Stewart Has anybody ever heard of "Duda" before? If so, then is it difficult to do SEO on the website templates that are available? Was looking for a quick/cheap way to build websites for potential clients and then upsell them SEO. Was looking at using WordPress but I'm still not confident enough in terms of uploading the website and correcting errors that happen. Edit, I'm also considering Squarespace. Would this be a better option for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? 5 👍🏽 5 [filtered from 20 💬🗨]
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John Stick to WP… Just get hosting that offers "one-click install" if you don't want to deal w cPanel & FTP… Use Divi as your theme… It's totally controllable and easy to use… license is unlimited and good for a whole year… You can get a lifetime license but for me, I've banged out so many sites that they've more than earned their 70/yr from me… Even if there's something you can't do, you'll be able to "kiddie script" some code or find tons of people capable of helping you… I don't touch any of the products like Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, etc… If you can't touch your back end then that can be a huge problem… I'm in cybersecurity, without getting into details, those platforms aren't as secure as they'd like you to believe… Cheers… And best of luck with all your endeavors.
Stewart ✍️ Cheers for the info, much appreciated. Is there a reason why people would use cPanel & FTP over one-click install? Also, I heard lots of great things about Divi, is it more popular than Avada? I actually have lots of experience with Avada from an agency I worked in but have no problem switching around. I think the main thing that puts me off WordPress is the plugin costs and then obviously if any of the plugins break the website. John » Stewart personally I've never had an issue with plugins but sure it's always a possibility… If you have cPanel access then you have full control, just in case… But with regards to cPanel vs one click install: Sometimes developers build sites offline and then load them to the web hosting server… That's just their style… I've done it that way for updating sites so their main one is still live… However, 95% of the time just one click install and put up a "coming soon page"… Definitely makes it easier if you have remote clients. The only advantage to Duda is that you can white label… If you have your own hosting server that allows you to sell hosting under your brand, you can upsell a "DIY" page builder and make it look like you're company provides the software. Jake Do you have any issues with Divi and page speed or SEO rankings loss related to page speed / loading time? John Personally, no, not that I've seen… My own homepage is heavy (<4mb) but that's because I'm insistent on a video hero image… Makes a solid landing page for me and that's all I need the homepage for (FB, PPC, etc.)… Just keep your pages to under ~2mb, then use a browser caching plugin (I think mine is "WP3 Total Cache")… If need be use a CSS/JS Minification plugin (Basically removes white space in your code)… *Images… Don't forget to reduce your image sizes, that's the big one… Especially when people use sliders and carousels because the JavaScript makes it even heavier… There's plugins to minify but it's always better to do it offline and then upload properly… Personally, I use lunapic.com… Just upload and re-download and I can get a ~4mb 4k image down to like 300kb… LunaPic.com Photo Editor tool LUNAPIC.COM LunaPic.com Photo Editor tool LunaPic.com Photo Editor tool Stewart ✍️ » John cheers man. Mike » John you are in cyber security and are recommending WordPress? John Yeah… It's sufficient for like 90% of sites out there… And it's not too hard to lock it down and monitor if need be.
Oliver i have more than 10 websites running with Duda but i wouldn't recommend it if websites are at the core of what you do or plan to do. the functionality is slightly limited compared to WordPress and there is no online community to discuss problems, ideas, hacks, etc, nor such a big pool of good value freelancers to allow you to scale later.
Stewart ✍️ » Oliver I was aiming to use them as lead gen websites that maybe have the odd blog and ebook downloads. Would that be suitable do you think? Oliver yes there's nothing particularly wrong with Duda websites. it's just that you sacrifice some functionality for the sake of making it quick and easy to set things up, and (as mentioned above) you miss the opportunity with WordPress to learn from the community and outsource to the existing pool of freelancers. if you want to take websites / SEO seriously (i don't really) then WordPress is much better.
Paul Learn WordPress! Why bother with anything else when WordPress is the most used, most popular CMS around. So many amazing plugins and themes available to simply install and activate. I have Divi and Pro version of Elementor as well as installs of Brizy and Oxygen. Still prefer Divi although any of them will do a great job! Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is quite easy to implement in WordPress with plugins like Yoast and Rank Math. Those plugins are however, only as good as you make them. Olga Definitely not Squarespace. It has too many limitations in regards to SEO. You can't optimize single blog posts & products for example. WP is the best option. If you practice with one website, everything else is the same. Just make sure you choose the right hosting option Chris Hestia. WordPress is the easiest thing in the world. Hëna I use Duda to build quick restaurant websites, which I do in conjunction with the online ordering. The ability to create different mobile version than the one compared to the desktop is awesome.
