larger companies should look for these plans to get the best rate. But if you have a small team and only need a couple of lines, then it’s best to stay away from tiered-pricing models. Instead, look for package deals that are made for smaller organizations. PriceIn addition to the size of your business, the length of your contract can also have an impact on the price you pay. Some providers try to lock you into an annual deal to lower monthly rates. But this structure can be an expensive upfront cost. For simplicity sake, let’s say you’re signing up for a $20 per month per user plan, renewed annually.. If you have 10 users, this plan will cost you $2,400 upfront when you sign up. So make sure that you’re happy with your provider before you lock in any long term deals. I’d recommend a service that offers month-to-month rates. Try them out before you consider something long term. Whatever you decide, just make sure that your VoIP business phone plan fits your budget. There are some cheap plans out there with fewer features, as well as some higher-cost plans with lots of extra benefits. ReputationMake sure you choose a provider that is reliable and has a good reputation in the industry. Read third-party online reviews to see what customers are saying about them. Think of this the same way as your mobile phone plan. Networks like Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint have better reputations than some of the lesser-known brands out there. Sure—sometimes a smaller or lesser-known carrier can offer a cheap alternative. But in many cases, you get what you pay for. A trusted provider might be a bit more expensive, but it’s better than having a poor connection and calls dropping. Ease of useAlthough the concept of a VoIP phone may seem complex, using a business phone service shouldn’t be difficult. In terms of setup and onboarding, you should look for a service that can be up and running in minutes. If you’re making calls from a mobile app or desktop computer, then you can start instantly. For those of you who will be using VoIP desk phones and other hardware, look for providers that have simple solutions. If the hardware setup takes too long, it’s just not worth the hassle. Plus, the more complex the setup, the more difficult any troubleshooting will be. Taking calls, making calls, transferring calls, recording calls, reviewing call logs, setting up your voicemail, and everything else should be simple as well. If you and your team are having problems doing these things during your first month or free trial, you should look elsewhere for an easier to use service. Free featuresEvery business phone service comes standard with basic features depending on the plan you choose. Some of these will be more useful to you than others. It’s up to you to review those features to see which ones you’ll actually use. Then find a plan that includes those features for free. For example, you might be drawn to a plan that has 50+ features, even though you’re only going to take advantage of 10. But if that plan doesn’t include something you need, such as call recording, then it’s not worth it to pay extra for that if you can get it for free elsewhere. So shop around and compare feature lists to make sure you’re getting the best value for your needs. ConclusionBusiness VoIP phone services are a great option for small business owners. These phone services add a higher level of professionalism to your company. They are also cheaper and more flexible than traditional landline office phones. So what’s the best phone service for small business? It depends on what you’re looking for.
I made sure that this guide included something for everyone. No matter how big your team is or how small your budget is, you can definitely find a reliable phone service for your small business on the list above. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/best-business-phone-service/ Every ecommerce sale can be tied to a decision made by the consumer. There’s a moment in the customer journey process that sways people to buy or pass on a product. What defines this moment? I often get asked what makes or breaks an online purchase. If you don’t know the answer to this, then you can’t run a successful ecommerce operation. Lots of experts out there will tell you to “do this” or “do that” to increase ecommerce sales. But I always let the data do the talking for me. Sure—in theory, nearly every strategy sounds good. However, if you can’t tie those strategies to concrete evidence, then it’s just guesswork. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t let my business rest in the hands of someone’s best guess. That’s why I’m always on the hunt for the newest research and studies related to ecommerce and consumer behavior.
