Best WordPress Calendar Plugin

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A calendar plugin for your WordPress site is a great way to ensure everyone is on the same page. If your business revolves around events, monthly announcements, or appointments, then you’ll want to manage it all with an easy calendar layout. 

You’ll be well on your way to being more organized, productive, and transparent with your customers once you find a calendar plugin that works well with your current workflow.

There are tons of calendar plugins out there, making it hard to know where to begin when picking the best one. Well, you’re in luck. Below I discuss some of the very best WordPress calendars you can start using today as well as how much it’ll cost you to use each one. Let’s dive in. 

#1 – Timetable Responsive Schedule — The Best For Displaying Daily And Weekly Time Schedules

With Timetable, you can display an array of event calendars, schedules, and availability information all in one easy to use plugin. The name pretty much gives away what they’re best at, which is ensuring that your customers know your schedule down to the hour. 

With it, you can generate PDFs you or your customers can print for convenience. The events widget lets your customers know when, where, how, and what time your next event will be held.

Thankfully, Timetable doesn’t confine you to creating time blocked schedules and events. It also offers booking functionality. So you can book and fill your events accordingly.

Once you’ve downloaded the plugin, you can add a new event to your calendar, name it, adjust its settings, event hours, and event frequency, set dates, and publish. Once you’ve published it, copy the autogenerated shortcode and paste it anywhere you want to display it on your site. 

The best features of Timetable include:

• Free lifetime updates so that your plugin will always be up to date and compatible with the latest WordPress updates
• Fully responsive
• Custom CSS option to modify it to match your brand look
• Shortcode generator for display on any site page or blog post
• Event filtering to easily search for specific event listings
• Lots of customizable color options for events, days, event text, and more

Timetable Responsive Schedule is $29 for a regular license, which comes with future updates and six months of support. Get started with Timetable here. 

#2 – The Events Calendar — The Best For Multiple Calendar Views

The Events Calendar will fit like a glove if you want access to multiple calendar views with plenty of powerful events and scheduling features that keep your community and customers engaged. 

Once you download The Events Calendar plugin and add all your event information, you can view your calendar in several different views, including monthly, daily, weekly, and more. 

Here’s a quick rundown of how you can view it:

• Month View: Classic calendar view where you can see all events at a glance for the entire month
• List View: Have your audience or prospective customers view your events in a chronological list that can be filtered by month
• Day View: Have events happening on the same day? You can configure your calendar to display day views so you can easily see which events are happening at what time on the same day without any confusion.
• Week View: See upcoming events for a week at a glance.
• Photo View: Create a grid of chronological events displayed primarily as images. 
• Map View: If your events are location-dependent, a map view can be a helpful visual aid.

A wide array of calendar views is only one standout feature of The Events Calendar plugin. Some of the top features of Events Calendar are:

• Easily manage in-person and virtual events
• Export and import other calendar events with a built-in CSV importer
• Mindful of time zones, so all your customers are on the same page no matter where in the world they are 
• Plenty of event category and tagging functionality
• Build community with an event calendar designed to bring groups and organizations together
• Multiple calendar views for accessibility and ease of use
• The ability to highlight specific events to draw more attention to them
• Easy set-and-forget recurring events once you define event parameters
• Shortcode feature to embed and display any calendar, schedule, or event on any page or blog post
• Compatible with Google Maps and Google Calendar

The base calendar plugin is entirely free forever and comes with the month, list, and day views, has categories and tags, and is fully responsive. The Pro version with additional features, support, calendar views, recurring events, and advanced fields is $99 for one site, $149 for three websites, and starts at $299 for 10 or more sites.

Start using The Events Calendar today for a more engaged audience. 

#3 – Simple Calendar — The Best For Use With Google Calendar

The perfect marriage between WordPress and Google Calendar is the Simple Calendar plugin. It’s no wonder it has been downloaded over one million times. 

You can easily display your events, schedules, bookings, and availability with their straightforward calendar. As you might have guessed, there’s a reason why “simple” is in the name. Because it truly strives to be exactly that.

Simple Calendar lets you show monthly, weekly, or list views with the most important updates you can manage through Google Calendar. It also offers a widget view if you want to display your calendar in your site’s footer or sidebar. 

If someone comes across your event and wants to add it to their own Google Calendar, Simple Calendar lets them do that with an “Add to GCal” link option. Because of Simple Calendar’s convenience and compatibility with Google Calendar, I recommend it as the best calendar plugin if you’re already using Google Calendar to manage your events. If you’re unsure about the plugin, you can always try their instant demo. 

Some features of Simple Calendars include:

• Fully mobile responsive
• Color-code events to your taste
• Manage events on Google Calendar and have them automatically displayed on your WordPress site
• Integrates with Events Calendar Newsletter for sending event reminders

The pricing is straightforward and breaks down like this:

• Personal — $49 for up to 1 site
• Business — $79 for up to 5 sites
• Agency — $149 for up to 25 sites

All plans come with one year of support and updates. Download and start using Simple Calendar today. 

