Thankfully, over the past decade or so, the competition in this sector has pushed service providers to improve their products, infrastructure, and offerings significantly. Needless to say, today’s hosting is more than adequate to what users consider acceptable. But more importantly, this progress is far from stagnant. On the contrary, the hosting market is alive and running at a formidable pace. This can be seen by the wonderful plans and products hosting companies offer for what’s essentially next to nothing. Just look at our magnificent offers. Indeed, HostArmada is not a random name in the hosting service community, as we are at the forefront of innovations in this industry. But even so, you can see the endless list of features we offer for what’s essentially an extremely affordable plan.

The best part is that the fast development pace in this industry is far from slowing down. You needn’t look any further than the trends of 2024 to see that hosting companies are beyond dedicated to bringing the best service possible to their clients.

So, what will be new in 2024? Let’s have a look.

1. Improved Website Security

Security has always been a cornerstone of a good hosting infrastructure. Often, it’s the feature that hosting companies take care of the most. Whether it’s development or updating existing software, hosting companies invest heavily in finding new and more robust methods of protecting their clients’ websites and data. And how could it be otherwise when malicious hackers are constantly looking for vulnerabilities and weak points?

Moreover, with cyber threats at an all-time high and with our lives and personal information digitized faster than ever, hosting companies will have to put website security at the center of their development efforts. Over 8.2 billion data breaches and cyber attacks were recorded in 2023 alone. This is enough to make you question whether the internet is a safe place. Of course, the answer is “it depends”. It depends on the security infrastructure of the websites you visit.

Well, hosting companies are already introducing various methods to battling this mind-blowing number of threats. All sorts of strategies could be implemented. But generally, the best practice is a mix of various protections, backups, and sophisticated firewalls.

We at HostArmada, for instance, offer over a dozen security features even for our most affordable plan. Among them, you will find a state-of-the-art Advanced Firewall with herd immunity powered by AI. Also, there are the Network and Web Application Firewalls, along with Proactive defenses, Next-gen IDS/IPS, and a hardened PHP. Those are just a few of our security measures, making us one of the most protected hosting providers.

Naturally, most other hosting services will follow suit, as cyber security is the theme of 2024. Whether bullet-proof encryptions, automated threat detection, or more sophisticated protection against DDoS attacks, web hosting companies will implement robust security practices to ensure their clients have nothing to worry about.

2. Multi-cloud hosting

With 92% of enterprises having a multi-cloud strategy ready to enact, it’s hard to argue that Multi-cloud hosting won’t be a thing in 2024. This trend will inevitably become dominant this year, driven predominantly by the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the massive boom in the technology sector, and its countless advantages. With the past few years gone, organizations worldwide recognize the importance of resilience, collaboration, and effective data management. This epiphany is actually one of the few benefits of the lockdowns.

The impact of the pandemic is evident in the strategic decisions of technology executives. A significant 76% plan to increase their spending on multi-cloud and hybrid cloud technologies in the next 12 months.

The advantages of multi-cloud hosting lie in its ability to enhance various aspects of business operations. It improves security, interoperability, data access, and IT operations, offering a comprehensive solution beyond the limitations of a single cloud host. However, challenges such as compliance, access control, and security remain, with many companies identifying these issues as their primary concerns.

The multi-cloud approach is gaining traction due to its capacity to seamlessly integrate services from different platforms. It allows businesses to tailor their cloud systems to meet specific objectives. Additionally, it mitigates risk by providing redundancy – in case one cloud host fails, operations can seamlessly continue with others. This risk mitigation becomes crucial as organizations face new challenges and increased cloud usage due to disruptions. For example, what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The added data protection and robust risk mitigation capabilities make multi-cloud hosting a comprehensive and appealing choice. As you can imagine, this will inevitably lead to it becoming unavoidable for hosting companies in 2024.

3. Cloud VPS hosting

With the steady rise of online purchases and 2.64 billion online customers, many websites are updating their shared hosting plans for a better, yet still affordable, solution. One of the biggest problems with shared hosting is the shared resources. If, at any particular moment, a website you share a server with has a surge in traffic, your performance will suffer. It’s like being at an all-you-can-eat buffet. When everyone is taking a reasonable amount of food, everything is fine. Everyone has access to all sorts of dishes. However, if someone decides to take advantage of the system and takes over the meat buffet, emptying the trays, you will have to wait for him to move along before you can get a piece.

The same is true with your shared resources. If a website has a lot of traffic at some point, it will block your website from having the same. With cloud technology, that rarely happens. That’s why HostArmada offers 99.9% uptime, as we can divert resources immediately from other servers via the cloud network. Still, many companies who can’t afford to go down during rush hour prefer to take an extra step – Cloud VPS hosting. The VPS hosting allows you to have your own dedicated resources and utilize them as you please. Naturally, this enhances the website’s security, speed, and performance. In 2024, these benefits will be determining factors for decision-makers. Unsurprisingly, we expect the demand for these services to rise significantly.

4. Managed web hosting

Managed web hosting has been around for quite some time now but never really got into the spotlight. Mainly because most companies had IT departments that took care of everything regarding the hosting. The rest, used whatever resources and knowledge was available on the internet. Many hosting providers, such as HostArmada, have always been ready to help their customers with server problems. However, since the e-commerce boom after the COVID-19 pandemic, this has not been quite enough. Thus, the Managed web hosting service took the spotlight, and in 2024, it will truly become a rockstar.

Though expensive, this hosting service offers an all-inclusive solution to everyone with limited know-how in dealing with servers. This service offers to take care of your server and improve your website performance to the best of your server’s abilities. Moreover, they handle the server optimizations, updates, and security.

This service is particularly popular among small e-commerce operations and other businesses, who can afford the salty price and don’t want to hire an entire IT department. The rise in popularity is due to the fears of competition in the e-commerce sector, where any advantage over the competition is more than welcomed.

Furthermore, with the rise of cyber threats, managed web hosting services will give people with little to no IT knowledge the peace of mind that their data won’t be breached and their business won’t be ruined because of this.

5. HTTPS as the norm

HTTP is dead. Long live HTTPS. This change has been coming for quite some time. Mostly after Google started marking HTTP websites as “not secure” in 2018. As you can imagine, this changed the entire SEO strategy, and HTTPS became mandatory. Still, in 2024, we expect every active website that’s not a fraud, of course, to become an HTTPS website.

The S in this protocol stands for “secured.” It’s actually a sign that the website has an SSL certificate, encrypting the communication between the browser and the server. It’s the most basic security protocol out there, and not having one in 2024 is equal to chasing users away.

The benefits of an HTTPS protocol are countless. It builds trust with the users, protects sensitive data, and, most importantly, pushes your website higher in Google SERP.

In 2024, hosting providers who refrain from offering a complimentary SSL certificate to their customers will simply fall behind. As we already stated, that’s the basic security protocol, and having a website without one is absolutely pointless.

For example, HostArmada has long since offered four complimentary SSL certificates – a free SSL from Sectigo, a cPanel Auto SSL, a CloudFlare Free SSL, and a free SNI.

Naturally, in 2024, every hosting provider who wants to stay on the market will have to offer at least half of what we already provide.

6. DIY website builders

Website builders are on the rise and won’t stop for the foreseeable future. In fact, economists predict that the website builder market will skyrocket by the end of the decade, reaching 14.4 billion dollars. That’s hardly surprising, considering that more than 18 million websites worldwide were built thanks to a website builder.

The rapid pace of this trend is underlined by WordPress’s shift toward drag-and-drop website building infrastructure. The CMS will provide a significant relief for most hosting companies, who offer seamless integration with the most preferred website builder in the world. Still, some hosting companies prefer to have their own drag-and-drop builders, which can be a benefit if you are able to create your own CMS and all you need is help with the front end. In most cases, however, this is not the case.

So, while we truly believe that DIY website builders are the future, in 2024, hosting providers offering seamless integration with WordPress will still be preferred.

7. Offering additional services

Adding some basic complimentary services to the hosting packages is not something new for hosting companies. For example, an SSL certificate and email account support have been the bare minimum for quite some time now. But with the rise of demand and competition, we expect hosting companies to start offering all sorts of additional features and services for free.

For example, at HostArmada, we are providing our customers with not only unlimited email accounts but also a variety of features regarding email. Autoresponders, filters, outbound email filtering, and email virus scanners are typically additional services for which many hosting companies would ask a pretty penny. We offer them for free with every plan, as we understand that email communication with customers is crucial for any business.

Moreover, we offer website consultations, restoration of hacked websites, and a free website transfer.

So, in 2024, we expect those who want to retain their position in the market or grow to start offering additional services as part of their plans. Added value will always play a crucial role in customer decision-making. So naturally, staying behind your competition in this regard is a recipe for disaster.

8. Serverless Hosting

In 2024, Serverless Hosting is set to dominate the hosting landscape, driven by many advantages that cater to the evolving needs of businesses. The serverless architecture offers unparalleled benefits such as instant scalability, faster deployment, cost-effectiveness, and lower latency. Developers experience heightened efficiency and productivity as serverless hosting optimally allocates resources, allowing them to focus solely on coding without the burden of managing servers.

A key advantage of serverless computing lies in its ‘pay-as-you-go’ model, offering flexibility and cost-effectiveness. Users are charged based on actual computation usage, eliminating the need to reserve and pay for fixed bandwidth or server quantities. Despite the term “serverless,” physical servers are still utilized, but the intricacies of infrastructure management are abstracted away, allowing developers to focus solely on their code.

This pay-as-you-go model will become a hit in 2024, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if many more hosting companies implement it in their portfolios.

9. AI at the forefront

Just like with every other aspect of business and life in general, AI will play a significant role. First and foremost, it will be a great allay in customer support. However, infused with different features, it will make the customer’s website faster, more resilient, and much more secure.

AI will be behind personalized server optimization, which will help users utilize the resources they buy optimally.

Moreover, artificial intelligence will find implementations in security features. For example, at HostArmada, we use AI to enhance our customers’ security by implementing it in an Advanced firewall with herd immunity. There, artificial intelligence can detect new forms of attacks based on analytics and data. Naturally, this protects the websites not only from known threats but also from the unknown.

AI’s applications are truly endless. Thus, in 2024, we expect to see many new hosting features utilizing this security and functionality goldmine.

10. Going green

Finally, we have the one thing that will be a trend in almost any industry – sustainability. Regardless of whether you agree with sustainability practices or not, as long as customers find eco-friendly practices important, the industry will follow. Currently, green living is on everyone’s agenda.

So, in 2024, hosting will be going green and sustainable. With 3.7% of all global carbon footprint coming from internet use and supporting systems, this trend is a bit late indeed. Still, it’s better late than never.

This year, an increasing number of hosting companies will participate in eco-friendly initiatives and will try to gain a Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) or a Carbon Offset Certificate (VER). With customers becoming ever more environmentally aware, hosting companies have no choice but to follow the sustainability trend. So yes, REC and VER will be a must in 2024 if hosting companies have growth in their plans.

Some final words

As a business owner, it’s important to know the trends so you can find a hosting company that’s at the forefront of the industry changes. Usually, a plan ties you up for at least 2 years. This means researching how forward-thinking the hosting provider is will help you significantly in the long run.

HostArmada is an excellent choice. We implement the latest technologies and make sure to equip our clients with the latest software that could help their websites be the fastest, most reliable, and secure platforms on the internet. Check out our plans, and don’t forget to familiarize yourself with the vast array of additional features and services we are offering for free. Don’t forget that a great website (that’s you) starts with the choice of a great hosting provider (that’s us).

The post 10 Web Hosting Trends to look for in 2024 appeared first on HostArmada Blog.

Thanks to this, a new trend has recently taken over web design: video hero sections. Now, when you work with websites, you know far too well that a website is only as good as its hero. This is most often the beginning of the customer journey, and if it’s not convincing enough, the customer will simply leave. With an average time spent on your website of 53 seconds, a captivating hero is a must if you want to keep the readers on and reduce your bounce rate significantly. Still, that can be achieved just as well with a great picture. However, in some cases, video heroes work better. So, let’s have a look at the ins and outs of video heroes, the benefits, the downsides, and the best practices. Most importantly, let’s see if they will fit your unique needs. But before we get there, let’s start from the top. 

What Is The Hero Section?

A hero section is the first thing your audience will see on your website. It’s front and center, right beneath your header (most often occupied by your logo and menu). Typically, it’s a large, prominent area that is used to capture the user’s attention and drive them to take action, either by continuing scrolling or using a CTA.