I recently stumbled upon an ebook called Understanding the Future of Ecommerce Personalization, published by AB Tasty. The ebook reports the findings of a study where 2,000 people were surveyed throughout the globe. The survey questions were used to discover the advantages, concerns, and frustrations of consumers shopping online. Based on these findings, I was able to draw conclusions on the factors that make or break an ecommerce sale. When in doubt, turn to the data. All of the data below came from the AB Tasty report. I’ve thrown in my own two cents as well to provide actionable steps for ecommerce websites. Improve Your Product PagesAny visitor that lands on your product pages didn’t do so by mistake. By this point in the buying process, the consumer has already identified their need or want for a specific product. From your product page, people are just a click or two away from finalizing a purchase. That’s why these pages need to be perfect. It’s no secret that the ecommerce industry is booming. People are buying online more than ever before. But with that said, the process of buying something online has its flaws. According to the research by AB Tasty, being unable to touch, feel, and examine a product is the most frustrating part about shopping online. As you can see from the graph, this response dominated the other pain points. Touching or feeling a product through the Internet is obviously not realistic, at least not in this lifetime. So your product pages must emulate that in-store experience as much as possible. One or two images just won’t get the job done. You need to use lots of high-quality images of whatever you’re selling and show the product from every angle. The idea here is that you don’t want your customers to be surprised when the product arrives at their doorstep. It should be clear based on the product page. If there is any doubt, the consumer won’t buy. Subtle changes on your product page can make a huge difference. For example, Seafolly, an Australian swimwear brand, increased transactions by 7% after simply enlarging photos in their shopping carts. A highly optimized product page goes beyond photos. It encompasses your branding, pricing, product descriptions, and more. Analyze your existing product pages and ask yourself if you’re telling the full story. Can a customer look at this page and get all of the information that they would get if they could touch or feel it in a store? I could argue that selling online gives you an advantage to brick and mortar shopping. In a store, customers can’t read a product description or watch a video demonstration of how to use the item. Use these tools to your advantage. Offer Free and Fast ShippingPrice will always have an impact on the consumer’s decision to buy. People will look at the cost of your products and immediately decide if they are still interested. There is nothing wrong with this. Your pricing strategy shouldn’t appeal to everyone and anyone with Internet access. But when you add on extra fees, like shipping costs, it can turn people away who were previously interesting in buying. If you refer back to the graph about the biggest pain points of buying online, you’ll see that “surprise fees” is tied for second in terms of the highest response rate at 17%. Furthermore, 10% of people surveyed said that “shipping times” were the most frustrating part about shopping online. That means more than one-fourth of consumers worldwide have frustrations and pain points related to shipping when they shop online. This is something that you can’t afford to ignore. Your shipping practices could be turning away one in four shoppers that land on your website. Whether you’d like to admit it or not, you’re competing with Amazon. Your customers are used to getting two-day or even next-day free shipping. That’s become the new standard in online shopping. So it’s hard for people to justify paying $7.99 in shipping costs to get their package delivered in a week. You need to offer fast and free shipping. There’s no way around it. If necessary, adjust the prices of the products to make up for the difference. Even if it means a 10% or 20% raise in your pricing across the board. As long as your customers aren’t seeing prices that they perceive as “extra” it will increase their chances of buying. Run Sales and PromotionsPersonalization was a major theme in the study published by AB Tasty. After all, the word “personalization” is in the title of their ebook. The reason why personalization is such a key factor in making or breaking an ecommerce sale is because it starts early on in the buying process. You can’t wait until the checkout page to try and implement a personalization strategy. But personalized sales and offers will guide your customers to make a decision. Take a look at this graph, which gives a global perspective on how consumers feel about personalized sales, deals, and promotions. While the results vary slightly by region, you can see that the majority (nearly 50% or more) in four of the five regions say they wouldn’t even shop at an ecommerce site that didn’t give them personalized offers. At a minimum, the overwhelming amount of consumers surveyed agreed that personalized options were nice to have. Just a fraction of respondents in every region said that they don’t want personalized offers. But you need to stick with the majority here. Personalized offers can come in all different shapes and sizes. For your existing customers, it could mean sending them an email with a new product or discount related to their purchase history. For example, let’s say you own an online sports equipment store. A customer buys a snowboard and snowboarding boots. After they make that purchase, you can send them an email for discounts on things like snowboarding goggles, a snowboarding jacket, a ski mask, and gloves. Sometimes personalization can be based on something simple, like the physical location of your website visitor. If someone is shopping from Hawaii, you probably shouldn’t be promoting snowboards and skiing equipment on the homepage. A surfboard, kayak, or paddleboard would be a better option. Be Transparent About Data SecurityTo truly personalize the customer experience, ecommerce brands are collecting data related to the browsing behavior of website visitors. While consumers want personalized offers, they still have concerns about privacy. Based on the graph we saw earlier about the frustrations of online shopping, 17% of consumers say they are worried about the privacy of their personal data. That was the second highest response on the list. AB Tasty took that one