Daily ArchivesSeptember 8, 2021

Whether you’re a new or established agency, finding a reliable and efficient way to regularly meet with and manage your clients is vital. One of the most popular ways of doing this is by simply adding an online booking system to your digital agency’s website.

But first, how do you find the right plugin (or software) for creating an online booking system that’s automated, reliable, and saves you time?

In this walkthrough, we’ll show you exactly what an online booking system is, how your digital agency could benefit from it, and best practices for creating and adding it to your digital agency’s website.

What is an Online Booking System?

In short, an online booking system is an interface which enables new and existing clients to book time with your digital agency in the form of an online (or in-person) appointment.

With an online booking system, digital agencies and their team members can easily display and manage their availability on their website for client calls and/or meetings—without all the back-and-forth of trying to coordinate appointments via email.

Additionally, most online booking systems allow digital agencies to designate buffer time in between meetings, black out certain dates like birthdays and holidays, and send customized confirmation and notification emails when appointments are booked.

Even more advanced booking systems will allow you to manage your team members’ availability, accept payments for certain types of appointments (like a paid consultation), and sync with your Google Calendar to avoid double-bookings or other scheduling conflicts.

Why Add an Online Booking System to Your Agency’s Website?

Adding an online booking system to your digital agency’s website is a reliable way to ensure new and existing clients can book time with you and your team members — whether that’s for regular project check-ins, one-time consultations, or any other type of booking your agency offers.

Online booking systems also remove the struggle of coordinating a time and place to meet over email by allowing your clients to view your public availability and book a time that works for you both with just a few clicks.

One of the best advantages of offering an online booking system is that it showcases that being available to those you work with is a priority within your agency. This can help you win more new business and keep your existing clients happy knowing they have a direct line to you when needed.

How to Add an Online Booking System to Your Agency’s Website

While there are numerous ways to create an online booking system for your website, we’re going to take a look specifically at the easiest way to add an online booking system for new agencies: using the free edition of Simply Schedule Appointments.

1. Install and Activate Simply Schedule Appointments

Within your WordPress plugins page, search for “Simply Schedule Appointments.” Then, simply install and activate the plugin featured below.

After installation, this will create a new Appointments tab in the WordPress Dashboard area. Within the Appointments tab is where you’ll manage and set up your new booking calendar.

2. Use the Setup Wizard to Create Your Online Booking System

Now, using Simply Schedule Appointments’ Setup Wizard, you’ll create your first Appointment Type. This represents your booking calendar.

For example, an Appointment Type could represent an initial video call for prospective clients, a project status update for existing clients, or a paid consultation for one-off services your agency provides.

The setup wizard will then quickly walk through setting up your availability and other general settings, like buffer times between meetings, a designated time zone, and your admin email (for confirmation and notification emails).

3. Display on Your Online Booking System on Your Website

Next, you can display your booking system on your website by embedding the SSA shortcode (or using the Appointments Gutenberg block) into your page or post using a text block.

Note: There are a couple alternative ways you could embed it, depending on whether you’re using a WordPress page builder like Divi, Beaver Builder, or Elementor. These usually involve you dragging and dropping the Schedule an Appointment module directly into the page.

Your Digital Agency is Now Ready to Rock!

We hope you enjoyed this guide on creating an online booking system for your digital agency. Furthermore, we hope that by taking advantage of an online booking system on your agency’s website, you’ll find you have more time in your day to dedicate to scaling your client base, retaining great clients, and doing what your agency does best — exceptional work.

Looking for a One-Click Solution for Website Hosting and Online Booking?

If you’re just launching your agency’s website (or looking for faster and more reliable hosting), you’ll be happy to find that Hostdedi and Simply Schedule Appointments have teamed up to create an all-in-one managed WordPress hosting package.

It comes equipped with Simply Schedule Appointments, as well as a handful of other popular WordPress plugins for digital agencies, at no extra cost.

To learn more and get started, check out Fully Managed WordPress from Hostdedi.

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A note from Joe Oesterling, CTO, Liquid Web

For over 22 years, our Liquid Web family of brands has delivered technology and support for businesses and nonprofits running mission-critical websites, stores, and apps. We’ve built a family of brands totally devoted to web and cloud professionals like you, including businesses, nonprofits, designers, developers, and agencies.