Now you know why the hero section is the one that will determine whether your website works or not. It’s front and center, and it must tell the user precisely where they are, what they are looking for, and how they can get it. It’s much like an information desk or, better yet, a concierge who greets all visitors and directs them to where they need to go. Naturally, the greeting has much to do with whether the visitor will stay or leave immediately. In other words, your hero’s content must be impeccable – clear, to the point, and informative. It must portray your brand persona, as well as your brand voice, as it’s usually the first point of touch between users and your brand.

Most often, hero sections are dominated by the brand colors and a high-definition image, leaving no place to interpret your brand’s product or service. For example, take a look at our hero section.

We leave nothing to the imagination. We tell our potential customers precisely what we offer and how they will benefit. Moreover, we complement our copy with a stylish visual representing exactly what we do.

However, some brands prefer a video hero to communicate with their audience. Now, whether this is a good or bad decision depends on several factors. But before we get there, let’s discuss what the video heroes’ goals are and how they differ from the image heroes’ ones. 

What Are The Goals Of the Video Hero Section?

A video in your hero section changes the dynamic of your entire page. While the primary goal of your hero section when using images is to forward your customers to the next step on their journey, a video in the hero section aims to retain their attention. But why would you want to keep the user’s attention at the first step? Well, there are many reasons. Most often, its aim is to expand your authority. 

Moreover, if your website’s aim is to redirect users offline, a long customer journey through various pages may prove highly frustrating for the user. So, a video hero can summarize the most important parts of your presentation before you invite them with a CTA to get to your location. In this case, the hero section plays the role of a brand awareness instrument rather than a sales one. It establishes the brand’s goals, values, and voice. 

Some industry niches also benefit highly from video heroes. The music industry is definitely among the frontrunners. If you are a musician, adding a video of your concert will act as social proof of your capabilities. The same goes for DJs and other artists related to the music industry.

The sports industry is another great example. In this case, the video in the hero section plays a seduction role. Sport is always accompanied by passion. Thus, seeing someone running with a particular brand of shoes will instantly increase customer’s desire to get a pair. 

All of these extra goals can be achieved by a picture as well. However, using an image won’t be nearly as effective as using a video. And, of course, the video has some other benefits to sweeten the deal. 

What Are The Benefits?

If you manage to make your video up to your audience’s standards, you are bound to reap a vast array of benefits. Let’s go through some of the most important:

Grabs attention

The most significant benefit of using a video in your hero section is the engagement you will achieve. It’s unparalleled. Moving images grab human attention far more easily. That’s encrypted in our psychology as we subconsciously react to movements. There’s no wonder why toddlers are always captivated by any screen, and breaking their attention from a video is almost impossible. Videos inspire interest, and thus, you will captivate your audience and represent your brand without the fear of losing their attention to something else moving around them. 

Creates emotional response

True, an image can also produce a strong emotional response, but it’s far more unlikely than a video. If you are selling emotions or feelings, your best bet is using a video hero. That’s what videos are best at. This is why a song may convey different emotions when you are only listening to it, in contrast to when you are watching the music video. 

Conveys messages much easier

People tend to prefer watching and listening over reading. Actually, 59% of people prefer to receive information through videos. That’s hardly a surprise, as videos tend to take less time than actually reading something. Still, that’s only valid for simple information. If you need to concentrate on understanding something, reading is the way to go.

Still, on your website, you won’t give lectures on how your product was conceived and its technical aspects. You will simply list its benefits and how it can help your customers with the specific problem that brought them to your website. This is a simple enough message. 

Creates a specific mood

Using a video in your hero section will help you to create a mood. This is essential if you are trying to push your customers to buy. Naturally, the mood should reflect your website’s goals. 

Creates a sense of authority

Finally, a good video can build up your authority like nothing else. Showcasing your strengths and knowledge, as well as adding some numbers, will increase your authority as a factor in your industry. 

What Are The Downsides?

Naturally, hero section videos have their fair share of downsides

Too expensive

As you can imagine, only high-quality videos can ensure you will get the benefits from a video in your hero section. This, however, is neither easy to produce nor cheap. A hero-section video is simply out of the question if you are on a tight budget. 

Little room for A/B testing

While you can try and test over a hundred images to see which one works best, this is impossible with videos. The production, as already stated, is far too expensive to create more than 1 video. So, as you can imagine, you have no room for errors. Thus, you need to nail it on the very first try. Naturally, that’s extremely hard, especially if you don’t have enough data on your customers and their drivers and behavior.

It will make your website too heavy

Regardless of all the technical improvements of the past few years, a video is a video. It’s heavy, and you can’t do much about it. Having a video on your hero means your website will load a bit slower. And since the hero section is the first thing people see on your website, they might lose interest if your video is delayed. So, if you are going to use a video in your hero section, make sure every other aspect of your website is highly optimized. 

So, as you can see, though a video in your hero section can bring a lot of benefits, it’s a risky maneuver that demands a bit more consideration. Don’t just rush in to make any video. This way, you will only acquire all the negatives without any of the benefits. 

Video Hero Best Practices

If you’ve decided to go for a video in your hero section, this part is essential. You can’t just put any old video there. Nor is it a good idea to place a stock video, just so you can show off with a video hero section. If you are going to go down that road, you might as well do it right.  

High-quality videos only

This must come without saying, but a high-quality video is a must. So, keep the resolution to at least 1000p, and ensure the content is high-quality. You can’t put some half-baked stream of you commenting on your product’s success with no cuts or intention. You need to provide your audience with something that they won’t just enjoy but will also find useful. Whether it’s an emotional booster or a quick guide to the product’s use, your video should aim to please. 

Keep it short

Indeed, the video should be short, not only because a longer video demands far too many resources but also because your audience’s attention span is limited. Keep in mind that each user, looking for a solution to their problem, has at least ten other tabs opened at the same time. Thus, you must impress them as fast as you can. So get straight to the point and convey your message in under 10 seconds. 

Make it specifically for this task

One of the biggest mistakes we’ve seen when creating a video hero section is using an old video for the task. You might have to shoot an advert for your products or an explanation video for your YouTube channel. You might have created a short on your Instagram Real or TikTok. Unfortunately, though, using these videos will never work. You need to create a video that’s specifically for your website. Each communication channel has a unique role, and you can’t mix and mingle your messages as if they are all the same. They are not. 

Darker videos work better

An excellent pro tip is to darken your video by about 35%. This way, your video will still attract attention but won’t overwhelm and push away audiences. Imagine looking at the screen at night, looking for a product or a service, and at some point, a giant wave of lights crashes on your screen. This will trigger the fight or flight response, and none of them is good for your business. So, keep your video darker.

No Sound

On the same note, keep the sound off. Even if your video has some majestic sound effects, give the user the opportunity to hear them at their own will. Don’t force it on them. Keep your video’s sound off as default and put a visible button to allow your users to unmute. 

Make it a loop

Finally, make sure to keep the video ongoing. The best solution is to make the beginning and the end the same so it will seamlessly blend. However, if your vision demands a strict beginning and an end, you do you. Regardless, make sure to put your video on look since users might miss it. As we already stated, people often have multiple tabs open when looking for a product or service, so you might not be their first tab. It would be a shame if your video ends before they even get to your website.  

Is a Video Hero Section a Good Fit For You

So, the big question. Is putting a video in your hero section a good fit for you? Well, if you have enough budget to produce an entire video just for your website, you can ensure it is high quality, you have enough data on your audience and know what they like, and you want to convey an emotion, then yes. A video is the perfect solution for your hero section. 

However, if you are on a tight budget, your product is practical and does not need emotions to be considered, and if your home page is just the beginning of your customer’s journey, then an image is a much better idea. 

Now you know. But beware. If you go for the video solution, you will need powerful hosting to help reduce the strain on your website’s speed the video will inevitably cause. Luckily, we have just the thing.

HostArmada is a powerful cloud-based hosting solution that offers a robust hosting infrastructure. Our lightning-fast speed, high-end security, and unmatched uptime will guarantee that your video hero section will have all the resources it needs to provide your users with the best experience possible. 

The post Is Video Hero Section a Good Fit For Your Website? appeared first on HostArmada Blog.

But does it really matter which browser you will use? The short answer is a resounding yes. The long one is a bit… well, longer. So, if you want to learn why it matters, what the differences between the browsers are, what other people are using, and what you should use, buckle up, and let’s find out.

What do web browsers do?

If you are reading this, you are on a web browser. Whether it is Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, Opera, or something else, you are utilizing a browser to be on our website. Thank you for being here, by the way. In fact, each website you’ve ever visited uses a web browser. We are strictly talking about websites, though, as you can listen to music via Spotify and watch movies via Netflix by using their platforms. This means you are still using the internet, but you are not entering a website but instead using an app.

Of course, the primary function of each web browser is to fetch the website from the hosting server and display it on your monitor. You can check how that happens in our dedicated article on DNS and the eight steps of opening a website. In a nutshell, the browser communicates with the Recursive Nameserver to locate the IP address of the domain you requested. Thus, you don’t have to memorize complicated number sequences, but easily memorable names, like HostArmada.com, for example. The translation of the address is actually done by the DNS, however, not the browser. The browser only sends the domain name to the DNS.

Then there is opening the website

Still, retrieving the website is only part of what the browser does. Don’t imagine the website being received as you see it on the browser. What the browser gets is a package of different files, among which are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. So, the browser has to interpret the HTML code and lay out the structure of the page on your screen. Then, it implements the CSS code. This will add the different elements’ styles, fonts, and colors. Finally, the browser will read the JavaScript. This will add the interactive elements and dynamics of the content. Imagine a carousel rotating with different images.

All of this should be a sign that the shorter, cleaner, and better arranged your website code is, the faster the browser will load it. So, make sure to keep your code as clean as possible so that no matter what browser your audience is using, they won’t have any problem loading it as fast as your hosting provider allows it.

Other functions

In addition to those core functions, web browsers have a plethora of other useful functions that aim to improve your experience. Saving websites as bookmarks, using multiple tabs, and adding various extensions with all sorts of functionalities, and, of course, security features are the bare minimum today. However, there are some differences in the usability of these functions.

Are there differences in how web browsers operate?

Yes. Though the primary and secondary functions are predominantly the same, they differ in how they operate. This is predominantly due to the different rendering engines they use. For example, Chrome, Edge, and Opera use Blink, while Firefox utilizes Gecko. Apple, who is trying to keep its environment clean from third-party software developers, as this often leads to security issues, developed WebKit. Naturally, Safari uses it.

A rendering engine is a web browser’s core component responsible for interpreting HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code and displaying web pages on the screen. In essence, this is the heart and soul of the browser.

Each of these rendering engines has its pros and cons. For example, Gecko is an open-source product of Mozilla, and thus, it has some incredible compatibility features. It’s often at the forefront of user experience development, and the support is predominantly outstanding. However, due to its open-source nature, security is lagging behind its competitors.

WebKit is, without a doubt, the big dog in this group regarding security. Just like every other Apple product, WebKit is like Fort Knox. However, due to Apple’s insistence on having a close environment, its compatibility is lagging behind, as is its stability with some websites.

Blink, on the other hand, has astonishing speed, especially since Google developed it. The compatibility, stability, and other measurables are off the charts. However, Blink needs a moderately powerful machine to operate, using more CPU, memory, and disk space to render web pages. This makes it particularly heavy for older machines, and thus, in some cases, when you open too many tabs simultaneously, your browser may freeze.

So, choosing your browser depends entirely on what you are ready to sacrifice.

What do other people use?

While you are wondering what your priorities are, let’s have a look at what other people decide for themselves. Well, just like with their choice of search engine, people worldwide prefer Google’s product. About 65% of all internet users have Chrome as their web browser of choice. Unsurprisingly, next is Safari, with 18.5%, which roughly corresponds with MAC and IOS users. Edge takes the third position, just short of 5% of users, followed by Firefox and Opera with 3.4 and 2.9%.

Credit: statcounter.com

However, the results are a bit more balanced in the United States alone. Still, Chrome takes the lion’s share of the market, as about 49.8% of users prefer this browser. Safari is once again second, and it attracts 31.15% of internet users; Edge almost doubles its share with 8.35% of the market, as does Firefox with 4.78. Opera loses the US internet user’s confidence and attracts only 2.8% of all users.

It’s evident that Google’s product is dominating all over the world. There isn’t a single country where Chrome is not the most preferred browser. But why do people prefer it over the more secure Safari or the more lightweight Firefox? Why isn’t Microsoft’s default Edge disregarded in favor of Chrome? Let’s have a more in-depth look at the best browsers one by one.