step further, by asking consumers how they felt specifically about this topic. These are the results: The results are pretty similar in every region. The majority of people admit that they are uncomfortable sharing their personal data, but they understand that it’s part of shopping online. Roughly 25% of consumers are fine with data collection and don’t have any concerns about it. A small, but still significant, percentage of respondents say they don’t want any data collection. They would even be willing to pay higher prices to avoid it. I found these results interesting, especially when you compare them to the graph that we saw earlier related to consumers wanting personalized sales and promotions. There is no doubt that people want personalized offers. But they are still uneasy about where those offers come from. The idea of being tracked online makes people uncomfortable. It’s all about context. As an ecommerce store, you need to understand this. Be transparent and tell your website visitors how and why you’re using data collection practices. Emphasize the benefits, instead of just stating that you collect data. Explain that the value of personalization outweighs any perceived disadvantages of data collection. Entice Customer LoyaltyOne of the biggest benefits of ecommerce personalization is customer loyalty. It benefits you as the store owner because your customers will keep coming back and buying more products. But it also benefits the customer because it improves their online shopping experience. Check out the statistics on this infographic related to personalization and customer loyalty. The results show that simply offering a customer loyalty program isn’t enough. The most successful loyalty programs are paired with personalization. In fact, customer satisfaction with loyalty programs is eight times higher when personalization is used. So how can you accomplish this? The best customer loyalty programs are based on rewards. So you need to find a way to reward your customers for shopping. But if you treat all customers and purchases the same, it won’t add any personalized value to each person. Think of a punch card at a local coffee shop. Every time you buy a coffee, the cashier punches a hole in the card. After you buy nine coffees, the tenth one is free. That’s a basic loyalty program. The problem with this system is that it treats all purchases the same. Customers buying a $1 espresso are getting the same rewards as someone buying a large $7 specialty drink. So when you create an ecommerce loyalty program, you could reward customers based on the amount they spend, rather than just the frequency of their purchases. This adds a higher level of personalization to the program since no two people will have the exact same total spending. When a customer tracks their status in the loyalty program, they can clearly see that the offers are geared specifically toward them. AB TestingYour ecommerce store will never be perfect. Yes—you can use the tips I’ve used in this guide to make changes to your product pages, homepage, and checkout process. But there will always be room for improvement. The best way to fully optimize your website for conversions is by running A/B tests. Again, this takes the guesswork out of your decisions. Rather than just assuming that your CTA button phrasing, color, and placement is correct, test out different variations to see which one converts at the highest rate. This is a constant process. You should always be testing different elements of your site to optimize it for conversions. ConclusionSo what makes or breaks an ecommerce purchase? It’s not just one thing. As a whole, there are several elements and factors that influence a consumer’s decision to buy or look elsewhere for their needs. Refer to the data. Overall, personalization converts. Brands that use digital tools and data to create a personalized shopping experience increase revenues two to three times faster than brands that don’t. 98% of marketers say that website personalization is a valuable method for improving conversion rates. 59% of businesses say that sales revenue is a direct benefit of digital personalization. If you want more information and data about ecommerce personalization from a global perspective, you can read the full report published by AB Tasty. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/what-makes-or-breaks-an-ecommerce-purchase/ Whether you run a small startup or large enterprise, effective communication is a key to success for any business. Email, instant messaging, traditional phone calls, and video chat all have their place in today’s work environment. But conference calls remain the best option for group communication over the phone. Most people tend to associate conference calls with corporate environments. Workers in suits seated around the table of a glass office overlooking the city. But that perception is just a fraction of how conference call services are actually used. Businesses of all sizes use conference calling to communicate with remote workers, colleagues in other locations, clients, and prospective leads across the world. Whether you do this frequently or occasionally, it’s important that you’re using a reliable conference call service to facilitate these discussions.
But not all conference call services are the same. There are plenty of free conference call services that get the job done. However, some of the best conference call services have additional features that you need to pay for. Factors like how many callers can be in a meeting, operator assistance, call recording, and video chat will impact that price. Regardless of what you’re looking for, this guide has you covered. I’ll show you the best conference call services on the market today, as well as my methodology for how to rank them. The Best Conference Call ServicesWhen it comes to conference calling services, there are eight options that stand out as the best:
I’ve reviewed each one in detail below so you can figure out which one is the best choice for your needs. UberConferenceIf you’re looking for a simple and easy to use conference call service, UberConference is the most logical place to start your search. I like UberConference because they have both free and paid options. For those of you who need basic calling features for small groups, the free option is a viable solution. At no cost, you can use UberConference for calls with up to 10 participants. You can also make an unlimited number of calls per year with this plan. The free conferencing call service comes with call recording, screen sharing, HD audio quality, HD video, and mobile app access. The maximum duration of a free call is 45 minutes. Larger organizations with needs beyond these limitations would need to sign up for the paid business plan, which is $15 per month (billed annually). Calls made on this plan can be up to 5 hours long. The paid plan has additional benefits like:
You can also add a toll-free number to your plan for an additional $30 per month (billed annually). The mobile app is one of the top features of UberConference. The fact that it comes standard with the free plan is a huge bonus. I like the app because it gives you access to all of the features from a mobile device, making it easy to start or join a conference call on the go. You don’t need to be tied to a desk or office to participate. Getting started with UberConference is very straightforward. You’ll be able to start making calls immediately after signing up. If you need some assistance, you’ll find that the knowledge base and customer support provided is extremely helpful. You might experience some static or audio quality issues with this service. But overall, I don’t think it’s enough of an issue to turn you away. The quality is still better than other free conference call services on the market. ZoomAlthough relatively new to the market, Zoom has quickly become an industry leader in the world of conference calls. This cloud-based system offers a wide range of free and paid options to accommodate businesses of all sizes. Here’s a quick overview of the plans and pricing: Zoom Basic
Zoom Pro
Zoom Business
Zoom Enterprise
Zoom Basic and Zoom Pro will likely be the best options for the majority of you. Those are the best conference call services for startups and smaller teams. You could always upgrade to Zoom Business as your company scales. Zoom stands out amongst its competitors for video conferencing and cloud conferencing rooms. You’ll definitely want to lean toward this service if you plan to make professional video presentations via conference calls. While it’s not for everyone, Zoom Enterprise is a top solution for those of you who fall into that category. Big companies like Uber, Zendesk, Ticketmaster, GoDaddy, and Pandora are just a handful of brands that rely on Zoom for conference calling solutions. Zoom has an extensive knowledge base as well as 24/7 phone support and live training with some of the plans. But the audio quality can be a bit unstable at times. FreeConferenceCall.comAs the name implies, FreeConferenceCall.com is, you guessed it—free. With more than 2 billion calls made across the globe, this is arguably the most popular free conference call service on the market today. To get started, all you need to do is create an account. You can do this in a matter of seconds. FreeConferenceCall.com has some of the highest limitations in the industry for free plans. You can use this tool to host conference calls with up to 1,000 participants, which is probably more than enough than you would ever need. In addition to audio conferences, FreeConferenceCall.com has free video meetings as well. The service comes with plenty of great other features and benefits.
Other conference call services out there charge extra or make you sign up for a monthly plan to access these features. From your account, you’ll also be able to access your call history and recordings. The archives will include details and reports of these calls as well. While the majority of people take advantage of this service for the free features, there are some paid features that you might want to consider using to enhance your experience.
I’d skip the custom greeting and custom hold music. Although some of you might want to add those to appear more professional for client calls. The extra storage is definitely something that I would consider getting if I was running low. You always want the ability to go back and access old recordings. Another top benefit of FreeConferenceCall.com is the mobile app access. Host, manage, and join calls from your phone the same way you would from a desktop browser. The only real drawback of FreeConferenceCall.com is that the storage capacity is limited. But as I’ve already mentioned, you can upgrade your storage at an affordable rate. Google HangoutsAs a Google product, you know right away that Google Hangouts is a reliable service. It’s free to use, and a great option for anyone with a Gmail account (which is basically everyone). When you navigate to Google Hangouts, it automatically connects with your Gmail account and contacts. It has Google Calendar integration as well, which makes it easy to schedule meetings with other users. To set up a conference call, just use your browser, chrome extension, or mobile app. This service is usually used for one-on-one meetings, but can be a viable option for smaller conference calls of up to 25 people. Google Hangouts makes it easy for you to share your screen and facilitate video conference calls as well. To get the most out of Google Hangouts, you need to have a G Suite account, which starts at $6 per month. You might already be using G Suite, and if you’re not, you should start. While Google Hangouts is simple, straightforward, and easy to use, it definitely has a few drawbacks that you should keep in mind. For starters, there is no customer support if you’re using it for free. So if you have a problem or question, you’ll need to browse through user forums instead. There is no recording feature either, which seems to be standard with most of the other conference call services out there. Personally, I use Google Hangouts at least once or twice per month. Although most of those meetings are just with a handful of people. Audio quality issues are common as well. But overall, it’s quick, easy, and free to make conference calls with this service. GoToMeetingGoToMeeting is one of the best paid conference call services that I’ve seen. It’s a high-quality solution for small business conference calls without too many extras or distracting features. Unlike some of the other paid conference call solutions on the market, GoToMeeting does not have a basic free plan. However, you can try still try it out at no cost with a 14-day trial. So at the very least, it can’t hurt to take advantage of this. GoToMeeting has three plans:
The Professional and Business plans can host conference calls with up to 150 and 250 participants, respectively. The Enterprise plan is for up to 3,000 participants. All plans come with these basic features:
GoToMeeting also has unlimited recording capabilities as well as automatic transcriptions of your conference calls. Overall, it’s a great choice for those of you who manage large remote teams. Performance is where GoToMeeting stands out over the competition. Lots of free and paid conference call services out there fall short with audio quality. But GoToMeeting customers rave about the crystal clear sound and connection of their conference calls. GoToMeeting does not have some of the more advanced features that we’ve seen from other providers. But personally, I like the simplicity. You don’t necessarily need too many bells and whistles to make effective conference calls. Plus, I think the price points for these plans provide a great value for the benefits. Vast ConferenceVast Conference is another paid conference call service that offers a 14-day free trial. With Vast Conference, you’ll have the ability to host instant conference calls without scheduling meetings in advance. But they also offer operator-assisted conferences as well. There are four different plan options to choose from with Vast Conference:
The biggest difference between the plans is the number of participants allowed in a meeting. These limits are at 10, 100, 250, and 500, respectively. All plans have unlimited cloud recording, except for the Essentials plan, which is limited to 1 GB of storage per user. The Vast Conference interface is very easy to use. Setting up, managing, and reviewing your conference calls will be simple for anyone, regardless of your technical skill level. Overall, I’d recommend Vast Conference to business users that want to take advantage of operator-assisted conference calls. This really adds a level of professionalism to your meetings. The audio and video quality of calls made with this service is exceptional as well. Like most options, Vast Conference isn’t perfect. I’m not really impressed with the mobile app calling. So you can look elsewhere if that feature is important to you. With that said, the customer support offered by Vast Conference is second to none. Even the entry-level plan comes with world class support. WebexWebex is a Cisco product, so you know that the technology used to power this solution is reputable and high-quality. This is one of the best business conference call services to consider for both audio and video calling. Here’s an overview of the four different plans offered by Webex: Webex Free
Webex Starter
Webex Plus
Webex Business
The free plan is fine, but it’s pretty limited. All of the paid plans come with more advanced features like transcription recording, call-in audio, file sharing, and administrative features. To get the best customer support, you’ll need to upgrade to the Webex Plus plan. Overall, Webex is a great choice for small, medium, and large businesses with remote employees. I really like the way that the video conferencing is displayed in a grid view as well. With the top-tier plan maxing out at 200 participants, Webex doesn’t really have an enterprise-level option. Although that shouldn’t be a major concern for most of you. Plans with up to 50 or 100 participants should be more than enough to meet your needs. BlueJeansBlueJeans specializes in video conference calls. It’s well-known for exceptional audio quality as well. This solution makes it easy for team communication from any device. For small businesses and individuals, BlueJeans has a plan starting at $12.49 per month, which can host meetings with up to 50 participants. They also offer an upgraded plan for $16.65 per month with conferencing capabilities for up to 75 participants. This option comes with recording features and cloud storage, which is what I would recommend. If you need more, you can contact BlueJeans for a custom solution and plan. Although the participant limit is 150 people. This is definitely less than some of the other enterprise-level solutions we’ve seen. Although the pricing will be a bit more appealing. Companies like Linkedin, Facebook, and Zillow rely on BlueJeans for conference calls. So it’s definitely a service that you can trust. One of the reasons why BlueJeans has such exceptional audio quality is because it’s powered by Dolby Voice. The solution is designed to suppress background noises while giving each participant’s voice a distinct location, which makes it sound as though everyone is in the same room. Loud talkers, soft-spoken participants, and simultaneous talking can still be heard, unmuffled. This definitely gives BlueJeans an edge over its competitors. How to Find the Best Conference Call Services For YouThere are an overwhelming amount of conference call services on the market today. Finding the best choice can be difficult. In order to pick the top option, you need to know what to look for when you’re evaluating a potential service. This is the methodology that I used when I was researching the solutions in this guide. You can use it as well to narrow your choices. Call LimitsThe first thing you need to look at is the calling restrictions for a plan that you’re considering. These limits will be related to the number of participants allowed in a call as well as the duration of a call. Some free plans will limit you to just 10 participants and 40 minutes per conference call. While other paid options give you up to 1,000 participants with no limits on call duration. Pick a service based on what you need. If you have a small business with just a handful of remote employees, you probably don’t need to pay for a conference call service with a limit of 250 participants. I’d definitely recommend finding an option with unlimited call durations. It won’t be effective or productive if you’re forced to cut meetings short based on these limitations. Call RecordingThe ability to record your conference calls is another big advantage. Not every free service comes with this option. There are different levels of call recording capability. Some services will record the call and then force you to store it locally on whatever device you’re using. Others have cloud storage options based on your plan. Make sure you understand any storage limits before you sign up for a plan. Otherwise, you might be forced to upgrade when you run out of space. It’s also worth noting that some call recording plans also come with transcription services. This will make it easier for you to go back and find certain points within a call without having to search through the audio. If you’re going to take advantage of video calling features, see if the service records the videos or if the recording is just limited to audio calls only. Account and Call SetupA conference call service is useless if it’s difficult to use. I rank ease of use based on two factors.
