DrawYourPets Blog – Just another WordPress site

Optimizing In-Home Care St Louis

There were five factors that contributed to the optimization of In-Home Care St Louis.

1. Site Speed

First, I optimized the site speed for In-Home Care St Louis by compressing all images and increasing expiration dates for cacheable resources. I worked with our hosting company, Flywheel, to reduce redirects and remove all duplicate content.

By doing this, we were able to achieve an A in performance and an A+ score in structure on GTMetrix:

2. Keyword Research / Implementation

Second, we researched and ultimately generated a list of 50 keywords for In-Home Care St Louis. Considering their name, In Home Care St Louis, that key-phrase became the #1 target. We discovered that the keyphrase In-Home Care St Louis received a monthly search volume of 390 with a difficulty score of 43 / 100 on Ubersuggest. We added In-Home Care St Louis as the focus keyphrase on the home page via the Yoast SEO tool, and added it as a related key-phrase on other pages via the G Meta Keywords plugin.

49 other keywords were researched and targeted after a competitive analysis using the SEMRush SEO tool. Therefore, these keywords are a combination of what our competitors are ranking for and what we’d like to rank for as a business.

3. Accessibility / UX Testing

Third, I tested the website for accessibility issues using the Axe Devtools browser extension and also completed cross-browser testing using Browserstack. As a result, I was able to fix multiple color-contrast compliance issues by using the WebAIM tool. Lawsuits are on the rise for inaccessible websites. Therefore, accessibility is becoming increasingly important. DBS Interactive describes 8 different ways that SEO and Accessibility go hand-in-hand in this article.

4. Backlink Research

Creating backlinks is hard, but SEMrush makes it easier. By using the Link Building tool, we were able to generate a list of over 5,000 domain prospects for establishing backlinks. As a result, it then becomes our job to sift through this list and determine which links are achievable. You can reach out to website owners via Gmail, LinkedIn, or other forms of social media. Check out this article from Backlinko.com on how to establish credible backlinks in 2021.

5. Social Media

In conclusion, something that goes hand-in-hand with Backlinks, but also is very different, is social media outreach. Yes, you can use a social media post to create a backlink to your site, but you are the one who’s creating this content. However, social media pages still carry just as much weight as a regular website. Ellen DeGeneres’s Twitter page, for example, has a domain authority of 59 on SEMrush:

That’s a better Domain Authority score than the websites for the Chicago Cubs (cubs.com), Hurley Apparel (hurley.com), and Orville Redenbacher (orville.com). This carries serious weight for just being a social media page. If you’re able to gather followers through marketing and outreach campaigns, then you too can establish credible backlinks to your website through your Social Media posts.

Squarespace vs WordPress.com vs WordPress.org

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Squarespace, WordPress.com, and WordPress.org are three very different content management systems. You’ve probably heard of WordPress and Squarespace, but you don’t know the differences between the two, let alone the differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. In order to give you a better idea of these differences, I will evaluate the three systems based on their cost, usability, and development/maintenance, and will also give you a personal account based on my experiences with all three.

1. Cost

WordPress.com – WordPress.com is known for being free. Without paid upgrades, however, a WordPress.com site will have limited capabilities, including a standard domain name and a static theme. Therefore, assuming that a user will want to upgrade, the pricing is as follows:

Unique Domain Name – $18/year
Storage Space – From $20/year to $290/year depending on GB amount
No Ads – $30/year
Site Redirect – $13/year
Custom Design – $30/year
Plugins – Must register with WordPress VIP, which starts at $2500 / month for up to 5 sites.
Monetization – Must split ad revenue with Automattic

WordPress.org – WordPress.org is known for being self-hosted, which means it is not free for a basic plan. However, hosting can be done for a fairly low cost through a hosting company and then the following pricing remains:

Unique Domain Name – $10/year (Depends on Plan Through Hosting Company)
Storage Space – Free
No Ads – Free
Site Redirect – Free
Custom Design – Free (Depending on your knowledge of WordPress tools + coding)
Plugins – Free
Monetization – Free (Receive %100 Revenue)

Squarespace – Squarespace is initially the most expensive, with a basic plan starting at $98 / year and a business plan starting at $288 / year. However, these plans also include hosting and support (unlike WordPress, where support is limited to online forums and paid subscriptions to a pro version). This can save quite a bit of time and frustration.