Chrome

Chrome is by far the most widely used browser in the world. Owning roughly two-thirds of the entire market is formidable indeed. But Chrome is not the most preferred simply because Google recommends it. True, that has its weight, but the fact is that Chrome has an exceptional design that focuses on user experience. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Pros

1. High-speed browser – As we’ve often discussed, today’s internet user doesn’t have 30 minutes to open a single picture as we did in the 1990s. No, today, speed is everything. And when it comes to speed, no one is better than Chrome. This is essential when streaming or watching videos. Google’s browser reduces lag and loads websites faster due to its programming.
2. Gorgeous design – Yes, having a good-looking design is not everything, but come on. No one wants to surf in something that’s a flash from the dawn of the internet. Chrome’s design is predominantly driven by user experience. Most users find it quite effortless to navigate. All menu tabs are tucked away in the settings, which unobtrusively lay at the top right corner. And best of all, there is only one search bar, which doubles as an address bar and a search bar. This helps immensely if you make a mistake in typing the address, as Chrome won’t show you the dreaded 404 page or something of the sort but will redirect you to Google, where you will find precisely what you are looking for.
3. Safety – Chrome has an array of safety features that ensure your browsing won’t lead to unnecessary risks for your computer. The browser will show you if the website has an SSL certificate. Furthermore, it will protect you from downloading malware on your computer or cleaning up suspected malicious files.
4. Sync across devices – If you work on multiple devices, you can sync up your Chrome and work from every device you want without interruptions or need to open the same bulk of tabs.
5. Extensions – The extensions are probably the best part of Chrome. This browser has an entire library of cool features you can add if you want to. Blocking ads, checking grammar, anything really. The library has hundreds, if not thousands, of extensions at your disposal to make your user experience even greater.

Of course, despite Chrome’s superiority in many fields, it still has some work to do regarding some aspects.

Cons

1. Questionable user privacy – This is the big one that deters many from joining the rest of the world in using Chrome. Actually, Google has been sanctioned multiple times in Europe for collecting and using user’s data without their consent. How else do you think Google gathers enough information on what people like or dislike, how long they stay on your website, or what pathways they take to get there? Yes, if you value your privacy above all, Chrome is probably not the best choice.
2. Heavy resource user – The other downside is that Chrome is an extremely heavy user of CPU and RAM. This matters little if you only use Chrome. But if multiple applications are opened, and your machine is not that powerful, Chrome will occupy the entire memory, and all your other applications will either lag or freeze.

Safari

Next on everyone’s list, including ours, is Safari. Safari is a great browser if you are an Apple lover, and not so much if you have any other device that you want to use. Still, this browser confidently takes about a fifth of all internet users, so let’s have a look at why.

Pros

1. Extremely efficient – This is hands down the most efficient web browser out there, with lower resource consumption than any other on our list. The developers at Apple have created this browser with their hardware in mind, so it operates as part of the ever-growing Apple digital ecosystem.
2. Top-level security – Being part of the Apple digital environment, it’s safe to say that this browser’s security is unmatched. Apple prides itself on personal data protection and its tough security. No wonder even the US president uses their products. Now, whether he uses Safari per se is hard to tell, but it’s clear that Apple products and security go hand in hand.
3. Secured privacy when browsing – When it comes to security, that includes the privacy protection of each user. Safari uses a built-in privacy tool that prevents web trackers. Moreover, the browser utilizes a Privacy Report tool, which prevents cross-website tracking without influencing the website’s functionalities. This allows you to surf without wondering who’s watching your every move.
4. Supreme usability – As part of the Apple universe, Safari is seamless to use if you are used to Apple’s OSs. It is familiar, easily navigable, and beautifully minimalistic.

Let’s not forget, however, that Apple products don’t play particularly well with others.

Cons

1. Not working with other OSs – As usual, integration with other OS was not at the top of Apple’s mind when they created Safari. Thus, Android or Windows users can’t use the browser, which is a shame.
2. Limited extension availability – That’s the other thing. As Apple rarely trusts third-party developers, Safari’s extension library is more like a small bookcase. In this regard, it can’t compare with the rest of our entries.

Edge

Edge is the default web browser for all Microsoft OS users, which are most of them. Still, Edge is mainly used as a tool to download Chrome and be done with it. However, especially in the US, there is a massive number of users who actually prefer Edge over any other browser. That’s not surprising, seeing how long this browser has come since its inception.

Pros

1. Highly customizable – Edge is probably the most customizable browser of them all, as it offers a lot of options to make the browser your own. The home page allows you to receive news, get quick access to products, or see the current stock market or weather. It also gives you quick access to games, music, video, traffic information, and anything in between.
2. Tracking prevention – Edge lets you decide how much you’d want to be followed online. It offers you three levels of tracking prevention, each restricting a different group of trackers that follow your every move.
3. Massive library of extensions – As Edge uses Chromium as a base, it can implement all Chromium-based extensions, making its library just as big as Chrome’s. However, Microsoft has developed some additional add-ons that can be used only with Edge. These include some great software like 360 View, OneNote, Web Clipper, and others.
4. Extremely lightweight – Though Edge requires at least 1 GB RAM for 32-bit Windows and 2 GB for 64-bit Windows, its usage is significantly lower. In fact, Edge is the best performer in this regard.

Cons

1. Speed is not its thing – Unfortunately, the lower consumption translates into much lower speed. Chrome, Firefox, and Safari have much better performance, which probably pushes most users to disregard this otherwise great browser.
2. Extremely poor reputation (for now) – The other big problem is Edge’s reputation. As the successor of Internet Explorer, it bears a lot of negatives in the eyes of the users. And although Microsoft is investing heavily in changing this reputation, there is a long way to go until people stop making fun of Edge.

Firefox

Firefox is often the choice of those who refuse to bow down to Google and regard their privacy extremely high. Plus, Firefox does have some pretty sweet advantages over its competitors.

Pros

1. Privacy on a new level – Privacy is Mozilla’s unique sales proposition. While other browsers would want you to confirm that you don’t want your data stolen, Firefox takes privacy to a new level. The browser will block any spyware or malware that tries to download in the background while searching at an unsafe website. Furthermore, it will automatically limit third-party tracking abilities.
2. Outstanding speed – When it comes to speed, Firefox is on par with Chrome. It is considered even better when it comes to download speed.
3. Great extension library – Firefox is the master of extensions. Arguably, it has the most extensive library of extensions among all the browsers. Thus, you can literally find anything you need in their library. Naturally, user experience and customization are also top-notch.
4. Minimalistic interface – The design is beautiful, especially with the stylish logo front and center. The homepage is extremely minimalistic, which allows you to concentrate on where you’re going rather than the browser itself.

Naturally, there are some downsides to Mozilla Firefox. Otherwise, why would it be the fourth most preferred browser?

Cons

1. Compatibility issues – That’s actually the biggest problem with Firefox. Some web developers disregard Firefox’s unique needs, and some websites do not show as intended on this browser. This leads to loss of functionality and overall user dissatisfaction. Some website owners even suggest to their users to use a different browser so they can experience the website as intended. This is a hard blow against Firefox, indeed.
2. Huge RAM consumer – Just like Chrome, Mozilla is a heavy RAM user, and you need a sturdy machine if you want to use the limitless tab options that Firefox offers.

Opera

Opera is the most popular alternative to the mainstream browsers. Furthermore, it is one of the oldest, as the first version of Opera dates back to 1994. Though it has used the Chromium codebase since 2013, Opera is still a unique choice when it comes to internet browsing.

Pros

1. Usability on a new level – Opera is truly unique regarding usability. While most browsers try their best to be as minimalist as possible, Opera stands as a beacon of an all-in-one usability paradise. For example, they offer a built-in messenger application, which allows you to receive messages from FB, IG, WhatsApp, Telegram, and VKontakte directly on the sidebar.
2. Turbo and Battery saver mode – Opera offers two unique modes to improve the user’s experience. Turbo Mode allows users with slower internet to have their connection speed increased. Unfortunately, they don’t work with encrypted websites, which makes it a bit useless nowadays. On the other hand, the Battery saver mode is a goldmine for those who have time to spare and want to keep their battery alive longer.
3. Build-in privacy feature – Opera is a great choice for those users who prefer to stay anonymous. The browser offers an array of built-in privacy features like tracker blocker, ad blocker, cookies blocker, and others.
4. Integrated VPN – To top it all off, Opera offers a free built-in VPN, which offers additional privacy protection to its users. See why PrivacyJournal recommends these best VPN services.

Cons:

1. Slower than its main competitors – The biggest problem with Opera is its speed. It simply can’t compare to other browsers on this list. Still, that doesn’t mean a website takes ages to load, but the time difference is notable.
2. Bugs and breakdowns – Furthermore, users often experience bugs and breakdowns, which can be pretty frustrating. Despite the excellent support, this problem is a considerable drawback.
3. Not a high priority among web developers – Another significant downside is that developers often forget to test their websites on Opera. Thus, some websites appear broken when opened on this browser.

Which one should you use?

So, now that you have the pros and cons of the most popular web browsers, you can choose your priorities. Chrome is, without a doubt, the best choice if you have various devices, not all of which use IOS or Mac. However, with Chrome, you compromise on your privacy. On the other hand, if you are an Apple fan, Safari is the safest bet, as it is built precisely for you.

Firefox is an excellent choice for those who seek the Chrome experience, yet with far fewer privacy intrusions. At the same time, Edge is for those who prefer a highly customized home page where they can access the most important information without ever clicking.

Finally, Opera is the odd choice for those who want to be outside the mainstream and experience a new kind of user experience.

What you will choose when browsing the internet depends entirely on you.

On the other hand, as a website owner, you must optimize your website for every browser. Even though Opera has only 2.9% of the market, they still represent several million people who may be interested in your products. So make sure to accommodate all of them. And yes, these browsers may be a bit sluggish, but if you have top-of-the-line hosting with lightning-fast loading speed guaranteed, having the micro delays on Opera and Edge will not hinder your success.

HostArmada offers precisely this – fast, secure, and reliable hosting for your website. On top of the lightning-fast speed, we have robust security features and offer 99.9% guaranteed uptime.

So, if you are a web developer, check out our offers and make your business twice as reliable.

The post Does it matter which web browser you use? appeared first on HostArmada Blog.

Building a marketing strategy is not an easy task, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the digitalization of everyday shopping has skyrocketed, and naturally, new trends in digital marketing appear every single month. Some of them work, others fall into oblivion. So, today, we are here to make sure you implement the right trends in your 2024 digital marketing strategy. We’ve followed the market and pinpointed at least 8 highly promising trends that will dictate user behavior and your digital marketing efforts throughout the following year.

Sustainability Reigns Supreme 

With the extreme weather in the past decade, it’s becoming harder to ignore climate change and the need to take some action as a society. Even if you disagree with this statement, the majority of users would agree, and when it comes to marketing, that’s all that matters. Becoming sustainable has become more than just a trend in Western societies. It’s become a way of life. Actually, about 78% of consumers in America declare that sustainability is essential to them. So, each brand that wants to appeal to this colossal majority must identify with their understanding.

Furthermore, most leading brands have already hopped on the bandwagon and, following Google’s lead, created their own versions of net-zero goals. While the idea of advertising your brand as sustainable is not something new, in 2024, users will expect some results. Brands will no longer be able to just put a sticker on or talk the talk. In 2024, brands will have to walk the walk. This will be even enforced for those of you who do business in the EU. The European governing body has issued The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive mandating new reporting standards for European businesses, which will catalyze the sustainability commitment on the continent and amplify the significance of sustainability in marketing practices.  

The modern consumer, increasingly conscientious and discerning, seeks more than just products and services. Environmental and social responsibility have become paramount considerations, urging brands to align their values with those of their audience. 

So, to tackle this trend, you need to focus your messaging on your sustainability goals and the results of your efforts so far. Showcase your new eco-friendly pack, highlight your environmentally cautious delivery methods, and underline your preservationist initiatives, like planting trees, using local materials, etc. 

Value is no longer what it was

As you can see, there is more to price and quality when it comes to successfully advertising your product. With younger generations becoming economically active, changes are bound to happen. In 2024, the value will become less and less about the actual product and more about what it represents. Millennials are now in the prime of their economic life, so even luxury brands were bound to change their stagnant and conservative marketing practices. Thus, you can now see car brands like BMW, Rolls Royce, and Bentley producing highly-expensive and luxurious electric cars. Such a notion was entirely impossible if the market was left to Gen X or the Boomers. So, as Millennials become richer and Gen Z starts entering into the workforce and start taking their first steps on the market, marketing trends will inevitably change.