#4 – Events Schedule — The Best For Versatile Calendar Styles

Events Schedule is a solid WordPress calendar plugin in terms of versatility. They offer 12 customizable schedule styles, each with different features.

With list views, monthly views, and weekly views, you can ensure your audience has plenty of access and time to plan for future events. The advanced event filters also let your audience easily find the events they’re looking for without confusion or hassle. 

Because of Events Schedule’s versatility and wide array of calendar types, it’s easily usable in just about any industry. You can use it to schedule fitness classes and events, publish theatre schedules, Museum timetables, arena events, or bar events, just to name a few. 

Top features of Events Schedule:

• Compatible with WooCommerce
• Includes a booking system
• Able to integrate with Google Maps
• Easily schedule repetitive events
• Countdown timer feature included
• Intuitive visual schedule builder
• SEO friendly code and display options optimized for speed
• Shortcode generator option for simple plug and play
• Custom call-to-action buttons feature

If you want to try Events Schedule before clicking the buy button, I recommend you take your time to look through their live demo, where you’ll get to see the look of each schedule, what industry it’s best for, and how to put it together and publish it on your WordPress site. 

If you pair this plugin’s price point with the number of calendar options it offers, it makes for an impressive package worth diving into if you want to go beyond the basics of what a calendar plugin can do. A regular license costs $39 and includes six months of support and future updates.

#5 – EventON — The Best For Colorful And Dynamic Event Calendars

EventON is a powerful calendar plugin that stands out with dynamic and colorful calendar displays you can customize to your liking. As soon as you set eyes on any calendar created with the EventON plugin, it’s sure to be absolutely eye-catching.

With EventON, you can create colorful calendar bubbles that, when clicked, open up to display a calendar card with every event detail they need to know. 

Event bubbles aren’t the only view available to you once you download their plugin. You can create tile calendar views with bigger calendar “tiles” that display each of your events with readily available details. Don’t worry, once you set up your calendar tiles, they’re designed to be fully responsive, so they’ll look good on any screen.

You can also display calendar events in a list view with thumbnails and add any number of event colors for each tile. Like other robust plugins, EventON isn’t a one-trick pony. There are plenty of useful features it offers to users, especially if you host lots of live events. Read on below to learn more about some of their very best features. 

Some of the best features of EventOn are: 

• Generates shortcodes you can quickly grab and plug in with Gutenberg
• Great for hosting virtual live events
• Developer friendly for advanced feature altering capabilities
• Expandable calendar details for each event 
• Add unlimited images to each event to better inform your audience
• Has “add to Google Calendar” options for increased engagement
• Easily filter and sort events with a few clicks
• Add custom repeat events so you can set it and forget it
• Easily change custom time formats to display according to your preferences

EventON costs $25 for a regular license, which includes future updates and six months of support. You can also get support extended to 12 months for an additional $7.50. Get started using EventOn’s colorful calendar features here. 

What I Looked At To Find The Best WordPress Calendar Plugins

There are tons of calendar plugins available. But not all of them offer the same features, as some cater to different user needs better than others. Here are a few things I considered when researching the best WordPress calendar plugins and factors you should consider when deciding which is best for your business. 

Visual Layout

To cover the basics, a solid WordPress calendar plugin is mobile responsive. It’ll always adjust to any screen it’s viewed on, no matter the size. They’re also easy on the eyes and accessible. 

The last thing you want to do is use a calendar plugin that looks outdated, has limited functionality, or doesn’t play well with your website’s other plugins. The more you can create a visually appealing calendar easy for anyone to use, the more you’ll get out of it when using it as a business management tool.

Booking and Appointment Options

Some calendars are designed to be very simple so that you can display important dates and events. Others are created with bookings and appointments in mind.

This means you won’t only be able to display availability but that your customers can book appointments right on your calendar at any time. If you run a service-based business, this can be a great option to look into when choosing the right calendar plugin. 

Simplicity

You want to find a plugin that falls in the sweet spot between simplicity and advanced features depending on your business needs. You don’t want to spend the money to buy a robust plugin with lots of heavier features if you won’t even use a third of them.

On the other hand, you don’t want to use a plugin that limits your capabilities when it comes to booking appointments, displaying dates, automating and marking holidays off, or even providing a useful legend.

Conclusion

A WordPress calendar plugin can prove useful in keeping your business productive, staying organized, and keeping your customers happy and informed. 

Here’s a recap of the plugins I reviewed in this guide to help you make the best choice:

• Timetable Responsive Schedule — The best for displaying daily and weekly time schedules
• The Events Calendar — The best for multiple calendar views
• Simple Calendar — The best for use with Google Calendar
• Events Schedule — The best for versatile calendar styles
• EventOn — The best for colorful and dynamic event calendars

Use this guide to choose the best WordPress calendar plugin according to your needs. Then come back and leave a comment below with any feedback on your favorite calendar features. 

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Best WordPress Backup Plugins

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What would happen to your WordPress site if all your data was wiped out? If you don’t have a clear answer to this pretty important question, then you’ve landed in the right place.