2. Usability

WordPress.com – WordPress.com is actually very similar to WordPress.org in terms of usability. You can choose from hundreds of themes, paid or unpaid, and insert your content while making minor style adjustments from the dashboard. However, you will be constricted to the options that your theme provides. Even with a custom design upgrade, you’re still only allowed to edit fonts and customize CSS (not the HTML). While some support videos are available on youtube, you’ll need to specify that you’re using a .com website in order to learn more about using the WordPress.com platform. One benefit to the dashboard at WordPress.com is the ability to toggle back and forth between desktop, tablet, and mobile sizes.

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WordPress.org – WordPress.org allows you to make modifications to your site through the dashboard or “frontend.” There are more options available in the dashboard because of your ability to install plugins (for example Jetpack, Ecwid Store, Contact Forms, Marketplace, and the Plugins panel itself are all visible in my WordPress.org dashboard, since WordPress.org supports plugins). Getting used to the WordPress.org platform really just takes time – you will learn by experience and there are many support videos to help you along the way. WordPress.org also gives you the ability to edit CSS directly through Appearance –> Editor, and then you can create a child theme for any other changes to your site files.

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Squarespace – Squarespace is somewhere between WordPress.com and WordPress.org as far as freedom and capabilities in the dashboard. Unlike WordPress, where style changes are made through the dashboard or backend, Squarespace allows you to make changes right there on your site by using a drag and drop interface. When clicking on the small, grey balloons on the left side of your editor, you will be presented with multiple options, including the option to insert an image, text, space, form, audio, video, grid, line, map, and much more.

You can also create custom CSS for the site and inject CSS into a particular page, but there is no way of managing your HTML and CSS files in the backend unless you register for Squarespace development. This leaves you very constrained to the design that your template provides. For example, it’s better to find a template that would allow you to insert three images side-by-side rather than (trying to) create this effect by using the dashboard. Squarespace, however, does provide helpful support through videos, email, and live chat, which is available from 3:00am – 8:00pm eastern time (Monday-Friday).

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3. Development/Maintenance

WordPress.com – When it comes to your basic WordPress.com plan, development is essentially nonexistent. You are not allowed to use a child theme and even with upgrades, you still can’t make any changes to your files in the backend since WordPress.com does not provide FTP access. In fact, even uploading your own theme is off limits in WordPress.com – you can only select from the (roughly) 380 themes that are provided by WordPress and certain development companies. However, you can edit the HTML of an individual page, and then use an inline style to make the change that your editor wouldn’t otherwise provide.

WordPress.com compensates for their lack of customization by providing automatic maintenance to your theme, so there isn’t any need for running updates and installing new software – everything will be kept up to date on its own.

WordPress.org – WordPress.org provides a dynamic environment for development – it supports FTP, themes, child themes, and allows you to modify your HTML, CSS, and PHP files without even leaving the site. With WordPress.org, you can take an existing theme and use a child theme to completely modify your website’s appearance.

The downside to this freedom is that you’re on your own when it comes to updating plugins and themes. Also, as a theme upgrades to a newer version, it’s possible that your child theme may become obsolete. This is why many web design companies charge maintenance fees for a WordPress.org platform.

Squarespace – As mentioned earlier, Squarespace allows for site-wide custom CSS and CSS injection, but this does not allow you to style a particular page. There are some workarounds for this problem – for example, you might want to get rid of a sidebar, and then realize that your template only allows for sidebars on pages that are classified as “blogs”. The solution, therefore, is simply to change the pages that you want sidebars on into blog pages.

However, Squarespace does not support FTP or file editing via the backend, which can turn development and design into somewhat of a pain. By enabling Development Mode, you can develop your own template to create your specific style and alignment of elements, but you will need to create your template from scratch as Squarespace does not support “child themes” like WordPress.org does.