Actually, they have already changed, and in 2024, you need to be aware that about 82% of consumers are adamant that the brand’s values should align with theirs. What’s more, if there is a value mismatch in their values, 39% of shoppers will boycott their favorite brand regardless of product satisfaction. Some call this “cancel culture,” but it’s nothing more than basic marketing. If you want to sell something to someone, you must persuade them you are the same. 

So, be creative and give your products and services additional value. Quality and price are no longer enough to grow your brand. You need to add value. 

Twilight of the search box

The search box has been your trusted friend for almost 25 years now. With Google celebrating its quarter-century on the market, one thing is clear: Search engines are here to stay, at least for now. Moreover, they will retain the basis of your organic traffic. What is currently changing, though, is the way people search. In 2024, we will enter the Twilight of the search box era. Still, don’t be too hasty to change your entire direction. The search boxes will be here to stay for at least another five years. However, their use is rapidly declining. Today, more than half of approximately 26 billion monthly searches on Google are done with alternative methods. More than 20% of searches in the Google app are done using voice search. Experts predict that users will make at least 8 billion monthly voice searches in 2024.

Moreover, Google Lens is rapidly growing in popularity, and in 2024, predictions suggest that nearly 12 billion people will use this handy functionality. 

So, where is the problem if everyone is still using Google? Well, mostly in the keywords and how you optimize your SEO. Generally, people speak a bit differently than they write. For example, when searching for car tires, you will write a much more direct question with specifics in the search box. For instance, “Winter tires, 195/65 R15” is much easier to type than to pronounce. So, the same search will sound more like “Winter Tires for Toyota Auris 2012” in voice search. Thus, you must optimize your SEO for both if you offer winter tires. 

Furthermore, adding your items as visuals so Google Lens can recognize them will open the door for another 12 billion potential searches. 

The Rise of the Machines is now

The rise of AI is inevitable. Chat GPT was a game changer, and despite its many flaws, it became a new beacon in digital marketing. It also sparked the AI revolution, and countless other AI generators, like Google’s Bard, Dall-E, Alli Al, Paradox, and others, appeared shortly after. Google Gemini is now also on the market, but it’s expected to boom in spring after the program has been perfected. This shows that the biggest IT brands are working tirelessly on developing AI tools to improve user experience. 

Moreover, the AI market has grown by 20% each year since its inception. Furthermore, projections show that by 2030, this relatively young industry will be worth 15.7 trillion dollars. But perhaps the most important factor you must consider is the usage. About 97% of smartphone users interact with an AI on a daily basis. It’s evident that AI is the future, and if you haven’t utilized it in your marketing strategy in 2024, it will be a must.

The good news is that AI will make your work much easier. For starters, utilized the right way, AI will streamline your work and increase your productivity exponentially. It can help you with every aspect of your marketing campaign. However, it’s way too early to trust machines completely. Make sure you check their work and implement a personal touch. For example, if you want ChatGPT to create a blog post, you must revise and include some personal experiences and examples. Otherwise, Google will sanction your content and drop you from the search results front page. 

Optimizing your SMM campaigns is still not a grand idea either. Though users predominantly use AI daily, they still feel conflicted and doubtful when faced with an AI-generated or enhanced ad. So, using AI is a must, but be cautious. 

Conversation becomes key

With AI and the new generations of consumers flooding the market, we will witness a rise in conversational marketing success. Conversational marketing is a dialogue-driven, customer-centric marketing strategy. Its main goal is to drive up customer engagement and enhance customer experiences. Usually, conversational marketing is based on one-on-one interaction with customers in real-time. It’s much like a consultant in a techno store, but online. In the past, customer support or sales took over this job, where an army of employees was ready to answer every question. This strategy had tremendous success, as customers could communicate all their concerns with the brand. This builds trust and gives them peace of mind that they are getting the right product for their needs. 

Unfortunately, this marketing practice was reserved only for big brands that could afford it. Small and micro businesses rarely were able to afford 24/7 communication with customers. Even so, communication delays were common, building frustration and hindering the trust-building process.

Today, with AI, small and micro businesses are no longer bound by these limitations. A well-trained AI can answer all FAQs flawlessly and at a moment’s notice. This way, the majority of clients will satisfy their queries directly from the robot, while the rest could be redirected to a live customer support agent. Naturally, this makes conversational marketing much more affordable, opening the door to this highly successful strategy even for freelancers. 

So, in 2024, we expect conversational marketing to hit an all-time high, and if you want to be competitive in the market, we suggest you join in the trend.  

Hyper-personalization will make you big

AI will open other doors as well. The one that will boost your growth significantly, however, is the opportunity to tailor personal experiences to all your customers. Hyper-personalization is a relatively new concept, previously used exclusively by luxurious brands. With mass products, it was entirely impossible to create a personalized journey for every one of your users. However, with the help of AI and the vast collection of tools that gather your user’s data, you can now tailor your audience’s experience precisely as they will like it. 

This corresponds with the current trend of luxury becoming more mainstream. While luxuries were reserved for the wealthiest in the world in the past, with the rise of social media, people got a taste of the ultra-luxurious life. Thus, today, everyone prefers to spend more but receive special treatment.

A great example of a mass hyper-personalization strategy is Amazon’s dynamic product recommendations. In a nutshell, Amazon would suggest products based on what you searched for, what you bought, and what can complement your purchase. 

Another great example is using location-based marketing. This way, whenever you enter a particular area, you can receive a push notification about a product or service you previously searched. Restaurants and local shops often use this hyper-personalized strategy.

AI can help you go beyond these examples. It can enhance your efforts and help you target your audience based on dozens of their preferences. For example, if users spend significant time on a traveling YouTube channel, you send them an email showcasing how your product will complement their passion. 

In 2024, this will become the norm. So, to remain relevant, it’s best to start adopting. 

Short Videos for the win

With Gen Z entering the market with full force, it’s time to start tending to their specific tastes. One thing that’s vastly different from all previous generations is the attention span. Thanks to TikTok, Instagram stories, and YouTube Shorts, the attention span of Gen Z users is 8 seconds on average. Moreover, unlike its predecessors, this generation prefers to consume information in short, entertaining videos rather than reading. 

So, in 2024, you must allocate a sufficient budget to create high-quality short-form videos. Furthermore, if you haven’t already, you must start TikTok and YouTube channels and produce regular content. This way, you will guarantee that your messaging will bombard the Gen Z user.

Another specific of this generation is the focus on What rather than How. In other words, Gen Z users expect direct and quick answers without too much digging into the How and Why. So, your 5-8-second video should be straightforward, without explanation and additional fluff. Still, it must capture attention and act on the user’s emotions. The only way to do that is through the visuals. Using high-quality, strategically gathered visuals can help you relay the additional value we already discussed in a previous point. 

So, in 2024, if you want to tap into this new generation that’s becoming increasingly active consumers, you must invest in short-form, high-quality videos, and profiles on popular platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Twitch, and others. 

First-Party Data Is the New Standard

The diminishing reliance on third-party cookies, attributed to the phase-out by major web browsers and the global implementation of stricter privacy regulations, has paved the way for marketers to turn their attention to first-party and zero-party data. This shift is not merely dictated by compliance with consumer privacy regulations but is driven by a commitment to more reliable and ethical sources of customer insights.

In a nutshell, first-party data is the information you gather directly from your customers and audience. Thus, most brands have already switched to using it in building their marketing strategies, as it’s the most reliable. Still, that’s not the only reason why first-party cookies will become the new standard in 2024. Privacy regulations worldwide and the push for more ethical use of personal data will be at the forefront of this major change in digital marketing next year.

As privacy regulations multiply, the marketing landscape will witness a cascade of enforcement actions. Governments, led by the European Union, are expanding their focus on consumer privacy, with more states in the U.S. adopting legislation akin to the California Consumer Privacy Act. 2024 is likely to see an escalation of fines and an increased investment by companies in privacy compliance tools, adding complexity to marketing measurement and reinforcing the significance of first-party data.

So, to address this changing dynamic, we’d advise you not to build your marketing campaign around third-party cookies, as they will most probably disappear entirely within several months. 

Time to build your strategy

Now you know what to expect from the digital marketing landscape in 2024. It’s time to build your strategy around the ever changing customer behavior and the brand-new players who only recently joined the consumer audience. With the growing economic input by Gen Z, digital marketing is bound to follow their behavior closely. Still, as they are still young, their behavior is not yet cemented, as they will evolve both in preferences and taste. 

Regardless, as fluid as digital marketing is, talking about predictions for more than 12 months at a time is pointless. So, for now, stick to these eight trends, and you are bound to grow your business. 

Naturally, regardless of how good your digital marketing strategy is, if your website’s infrastructure is poor, nothing can help you. Imagine having the perfect campaign that attracts hundreds of thousands of potential customers only to lose about 70% because your website takes ages to load. Then, you lose another 10-15% due to a server breakdown and another 10% because you lack the proper security. Speed, reliability, and security are the three pillars of your website that can make or break your success. 

HostArmada offers you a cost-efficient solution for all three main pillars. Each one of our plans offers lightning-fast website load speed, top-of-the-line security features, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Remember, your digital marketing strategy is only as good as your hosting company allows it to be. So, check out our plans and choose the one that will fit your needs perfectly.

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Twenty Twenty-Four Theme

Probably the most anticipated feature of v.6.4 is the new default theme – Twenty Twenty-Four. This entry is not really a surprise. WP has made it customary to offer a new complimentary theme each year. Typically, it is released with the final major update of the year, meaning that at least until January, we can’t expect the guys and girls at WordPress to provide us with any new significant updates.

Interestingly, unlike its predecessor, Twenty Twenty-Four has one truly minimalistic layout out of the box. The sleek and clean design is not to be underestimated, though. Beneath its rather dullish exterior lies a theme brimming with potential.

As one would expect, the new theme offers seamless integration with the Site Editor, making it the easiest choice for novice website owners. On this end, the theme offers six distinct styles, allowing for effortless customization of a website.

Furthermore, Twenty Twenty-Four includes dozens of WP block patterns, making the customization process even simpler. Among these block patterns are several section patterns, enabling users to quickly insert entire sections into their pages or templates, streamlining the web development process.

The theme has four distinct fonts, which enhance the website’s overall aesthetic. Naturally, this allows users to build truly unique pages. Thus, you can create recognizable brands without the need to spend additional money on fonts and typography. This is something that will go great with the new Font Library, which the 6.4 version has installed.

When push comes to shove, Twenty Twenty-Four is built for small business owners who want to get into business on a scarce budget and without the help of designers and programmers. Still, the theme is excellent even for larger companies, as it offers ample features to accommodate everyone.

The Twenty Twenty-Four, however, is only the beginning.

Improved Site Editor

Just like with the previous version, in 6.4, WordPress once again did a significant jump in their Site Editor upgrade. The ability to modify navigation on the run is outstanding, but it pales compared to the additional templates and patterns. Of course, there is much more to that. So, let’s have a look at the biggest changes in the WordPress 6.4 Site Editor.

Manage Fonts Across Your Website with Font Library

We already mentioned the new Font Library feature, but it’s too good to just leave it at that. As you can probably guess, this feature will empower users to deal with their fonts right from the WordPress theme. All you need to do is go to the style panel in the site editor and click on Typography. There, you will find the Library, where you can add or remove fonts. You can even upload fonts directly from your computer, giving you the opportunity to bring in your own typography on the screen.

Through the Library, you will also be able to download and install Google Fonts.

Improved pattern management

Patterns, which allow for reusing elements such as headers, footers, and testimonials, have been enhanced to provide greater site design flexibility.

One significant improvement is the ability to categorize patterns into groups, such as “Hero Sections,” “Callouts,” or “Navigation.” This categorization feature simplifies the pattern management process and boosts workflow efficiency. Users can now easily organize and access patterns according to their custom categories, saving valuable time and expediting the design process.

Moreover, the pattern creation modal maintains consistency across the WordPress platform, ensuring a unified and user-friendly experience. This improvement will undoubtedly enhance the creative process for site building and design, enabling users to tailor their pattern workflow to their specific needs and preferences.

Enlarge Images with Lightbox Popup

This one may be a minor upgrade for most website users, but for photographers and others working predominantly with images, the lightbox popup upgrade is a must. In WordPress 6.4, you can finally enable your pictures to pop up and enlarge when clicked on. The best part – you can do it with a single click from the site editor. After adding an image, just activate the Expand on Click option under block settings. This way, whenever a user clicks on the image, they will see it bigger in a popup window box.