Without a doubt, a WordPress backup plugin is one of the smartest things you can do to ensure your site’s life. If you get hacked, accidentally lose your password, or the world comes crashing down, you’ll save yourself the massive headache of losing everything on your site with a backup plugin. 

The best part is that backup plugins are pretty easy to use once you add them to your WordPress dashboard. The problem lies in choosing the right one for your business from a list of so many plugins. In this buying guide, we’ll dive deep into everything you need to know. Ready? Let’s make sure your site’s backed up. 

#1 – BlogVault — The Best All-In-One Backup Solution

BlogVault makes for a reliable all-in-one backup plugin that ensures your site’s backup is stored securely in the cloud. It’s used by over 4,000,000 websites and trusted by businesses like Astra, Cloudways, and GoWP. 

BlogVault’s plugin offers key storage features like changelogs that can help you identify problematic modifications to your website. They go as far as providing 90-day archives to ensure you recover from any site mistakes, which are bound to happen at some point in your site’s lifetime.

If your site experiences downtime, with BlogVault, you can make it so that your site’s backup still shows up to users. What exactly does BlogVault backup? Everything from the basics like blog posts, your media library, and media files to blog comments, plugin files, WordPress settings, categories and tags, theme settings, WordPress core files, and even user details.

Because of how complete and robust BlogVault is as a plugin, it’s one of my favorite backup plugin recommendations to make. 

Some of BlogVault’s best features are:

• Provides centralized dashboard where you can manage multiple sites
• Provides custom WooCommerce table backups
• Performance checks that inform you about site speed and ways to improve your site
• Get uptime and downtime status checks
• Handy customer support that gets in contact with you in less than 24 hours
• Incremental backup option available so the plugin doesn’t slow down your site

If you’re not in love with everything BlogVault offers yet, take a look at their affordable pricing tiers:

• Personal — $7.40 per month for daily backups
• Plus — $12.40 per month for daily backups
• Advanced — $20.75 per month for real-time backups

You can definitely take them for a test drive with their free trial. Otherwise, get started using BlogVault here. 

#2 – JetPack — The Best For Making Site Changes Safely

Jetpack is a strong contender for a reliable backup plugin that works great for making site changes safely.

Picture this: You’re making exciting new changes to your site, whether that’s CSS customization, adding new plugins, or altering your core site files. Then suddenly, something breaks. With Jetpack, you can quickly restore your site to how it was before you made that crucial mistake with just a few clicks. This makes it an easy and reliable plugin to work with if you’re constantly updating your website. 

The Jetpack plugin even comes complete with a mobile app so that you can virtually restore your website right from your phone no matter where you are. Plus, Jetpack offers plenty of security features, too. This can only be a plus for a backup plugin and makes it worth keeping in your corner.  

Some top features of Jetpack include:

• Provides malware scanning and protects your site from spam
• Downtime monitoring lets you know if your site is down immediately
• Malicious hacking and attack protection
• Mobile app you can take and use with you everywhere
• Automatically cleans up spam comments off your site

If you choose to go with JetPack, the question becomes what kind of pricing package you’ll feel comfortable going with, as there are many options.

The three main packages are:

• Backup Daily — $7.95 per month billed yearly 
• Security Daily — $19.95 per month billed yearly
• Complete — $79.95 per month billed yearly

The Backup Daily tier offers automated backups, one-click restores, and unlimited site storage. On the other end, Complete provides the full Jetpack suite, including real-time security, enhanced search, CRM features, and even design tools. 

Jetpack also offers a limited free forever plan that includes basic site protection, downtime monitoring, and changelogs. 

Additional product bundles you can purchase separately on a per month basis include a Security Real-Time plan, a Real-Time Backup plan, a Scan package, an Anti-spam bundle, a Site Search plan, and the CRM Entrepreneur add-on.

Jetpack offers peace of mind by providing one-click restore options and monitoring your website’s security at pretty affordable rates. Still, I recommend you visit their comparison page to ensure you’re deciding on the right backup bundle. 

Start using Jetpack’s powerful backup features here. 

#3 – UpdraftPlus — The Best Free Backup Plugin

If you’re looking for a free backup plugin, look no further than UpdraftPlus. It makes restoring all your site files hassle-free and straightforward. It has over 3,000,000 active installations and is a reliable backup option if you are running your site on a shoestring budget.

UpdraftPlus has a paid version you can upgrade to with a lot more features and capabilities. But for now, we’ll focus on what the free version can do for your site.

UpdraftPlus is a cloud-based plugin that ensures you have access to your site’s files and data in case of cyberattacks, server crashes, conflicting plugins, or anything else that would bring your site down. Once you upload the UdraftPlus plugin, you can set it up, forget it, and let it run in the background while you work on more important tasks for your business. 

Best features of UpdraftPlus:

• Backup to an exhaustive list of cloud options
• Lets you set up automated backup schedules for convenience
• Uses less server resources than other free backup plugins
• Has the ability to restore your site 

Updraft Plus is free, and you can read reviews and download it here.