4. My Personal Account

Overall I was disappointed with Squarespace. Regardless of the template, I found the on-page editor to be tricky to use and frustrating. Here are 3 examples of things that didn’t make sense to me:

Command + z only works when you’re acting inside of a specified block of content (i.e. when you’re typing in a text area), but not when you’re moving that block of content around the page. For example, if I move a block of content (the two paragraphs about Squarespace) to the outside of the page by mistake,now everything is shifted to the left side of the page. And if I didn’t save recently, I have to try to find a way to recenter the content, which can lead to more mistakes for a beginner. Besides that, the content is also out of order.

2. You can insert images, but not side-by-side. Even though Squarespace is known for being a drag-and-drop interface, you really can’t drag and drop things wherever you want on the page. In fact, your freedom to customize the page organization is mostly dependent on whatever template you choose. So if I really want to place images next to each other, I will need to create a single image in photoshop or illustrator with the images just as I want them and then upload that file. This is actually an advantage for graphic designers, but a disadvantage for developers and most likely for the average user. (Also it’s bad for SEO).

3. Drag and Drop doesn’t work as expected inside of a specified block of content. For example, I notice on my homepage that the image, block of text, and contact form have too much white space in-between them. It would make sense to allow the ability to adjust the white space between two elements that are both in the same block of content. But when I try to move the image closer to the text, the only option that I have is to place the image in the upper-left-hand corner of the paragraph, where I can’t control the padding and it doesn’t respond the way I’d like it to.

So if I’d like to achieve the effect that I was originally going for (less white space in-between the image and text), I’d need to assign custom CSS to the image and then use margin-right: -90px, which is bad because it causes overlap when the page responds.

Squarespace does provide good support through their online chat and email services, but it fails in the area where it claims to separate itself from other the content management systems, which is allowing a user to design a website without prior knowledge of development. Sure you can design a site by using whatever template you select, but in that case you might as well use a WordPress.com template (because it’s free), unless the template on Squarespace is more specific to your photography or graphic design style.

Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org, .org is usually the better option. If you don’t care as much about customization, are happy with the available themes, and have lots of money to spend, then WordPress.com is a good solution. Some popular clients of the .com VIP plan include NBC Sports, CNN, UPS, Time, and Dow Jones. But if you’re looking to write a theme from scratch or make adjustments to an available theme, WordPress.org is by far the best option.

The setback to .org is that maintenance can become an issue, but like anything else, staying organized and up-to-date depends on the effort that you put into it. There really is a plugin for just about anything – even for maintenance, and plugins create workarounds for whatever knowledge you might lack in coding (saving time in the process). WordPress.org is usually the best CMS of the three.

Best Tutorials for Customizing WordPress Themes

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After researching this topic, I have learned that there are two ways of creating a custom WordPress theme:

– writing a custom theme from scratch
– creating a child theme

I have yet to try these methods, but I have found that there are great tutorials that teach both styles. Here are the five best tutorials for customizing WordPress themes.

1.) How To Create a WordPress Theme: The Ultimate WordPress Theme Tutorial

The first tutorial that I found was written by Ian Stewart in 2009. The tutorial walks you through a 12-step process using thorough descriptions and explanations for each step. Stewart, for example, will give you the code for the HTML structure and then explain the various classes for each tag / how they create your desired structure. Rather than just copying and pasting the code into your text editor without really knowing why, you’re given a good explanation for each step throughout this tutorial.

If there’s any drawback to this tutorial, it’s that it was written nearly 7 years ago, so it’s hard to know if all of this code is still valid, considering how fast things change in website design.

2.) How To Create and Customize a WordPress Child Theme

This tutorial begins by saying:

“When trying to make changes to a website, a staggering number of people opt to edit their theme directly. This means that they are changing or adding files in their current theme’s folder, which creates a number of problems.”

The greatest of these problems is that any modification made to the theme via direct edit will be lost once the theme is updated by the developer. If the user is not able to keep their theme up to date, then their security can become at risk.

A better option is to create a child theme, which allows you to make a number of changes to a website without touching the original theme files.

The tutorial goes on to explain more about child themes, such as how they relate to a parent theme and how they have the ability to change its style, function, layout, and template. You can customize a parent theme beyond recognition just by using a parent / child theme relationship.