This is great for artists trying to sell their images. Even retailers can highlight their products in this fashion.

This function is still very basic, though. So, if you have an entire gallery of images, you will have to set it up for each image individually. But still, we expect WordPress to resolve this issue in the future.

Improved Command Palette

After WordPress 6.3 introduced the command palette tool, the new version of the builder made a significant improvement. Essentially, the Command Palette is a search tool which allows users to give commands with a quick CTRL+K shortcut combination.

The first thing you will notice is the design. In v.6.4, it is much more stylish, making the elements more visible. Furthermore, the library features several new commands. Now, you can duplicate, delete, insert or transform blocks directly from the command palette. This will mainstream the design work, as you can select multiple blocks and work on them at the same time.

There are other small enhancements as well, but let’s skip them in favor of the big guns – the blocks.

Block editor enhancements

The Block editor has always been a focus of WordPress design enhancements. This is the cornerstone behind their builder, so it makes sense that some of the most significant changes from version to version will be precisely here. This release focuses predominantly on improving upon existing site and block editor features. However, there are some notable new entries as well.

Block Hooks

The new Block Hooks is, without a doubt, the thing all developers are waiting for with anticipation. This exciting feature will revolutionize the way plugins interact with the block editor, offering a new level of flexibility and convenience for users.

Block Hooks, aptly named after the hooks used in the WordPress core, will empower plugin developers to integrate their creations into the block editor seamlessly. This means that plugins can automatically add blocks upon activation, streamlining the user experience.

The core principles guiding Block Hooks functionality are clear. First, users shouldn’t be burdened with manual block insertion. Instead, blocks will be automatically placed in specific positions when certain conditions are met. Second, the user’s control over these automatically inserted blocks is paramount. This ensures they can easily manage, customize, or remove them as needed.

Block Hooks come with some important limitations. They work exclusively with unmodified templates, template parts, and patterns provided by themes or the Pattern Directory. They won’t function with post content, modified templates, template parts, or user-generated patterns. Additionally, Block Hooks are designed to work with dynamic blocks, not static blocks, so it’s important to understand the distinction between these two block types.

To learn how to implement Block Hooks, check out the instructions here

Background images for group block

WordPress continues to improve on small things as well. For example, in the 6.3 version, WP enabled users to select background and text colors for entire block groups. With 6.4, you can now set a background image as well. This will help immensely with your visual hierarchy and content highlighting.

Improved parent/ child blocks toolbar

Another small but convenient upgrade is the enhanced toolbar for parent/child blocks. In the last version, the toolbar kept moving and switching between the parent and the child whenever you were working on them. It depends on your mouse positioning. Naturally, this was not very user-friendly. Thus, with WP 6.4, the toolbar will automatically attach the child toolbar to the parent one. This will create a consistent user experience.

User Experience Enhancements

All upgrades listed so far were predominantly targeted at a better user experience. The User interface is definitely one of the highlights in this edition of the builder. Here are some of our favorite enhancements.

Theme Preview

Though listed as a minor improvement, the Theme preview is one of the highlights, in our humble opinion. By now, you had to activate the WordPress theme to see what it would look like on your website with your content. Now, you can do that by the Live Preview without activating the theme.

So, you have the ability to check out how your website will look like, and activate the theme only if you are interested.

Improved list view

In WordPress 6.4, the List View feature in the site/block editor is significantly upgraded, enhancing the usability and convenience of managing page or post layouts. The List View has always been a valuable tool, allowing users to navigate and perform various actions on blocks, groups, and patterns, particularly beneficial when dealing with intricate nested block structures.

The improvements introduced in WordPress 6.4 take this functionality to the next level. Users can now rename Group blocks directly within the List View, making it easier to understand the purpose of each Group and improving overall layout readability. Furthermore, the ListView will display previews for images and gallery blocks, eliminating the need to click and select a block to identify its content.

These enhancements make the List View a more robust and user-friendly tool, streamlining the editing process and simplifying the management of complex page and post layouts. WordPress 6.4’s List View improvements offer a more efficient and visually intuitive way to work with your content, enhancing the overall editing experience.

Style Revisions

The Style revision is another long-awaited feature that we’re happy to see in this version of WordPress. Revisions in WordPress 6.4 can be accessed by selecting the black WordPress icon at the top left of the Site Editor. At the bottom of the left pane, users will find a blue “Revisions” or “Review X change(s)…” button.

When you click on this button, a popup will appear, displaying recent changes and giving you the option to save them. This feature provides users with the ability to review and track changes made to their website, ensuring that no modifications are irreversible.

Other Improvements in WordPress 6.4

WordPress 6.4 brings not only visible enhancements but also significant under-the-hood changes for developers. Among the noteworthy improvements are the deprecation of the TEMPLATEPATH and STYLESHEETPATH constants, offering a more modern approach to theme development.

Another developer-friendly addition is introducing a framework for adding revisions for post meta, providing a more robust version control system for metadata associated with posts.

Furthermore, theme developers are now empowered to configure their own default minimum and maximum viewport widths, enhancing flexibility in calculating fluid font sizes.

Smaller but equally important improvements in WordPress 6.4 include over 170 performance updates, contributing to improved page load times. The addition of block hooks enhances developer capabilities, while over 50 accessibility improvements, including better labeling and navigation, cater to users with diverse needs. New blocks like Footnotes and Details expand content creation options, and the built-in lightbox feature enables users to add image lightbox effects without needing a separate plugin.

What do you need to try it?

If you already have a WordPress website, all you need is to update your CMS on November 7th. However, to experience the best website builder platform in the world, you need to have the best hosting in the world. HostArmada is just what you’re looking for. We offer lightning-fast website loading time, 99.9% uptime and robust security. On top of that, we offer seamless integration with WordPress, so don’t hesitate to check out our plans and get the one that best suits your needs. There is no better way to try the new WordPress, indeed.

The post WordPress 6.4: Unleashing new Features and interesting Enhancements appeared first on HostArmada Blog.

Needless to say, if you are planning on starting your own retail business, it’s pretty clear that online sales are no longer just a recommendation. They are a must if you hope to succeed.

Building your eCommerce empire has never been easier. With the rise of Amazon, countless retailers have found an easy-to-use and exploitable marketplace where they can offer their products without ever needing to learn anything about website building, marketing, SEO, and anything in between. But is Amazon truly the one and only doorway to success? Can it really offer you the same level of exposure as a website will? And most importantly, is it worth investing in your own website when Amazon is available? Let’s compare the pros and cons and see if Amazon is truly the universal solution for every online retailer out there.

Advantages of Having Your Own Website

Having Jef Bezos as a competitor is clearly not the most relaxing thought out there. Still, Bezos is not a competitor. He’s just a businessman with a vastly popular marketplace. Amazon may seem overwhelming at first glance, but having your own website also has immense benefits.

Branding and User Experience

Building your own brand is, without a doubt, the biggest advantage of having your own website over Amazon. Though not official, Amazon discourages sellers from building brands, as people may start looking for their products outside the marketplace. This spells a loss of profits for the giant corporation. However, you must have a recognizable brand if you want to build a loyal customer base. Loyal customers have a great effect on your image as a whole, on evolving your user experience, and on your marketing as well. For example, if you sell funny baseball caps on Amazon, if someone asks one of your customers where they bought it from, they’d undoubtedly answer “Amazon.” On the other hand, if they enter your website, they will surely answer your brand’s name. But more on the marketing in a bit.

The branding options are limitless when you are operating on your own online space. You can create, personalize, and design layouts to your heart’s content. As you build your brand identity, you will become more famous and better respected, and why not be an authority in your industry—something you can’t do as an Amazon retailer?

Great Profit Margins

This is another huge advantage of operating alone against Amazon’s might. While Amazon does give you some serious outreach, your margins are stretched quite thin due to various factors. The most common one is the competition. If you have a quality product produced by yourself, it will cost much more than the marketplace’s average. Naturally, most customers will follow the rule of the lowest price. Though convenience is the top reason customers come to Amazon, bargains are a close second. In fact, 82% of Amazon buyers say price is an essential factor when considering a product. So, you must follow the lowest price, regardless of the quality.

Moreover, Amazon subjects its retailers to various fees, including referral, fulfillment, and storage fees.

Naturally, if you have a high-quality product, having your own website will give you the opportunity not only to price it fairly but also reduce the ample additional fees along the way. Thus, your margins will rise, and your profits will soar, allowing you to increase the quality of your product rather than cutting corners to keep your production at a lower cost.

Building Customer Relationships

When you are operating under Amazon, you don’t have clients. Amazon does. Naturally, you do receive some feedback, but there is no real customer relationship other than the bad ones when they return a product, and you must give their money back. There is no connection.

Having your own website allows you to communicate with your customers directly. You can give them complimentary gifts, have a much more personalized sales tactic, receive feedback, and enjoy the good rather than only suffer the bad.

Needless to say, having a relationship with your customers is a gold mine for expanding your business through word-of-mouth marketing, offering promotions, and loyalty discounts.

But perhaps the most significant advantage is that you will have the customer’s data. This is integral if you want to better your service and products, allowing you to grow faster.

Own Your Customer’s Data

Owning your customers’ data is crucial for your rapid growth. This can help you target your audience much better, understand their behavior, and fix problems with your product or services. When you are working with Amazon, the corporation owns the customer data, and you can only get bits and pieces of the information. Naturally, this limits your ability to understand your customers and better your marketing and sales tactics.

For example, if 90% of your customers bought your product after spending less than 3 seconds on your product page, you can cut the written content, add some more pictures, and make the buy button much more convenient. On the other hand, this must push you to explore why anyone would buy a product without knowing it first.

Diversification and Risk Mitigation

Having a business means you have to be prepared for any eventuality. Counting only on Amazon as your sole profit stream is a recipe for disaster. They can suspend your account for any number of reasons. Even if you manage to restore it, it will take time, leaving you hanging in Limbo. Moreover, you risk getting on Amazon’s bad side at any moment, as they are free to change their policies as they please at a moment’s notice.

Having your own website prevents all of that. First, you can diversify your sales channels and profit streams as you see fit. For example, you can sell your products through YouTube ads, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and TikTok ads. Thus, if any of these bans your account for any reason, you still have additional streams of income to count on. Not to mention SEO and offline marketing. They will undoubtedly give you an additional boost.

Lack of direct competition

As Amazon is a marketplace, they give priority to the customers’ needs. Thus, whenever they show your product, they also show a bunch of other similar products or even substitutions. Moreover, if you offer a main product and additional accessories, Amazon will show as many diverse accessories as possible. This means the customer may buy them from a different vendor.

For example, if you offer mountain bikes, people will likely want to buy some additional gear with them. So, instead of getting their lights, locks, and other accessories that usually accompany a bike from you, they can go for a different vendor. Either way, they will receive them through Amazon at the same time. If you have your own website, that’s not entirely so. Usually, people will go for the convenience of ordering in bulk rather than cutting costs at one place, only to pay for delivery from multiple websites. So, for example, if you are selling a vacuum cleaner, when people buy the product, they are likely to buy the additional filters, attachments, and other accessories from you rather than search elsewhere for them.

Absolute Marketing Freedom

Perhaps the biggest benefit of building your own website is the complete marketing freedom. Amazon is a template-driven website where landing pages are all the same. There are little deviations from the norm. When it comes to your own website, you can build and change your landing page as you see fit. The one-size-fits-all method of platforms like Amazon is impractical from a marketing standpoint, as each product targets a different audience, and each audience has different content needs. Naturally, some products need much more explanation, while others rely predominantly on pictures.

Moreover, Amazon’s design downplays the emotional aspect when making a decision. For example, if you want to buy a summer dress, a sterile landing page won’t bring the emotional response needed for an impulsive purchase. On the other hand, if you surround that dress with a beach background, summer fruits, and cocktails, this will certainly put the customer in a much better buying mood. They won’t be buying a dress anymore. They will be buying a vision where they will wear that dress.

While the advantages of owning your own website are pretty alluring, one should consider the disadvantages as well before rushing in.

Disadvantages of having your own website

While having your own website is definitely extremely beneficial, you shouldn’t jump into such an endeavor without considering the downsides. And when it comes to building your website brand, there are quite a few downsides compared to Amazon.