#4 – Backup Buddy — The Best For Efficiently Restoring Your Site

Like Backup Buddy rhetorically asks on their site, “What good is a backup if you don’t also have a way to restore your site properly?”

And they couldn’t be more right. Backup Buddy ensures you always have the latest backup of your site by providing you with a zip file you can use to upload and restore a broken site. 

Once uploaded, Backup Buddy seamlessly walks you through the steps to get your media files, text, plugins, and more back up and running. Additionally, you can choose to restore individual files instead of restoring the whole site if that’s what you want to do. You can even schedule automated backups at intervals you customize. 

Some top features of Backup Buddy include:

• Backs up your entire WordPress installation
• Customizable backup content that you can pick and choose to restore
• Offers hourly, twice daily, daily, biweekly, weekly or monthly backups
• Automatically sends your backup files to accessible remote storage locations like Dropbox or Google Drive

Backup Buddy has three pricing options, all with one-time fees:

• Blogger — $80 for one site
• Freelancer — $127 for up to 10 sites
• Gold — $199 for backing up unlimited sites

You can quickly sign up and get started with BackUp Buddy here. 

#5 – WPvivid Backup Pro — The Best For Migrations

WPvivid Backup Pro is a great backup plugin you can safely set up and start using to migrate your site. They’ve been used on more than 90,000 websites to do more than just back up and safely migrate data files.  

WPvivid Backup Pro offers incremental backups to ensure it isn’t slowing down your site as it works in the background to backup all your data once it’s been configured to your needs. As far as its backup migration capabilities, WPvivid Backup Pro supports manual migration methods, as well as auto migration and migration via remote storage (as a premium feature). 

Some of WPvivid’s best features include:

• Create either manual or scheduled backups
• Advanced migration features in case you want to migrate your site quickly
• The ability to create a staging site
• It backs up all your core WordPress files
• 24/7 ticket support
• Set a size limit for files that you’re not interested in backing up

Here’s a quick look at their pricing packages: 

• Basic — $49 per year for up to three websites
• Freelancer — $99 per year for up to 100 websites
• Ultimate — $149 per year for unlimited websites

All three plans are annual subscriptions, unlike other backup plugins, many of which are a one-time licensing fee. WPvivid also offers a 14-day free trial, visiting so you can test it out before you purchase a plan. 

What I Looked At To Find The Best WordPress Backup Plugins

The most basic use of a backup plugin is to keep updated backups of your site continuously. There are plenty of plugins on the market that will do just that.

Here are some of the criteria I looked at to find the best plugin options for your WordPress site. These will be helpful factors for you to think about as you choose which plugin to invest in. 

Restoring Options and Complete Backups

If you’re frantically trying to get your site back up and running and want to restore it to how it was before it crashed, you’ll be thankful for a restoring option you can upload in minutes.

This way, you’re enabled to troubleshoot fast, save your rankings in search engines, and have a contingency plan for when things go south. It’s a great feature to look for in any backup plugin you decide to use. Especially if their pricing features hook you into yearly subscriptions.  

Along with quick restoring options, it’s a good idea to ensure your backup plugin does complete backups, meaning it backs up everything on your site from images to texts, themes, media files, and your whole database. If your entire site goes down, a partial backup will be less useful. Full backups are worth any extra cost. 

Preventative Overload Configuration

It’s always a plus to know that a plugin was built to work with your site and not against it. This means it was designed with every aspect of your site in mind. This includes not overloading your site so that it slows down or has trouble loading.

Some of the best backup plugins allow for interval backups, configured so that your site doesn’t suffer from slow loading times. As you probably know, load time is a crucial SEO factor that Google takes seriously as it decides where to place you in SERPs. The fewer resources your backup plugin takes up, the better your chances of ranking on search engines. 

Cloud Storage

This brings me to cloud storage as a desirable feature in a backup plugin. It can be both a cost-effective and scalable option to give you peace of mind. 

With cloud storage, you can store all your site information safely with your backup provider, where you’ll always have access to your data within minutes. This also helps you minimize storage overhead and have easy access.

Bringing It All Together

Using a reliable WordPress backup plugin is one of the best ways to keep your site safe while you sleep soundly at night. In the scenario that you lose everything on your site, meaning your files, images, blog posts, guides, PDFs, and more, you’ll want to be able to bring all of it back with a few clicks. That’s where backup plugins come in.

To summarize the plugins I reviewed in this guide, take a quick look at the list below:

• BlogVault — The best all-in-one backup solution
• JetPack — The best for making site changes safely
• UpdraftPlus — The best free backup plugin
• Backup Buddy — The best for efficiently restoring your site
• WPvivid Backup — The best for migrations

Take a moment to check out each one so that you’re comfortable with your final plugin choice. If you’re unsure, make sure to revisit this guide whenever you need it. 

Now it’s your turn. Which plugin do you use to backup your sites? Comment below!

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5 SEO Tips For Bonanza E-Commerce Sellers

As an e-commerce seller, your business depends on your relationship with search engines.

Search engines are one of the first stops potential buyers make before purchasing an item. When your store is invisible to search engines, you simply don’t exist to the vast majority of your audience.