Another advantage to using child themes is its simplicity – you only need a folder, style sheet, and a functions.php file.

But using a child theme isn’t always the best option. If you only want to change something minor on your website, such as a color or font, it’s probably better to use a CSS plug-in. Child themes are better for large changes like design overhaul and multiple template changes.

Like in the previous article, the author provides you with the code and then give a thorough explanation for each step. However, since this article was written in January 2016, you can rest assured that everything is current and up-to-date.

3.) WordPress Theme Tutorial – Youtube Playlist by LearnWebCode

One of the most important things when looking for a Youtube tutorial is how well the instructor communicates. Since none of the information is written down, poor communication becomes a problem with a video series.

This tutorial by LearnCodeWeb does a good job of providing thorough explanations in plain English. The tutorial currently has 286,882 views and 2212 / 2252 likes (98% likes), and based on the reviews in the comment section, it seems to be doing a good job.

LearnWebCode is said to have “awesome language skill” and is a “gifted teacher.” Obviously there is no guaranteed response for your questions on his tutorial series, but some of the questions have been answered by other users.

4.) WordPress 101: Create a Theme From Scratch – Youtube Playlist by Alessandro Castellani

This tutorial by Alessandro Castellani also has a very high rating with 809/821 likes (99%) and over 65,000 views on the first video in the playlist.

There are 22 videos in total, which cover everything you will need to create a custom WordPress theme. However, you will need to have a basic understanding of HTML, CSS, Javascript, and PHP to begin.

Also, as you may have noticed by his name, Alessandro is from Italy, so his accent can be a bit distracting. But his knowledge is excellent and he has been described as “an amazing teacher” by viewers.

5.) How to Create a Child WordPress Theme

In this article for WPmudev by Daniel Pataki, you are provided with reasoning for child theme usage and a step by step process with explanations.

There are also explanations on child theme mechanics (how child themes actually work), notes/instructions from theme makers, and a bit on modifiable functions.

This is a fairly short article but it’s direct and to the point, and it’s nice to have something directly from a WordPress developer with years of experience.

5 Articles On The Best Free WordPress Themes

It’s easy to find a list of free WordPress themes on the internet, but finding an article that objectively ranks their features and functionality is a bit more difficult. In order to spare you some time searching for these articles, I have done a bit of research myself and have provided a summary of the best five articles about the best free WordPress themes on the Internet.

1.) 50+ Beautiful & Free Responsive WordPress Themes to Build Awesome Websites 2016 by Colorlib

This article starts out by explaining how users love WordPress themes because they’re easy to set up and can be readily used for blog, personal, corporate, and portfolio purposes. Of course, because of their increased popularity, high quality WordPress themes have become harder and harder to find. That’s why Colorlib has created their top 50 free WordPress themes and has included their reasoning for why these themes are on the list, for example because of their style, plug-ins, and other included features.

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2.) 40+ Best Free WordPress Themes for 2016 by Adelina Tuca

Adelina Tuca explains how bootstrap has become the most popular framework for front-end web development, as it provides a free collection of tools for creating websites and web applications. Bootstrap lets you utilize HTML, CSS, and Javascript to develop a responsive website that can fit mobile / smartphone sizes.

In the past year, however, this framework has been expanded to include smart watches and TV screens, which means that WordPress themes now need to take these sizes into consideration. The list provided in this article includes the themes that include these changes, and provides a description of each of their unique styles and features.

3.) 96+ Best Free Responsive WordPress Themes 2016 by Fresh Design Web

FreshDesignWeb suggests searching for the best responsive WordPress themes available on the internet when looking to create your website. It states that you will most likely be inspired by a website for a corporation/business/blog in your line of competition.

It goes on to describe each theme in detail, explaining what the style says about you and your product or business, and what features and plug-ins are included with each theme. Some of the descriptions are shorter than others, but this is still an incredibly thorough list and is well worth your time to read.

4.) 47 Best Free Responsive WordPress Themes 2016 by Designs Crazed

Designs Crazed observes that WordPress is the most popluar CMS of this generation, with most frameworks enabling browsing on tablets, smartphones, laptops, and more. This article by Designs Crazed includes frameworks that support these platforms and also includes those that support browsing on androids and IOS.

