Welcome to another edition of Sites Weekly.
In this week’s edition, you will find links to articles about the following:
- Content. Slow Blogging. Is It Another Fad?
- Design. 10 ways to avoid cross-browser compatibility issues
- Technology. ICYMI — Google Issued a Duplicate Content Warning
- Strategy. MailChimp to ConvertKit: Why Brian Gardner Made the Switch
- Bonus. How to Improve Your Confidence and Conquer the World (or at Least Your To-Do List)
Here we go …
Content: Slow Blogging. Is It Another Fad?
Gotta be honest — I hadn’t come across the term “slow blogging” before reading this blog post from BobWP. Essentially, it’s prioritizing quality over quantity and eschewing shorter, quick-churn blog posts for longer, more in-depth articles that require more time to produce.
Which is better? Is it better to be a slow blogger and publish fewer posts but, ideally, create more and longer-lasting impact with the ones you do published? Or is it better to be the opposite — call it a “fast” blogger I suppose — publishing new content rapidly, giving more URLs to the search engines for indexing, and always staying near the top of RSS feeds?
Actually, that’s a trick question. Bob explains why.
Design: 10 ways to avoid cross-browser compatibility issues
When you’re designing your website, there are few occurrences more frustrating than seeing your site look great in one browser … and then wildly different in another browser. Sometimes the differences are so small and subtle they don’t really make an impact. Other times, the differences can completely change the look or tone you’re going for, or worse yet, even change the interface experience your visitors have.
So … it’s going to design with an eye toward cross-browser compatibility. This blog post includes 10 short, simple tips that will help you do so. (And you don’t need to be a designer to understand how to implement them.)
Two of the most important decisions you will make about your WordPress website are your theme and your hosting. Wouldn’t it be great if they worked together to make your website more powerful?
Now they can.
Discover why over 213,675 website owners trust StudioPress.
Technology: ICYMI — Google Issued a Duplicate Content Warning
Pop quiz: Are these two similar-but-slightly-different URLs the same in Google’s eyes?
- http://studiopress.com
- https://studiopress.com
How about these two?
- http://studiopress.com
- http://studiopress.com/
And what about these?
- https://my.studiopress.com/plans/
- https://my.studiopress.com/plans
If you don’t know the answer for any of those sets of URLs, you should make sure you check out this blog post (which was published back in mid-December) at Search Engine Journal. It includes an important clarification from John Mueller, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst, which will help you avoid any costly duplicate content issues.
Also worth checking out, from MarTech Today: A new AI-powered Chrome extension judges content on its ‘trustworthiness’
Strategy: MailChimp to ConvertKit: Why Brian Gardner Made the Switch
Over at his personal blog, StudioPress founder Brian Gardner recently explained why he switched from MailChimp (after using it for seven years) to ConvertKit for his email marketing.
I’m currently investigating email marketing providers for a project I’m looking to start, so I read his post with great interest. As someone who has used MailChimp before, this is the most compelling reason why ConvertKit is attractive:
“ConvertKit is a subscriber-based service, while MailChimp is a list-based service. So you might be wondering, ‘What exactly does this mean?’
Well in short, it means that with ConvertKit, you are only paying for a subscriber once, no matter how many forms (or offers) they may have signed up for. With MailChimp, if they have signed up multiple times for whatever reason, you are paying for each one of them.”
Give Brian’s post a read. It will be especially helpful if you ever find yourself comparing the two services.
(And in the interest of full disclosure: Yes, Brian’s post includes affiliate links. But no, he didn’t ask me to include it in this newsletter. I actually didn’t even realize it had affiliate links until after I added it to this week’s draft. I just happened to come across his post in Feedly right at the time I was pondering the MailChimp/ConvertKit question myself.)
Bonus article: How to Improve Your Confidence and Conquer the World (or at Least Your To-Do List)
We all know that we need confidence to be successful. This is especially true with any kind of endeavor that includes creating online content. What audience member or potential customer is going to pay attention to content that isn’t presented confidently?
But here’s the question …
Where does confidence come from?
Sonia Simone has a few ideas, and some important advice that will help you develop your confidence, protect it, and kick some major ass. (And seriously, is there anyone better at making you believe in your ability to go out and kick ass like Sonia? No.)
And for more on building the kind of confidence that will allow you to overcome the kinds of fears that can prevent you from publishing content that you absolutely should publish, read this from Stefanie Flaxman.
So …
Which of the ideas in these posts will you put to good use immediately?
I’ll be back with a new edition next week.
Keep building.