It’s a concerning thought and one reason e-commerce sellers spend so much time fixing and maintaining their on-site SEO.

Of course, understanding your platform is critical if you expect to stand out. If you’re serious about gaining that SEO edge, you need to know how search engines interact with your platform.

That’s where Bonanza comes in. It’s a great platform if you’re trying to avoid crowded, oversaturated sites like eBay and Etsy.

This article explores how Bonanza works and shows you how to drive traffic to your store from search engines. 

What is Bonanza and How Does it Work?

As a platform for e-commerce sellers, Bonanza exists as a marketplace for all kinds of products. 

The sheer variety of products you can sell on Bonanza is impressive. Bonanza lets merchants sell art, books, coins, jewelry, and everything in between. 

Bonanza functions similarly to many other e-commerce platforms. Sellers pay fees on both the price of the goods sold and the shipping fees associated with that purchase. However, you don’t pay unless your items sell—there are no listing fees or subscription costs. 

You can advertise on the platform, but for our purposes, we’re going to focus on how to drive organic traffic to your business using SEO.

5 SEO Tips for Bonanza E-Commerce Sellers

To increase views on Bonanza, you need to provide customers with the most relevant information at the right time. Let’s look at how to optimize your Bonanza listings to drive organic traffic.

Use Strong Keywords in Bonanza Listings

As with all types of SEO, effective keyword usage is paramount when optimizing for Bonanza. But, before you can use keywords in your title and listing, you need to figure out what your keywords are.

Google Keyword Planner is a fantastic tool for testing the strength of specific key terms and phrases that you’re considering for your content.

Let’s say your e-commerce store revolves around hiking. The word “hiking” itself might be a perfect fit for your content, but this presents a few problems. 

The biggest issue here is hundreds, if not thousands, of other merchants selling hiking equipment on Bonanza. There’s little chance your content will stand out to either the algorithm or potential buyers based on that term alone.

Instead of using a broad keyword like “hiking,” you can use a strong keyword phrase that accurately describes your product. Suddenly, you’ve narrowed down your audience significantly.

Your audience is no longer anyone who types in “hiking” in a search engine. 

You sell hiking boots to people actively looking for sales. By narrowing your focus to keywords related to that, you’re telling search engines your site is useful to a particular group of buyers. The more specific the solution, the more likely these search engines are to recommend it.

Don’t just look for keywords with high search volumes—seek out phrases that naturally fit into your site and signal genuine value.

By the way, if you’re looking for more in-depth keyword analysis, you can use my Ubersuggest tool for free here.

Include Quality Images

Discussions on SEO tend to revolve purely around the text. But, believing search engines only look at the text on your site would be a serious mistake.

The images on your site send data to search engine algorithms and can signal a higher quality experience for users.

Remember, search engines are in the business of having the right answer. When your business becomes the best possible fit for a potential buyer, search engines may give you the spotlight.

Image quality is essential. Take clear, well-lit pictures of your items with backgrounds that don’t distract. Use multiple images from different angles so your audience can fully see what they’re considering purchasing.

After you’ve taken your photos, change the file names to match your content. If you used a picture of a national park for your hiking store, don’t just call it DMG_33223.jpg. Change its name to something appropriate and relevant, such as hiking_boot_brand_style_name. 

Make sure your image dimensions match the image size as displayed. This can impact load times for your site, which can have a dramatic effect on your on-site SEO.

Additionally, use the right format for your visual content. If you want to preserve background transparency, use PNG. Logos and icons should use SVG. For larger photos, use JPEG. This option preserves the image’s colors and clarity while taking up less storage space.

Speaking of which, reduce the file size of your images! If you’ve ever wondered why your pictures take so long to load, this is likely the culprit. Slow load times mean less attention from search engines.

Images also have alt text (or alt tag). Essentially, this is the information conveyed to users who can’t see pictures. Whether they’ve disabled images or they’re using a screen reader due to a visual impairment, alt text helps provide information on that image.

Search engines use alt text to vet the quality of a site. This means if you don’t have alt text (or you do, but it’s nonsensical), you’re probably missing out on free traffic.  

Choose Your Item Titles Carefully

When shopping online, you likely see a lot of products with titles that are a list of keywords rather than a clear title like you’d use on, say, a blog post. This isn’t the way to go.

I’ve found a simple way to help e-commerce sellers understand the value of item titles. 

Think about your store from a search engine’s perspective. Your site description is pretty similar to an article or blog post as far as they’re concerned. Search engine algorithms see everything as content, and they want to provide positive experiences for users.

If you created a blog post on hiking titled “hiking positives why you should hike how to like hiking,” would a search engine find that valuable? Of course not. You’d probably title that post something like “Making the Most of Hiking” or “The Awesomeness of Hiking.”

For articles and blogs, you likely already take the time to build compelling, relevant, engaging content regularly because you know how valuable it is to both a search engine and your audience.

Do the same for your store listings—research using the Keyword Planner. Run a competitor analysis and see which titles excel and which are failing.