Signing up for some conference calling services can be completed in a matter of seconds. For example, if you’re a G Suite user, all you need to do is navigate to Google Hangouts to use it. If you need a custom solution or enterprise-level plan, setup will be a bit more complex. In most cases, you’ll have to reach out to a sales agent, which can be a pain and kind of time-consuming. Once you’re all signed up, regardless of the service, starting a new conference call needs to be extremely easy. How do you add users to the call? Is there a call-in service? Do you need to schedule the meeting in advance? Is operator-assistance available? These are all factors that need to be taken into consideration. Video ConferencingYou may not always need it, but I definitely recommend getting a conference call service that includes high-quality video. This feature can take your meetings to the next level. In addition to video, some services have features to optimize things like screen sharing and presentations. These are crucial for business collaborations with remote workers. Features like this will also make it easier for you to effectively pitch and communicate with any current or prospective clients that you’re working with. Certain conference call services specialize in video calls. So if you’re planning to use video for the majority of your calls, look for an option that specializes in this area. Call QualityYour conference calls will be useless if the quality and connection is poor. There is nothing worse than being on a call when you spend the whole time saying “can you hear me?” or “please repeat that.” If calls are dropping, lagging, or sound scratchy, you just can’t have a productive meeting. The importance of call quality increases with larger groups. When people start talking at the same time or some people talk louder than others, it can be difficult to keep up with the conversation. The only way to really know how good the call quality will be is to test it out. So definitely take advantage of any free trials offered by a provider. Use it as much as possible to see if you’re happy with the results. Customer SupportLike any product or service in any market, I always put big emphasis on customer support before I buy something. If I have an important call and something goes wrong, I need to be able to contact someone to fix the issue immediately. Some services offer 24/7 support over the phone, while others only offer it during business hours. There are free plans that force you to start a support ticket online, which won’t solve your problem right away. If you can’t contact a customer service representative, your conference call service should at least offer an extensive knowledge base for troubleshooting. PriceWhat’s your budget for conference calls? There are free plans out there, as well as enterprise-level solutions starting at $1,000 per month. With that said, most of you should be able to find a viable solution for less than $20 per month. You can usually get a better deal if you opt-in to an annual contract as opposed to paying month-to-month. Just make sure you’re comfortable with your decision before you commit to a long-term contract. Always take advantage of a free trial. Free and Paid FeaturesEvery conference call service has additional features to make its solution seem more appealing. Some common ones include:
The list goes on and on. Some of these features will come free with plans, while others you’ll need to upgrade or add-on to get. Basically, you need to just figure out which ones you’re actually going to use. Then evaluate the plans to see which ones give you the best value for those features. ConclusionAt some point or another, every business will need to make a conference call. So finding the best conference call service needs to be a priority for everyone. Here’s a recap of the best conference call services that I reviewed in this guide:
There’s a mix of free and paid options on this list. Overall, there’s something for everyone. Whether you’re an individual, startup business, large company, or enterprise, you’ll be able to find a high-quality conference calling solution using this guide. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/best-conference-call-services/ Finding the best web hosting provider for your website can challenging. With so many options to choose from, sometimes it can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. But if you’re an experienced WordPress user, then it will be much easier for you to narrow down your choices. WP Engine should definitely be on your shortlist of web hosting options to consider. In fact, WP Engine ranks high on my list of the best web hosting for WordPress. This is the hosting provider that we use here at Quick Sprout, and we’re very happy with it. WP Engine offers managed hosting for WordPress. So if this sounds like the type of hosting solution that you’re looking for, you can use this guide to help you make a decision. I’ve reviewed all of the different WP Engine plan options. I’ll also explain why WP Engine stands out as a top web host, and cover any potential drawbacks as well.