Website hosting is what we do. But our hosting expertise also goes hand-in-hand with understanding the tools website owners need in order to run their businesses.

WordPress provides the foundation to many of our customers’ online businesses. We also know that WordPress powers nearly 40% of the web—this robust content management system is highly customizable and accessible for beginners and developers alike.

You see, we’re obsessed with entrepreneurship. Hosting sits at the nexus (pun intended) of so many efforts, when it comes to launching a business. Through our connection and trust in the WordPress community we’ve been so excited to meet WordPress plugin and theme developers creating endless solutions commerce sites.

We’re proud to have products and teams behind products like iThemes Security, The Events Calendar, Restrict Content Pro, and Kadence in our portfolio. Now, we’ve decided it’s time to introduce a new arm of our business to serve as the umbrella brand for all of our software offerings: StellarWP.

StellarWP is home to all of the ecommerce products and services that have joined us so far, which include some of the most beloved and dependable tools in the industry. Just like our users rely on us at Liquid Web for their managed WordPress hosting needs, we are confident that StellarWP will become the go-to resource for users in search of products that will take their sites and businesses to the next level.

The introduction of StellarWP also comes on the heels of our latest acquisition; GiveWP and WP Business Review recently joined the Liquid Web family. These tools help streamline philanthropic efforts through collecting donations on a WordPress site and other features designed to support nonprofits and charities.

We’re committed to empowering all of our brands to flourish within StellarWP. GiveWP and Impress.org will continue to fulfill their mission of “Code for Good” while retaining their entire team in the transition, just as the iThemes, The Events Calendar, and Kadence teams have continued their work creating best-in-class plugins as members of our family.

We’re excited to better serve our customers by focusing the entire StellarWP brand on ensuring excellence in WordPress plugins and services. With all of our WordPress products together under a unified brand, customers will be able to easily find solutions, whether they need a tool to enhance e-commerce or ramp up security.

StellarWP plugins also have a track record of longevity. Customers can rest assured that their plugins are crafted by a highly skilled team of WordPress experts. Plus, our software and services offer the same human touch and premium customer support that our users have come to expect from Hostdedi hosting. When you choose a StellarWP plugin, you enjoy peace of mind knowing that all of our software and services will continue to be supported tomorrow and beyond.

As we continue our growth in the WordPress community, we’re on the lookout for talented and passionate people to join the StellarWP team. To learn more about open positions, visit our jobs page.

Best, 
Joe

While it is always a good thing when your online store is beautiful and feature-rich, ultimately, its goal is to process transactions and earn profit. That’s where CDNs come in.

CDNs help online businesses by improving page speed.

What is a Content Delivery Network (CDN)?

How Does a CDN Work? (Example)

So, how does a CDN work? Think about it this way. In a traditional method of content delivery, everything comes from one source. Compare it to a single stream of water. A stream is usually only a certain width. That means that you’re getting water at the rate that the flow can deliver.

If you want to fill up a tub, several factors come into play. If the source is far away from the tub, it could take a long time for the water to begin filling up. 

And since you clear out your tub after every time you use it — like an incognito browser might — you have to repeat the process every time.

And, if you’ve ever filled a pool, you know that a great way to speed up that process is to have several sources of water at once.

9 Ecommerce Optimization Tips for Fast & Effective Sites >>

CDNs Make Content Delivery More Efficient

Through optimizations that range from increasing the number of sources, their closeness, and caching content for easy retrieval, CDNs make the process of delivering content online more efficient. 

This is essential to the modern web, which has become dominated by high resolution images and video, streaming audio, and beautiful animations.

Most hosting providers include a CDN in their plans. If that is not the case, a provider like Cloudflare can be helpful.

At Hostdedi, we make it easy for you. We know how important page speed is, especially to ecommerce store owners. That’s why with Hostdedi, your CDN setup is a toggle away.

3 CDN Benefits You Can Expect

There are a number of CDN benefits — especially for ecommerce site owners. CDNs are an excellent tool for growing revenue and retaining customers. Let’s walk through these content delivery network features and benefits in the context of Managed WooCommerce hosting.