Above all, your item title and product descriptions need to be helpful. When they’re helpful, they’re valuable— and when you’re valuable, search engines are more willing to pay attention. 

It’s also worth noting paying attention to the differences in the buying cycle. Online shoppers with low buyer awareness need lots of convincing. For example, a buyer that searches for “hiking boots” may still be researching their options and not yet ready to buy, while someone who searches for “Women’s Newton Ridge Waterproof Amped Hiking Boot” is likely ready to buy.

If they aren’t familiar with your product, you’ll need to focus on education first.

Start with key features, product usage, and brand guarantees. This makes your product copy both user-friendly and valuable.

Add Product Features and Benefits

Now that we’ve established that product descriptions function like any other piece of content, it’s time we broke down how to craft a valuable description. 

Start with product features. From an SEO perspective, potential buyers are searching for perks and features when they use search engines. 

After all, they aren’t just looking for “boots.” They’re looking for “high-quality, comfortable boots.” 

The mistake some sellers make is assuming the list of features is enough. That list is just one piece of the puzzle. What makes a product description stand out to a search engine’s algorithm is contextually appropriate copy. 

These aren’t just high-quality, comfortable boots. They’re boots that stand up to the harshest of winters. They’re boots you can wear for hours on end. Maybe they are waterproof. 

While Bonanza allows you to fill out boxes with item traits and listing details, they also give you space to write out a description. Provide details you couldn’t give in the boxes.

For instance, you can put the boots’ size and material in the traits, but you can’t tell them the heel height. Put that type of information in your written description.

When you create a clear picture of the experience with a particular product, you bring a high level of authenticity to the shopping experience. 

If your content checks some of the keyword boxes but isn’t valuable, your site won’t get organic traffic for long.

Grow Using Content Creation

One of the most frustrating challenges you’ll deal with as an e-commerce seller is being unable to innovate. As a business owner, you want every business-building tool at your disposal. Which brings up the question: at what point do you start to expand your marketing efforts?

After all, you don’t just want to beat your competitors by a small margin. You want to dominate your e-commerce space and have your site on the first page of a user’s search engine results.

Commit to creating a blog for your site. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but it should be value-driven. 

You could use a free option like WordPress.com and write two articles a week on topics your audience cares about—and link to relevant items in your Bonanza store. You’ll have over 100 articles in a year, all linking to your Bonanza store, which shows search engines a series of healthy links to your store.

More high-quality links mean validation, plus there’s the added perk of adding another layer to your marketing funnel. 

You can even use this content to collect email addresses for your newsletter. Use that to drive repeat business, and before you know it, you’ve built a truly profitable ecosystem. 

Conclusion

SEO is just as crucial for e-commerce stores like Bonanza as it is for other types of content. Without solid SEO for your store, consumers probably won’t find your products.

Understand what users need from their search experience. Take the time to create a user-friendly product page. Offer engaging content and create a store that puts the customers’ needs first.

You’ll never be able to “trick” search engines. But with enough patience and hard work, you can get search engines to work for you and drive traffic to your Bonanza store.

How have you found success on Bonanza?

The post 5 SEO Tips For Bonanza E-Commerce Sellers appeared first on Neil Patel.

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Facebook’s Oversight Board makes bizarre ruling in its first group of decisions

Facebook’s Oversight Board has officially chimed in on its first five cases — and the rulings are certainly interesting.

The Oversight Board chose to overturn Facebook’s decision to remove content in four out of the five cases. As a result, Facebook must restore those four posts.

The most bizarre decision from the board involved a post that was flagged as "anti-Muslim hate speech." A user from Myanmar posted a picture of a Syrian toddler who drowned while trying to reach Europe in 2015. Along with the photo, they included a comment which Facebook translated as, “[there is] something wrong with Muslims psychologically.” Read more...

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How to Dominate Google in 2021

SEO is becoming harder and harder.

It takes longer to rank and you have to spend more money to get results.

The reality is, you can’t wait forever to get results, and you have no choice but to leverage SEO because everyone else is doing it.

So, what should you do?

Well, the first thing you need to do is adjust how you think about SEO.

SEO isn’t only about rankings. To be honest, I don’t even track them for my own site. It’s about getting the right kind of traffic.

You know, the visitors who are ready to buy.

Instead of teaching you how to rank for competitive terms, which is going to be even more difficult in 2021, I’m going to break down a formula that will give you much faster results and sales in this ultra-competitive environment.

Best of all, I am going to break it down into four steps as I know you don’t have the time to do everything.

Here’s the four step SEO strategy that will help you dominate Google rankings in 2021:

Google Ranking Step #1: Attract Customers Before They are Ready to Buy

The most expensive keywords to go after are buyer intent keywords. You know, the ones where someone types in a keyword and is ready to spend money right then and there.

That will always be the case. Not just from an SEO standpoint, but even a pay per click standpoint.

So should you ignore these valuable keywords?

Of course not. More so, you have to go after them no matter how long it takes to rank. You just have to be patient.

In the short run, there are other keywords with similar search patterns. Now, they aren’t as lucrative because they are more informational related.