The High Initial Cost

Maintaining your own website means you need to consider the costs involved in this endeavor. The initial cost is significantly higher than what you’d pay for a place on Amazon. You will have to purchase a domain and an outstanding hosting service and hire designers if you don’t want to go through the time-consuming process of building a website and optimizing it to perfection on your own. Thanks to WordPress, having a genuinely good website nowadays is not that hard. Still, it will require some knowledge of web design essentials. So, before you go for a website over Amazon, consider your budget and whether you can afford to build your own website.

Time-Consuming

Taking care of a website, optimizing it, and creating various landing pages for your products and marketing campaigns will take time. A lot of it, in fact. Sure, you can use templates, but the SEO efforts on their own are quite time-consuming. Not to mention every other aspect of owning your own eCommerce website. So, if you were hoping for a good work/life balance, you should reconsider. At least in the beginning, until the business becomes profitable and self-sustaining, you will have to give it your all.

Limited Exposure

Being on your own means you must find your customers alone as well. Amazon has a huge customer base, which is definitely alluring. On the other hand, if you go for a website, you will have minimal exposure. Getting some clients will depend entirely on your SEO efforts and paid ads. Naturally, in the very beginning, this will be excruciatingly hard. Still, with the right SEO strategy and good marketing, you can build up your audience in less than a year.

Higher Marketing Costs

As it has become clear, marketing will be the sole provider of clients initially. Naturally, with limited outreach and without the vast Amazon audience, you will have to invest in marketing campaigns across various channels. This will cost you a lot. Be sure to have a significant budget for your ads in the first few months, as every user visiting your website will cost you. Still, in the long run, once you’ve gained some traction and popularity, this will reverse completely, and your marketing budget will become much smaller and even disappear completely in some rare cases.

Payment and Security Concerns

While you will benefit from owning your customer’s data, this will make you responsible for their protection. Naturally, you will have to find a secure way to collect and store data, which will cost you some extra money. Moreover, you are responsible for the payment methods, gateways, and all essentials. So, cutting corners when it comes to security is the worst idea you may have, as this can truly put you in some serious legal trouble.

Infrastructure, Logistics and Customer Service

One of the biggest Amazon benefits is that they take care of your entire infrastructure, logistics, and customer service. Naturally, if you go on your own, you will have to take over these tasks. You must consider storage, logistics, and the accompanying infrastructure to help you deliver your products. On the other hand, you will also have to establish a customer service center. This won’t be easy. Especially if you want to do everything on your own.

Still, regardless of the downsides, having your own website is the perfect choice for many retailers. But so is Amazon, so let’s have a look at what they have to offer.

Advantages of Using Amazon

Naturally, we can’t ignore the truth: Amazon is a godsend for millions of small retailers who just want to sell their products without bothering with building a huge brand. And, of course, Amazon has its undeniable advantages.

Fenomenal Outreach

Having nearly 514 billion dollars in sales in 2022 and a 37% market share in the US speaks volumes about the quality of your service. So, while Amazon is somewhat restrictive in its policies, there can’t be any doubt of its brilliant services.

Moreover, with 2.3 billion monthly visitors, Jeff Bezos’s marketplace is preferred by many small-time retailers. So, naturally, if you go with creating an Amazon-based operation, you will benefit from this immense exposure. Of course, no eCommerce website in the world can drive such a huge audience. But then again, Amazon offers everything, so you really should be on the lookout for what’s trending on the website rather than just blindly following the numbers. For example, if you are offering highly specific medical equipment with predominantly B2B implementation, Amazon won’t do you any good. Despite having 2.2 billion viewers, the chances that none of them will be interested in your product are significant. All in all, Amazon is not a great place for B2B sales, despite the website’s credibility.

Build-in Trust and Credibility

Speaking of credibility, Amazon is truly a champion in this aspect. If you are a new retailer, building up trust will probably be your toughest challenge. However, Amazon has earned the trust of customers all around the world. Naturally, selling your products on the platform will be much easier regardless of how fresh you are on the market. That’s why many brand-new retailers prefer Amazon as a place to start.

Fulfillment by Amazon

One of the standout advantages of selling on Amazon is utilizing Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). FBA is a comprehensive service that streamlines the entire order fulfillment process. The corporation provides warehousing, where you can send your products. This reduces your costs for maintaining infrastructure and physical inventory of your products. Amazon takes care of storing your products in their secure and climate-controlled warehouses.

Moreover, Amazon will take care of the packaging and shipping, so you will save not only money but also time.

Customer Service and Returns Handling

In addition to the fulfillment center, you will have access to Amazon’s extremely well-organized customer service program. This will save you a ton of money, as maintaining 24/7 customer service is extremely expensive. Not to mention handling the returns. The company will take care of every returned item, inspect it, and even restock it or resale it. This hassle-free returns process contributes to higher customer satisfaction and fewer headaches for you.

No Personal Data Liability

Handling other people’s personal data is a nightmare. Once you start collecting it, you are responsible for its storage and security. Naturally, this takes a lot of effort and money. But, since Amazon is the one that gathers the information when you are using it, they are liable for its protection. This removes the burden of storing and destroying personal data upon request.

While this may sound like a minor advantage at first glance, once you start dealing with other people’s personal data, you will learn the immense stress it brings.

Lower Costs

Since you won’t be paying for domains, hosting, designers, and anything related to building your own business and establishing yourself on the market, you will be able to save that money. Naturally, using Amazon is not free, but it’s way cheaper than the alternative. Thus, if you are starting on a tight budget, you might be better off with Amazon, as short-budgeting your eCommerce website is definitely not a recipe for success.

No Know-How Needed

Finally, Amazon is the easy solution. You don’t need any know-how; you don’t have to invest time and money in a website. All you need to do is follow some simple instructions, and you are in business. The whole process is straightforward, and you can literally start within a few hours. This is essentially the “quick start” button for retailers.

Disadvantages of using Amazon

Of course, the grass is not always greener with Amazon. All of the website benefits we’ve mentioned are Amazon’s downsides. Naturally, there are some additional ones as well.

Lower Margins

We’ve explained the lower margins in detail, but it’s worth mentioning them again. The biggest problem here is that the lower profits come from the taxes and fees and the entire ecosystem, where Amazon constantly bombards your customers with your competitors’ products. Adding cheaper substitutions or copies of your product to the mix also cuts your ROI. So, while you will save money on infrastructure, marketing, and shipping costs, these savings will have to cover your initial losses and tiny margins.

Limited Brand Control

The worst downside of Amazon is that it steals your thunder. When you have an outstanding product, people will remember they’ve got it from Amazon. The packaging will have Amazon’s logo, the email confirmations will be from Amazon, and the entire correspondence will be with the giant corporation. This is a massive hit to your overall brand exposure. Moreover, it can hinder your efforts to grow and become independent over time. Not to mention that building your audience on Amazon will make you entirely dependable on them.

Amazon Dependence

Yes, Amazon is much like the Mafia. Once you get in, you rarely get out since the entire business model favors Amazon’s brand over yours. This makes you entirely dependent on their traffic. Moreover, once you start using their convenient Fulfillment centers, you abdicate from controlling your stock and building a sound marketing strategy based on your inventory, sales, and shipment plans.

Not to mention that while Amazon offers an easy international expansion, it limits you geographically to the places where it delivers. For example, if you want to sell products to Eastern Europe, Asia, the Middle East, or Africa, you need to check where Amazon’s fulfillment centers are. This will show if they can deliver your products to certain countries and at what cost.

Lack of Control Over Customer Experiences

Worst of all, you have no control over the customer experience. You can receive bad grades because of a rude customer support agent, a damaged package, or even a crude delivery guy. If you have access to your customers and you’ve built a relationship with them, you can mitigate this disastrous fallout. But since you are entirely dependent on Amazon, you can’t do anything but hope that Amazon will do its best to resolve the issue. More often than not, however, the 1-star reviews are under your product, leading to a bad score.

Limited Customer Data Access

Your dependency on Amazon goes beyond products. While it’s convenient not to be liable for your customers’ personal data, it limits your ability to make informed decisions about your marketing strategy and product development. This makes it harder for you to go on your own, as you will lose your entire audience once you leave Amazon. You will have to start from scratch.

Getting Copied

Another significant downside of Amazon is being copied. Well, that’s a problem all over the internet, of course. Still, Amazon gives access to people making cheap imitations to get to your customers and offer them a similar product, only much cheaper. Since Amazon limits your branding, you can’t spread the message that using alternatives won’t lead to the same outcome as you offer. Thus, many of your customers will simply remain disappointed with the product altogether.

Lack of Brand Personality

The lack of a brand personality is truly the worst downside of Amazon. A brand personality offers many doors, increases sales trust, and turns ordinary customers into loyal ones. Moreover, the brand personality is what helps you grow. With Amazon, you have capped growth and can never expand beyond, as others will quickly start taking a cut of the action.

Regardless of the downsides, millions of retailers have chosen Amazon for a reason. So, whether you choose it or not depends entirely on your ambitions.

Is It Worth Investing In Your Own Website When There Is Amazon

As usual, the answer to this question is “It depends.” And indeed, both options have some pretty unique purposes. Amazon is the place to go if you are after quick and relatively easy retailer profits. This is perfect if you want to resale items from other marketplaces, such as Alibaba or Ali Express. Moreover, if you produce and sell tiny, commonly used items that can’t be branded, like smartwatch bands, then again, Amazon is a great way to sell your product.

On the other hand, if you offer unique, high-quality, or relatively expensive products, investing in your website will give you far more opportunities to grow. It all depends on your vision. Having your website will provide significant benefits in the long run, but it will be harder to develop and get running initially. So, if you are in for the long run, and you’d like to build an empire, a brand that’s more than just a retailer, but a name in the eCommerce world, then having a website is mandatory.

Of course, just having a website won’t do the trick. You need to have a fast, reliable, and secure website. This is where we come in. HostArmada is a cloud-based hosting service provider that guarantees lightning-fast speed, 99.9% uptime, and robust security measures against server breaches. Check out our plans and find the one that will serve you best. If you have any doubts, just contact our team, and we will happily assist you with choosing the right package.

The post Is it worth investing in your own eCommerce website when there is Amazon? appeared first on HostArmada Blog.

Furthermore, if you want to have your website on Google’s first page, the average load speed there is 1.65 seconds. As we know, SEO is essential to any business’s success. So, as it seems, website speed is much more than a misguided ego-boosting whim.

Unfortunately, having lightning-fast hosting is not always enough, although admittedly, it is a good and necessary start. Still, what can truly boost your website’s loading speed is cache.

What is Web Cache

Cache is a complex mechanism that stores data for future use. This data is usually a copy of files already existing in a larger and slower storage unit. In web hosting terms, cache is a copy of your website collected and stored on various servers and browsers. The aim is to display your website faster in the visitor’s web browser.

For example, imagine you are cooking. Naturally, you are following a recipe. This recipe is, of course, situated in a book, placed on your bookshelf in your living room. Going there to check each step will be highly time-consuming and frustrating. You will spend more time walking between the kitchen and the living room, finding the book, and then finding the correct page where the recipe is situated.

Instead, you can rewrite the recipe on a smaller piece of disposable paper and take it to your kitchen with you. Now cooking will be a lot quicker, and you won’t need to take the same prolonged action to see each following step. Moreover, you can discard the copy at some point but still have the original.

The cache works the same way. Whenever you visit a website for the first time, your web browser stores the content and the design of the pages you open in its internal memory. This way, the next time you open the same website, it will take just a fraction of the time to open, as your browser already has a copy of it in its cache. Of course, there is way more complexity and of course different type of caches but more on that later in this post.

Why is Web Cache so important?

The benefits that caching brings are immense.

Improved Web Experience

Websites can be delivered to visitors quicker and more efficiently using cache. Server and browser cache allow users to get to the content easier and in a fraction of the time. This eliminates entirely the need to generate the page from scratch on the server for subsequent use. Naturally, this leads to a far better user experience and SEO.

Reduces Server Load

Moreover, caching can help immensely in relieving some of the server load. When a page is cached, returning users’ browsers don’t need to request any data from the server. This can significantly improve the server’s processing and response time. Ultimately, this will lead to more traffic without the need for additional server resources.

Reduces Infrastructure Costs

Along with better traffic, cache allows you to grow without significant additional expenditure. Ultimately you will need to reinvest and implement additional capital, but still, it’s far better to do so once your business has already developed and the revenues are already flowing in.

Reduces Bandwidth

Among other things, caching will reduce the amount of bandwidth you need. This will allow you to use a more affordable plan while still enjoying constantly increasing traffic.