The list also takes readability and well documented website code into consideration. Themes built specifically for magazines, portfolios, eCommerce, fashion, travel, corporate, and bbpress forums are all exemplified throughout this article.

5.) 53 Best Free WordPress Themes 2016 by Brenda Barron

In this article for AThemes, Brenda Barron points out that free themes can be risky because they aren’t always well supported, and they might be created by inexperienced developers.

Therefore, this article focuses on high quality designs that also offer tangible support. Like in the previous articles, Barron also provides an explanation for each theme’s unique style and features, and what that says about the owner of the site.

While these articles all contain links and descriptions to high-quality, free WordPress themes, there are other places that contain just lists without any description. Here are two more sites that contain lists only:

WPExplorer
ThemeIsle

Personally, my favorite theme for an eCommerce business site is Storefront because of its visual simplicity and direct incorporation of the WooCommerce plug-in. Storefront was developed by WooThemes, which makes it specially designed for eCommerce purposes. It has a lean and extensible codebase, which also makes it easy for developers to customize and extend.

That ends my collection of articles on free WordPress themes. In total, my collection includes over 300 free WordPress themes, many that are described in detail in each of their respective articles!

5 Free Social Media Plugins

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Social media is necessary for modern-day marketing. Using it can easily double your website’s traffic – that’s why you want to customize your icons to fit your needs. There’s no need to pay for something that you can get for free, so here are 5 plugins that will dramatically improve the social media icons on your site.

1.) Social Media and Share Icons (Ultimate Social Media)

Ultimate Social Media is one of the most popular plugins for social media icons, averaging about 5,000 downloads a day for the month of February. Ultimate Social Media provides you with links to over 200 social media platforms and offers style, positioning, and functionality that will create serious improvements on your site.

Ultimate Social Media helps you decide whether or not your social media links will be fixed, whether or not they will “pop-up” and allow a user to share, whether or not they will display at the bottom of each post, whether or not they will enable subscription via email, whether or not they will provide animation for icons, and whether or not they will show “counts” for share information (to name some of the features).

This plugin will also take you through a step-by-step process for installation and set-up. Ultimate Social Media has received an average of 4.9 / 5 stars and has been downloaded over 70,000 times, so there isn’t any risk in trying it.

2. Ultimate Social Media Icons (Plus)

The sister plugin of Ultimate Social Media, Ultimate Social Media Icons Plus, provides even more features and makes it even easier for the user. Just like Ultimate Social Media, you can still add icons for over 200 social media platforms. But, with Ultimate Social Media Icons Plus, you can:

– place icons before a post

– place icons next to a post on your homepage

– display the icons before and after a post (not just the standard set)

– have more control over where you place the icons

This plugin currently has 10,000 active installs and an average rating of 4.9/5 stars. You can see its full reviews here, and, like it’s sister product, it’s also offered as a free plugin.

3. Social Media Feather

In terms of active installs, Social Media Feather is the most popular plugin on this list with a total of over 100,000 installations. Social Media Feather has tutorials for the beginner and is the only social media sharing / bookmarking plugin with full support for retina and high resolution displays, such as those that are used in the iPad 5 and other devices.

This plugin is mostly known for its simplicity, performance and unobtrusive effect. In order to achieve a high level of performance, the plugin does not use JavaScript, which in turn helps it run faster while still providing typical social media functions, like professional media share and high quality icons.

Social Media Feather also offers widgets for sharing and following that you can place in a widgetized area within your site, while the widgets expose some settings and the parameters to tweak the appearance of the icons.

The plugin also comes with a default icon set but still allows for the customization of the icons by using social icon skins, which can be customized to create interesting effects like fading or greying out.

Social Media Feather has received an average rating of 4.5/5 stars and again there is no risk because it’s free.