1. CDNs Boost Page Speed & Conversions

CDN is key to page speed, and as we know, page speed is everything right now.

Slow page load times cost merchants money. In fact, 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. People don’t like to wait. We are not patient.

By having a fast ecommerce site, you’ll improve your user experience. The longer a potential shopper browses, the more of a chance they’ll add something to the cart, or better yet, they will add multiple things to the cart. 

In this way, page speed is critical for conversions, or sales. 

2. CDNs Can Improve Your Page Ranking

We also have to consider the algorithmic factor. 

CDNs increase site speed, which is key to ranking high on Google. Google likes fast sites. Ranking factors today are all about usability and user-friendliness. 

To Google, slow page load times are considered a signal of poor experiences. If your site is too slow, your ranking will drop on Google. That means you’ll lose potential new customers and site traffic.

3. CDNs Help You Save on Bandwidth Expenses

In most cases, working more efficiently for your store’s visitors also means your technology is working smarter for you. Using a CDN not only improves page speeds, but it also can save you money in other areas.

For example, consider bandwidth costs in relationship to CDNs. 

In the tub analogy, you have to pay for every gallon of water you put through. In this case, CDNs help by adding more sources and managing the fill intelligently. 

You usually have a bandwidth recommendation on your hosting plan, and in the case of some hosts, a cap. By managing the delivery of the content better, your CDN also manages your bandwidth expenses better.

How to Get More Out of Your CDN

Think Differently About Video

With a CDN and bandwidth considerations in mind, there are other content delivery-related items to consider. An important one we see frequently is video. 

Video files are big. On most web hosting plans for your store, they take up a large percentage of storage space and bandwidth. 

While a CDN could deliver your videos, there’s a better way to handle that problem and get a 3 second load time. 

We frequently recommend using a service like YouTube or Vimeo to host and stream your videos to maximize your efforts. For a more professional-looking option without these streaming services’ logos, something like Wistia is an excellent choice.

You Still Have to Optimize Your Images

Before using CDNs on the modern web, we addressed the process that CDNs streamline by manually optimizing images. This is still a good thing to do, although there’s no need to do it manually — lots of tools now optimize images. 

For example, on Managed WooCommerce on Hostdedi, we include the Compress JPGs and PNGs plugin. This plugin creates multiple sizes of images from a single upload. It then selects the right size image for the browser. This is another way to make sure your CDN is working smartest for your WooCommerce store. 

On the web today, there are more reasons to have large image file sizes. Consumers have increasingly growing expectations of how they can view and experience potential online purchases. 

Potential buyers expect to be able to zoom in, view products in 360 degrees, and more. Online furniture retailers are enabling augmented reality views of their products.

As expectations continue to rise, it’s important to balance features with site performance. A CDN used intelligently among other page optimization strategies, is a great way to get there.

Bottom Line

CDNs enable fast ecommerce sites, which is crucial to delivering a great user experience. Not only will this improve your Google rankings, but it will also help your site’s traffic and sales.

Hostdedi fully managed WooCommerce hosting includes CDNs — because with Hostdedi, Better is Built in.

CDNs are built into the Hostdedi platform to make it easy for you to improve your site speed. The Hostdedi CDNs are:

• Fast, thanks to advanced caching prioritization.
• Secured with a wildcard SSL certificate.
• Scalable to each site, no matter how big or small.

Explore fully managed WooCommerce hosting with Hostdedi, or learn more about our built-in CDNs.

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This blog was originally published in July 2020. It has since been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Content marketers create, curate, share, and distribute content that is relevant and helpful to the target audience. In doing so, this positions the company as a trusted resource. There are many benefits of content marketing, including:

Increased Sales

Content marketing makes more people aware of your products, explaining how the products benefit them and encouraging them to make a purchase.

Greater Education

Content marketing educates the audience about the products and services you offer and makes your company an authority in your industry. You also show the audience how your products and services work and solve their problems.

Relationship Building

Content marketing builds relationships between your customers and your business that help make customers more loyal. You turn prospects into fans.

Why Blog?

A blog is the foundation of your content marketing strategy. Blogs are considered the most effective way to turn casual readers into customers. Most companies today that understand the value of content marketing have blogs. 