Improves SEO

Furthermore, caching your website will benefit your SEO efforts significantly. Though Search engines don’t list page speed as necessarily a requirement to be positioned on their first page, they opt for the most user-friendly website with a low bounce rate and high traffic. Therefore, as users prefer faster websites, search engines will consider faster websites to be more user-friendly, thus pushing them forward in their search results.

As you can see, caching is not only a recommendation but a necessity.

How does the browser cache work

Browser cache is one of the two instrumental components of storing your website off-server. The browser cache usually stores static resources such as HTML files, CSS stylesheets, JavaScript files, and media on the visitor’s local device.

This means that if you use your PC to access our website, hostarmada.com‘s static data will be copied to your local browser. This way, if you revisit us, your browser won’t have to request the cached static data from our servers a second time. On the other hand, if you open it a second time from another device (Laptop, Tablet, Phone), as the cache is only stored locally on your PC, it won’t help you open the website faster, despite being in the same network. Of course, our website is well-optimized, and the difference will be barely noticeable, but still, it is there, and it helps a lot.

Browser caching is a highly complex process that’s hard to explain in simple terms. In a nutshell, however, here is how it works:

1. Initial visit

When you enter a domain name for the first time, the browser goes through the 8-step process to acquire the website’s data from the server. During the process, the browser retrieves all HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and media resources to load the website on your screen.

2. Caching of resources

While displaying the website on your screen, the browser makes a copy and stores it as a hidden file on your device in a cache folder or another storage area. The stored cache is strictly related to the URL. This means that if you have hostarmada.com/blog cached, your browser will still have to go through all eight steps to retrieve hostarmada.com/pricing, for example.

3. Subsequent visit

When a domain name is entered in the browser’s search bar, the first job of the browser is to check all cached files. Then, it will compare the requested URL with the cached URL resources on your device before sending any requests online. That reduces the number of requests your browser will make to the accessed website, thus reducing the overall loading time.

4. Cache hit

If the cache is found in your browser’s internal storage, the cached resources will be loaded from there. Then it ends the process without ever sending a new request online. That’s why you can visit some websites even when you are offline. It’s simply a locally stored copy of the website.

5. Cache miss

If, for some reason, the cache record is missing, invalidated, or expired, the browser will send a new request for the same record to the server. When the server delivers the data, the browser will create a new cache for future use.

Along with the browser cache, there is also a server cache.

How to does the server cache work

As we established, when you enter a domain in your web browser’s address bar, it searches within its internal (browser) caches for data associated with the entered domain. But what happens if there is no data cached, or the cached data is invalid/expired?

The web browser will request the same data from the server where the website for the entered domain is being hosted. How fast that data will be returned by the server depends on the Server cache. Here is how it works in a simplified manner:

1. Request handling

When there is an incoming request, the server checks for a cached version of the requested data within its cache storage (typically RAM). Just like with browser caching, if there is a server-cached version of the requested data, it will be sent back to your web browser, finishing the process. However, if the cached data is corrupted, missing, or invalid, the server will compile all the website’s code logic once again.

2. Storing new cache

When the website’s code logic is compiled and the data it produces is generated, the server stores it in its internal cache storage and sets a unique identifier. Thanks to that identifier, the server knows where the data is stored so it can be retrieved immediately when requested again (without compilation).

Web Cache expiration and validation

Cached data has a predetermined expiration date which is set by the time the cache is generated. So when a website is accessed, both the web browser and the web hosting server check if the cache they have stored is still valid or needs revalidation. The validation of a cached data is measured in time units – one minute, one hour, one day, and so on. To determine if a cached resource has expired, the web browser and the web server check the current time and then compare it to the expiration time of the cached resource.

For example, if the browser sees that cached data has expired, it sends a conditional request to the server to check for any website modifications. If the data is modified, the server will send it to the browser, and the browser will cache it again. On the other hand, if there are no changes, the server will respond accordingly. Thus the browser will revalidate its cache with the new expiration time.

Server cache revalidation works similarly. Each cached resource has an expiration date. Once reached, the cache can either become stale or be evicted, depending on how the server was programmed. The former requires the server to revalidate the cache when a subsequent request arrives. The latter forces the server to fetch new data.

The expiration of the cached data (both browser and server cache) is often managed by the settings of your website. In other words, you have direct control over what will be cached and for how long.

How to configure web cache

If you have a custom build website configuring the caching might be a bit overwhelming in the beginning.  That is why we strongly recommend acquiring the help of a professional web developer for this part, especially if you are operating highly dynamic websites, like e-commerce or a website that gathers sensitive information. If you are a customer of our services, we will be more than happy to help you with the optimization of such a website. Simply contact us!

On the other hand, if you are using CMS like WordPress, configuring caches is a matter of installing the correct plugins. But more on that later in this post.

There are, of course, some general recommendations you can consider for caching the static resources of your website in your visitors’ web browsers.

Browser Caching of static data

To configure browser caching of static resources for an extended period, you will need to modify the content of a file called “.htaccess” which you can find in the root folder of your website. Open that file for editing, and at the top of it, add the following lines:

• Image files from your website for 1 year – Since images are rarely updated and often the largest bits of data on your website, caching these for longer period is a good choice.
• CSS and Javascript files for one month – CSS design files and Javascript files also rarely change. Just in case, the cache of these files will be refreshed every month.
• Your website’s favicon for 1 year – your website’s favicon is something that changes quite rarely. So instructing browsers to cache it for one year is also a good choice.

Object caching

To make this abstract definition more obvious, consider websites like TripAdvisor or Amazon. These websites often change their content based on user ratings and filters. The ratings are stored in a database, and the website retrieves and calculates the average rating for each product on every page load. The calculation involves querying the database, aggregating ratings, and performing calculations.

So if there is no object caching, if User A searches for a bike with some implemented filters, the server will execute the database query and retrieve each product’s ratings that fall under the filtered categories. Then it will calculate the average rating and arrange the products in a certain way. If User B makes the same request without object caching, the entire process will start anew, taking the same portion of server resources. If there is object caching, the list will appear in a fraction of the time.

To configure Object Caching for your website, you need to know how it was developed – is it based on an opensource platform like WordPress, or is it based on custom code done by a development team? If your website is based on WordPress you can easily find a plugin that can help you out in the configuration of Object Caching. Such is, for example, W3 Total Cache, WP Rocket, and many more. If your website is custom developed, then your best choice would be to contact the developers or hire a new dev team.

WordPress plugins

WordPress plugins are hands down the easiest solution to your caching needs no matter the type of caching you need. Whichever one you choose, they all have an easily navigable interface and make your cache configuration extremely easy and fast. You only need to look out for whether the chosen plugin is compatible with your WP version, theme, and other plugins. Also, note that using multiple caching plugins will certainly break down your website. Here is a review of the most used ones by our clients.

Most importantly, before implementing any caching plugin, it’s essential to backup your website, so you can revert any potential mishaps in the process.

For more information or free consultation with our experts, our clients can open a chat or submit a support ticket.

Cache pitfalls you need to know

Caching your website will undoubtedly improve your website performance. Still, that doesn’t mean there are no downsides or challenges along the way. Here are a few pitfalls you need to consider when implementing caching.

Incorrect expiration time

Implementing the correct expiration time for cache can be a bit tricky. If your set the expiration time for too long, users will see outdated content. On the other hand, if it’s set for too short, it will defeat the purpose of having cache in the first place. Setting the right expiration time will maximize the benefits while ensuring all users receive your latest updates.

Messed up cache invalidation

This is another major challenge with caching. Just like with expiration times, if you set the invalidation process improperly, people will see outdated or wrong information. Therefore, a solid invalidation strategy is crucial for fresh content flow.

Inconsistent cache

There is rarely a bigger disaster for a website than having an inconsistent cache across multiple servers. If this happens, different users will receive different information, which will hinder your credibility and authority.

Cache Stampede

This occurrence happens when a lot of cached items expire simultaneously and all request revalidations from the server at the same time. This will overload the server and cause performance issues. This is why cache expiration is an art form that you shouldn’t take lightly.

Overall

Despite the minor drawbacks, one can not argue that cache is one of the most essential optimizations for your website, which will help you increase your website speed immensely. For your users to always enjoy your website on demand, you need fast, reliable, and secure web hosting. Luckily HostArmada is here to help. We offer state-of-the-art caching solutions that will not only boost your website’s speed but will make your entire website performance soar. Don’t hesitate to contact our team. They will happily help you choose the plan that suits your needs perfectly.

The post What is web cache and how to use it to your advantage appeared first on HostArmada Blog.

There have been some significant changes in the inter-template navigation. Also, some new modes were introduced. It seems the focus was mainly on the experience, as WordPress undertook a substantial number of small changes that genuinely improved the overall experience. There is much to talk about, so without further ado, let’s dive right in and discuss what’s new and what is better with the latest WordPress release.

A new Distraction-Free Mode

The Distraction-Free Mode is definitely not the most essential change of the pack, but it’s one that was desperately needed. It effectively filters all the distractions from the screen and lets you work specifically on the page’s content. It hides all styling and layout options. Also, it covers your entire screen with the white sheet that awaits your creative content. If you find it hard to produce well-written content, this distraction-free mode will be a Godsend, letting you concentrate on the task at hand. 

To be most effective, click on the three dots at the top right of your screen and mark the Fullscreen and the Distraction-Free mode. To exit the mode, just hover your mouse over the top of the screen. Then use the menu to disable the feature. 

The entire site editor is finally operational

After being in beta testing for quite some time, the new and improved full-site editor is finally operational. That’s great news for those with little to no experience creating a website, as it will make creating a unique and well-designed website much easier. 

It will not only allow beginners to play around and create their own blocks but will also give professional developers the means to create unique block styles and template parts. So, for example, you can create a unique footer or header and use it across all your websites. Furthermore, the learning curve is practically non-existent, as the easy drag-and-drop builder allows you to create impressive visual components in a matter of minutes.

Interestingly, this feature is still in development, and WP promises to expand on its abilities in the future. We can only wait and see what they will come up with next. 

Option to browse and choose templates

One of the best features the new site editor offers is the option to quickly and effortlessly browse through the different template parts and choose the one you need to edit. Previously, the home template was loaded by default, leaving beginners wondering which template parts required editing. Now the site editor loads your preview window without a template. Then, you can browse template panels by choosing templates and selecting the page you want to edit. Be it the Home page, the Blog, a single page, or even the 404 page, you can edit them all through this one place. Moreover, you can design and work on your header and footer, as well as the comments section and the post metadata. This is a huge step toward creating one genuinely search-engine-optimized website.

Finally, you can add even more templates by clicking “manage all templates” at the bottom of the sidebar menu. Then select “Add New” in the top right corner of the screen. There you will see a list of pre-made templates, or if you have the artistic vision, you can start from scratch by selecting “Custom template.” 

New and better navigation menus

Generally, when creating a website, starting from the Header and Footer is a good idea. However, until now, making both was a bit complicated and determined by the template’s limitations. With the new WP release, users are free to create whatever header or footer they want. Moreover, the new WP 6.2 took upon one of the most challenging tasks in this regard – creating the navigational menu. The latest version of the editor tries to tackle the problem by implementing an option to create and manage menus directly from the site editor. So now, your website’s navigation can be edited directly from a subpanel under the Navigation block. 

The downside is that this new process can take some time to get used to if you are already accustomed to the previous way. Still, in the long run, that’s the best way forward.

Adding a menu is definitely not challenging despite the slight confusion it may cost. It only follows a different logic. You must create a navigational block, go to its settings, click on the “burger” icon, and add some pre-created categories with the “plus” icon at the bottom. That’s all there is to it. Moreover, you can make it a template and use it effortlessly across different template parts and pages. 

Easier replication of block styles

Creating a great block style is not easy. If you have to do it every time from scratch, it will take you a lot of time and effort. Moreover, creating a correspondent style across all your content blocks is instrumental for your website’s branding. Having a bunch of irregular blocks is a bold move that only a few brands can afford, as, in general, eclecticism is frowned upon. The developers of WP 6.2 took that into account and created one genuinely effortless way to replicate your block styles. 

So, for example, if you created a fascinating style for one block on your home page and want to replicate it further into your content, you simply go to the ready block, click on the three dots in the bar, and choose “copy style.” Then, select the new block and simply paste the style.

Moreover, you can now create your own block templates, allowing you to use them across your website. This is a great way to add the header and footer, as well as some promotions, offers, and other content that will be universal across all pages. Note, though, that changing the content on one page will change all across the website. So be careful.