4. Cresta Social Share Counter

Cresta Social Share Counter is a relatively underrated plugin, mostly because of its simplicity. However, its simplicity is also what separates it from its competition. Even though it’s limited in how many platforms it allows, with Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Linkedin, and Pinterest being the only available options (in the free version), it still provides a client with all of the same features as the plugins I mentioned before, such as:

– different icon styles

– fade animation

– floating social buttons

– the option to display icons before or after content

– a shortcut code to display the icons anywhere on the page

Obviously as you can see from the title, the share count is the most distinguishable aspect of this plugin. The share count shows how many times the content has been shared to each social media platform – this can be very useful in deciding whether or not to display particular icons.

In addition, Cresta Social Share Counter has a responsive Support Team that offers effective solutions. Cresta’s customer satisfaction rate is at 95%.

5. Floating Social Media Icon (Acurax)

The Floating Social Media Icon plugin by Acurax includes the following features: over 20 icon themes, icon size and order alignment, simple configuration, support for widgets, shortcode, and PHP, floating, fast loading time (due to the small number of icons), help documentation, and it has been featured on several plugin review sites.

Another thing that separates this plugin from others is that it offers support for Pinterest and icon size – no other plugins offer this type of support specifically.

As explained in the title, the social media icons float to one side of the page, which creates simple navigation and reminds the user that they’re there without becoming a distraction.

A live demo of this plugin can be found at the developers’ website. You will notice that the icons immediately capture your attention and then float to the side, but these features can be adjusted according to your preferences.

To learn more about some of the best social media plugins that are free of charge, check out these sites:
ModernWpThemes
ShoutMeLoud

Why I Think Social Media Marketing Is Interesting

social_media_strategy Social media has changed the way that we market. If a business does not use social media, it is often considered “out of touch” and not relatable, since 75% of all adults use some form of social media. In light of these statistics,we develop a strategy with unique practices.

1. Social Media Strategy

My social media strategy involves using the following sites: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest. Specifically as an artist, Instagram and Pinterest are good for displaying visual media, and as I film my drawing process, I’m able to provide high-speed drawing videos for additional entertainment on YouTube. Facebook and twitter are mostly for updates – Facebook is especially good for interacting with potential clients.

2. Social Media Best Practice

It’s good to keep things simple, yet attention-grabbing. Unfortunately in today’s world, there is an increasing correlation between attention and success. Publicity is publicity, even if it’s negative. Therefore, try to keep things creative in order to grab your viewer’s attention in a good way instead of through cheap ploys and immorality.

3. Articles I Recommend

Here is an article that I recommend by Convince&Convert. The article provides a simple 8 step strategy for using social media effectively. Some of their tangible advice includes imitating your competition, having a narrow tweeting purpose, and using valid measurements to determine your ROI efficiency.

Another article by Forbes talks about how to treat your followers and clients. Especially with the rise of things like Yelp and Google Reviews, there is a serious correlation between success and customer satisfaction.

5 Articles That Examine Effective Blogging

number-5 1.) ImForza, an online marketing and web development firm with over 30 years experience in the field, describes various tips and techniques that are used for creating an effective blog. Unlike other articles that only provide you with effective tips, however, ImForza also explains how blogs are important to your business.

2.) For a more personal take on blogging, Annabel Candy offers detailed advice based on her own experience in the field. It’s fun to see her advice actually take shape in the blog post as you read.

3.) For tips and tricks only, about.com gives you 5 useful techniques for blogging, 4 of which are unique to many other articles on the internet.

4.) Instead of boring you with a list of generic guidelines, Want2Discover helps you become a better blogger by telling you what not to do. Check out Bastiaan Blikman’s hilariously honest compilation of instructions for the novice blogger.

5.) Digital Marketing Pro creates a hierarchy of steps as opposed to a random list. By following these 10 simple steps in order, you can learn to create a constant steam of content to increase your rank among users, search engines, and social media platforms.

Drawing Wesson

Drawing Wesson was fun – it was one of my first commissioned fine art pieces. Wesson was created using a 9” x 12” bristol drawing pad and Sanford Design graphite pencils. Though he is currently retired, Wesson used to be a model for Purina, and this drawing captures his vivacious yet elegant spirit during that time period. Wesson is the face of the Washington Veterinarian Clinic in Washington, Missouri. To this day, he is there to greet you with a smile as you enter the door.

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