Here’s the kicker: People research before they buy. If you can grab those searchers at the start of the journey, you can get their clicks (and purchases) for little to no money.

So how do you find the keywords that aren’t as competitive that have a similar search pattern?

Use Ubersuggest (and the accompanying free Chrome extension as you look through SERPs).

Here’s how it works:

Let’s say you are selling beard oil but you know the term is competitive and will take you a lot longer to rank for than you have.

Ubersuggest will show you all of the terms people search for on Google that has a similar search pattern to the term “beard oil.”

In other words, think of it as Google Trends in reverse. With Google Trends, you type in a query and it shows you how well the term performed over time. Using Ubersuggest, you get a list of queries that have a similar trend pattern to the main keyword you want to rank for.

In other words, if you know the term “beard oil” will cause a sale, Ubersuggest will show you other terms that match the same pattern (some keywords will be relevant while others will not).

Type in “beard oil” or the term you want to rank for into Ubersuggest, then click “Keyword Ideas.” It’ll show you a list of related suggestions, but some of those terms still have pretty high intent–not quite what we are looking for.

Click “Related.”

Here’s what I got:

As you can see from the image above, people type in terms like best beard oil. Other terms include beard oil vs balm, what does beard oil do, and beard oil recipes.

If you write in-depth blog content about those phrases, you’ll appeal to a similar audience. Some of those keywords may not cause a sale right away, but what we’ve found over and over again is that if you write content related to your main subject, a lot of your blog readers will come back within a few weeks and purchase.

That’s how most people generate their sales from content marketing.

You don’t even have to write blog content, you can just create new landing pages targeting those new keywords.

Most people who sell beard oil probably don’t focus catching those top of the funnel terms.

Google Ranking Step #2: Land and Expand

Everyone focuses on ranking for new terms. But there is an issue, it’s hard to rank for new terms.

Even though SEO has a huge ROI, it’s a strategy that requires patience.

Here is the thing: you can get results faster if you use the land and expand strategy.

Here’s how it works. Log into Google Search Console. Next, click on “performance” and you will see a list of terms that you currently rank for:

Then I want you to click on one of the most popular terms you already rank for and then click on pages.

You should see a report that shows you the URL that ranks for the term on Google. You need this URL because you will be modifying this page.

Now I want you to take that term and put it into Ubersuggest. Once the report loads, click on “Keyword Ideas” in the navigation. You’ll see a report that will look something like this:

You’ll see a laundry list of long tail phrases. Take the ones that are buyer-intent related and add them to the page that already ranks for the head term.

When adding the long tail phrases, make sure you adjust your content to be relevant to those keywords. And pick the ones that are highly related to your product or service. Just stuffing them into your page without adjusting the content is spammy and won’t provide a good user experience to searchers.

What you will find is that because you are already ranking for the head term, typically you will shoot to page one within 30 to 60 days for the long-tail variation by adjusting your content. It’s a quick win!

But the key to this strategy is to pick the right longtail keywords. Don’t just look at traffic numbers, focus on terms that you know will cause a sale or a lead.

Google Ranking Step #3: Build a Brand

Google has been placing more emphasis on brands. In other words, if you have a strong brand, you’ll rank faster.

When I really started focusing on brand building, my traffic went from 240,839 in June 2016:

To 454,382 in August 2016:

As the Ex-CEO of Google said:

Brands are the solution, not the problem. Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.

In other words, if you want to succeed on Google in the long run, you have to build a brand. As your brand grows, your search traffic will as well.

The way to monitor your brand growth is Google Trends. Type in your brand name into Google Trends as well as a few of your competitors to see how you are stacking up.

Sadly, there isn’t a quick hack to skyrocket your brand. There is, however, a formula that works for both personal and corporate brands.

What is the formula?

You do something bold!

Sure people can tell you to blog, speak at conferences, run ads; but none of that helps you build a brand that has a loyal following because everyone else is already doing the same things (or trying at least).

What your competition isn’t doing is being bold. If you want a brand like Tony Robbins or Apple, bold is the way to go.

So how do you do something that is bold?

Well, let’s first start with a personal brand (although I recommend that you build a corporate one instead).

Do the Opposite

When it comes to building a personal brand, you’ll have to take the opposite approach of most people in your space. Whatever is working for them won’t work for you.

No one cares for the copycat, especially when they are satisfied with the original solution.

In other words, if you do exactly what your competitor is doing no one will care to follow you.

Let me give you examples of how to do the opposite of your competition:

• Genuinely help people: A lot of people blog and participate on social media, but how many people take the time to respond to their community? As far as I can tell, less than 1%. Just look at me. For years, I’ve responded to comments on my blog, Facebook, and even YouTube. Most people don’t take the time; doing the opposite has helped me build a connection. And if you are wondering why I do this it’s because when I started out I had no money and people helped me. I’m just trying to do the same.
• Writing 10x content: When I got into blogging, everyone was doing it. So I had to find a way to separate myself. I did this by writing in-depth guides–not those 5,000-word blog posts, I am talking about 30,000-word guides. On top of that, I spent money on the design so they would look beautiful.
• Creating video content: when I got into the digital marketing community, there were already large conferences that had thousands of attendees. I thought speaking at all of them would help my brand, and they did to some extent, but I was just another speaker. Very few people in my space were creating video content. So now instead of giving speeches at conferences, I give them on YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I reach more people without having to travel and the content lives on forever (and is available for free to everyone!).

