For most brands out there, getting an amazing and engaging website design is their utmost priority. Little did they know that having a fast website loading time can help them attract their target audience more than maintaining a good looking website appearance.

Now, the question is ‘Do you want to improve the loading time of your website?’.

If yes, in 5 easy and surprising ways, you can improve your website loading time and ensure that you keep your target audience surfing and reading your website’s pages. And eventually, turn them into buying customers.
Before that, let us first know the importance of having a fast loading time.

Importance of Fast Loading Time

The advantage of this digital world is that it moves so fast. From the new clothing styles to the latest news, or the latest iPhone launch— everyone races up to be the first to see it. It’s no wonder that most users expect this same type of speed when they’re looking through your website. 

With that said, it’s no doubt that users have no patience for websites having poor loading speeds or inadequate performance. So you need to make sure that you make their browsing time worthwhile. 

Today, let’s get into details on how you can optimize your website to improve its loading time.

How to Improve Website Loading Speed

Most fast performing websites loads in 2 seconds or less. That first crucial seconds in your websites is the time that you gain a potential audience, or you lose one. 

Here are a few things you should optimize on your website.

Reduce HTTP requests

HTTP is short for hypertext transfer protocol. HTTP transfers data from one point of a network to another.

If you have a lot of elements on the page like scripts, images, and stylesheets, there will be an HTTP request for each one. These requests can take almost half of your webpage’s load time. The more you have, the more it slows down the speed. 

So what you needed to do is to reduce these requests and eliminate any unnecessary files. Here are what you can do to reduce your HTTP requests:

• Combine CSS/JS files rather than forcing your browser to retrieve multiple CSS or Javascript files to load.
• Use queries to load things that are only needed.
• Lessen the number of images you use.

Enable Caching

When a user browses your web pages, the elements they visit hare stored on a hard drive called cache. When the same user finds its way back again, the browser will then load the page using the stored data in your cache. 

Enabling caching is a good option because enabling cache minimizes the HTTP requests sent to your site. It can also be useful to those sites who are using visual elements to improve their website. 

More importantly, this maintains the same user to enjoy a fast loading speed every time they visit your site.

Compress Images & Optimize Files

We understand how much you want your users to enjoy alluring images on your website. However, are you optimizing these images the right way?

Images currently take up 60% of the average bytes loaded per page. That is why you need t to be sure that your images are no larger than they need to be. They must also follow the right file format. You can also remove any photos of assets you believe you don’t need.

Above all, you can keep these tips in mind too:

• Keep all your images below 150KB, nothing above 1920px in width, at an average/medium/72dpi quality level.
• PNG should is used for images that you need a transparent background behind, such as a circular image of a person or Facebook’s ‘F’ logo.
• JPG is best for photographs or anything where fine detail is less important.

Implement Asynchronous Loading

There are two ways of loading CSS and Javascript files: 

• Synchronously where loading takes one at a time, and
• Asynchronously where loading takes scripts at the same time. 

Synchronous is excellent, however, it might slow down your loading time if one file has an issue or if it takes a long time for it to load successfully. We want to stress on the latter part. 

Asynchronously loading strategy will help you speed your website pages, and this is because the standard loading process would interrupt the HTML parsing while scripts are executing, thus results in increasing your page’s load time.

Select the Best Website Builder

When it comes to website builder, people tend to choose the less pricey ones not knowing that they give out the most unpromising results. You need to understand that this may be a simple tip, but this can affect your online presence as a whole.

Choosing your website builder must be long-term. They must help benefit you and your business in the long run. A website builder that will compliment your business growth and will help you become one of the successful website’s online.

At Stacked Site, we optimise every aspect from hosting hardware, server configuration, caching services, and site setup syndicated through Cloudflare CDN, making sure that your website can cope with the heavy competition online. 

Final Thoughts on Improving Your Webpage Loading Time

Improving your website’s loading time has become one of the crucial aspects of running an online presence. You don’t just need a creative and engaging look but as well as a fast loading speed that will get your target audience stay on the loop.

Are you ready to improve your website’s loading time? Talk to one of our EXPERTs and get more useful advice for free!

The post 5 Surprising Ways to Improve Website Loading Time appeared first on Dave Spicer.