Companies with blogs produce 67% more leads on average per month. Other benefits of blogging include:

SEO Boost

Blogs provide search engines with new, relevant content, creating an opportunity for you to use keywords to attract readers to your website.

Engage With Customers

Blogging allows you to connect differently with potential and current customers. You aren’t selling to them on your blog. Instead, you provide them with information that helps them solve problems or otherwise meets their needs.

Thought Leadership

Blogging helps you establish your business and executives as thought leaders in the industry. Readers begin to recognize your company as a trustworthy, expert source of information. 

Connection

Blogging connects people to your brand by helping them see the company’s personality and inner workings.

Link Sharing

Blogging allows others to share your content with people they think it will benefit. This sharing creates greater awareness of your brand and assists in growth and sales.

Guide to Blogging and Digital Content Strategy

A blog is an important part of a digital content strategy for your organization. But you need to prepare some areas of your site and your content strategy before you’re ready to go live.

Before you launch your site, prepare:

Static Pages

These are the pages on your site that hold standing content, like the About, Contact, and Products/Services pages. You’ll build these pages and their content in advance, but you won’t revisit them each time you post. They’ll remain static unless there is a change in your business that requires them to be updated.

Your blog’s sidebar (the narrow column on the left or right of your main content) should be built in advance and also won’t change much. Sidebar content includes items like a search bar, a brief about box, social buttons, an email subscription box, and maybe even advertising.

Category Pages

These pages are the regular topics your blog will address. They also will make up your menu and a big part of your blog’s SEO strategy. Categories are the topics your blog will be known for. You’ll create a page for each of these categories. Write 50-150 words for each page — this helps search engines identify your site for those subjects.

Once you have these standing features and pages set up, it’s time to start creating content. 

Developing a Content Strategy

Before you start writing posts, outline a content strategy that will serve your site now and in the future. When developing this content strategy, consider:

Brainstorm Blog Topics

You know your blog’s niche and, generally, what categories and keywords you want to be known for. Now it’s time to think about how you will consistently produce content around those topics. 

Create a list of blog post ideas/working titles that you plan to cover, based on your content categories and keywords. Jot down ideas on this list each time they come to mind, so you never run out of things to write about.

Create Outlines

Don’t just sit down at your computer and start writing blog posts. You want to have a clear idea of how you are going to present the information to your audience.

Consider the various approaches you can use to present the information, like how-to guides, tutorials, and lists. Outline the structure of each post (introduction, sections, main points, subpoints, conclusion), then begin gathering resources you’ll use to actually write it.

Write Posts in Advance

You’ll want to write 5 to 10 posts (800-1,200 words each) before you launch your blog. Writing posts in advance will help ensure you can remain consistent in posting. You want your posts to be informative and entertaining. Use stories, keywords, and data to support your points. Don’t forget to proofread for spelling and grammar.

Add Visuals

Add photos, videos, pull quotes, or graphics to your posts to break up the text and capture your readers’ attention. Blog posts with visuals get 94% more attention than those without, so you want to make sure that every post has plenty to look at besides words. 

Optimize for SEO

Organic search provides most of the traffic to blog posts. Use keywords in every post to encourage search engines to find your content and recommend it to others.

Plan a Calendar

Consistency is key when building a digital content strategy. You want your readers to know when to expect new content and never be disappointed. 

Decide in advance how often you want to publish to your blog and when (for example, weekly on Wednesdays). Build out a calendar of those first five or so posts you wrote, then continue building from there.

Host Your Blog with Hostdedi

While we can’t write the content for you, Hostdedi can make hosting your new blog secure and worry-free.

Hostdedi offers content hosting on four platforms, including WordPress.

Fully managed WordPress hosting from Hostdedi is hassle free. That means you don’t have to take time away from your business to handle site maintenance, security concerns, or any other web-related issues. 

Fully managed WordPress hosting from Hostdedi offers:

• Free site migration.
• Fast site speed with CDN and image compression.
• Customized technology plugin options.
• A 24/7 dedicated expert support team.
• And more!

See how Hostdedi can help you implement your digital content strategy. Try fully managed WordPress hosting from Hostdedi free for 14 days — no credit card required.

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