WP Engine Web Hosting PlansWP Engine has four hosting plans for you to consider:
All plans come with more than 35 StudioPress themes, 24/7 chat support, free site transfers, an SSL certificate, and a global CDN. Below you’ll find an in-depth review of each plan that includes the price, features, and benefits. StartupThe Startup hosting plan is ideal for a blog or a smaller website. It comes with all of the basic hosting features that you should need to accommodate up to 25,000 visits per month. The Startup rate is $35 per month. But if you prepay and sign up for an annual contract, you’ll get two months for free. Your website will have 10 GB of local storage and 50 GB of bandwidth per month. This is pretty good if you compare it to other entry-level hosting plans on the market. It’s a basic plan with straightforward pricing, but WP Engine gives you the option to add-on some extra features during the checkout process. While they may sound appealing, you can skip these. I really can’t justify the additional costs for an entry-level plan. A small personal blog with under 25,000 visitors won’t need these extras to run smoothly. If you’re going to spring for anything, the enhanced site security would be my only recommendation. GrowthThere is a significant jump in price from the Starter plan to the Growth plan. But you’ll benefit from plenty of extra resources as well. The Growth plan starts at $115 per month. It includes hosting for 5 WordPress sites, 100,000 monthly visits, 20 GB of storage, and 200 GB of bandwidth per month. These features make the Growth plan an appealing option for growing businesses. Another big difference between the Startup and Growth plan is the level of customer support. With Startup, you’re limited 24/7 live chat support (although that’s still good for an entry-level hosting plan). But Growth also comes with 24/7 phone support. So this is a huge bonus for those of you who would rather get on the phone and talk to an agent as opposed to chatting online. Even if you’re only expecting 40,000 or 50,000 monthly visitors, you’ll need to upgrade to the Growth plan. WP Engine charges overages for exceeding monthly traffic limits, but we’ll talk about that in greater detail later on. ScaleAs the name implies, the Scale plan is made for websites that have scaled beyond the limits of other plans. For $290 per month, your plan can accommodate 400,000 visitors per month. You’ll also get 30 GB of storage, 400 GB of bandwidth, and hosting for 15 websites. Those are enough resources to keep your site running smoothly even with increased visitors and traffic surges. The features included with the Scale plan are actually pretty comparable to the Growth plan. So the major difference is really just the ability to accommodate more traffic and the extra resources to support it as well. This plan is best for large websites and WordPress users that want to host multiple sites on one plan. CustomWP Engine offers custom plans for enterprise-level websites. With up to 1 TB of local storage and 400+ GB of bandwidth per month, the custom plans can accommodate millions of monthly visits to your site. Here’s a side by side comparison of the plans to put this into perspective for you. As you can imagine, only a small percentage of websites would be interested in the custom plan. For a higher price point, the plan comes with some free extras that are normally paid add-ons for the other plans. These extras include WordPress multisite, GeoTarget, and content performance. To get rates for the custom pricing solutions, you’ll need to get in touch with a WP Engine sales specialist. They’ll work out the details with you to figure out how much resources your website needs. Benefits of Using WP Engine For Web HostingUsing WP Engine as your hosting provider definitely has its fair share of perks. I’ve identified and explained the top benefits of signing up for one of their hosting plans below. Risk-free trialIt’s no secret that WP Engine is a bit pricey compared to the competition. To get the best possible rate, you need to commit to an annual contract. Some of you might be hesitant to commit for so long at a high rate. Fortunately, WP Engine has a 60-day risk free period for their hosting plans. If you’re not happy with the service, you can opt-out and get refunded. 60 days is double the standard guarantee for most hosting providers in the industry. Furthermore, the fact that WP Engine offers this is a testament to how they feel about their services. They wouldn’t offer it if they didn’t think you’d be satisfied. This offer is enough of a reason to try them out if you’re on the fence about an annual commitment. Transparent pricingAlthough on the high-end, I love the fact that WP Engine’s pricing is straightforward and transparent. That can’t be said for the majority of web hosting providers in the industry. It’s pretty common for hosting providers to advertise really low rates but only apply them to 36 or 48 month contracts that are prepaid in-full. Then when those contracts expire, the renewal rates will double, triple, or even quadruple. WP Engine doesn’t do that. The monthly contracts remain the same price even after your first contract is up. You can get two months free if you prepay for a year, but they’ll never force you to commit longer than that. Outstanding serviceAs a managed WordPress hosting provider, WP Engine really stands out amongst the competition in terms of its service. This is where the higher costs of these plans can be justified. You won’t have to do anything aside from running your website. The team over at WP Engine will maintain everything at the server level, including the security. WP Engine has hundreds of employees on their support team as well as on their outreach and development team. Other providers with less than 30 employees just can’t match that level of technical support. You’ll never have to worry about updates, security, your tech stack, or server optimizations. All of this is handled for you. The 24/7 live chat with every plan is a huge bonus as well. 24/7 phone support also comes free with every plan except for the Startup option. As a WP Engine customer, I’ve been impressed with the quick and informed responses whenever I’ve reached out to the support team. Strong performanceNo matter how impressive the features and bonuses are, a web hosting provider is useless if the performance of your website is lacking. This is definitely not an area where WP Engine falls short. Each plan has more than enough resources to accommodate the appropriate website sizes and volumes of traffic. This translates to high uptime rates and blazing fast loading speed. Since their hosting solutions are built for WordPress, everything is optimized for peak performance. Other hosting providers with cookie-cutter hosting for any CMS just can’t deliver as well in this area. SecurityWordPress is the world’s most popular CMS. This means that WordPress sites are vulnerable to attacks. In fact, as of 2019, 90% of all hacked sites run on WordPress. That number is up from 83% in 2018. But WP Engine goes the extra mile to protect your site at every level. They block more than 150 million attacks per day. One of the reasons why WordPress sites get hacked is because their software isn’t up to date. You won’t have to worry about maintaining these updates manually. WP Engine will handle it for you to ensure that old software isn’t making your site a target to malware. Developer friendlyWP Engine has tools and resources that make it easy for developers to host a website. They provide easy and automated on-click setups for faster deployment. You’ll also benefit from an integrated DevKit for the WordPress framework. This translates to smoother launches and fluid maintenance.