That’s how I stood out from my competition and built a personal brand. Then I did it for years because brands aren’t built overnight.

If you aren’t sure on how to do the opposite of your competition when it comes to your personal brand leave a comment and I’ll try and give you some ideas.

Now let’s go into building a brand for your company. It all comes down to one thing:

Be Bold

No matter what you are selling online you have competition. It doesn’t matter if you are a B2B or a B2C business, you have competition, which means it is going to be hard for your brand to stand out.

So, how do you differentiate yourself?

You do so by being bold.

Let me give you an example. In the United States, there are tons of options for cell phone carriers. So how do you stand out when everyone offers the same phone and competitive pricing?

Well, T-Mobile separated itself by offering free Netflix, unlimited data, and free roaming.

And you don’t have to be a big company to do something bold.

When Zappos started selling shoes they decided to do a few things differently. First, they offered a refund policy that lasted 1 year. Just think about that–if you return a shoe to them 12 months later, the chances are it’s out of style and they won’t be able to resell it.

Then they decided to randomly upgrade their shipping. So instead of ground shipping, they would randomly upgrade you to two-day or next-day air.

Amazon crushed their competition the moment they rolled out their Prime program. When it first came out, you would get free 2-day shipping on all Prime products for just $99 a year. What a ridiculously amazing offer.

Now that’s being bold!

Being bold doesn’t have to break your bank account. You don’t have to do something like Amazon and T-Mobile; it can be as simple as providing amazing customer service when you are in an industry that’s known for terrible support.

If you are unsure of how you can be bold with your business, leave a comment and I will try and give you some ideas. Make sure you provide an overview of your business so I can give you halfway decent ideas. 😉

Of course, being bold won’t build your brand overnight (it takes years) but you should see growth each quarter. If you aren’t, that means you aren’t being bold enough.

Google Ranking Step #4: Build a Better Mousetrap

A mousetrap? Why would you want to build a mousetrap?

Link building is still important. Sure, Google is looking at many other factors now, but link building still helps with rankings.

But it is harder to build links than it used to be back in the day. Everyone is blogging… heck, there are over 440 million blogs and over a billion if you count Tumblr, Medium, and WordPress.com.

Yes, that means there are more sites to hit up and ask for a link but everyone is doing that.

So how do you build links when everyone is getting those spammy emails asking for a link, such as the one below?

You have to build a better mousetrap. Something so amazing that everyone wants to link to it without you asking.

It used to be detailed guides but seeing 10,000-word guides that have fancy designs are more common these days than when I started creating them.

They still work, especially when it comes to brand building, but they just aren’t as effective when it comes to link building.

Same with infographics, they used to get tons of social shares and links (they still do to some extent), but they aren’t as effective as they used to be.

So what kind of mousetrap do you need to build? You could start off with something that people are used to paying for.

For example, the consulting firm Price Intelligently released a free analytics software called ProfitWell.

With very little marketing, they were able to generate 943 backlinks from 187 domains.

I also did this with Ubersuggest.

I put in more effort into marketing, so I was able to generate 10,667 unique backlinks.

A great example in the consumer space (this would do wonders for e-commerce sites as well) is animated infographics. Everyone has seen infographics, so Aminagraffs decided to make their infographics animated, which caused them to go viral.

Here’s part of their infographic that breaks down how a car motor works.

Best of all, the Amimagraphs founder didn’t do any marketing; the graphic just spread. Even with no marketing, it generated 751 backlinks from 136 domains and over 200,000 visitors.

If you want to use old-school link building tactics, you can, they just won’t help you as much in 2021. So, get creative and build a better mousetrap.

When you build a good mousetrap, you may be worried about cost. But there is a different way to think about it:

How much would you be spending on marketing to get the same results?

People make fun of me for what I am doing with Ubersuggest and think it is silly that I can “lose” $150,000 or so a month. But if I had to buy that traffic, it would cost me much more than $150,000. Even though my mousetrap is expensive, it is still cheaper than paid ads.

You don’t have to go as far as me. Doing what Animagraffs is affordable. I paid them $750 to create an animated infographic for me. I’m not sure what they charge these days, but I bet you can find someone on the web who will do it for a few hundred bucks.

Conclusion

Instead of thinking of SEO in the traditional sense, I want you to shift your strategy.

SEO is only going to get harder, Google is going to continually change their algorithm in ways you may not like. But one thing is for certain: the traditional way of doing SEO will get you results, just not in the timeframe you want.

So, follow the four steps above. They are unconventional, but the industry is so competitive and saturated that you have no choice but to think outside of the box.

So what other unique strategies are you going to leverage in 2021?

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