Color indication when editing blocks

Luckily, the WP developers anticipated the mess that could ensue. So they created an easy way to alert you that you are working on a block template and not on a single block. In addition, they made it through color coding. So, when operating on a single block, the edited block will get bright blue borders. This will show you not only the specific block you are managing but also that it’s not a template.

On the other hand, if you edit a block template and change content across your entire website, you will get a purple border, and the object in the list on the left will illuminate in the same color.

This otherwise small change can save you from much trouble and mess.

A new style book

While discussing the block style, the new WP 6.2 site editor will come with a handy “Style Book.” All you need to do is enter the style panel from the icon positioned at the top right corner. Then click the style book icon. There you can choose a predetermined style. It instantly changes your text, media, design, and widgets to predetermined settings. On the other hand, you can create your own style by changing the typography, colors, and layouts on your own. The best part is that you can decide which pages to change and where to keep them different.

This is great for A/B Landing page testing. Once you prove the winner, you can instantly match all your landing page styles to it. Furthermore, if you want to keep your privacy policy strictly to the point, you might want to devoid it of additional styling. 

On the other hand, with this feature, you can keep your styling the same throughout your entire website, saving you a lot of time and effort.

Dedicated sub-panels for block styles and settings

Since the new styling block has a lot to offer, the developers took it upon themselves to give it a dedicated sub-panel. The same goes for the block settings. This is a small change. Still, it offers users a more effortless navigation when they want to change a specific block aspect. For example, if they want to change its functionality, they won’t have to go through a bunch of style solutions first. Instead, they can simply go to the dedicated sub-panel and find all they need there. 

Importing classic widgets as template elements 

It’s debatable whether the classic widgets were the best designer solution, especially compared to the block-styled themes. Still, WordPress 6.2 recognizes that many website owners prefer to have ready-to-use widgets. So naturally, the new WP update accommodates their needs by introducing a method to implement classic widgets as Template parts in block themes. 

Still, using blog themes is far better if you are new to WordPress. So it’s a far better idea to use the immense capabilities of block themes rather than going back to the limited solutions like the widgets. 

Option to add custom CSS to specific blocks

After the “Theme Customizer” was hidden in the last few WP versions, this time, the developers decided to make it easily accessible. This allows everyone to add custom CSS to their theme without much hassle. 

Getting to the panel is quite easy. First, go to the style panel. Next, open the drop-down menu from the three dots inside the panel, and select additional CSS. 

On the other hand, if you want to change the style of a particular block template, just go to the style panel, select blocks at the bottom, and choose the block type you’d like to change. After that, click on “Additional block CSS” and paste your CSS code.

Note that not all elements will allow you to add custom CSS. Still, most text and design elements have that option. So if you have some coding experience, you can make your website truly unique. 

Improved pattern insertion

The easily inserted patterns are the last of WP 6.2’s big changes. In previous versions, this was needlessly complicated, and it seems the developers came to the same conclusion. Now inserting a design is seamless. Just go to the “add new” panel and choose “Patterns.” There you will see a list of patterns you can choose from.

In addition to the traditional choices, now you can opt for a header and a footer pattern as well. Select the type you need, and a list of available designs will appear. Then, you can implement the element with a single click and start editing it. It’s as easy as that. 

Other improvements

Along with all the significant changes, WordPress 6.2 offers a variety of minor improvements all across the board. They don’t have the same colossal impact on the usability but are still lovely additions to the overall experience. Here are the most important of them:

Openverse integration for free images – Finding the correct pics to illustrate your blog post is always tedious. The 6.2 developers must have known that, as they integrated the Openverse royalty-free open-source images into the site editor. You can reach it through the “add new” panel in the media section. 

The settings panel has a new icon – Though the gear icon was universally recognizable, the new panel icon is definitely more in line with the functions of the button. 

Faster updates – All updates will be done much faster thanks to the new method of moving directories rather than copying them.

A new switch-to-user-locale function – This will help, among other things, to send emails in the recipient’s locale instead of the site’s locale. 

Create autosave revisions only when content is changed – this will cease creating and deleting useless records, which causes unwanted load and exhausts the IDS. 

Overall

The new WordPress 6.2 looks extremely promising. The developers definitely worked on resolving common usability issues. Although there is still a long way to go, the new site editor looks fantastic. The whole platform feels exceptionally comfortable. Moreover, with more than 292 enhancements, 354 fixed bugs, and more than 195 resolved tickets, WordPress is better and faster than ever. Now all you need is a fast hosting service, and you can launch one genuinely successful website. 

Thankfully, HostArmada is here to help. Our lightning-fast, Fort Knox-secured, and highly reliable hosting services perfectly align with the fast and secure build that WordPress 6.2 offers. So check our offers and get your website up and running today. 

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What is Google Helpful Content Update?

The Google Helpful Content Guide is a small document that allows website owners, bloggers, and SEO specialists to glimpse at what Google considers valuable for its users. So, naturally, this is a blueprint for getting your website, blog post, or product at the top position on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). As users’ behavior changes over time, so do these guidelines. After all, Google’s main objective is to deliver its users the best experience, and it does so by showing the best results based on the users’ behavior.

You might wonder, can’t you do what you do and ignore Google as a factor in your content creation? The answer, of course, is yes, you may. But with 70,000 searches each second, Google is still the best way to get free traffic to your website, blog, or product pages. So following Google’s guidelines, although not mandatory, it’s highly recommended.

Will Google’s algorithm update change your ratings?

If you’ve always been meticulous about your website content and have done a great job at your SEO, you shouldn’t worry. Although a game-changer, the update still has the user’s best interests in mind. So if you offer genuinely good and informative content, you can only benefit from this update.

One unique thing about this change is the algorithm’s scope on your website. Until now, the crawlers checked only the particular page for trustworthy content and other signs of fraudulence. However, now your whole website will be under the lens. So if your website contains some untrustworthy content or other elements that might push Google crawlers away, you need to delete them as soon as possible. If not else, this GHCU gives you the excuse to do some spring cleaning on your website and get rid of old and untrustworthy content if you have such.

You have nothing to fear if you run a genuine and trustworthy website. On the other hand, those running shady web pages who try to get between Google’s fences and climb to the top spot in the SERP will be hit the hardest. However, consider going through your content and fact-checking everything to be safe.

Naturally, if you have a massive amount of content, it would be difficult to pinpoint the article that might be problematic. Going through your content might be interesting, but it is not time-efficient. A better plan is to use Google Search Console since Google won’t notify you of a problem with your content, but you will notice a drop in SERP positions on some keywords. A quick analysis of the results will pinpoint the weak link so you can change your content or delete it all together. You will also notice a drop in your visits through Google Analytics. This is the best way to analyze the full impact of the algorithm change.

On the plus side, if you were meticulous with your content, you may gain some SERP spots while others suffer through Google’s changes. So basically, the update is bad news only for those who tried to cheat Google previously.

How will the update change SEO strategies?

In general, GHCU does not demand any changes. SEO is always about satisfying your audience’s needs first. So if you have a good SEO on your website that doesn’t try to fraudulently “persuade” Google crawlers that it’s the best content for a particular keyword, there is nothing to change. The modifications that Google implements now are actually trying to push everyone to follow the best SEO practices, so if you are in line with them, keep up the good work.

Still, you might have doubts about whether your website is good enough, so let’s go through some of the most significant changes that will determine your SERP position.

Google’s golden rule

There is one rule above all else – people first, customers second, bots – last” This is the holy scripture of brilliant SEO. Search engines, as a rule, care little about your content. What they care about, however, is what their users think about your content, so writing about people and not bots is instrumental for your success.

Forget about plagiarizing

Plagiarism is a disgusting method of profiting from someone else’s work without their approval. It’s immoral and legally jeopardizing. So never sink so low as to copy another person’s hard work and claim it as your own. Google goes a step beyond, as it can flag as plagiarized any content that was “heavily influenced” by another one. Although that’s not actually plagiarism, it’s still a breach of Google’s trust. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t get information from other websites, but make sure to add something from you – an analysis, comment, or just an observation.

Leave AI outside of the content.

While AI is definitely the future in almost any aspect of marketing, content writing is very far from being ready to be replaced by a robot. Mostly because AI can’t conclude various perspectives, can’t offer first-hand knowledge, and can’t bring that extra flair only a true professional can infuse when talking about an issue they care about.

Keep content relevant

We know you have various interests all across many fields and industries. Your audience does not. Or at least they are not on your website for that.

For example, if you sell high-end shirts, your audience will be interested in textile or fabric information. They won’t be so keen to learn what you think of last night’s episode of the current viral show. So keep your content to your niche and deviate only when you know you can add some value to your audience, not only because a topic is viral at the moment.

Keep it short and sweet.

While being a bit detailed with your blog posts is fine, going overboard and over-explaining everything will do more harm than good. So better stick to the point of your posts and make sure you don’t go overboard.

What Google will prize from now on

As you can see, Google is quite demanding on what not to be done. However, if you want to go beyond and go straight to the first spot at the SERP, you need to follow a few extra steps.

Google will finally reward expertise.

Google has gone one step further in offering its users the best solution to their problems. This change was long coming, and we are happy that finally being an expert will give you bonus points. There will be no penalties if you are not an expert, but expertise will be pushed forward, allowing the users to get the best and most accurate answer to their queries. Naturally, that shouldn’t be a problem, as most website owners are experts at what they do. You can’t really be an electronics business owner without having some expertise in the field. Moreover, you know the business from the inside and have some insider knowledge, so if you are not a fraudulent website, you shouldn’t worry about this change.

However, being an expert is not enough. You will have to choose your blog topics carefully. Just because the keyword was trending, writing on a random theme is not a recipe for success. Stick to your field of experience and what’s relevant to your audience, and you will be golden.

Adding value is mandatory.

You might be a brilliant writer and a recognized expert in your field, but if you don’t add value to your content, Google won’t recognize you as a viable first choice for their search results. This is because many people just list the problems without really giving a solution, which contradicts Google’s desire to provide its users with the best and most reliable answers to their questions fast.

So from now on, only content with added value will be eligible for the first spot. This means you will have to add some solutions to the problems and give some examples, some first-hand experiences, or a unique perspective on the topic.

Show, don’t tell

However, what will truly bring your website some huge benefits is google’s new motto, “show, don’t tell.” Yes, the search engine giant will give you additional scores for unique, entertaining, and, most importantly, relevant pictures, gifs, and videos to illustrate your point. Of course, mobile-friendly visuals, with good quality and resolution, is a must if you want to get the bonus points.

One question, one answer

Mixing several topics into one blog post might sound like a good idea, especially with the opportunity to try and list more than one long tail keyword in only one content. However, Google will penalize this behavior from now on. The main argument here is that people come to a particular page searching for an answer to a specific question. So having 5-6 questions answered in one post is definitely not user-friendly. It devalues the post and makes it only a sketch of a real answer.

If you want to target different keywords, just make additional posts. Moreover, this will help you fill your blog, and you won’t have to wonder what to post next week. On the other hand, you don’t have to write needlessly long posts. If you don’t have enough to say, 1000 words or so are quite enough for Google to deem you worthy, as long as you follow all previously mentioned rules.

Be decisive with your answer

Most important, however, is to give your audience a clear, fully comprehensible answer that doesn’t leave any doubt in their mind about what is the solution to their problem. In this sense, forget terms such as “in my opinion” and “Take that with a grain of salt” when concluding your exposition. Instead, end your text firmly, believing in your expertise and knowing you have the correct answer to the question asked.

On the other hand, never give conclusive answers that facts can’t prove. You can provide your own understanding and rely on your experience and expertise, but you need to acknowledge the fact that there is no conclusive answer to the question at hand, and to your best knowledge, you are correct. Naturally, it would be best if you did it in smoother terms.

Speed is still very much a factor

One of the key characteristics that Google looks for in a page for its SERP’s number one spot is the load speed. In this sense, a slow website or an unfortunate server crash can ruin your chances of becoming Google’s favorite website. To avoid this, you need a speedy, secure, and stable hosting service. HostArmada is just the place to get them. With its cloud-based servers, you will never experience downtime and enjoy lightning-fast speed, top-notch security, and guaranteed stability. So check out our offers and contact us to help choose the best plan that suits your needs.

What to remember?

Google’s new update is a game changer that solidifies the best SEO practices. In this sense, if you have followed these standards, you have nothing to worry about, as you will most likely win from the whole turmoil. Still, it’s a good idea to go through your Google Search Console and Google Analytics just to see if there are some drops in your performance. If there are, pinpoint the problem and follow the guidelines to make your content irresistible for Google.

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