These are just a handful of the developer-specific benefits provided by WP Engine. Other ConsiderationsWP Engine isn’t perfect. So before you sign up for one of the hosting plans that we’ve discussed above, there are a few drawbacks and other considerations that you should keep in mind. Not for beginnersI do not recommend WP Engine if you’re new to web hosting or WordPress. If this is the first website that you’re launching from scratch, you should look elsewhere. For the price, you can do better with another provider. But WP Engine definitely isn’t trying to appeal to everyone with their pricing structure. This web host is made for pros and experienced webmasters. The developer-friendly tools and benefits are worth it if you know what you’re doing and how to use them. Businesses that are established and running on WordPress already should consider switching to WP Engine if they aren’t satisfied with their current hosting plans. High entry-level pricingAs I’ve mentioned a few times already throughout this review, WP Engine has high prices compared to the competition. Starting at $35 per month, the entry-level plans are ten times higher than some of the alternative hosting options out there. So if this is out of your price range, you can check out my guide on the best cheap web hosting to find another provider. With that said, it’s worth mentioning again that WP Engine doesn’t spike their rates when your contract renews. If you’re comparing entry-level plans, the rate may not seem significantly higher when you factor in the renewal costs and hidden fees charged by other hosts. However, once you get beyond the Starter plan, the price points aren’t even in the same ballpark as other shared web hosting options. WP Engine is expensive. WordPress specificThis should be pretty clear, but I had to mention it to ensure there wasn’t any confusion. If you’re not using WordPress, you can’t consider using WP Engine as a hosting provider. This alienates anyone who is using another CMS to run their website. Overage feesI briefly mentioned this earlier, but I want to talk about it in greater detail. The WP Engine plans have traffic limits. Normally, a web hosting provider will tell you roughly how much traffic your plan can accommodate. If you go over that number, it will impact the performance of your website. But WP Engine has a different approach. Rather than throttling down your website resources to hurt your performance, they simply charge you extra for exceeding your limits. Depending on your plan, you’ll pay an extra $1 to $2 per every 1,000 monthly site visits over your limit. This can be costly, considering the drastic jumps of traffic limits between plans. For example, let’s say you’re on the Growth plan, paying $115 per month for up to 100,000 monthly visits. As your business grows, you may start getting 200,000 visits per month, which would cost you an additional $200 per month. At that point, it would be more cost-effective to upgrade your plan, even though you still aren’t coming close to the 400,000 limit on the next tier. The structure of these overage fees could force you to upgrade to a higher plan from the beginning in order to avoid these extra charges. ConclusionWP Engine is arguably the best managed WordPress hosting provider on the market today. Although it’s not for everyone. I only recommend WP Engine to advanced WordPress users and pros. The high entry-level pricing isn’t worth it for new or small websites. I’d only consider using WP Engine if you were ready to sign up for the Growth or Scale plans. The Startup plan is likely too basic to accommodate your needs. In terms of service, it’s tough to find other providers out there that match the level of excellence set by WP Engine. As a satisfied WP Engine customer, I’m happy to recommend this web host to you as well. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/wp-engine-web-hosting-review/ |
Sean BrianWhile radishes deter certain insects naturally, they require similar growing conditions as carrots. Although the crops both have roots, radishes grow and germinate quicker, allowing carrots to continue growing in the soil space available when the radishes are harvested, Archives
April 2023
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