Let’s admit it. Way before Google or any other search engine or social media platform utilised real customer reviews and ratings as a part of a business’s marketing strategy, we’ve long been using this for restaurant and movie bookings – and today in the world of web design and development, the concept is exactly the same. The truth of the matter is that people love to read reviews before selecting one particular service provider for themselves.

Say we’re on the hunt for the best pet care centre in town. Then this list of pet care centres in Brisbane comes up…

It’s almost automatic that a searcher would click on the most “trusted” and “reliable” place where a pet owner would feel at ease, knowing that their beloved pets are in good hands.

Looking at the given example, the first one on the list would be the most appealing. Not only does it show how many customers have tried their services. It also shows a high rating of 4.9 stars out of 5. And just below that is a short description of what they do best.

With the latest developments in Stacked Site’s features and functionalities – we want you to take advantage of the Business Reviews Module introduced in the ultimate addons for Beaver Builder.

What does this module do?

• It fetches reviews from Google and Yelp and allows you to embed this information on your website.
• It enables a rating schema type that keeps search engines informed about it and therefore boosts the chances of displaying ratings in the rich snippet as seen in the example above.

What are the benefits of using this module?

• It provides more content for search engines to scan and it increases the chances of product or services page to rank for long-tail keywords.
• This module gives you an additional piece of content to differentiate your branches set in different locations or even from another business providing similar services.
• It gives the page an opportunity to rank for words that users often use apart from the marketing phrases you use on your website.
• It allows for real customer reviews to empower your brand through user-generated content that is more trusted than manufacturer descriptions.

Now that you’re ready to get this module up and running, let us go over the steps and see how easy it is to set it on your Stacked Site website.

How to Add Google and Yelp Business Reviews to Your Stacked Site

1. Configure the Google API and Yelp API key form the UABB settings.
2. For Google reviews – get the Google Place ID and for Yelp reviews – get the Yelp Business ID. Add it to the module.
3. Enable the schema support and choose a schema style 

That’s it! You’re good to go! 

This easy setup also allows the Business Reviews Module to align with your design and colour theme. Here are a few points that show how this module help…

Display content with sliders

Many of us like moving content on a website. The Business Reviews Module allows displaying reviews in a carousel. It also has an option for grid layout with a column number setting.

Filter out negative reviews

During the starting phase of your business, you might get some negative or low-rated reviews, which is totally fine because negative reviews can contribute to a positive impression. But in case you don’t want to show them choose Minimum Rating and skip them from displaying.

Display starred rating to shine in different colours

The widget provides total control on the star rating style. Set a nice colour and size to make them more attractive.

Display Reviewer Information to make the review look more genuine.

Along with a review text, display reviewer name, and profile photo. So that users can know that the review is real. 

How to get Business Reviews Module for Beaver Builder

All you have to do is update Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder to the latest version and enjoy using this module.

The post How to Take Advantage of Business Reviews on Your Stacked Site appeared first on Dave Spicer.

In this rapidly evolving digital world, many small business owners and marketers have managed to establish their brands’ online presence through various social media platforms and websites like blogs, online portals, and eCommerce online shops. But with the constant updates in their social content guidelines and the algorithms set by the widely-used social platforms and search engine giants – is there any room left at all for your growth without spending too much on paid ads? As a business owner or a marketing professional, you may have already thought about this a lot.

Does your business need an official website or does your brand’s social media presence seem like it’s enough? Now, that’s actually a great question that people ask us more often than you’d imagine – “official website vs social media profile“, what does your business really need?

For businesses, social media has made it easy to communicate their brand’s message to the right people at the right time. With an effective strategy, they could even get their brand to stick out to their audience well enough for them to be interested. There are many other benefits to be had from using social media – if done the right way.

Creating a branded page on social media is quick and easy. The best part of it is that it’s all for free. All you need after setting up your page is an effective strategy to get noticed by the people and get them to interact with you online. Now, why would you want to build a website that will require you to spend money on a domain name, hosting, web designers fees, SEO, updates and maintenance, when you could just set-up a social media profile for your business?

The Benefits of Social Media for Small Businesses

Faster and Easier Communication

Something businesses have strived to achieve for a long time – real-time interaction. Customers can contact a customer service representative faster and easier. Businesses can also receive reviews, respond to product or service enquiries, and attend to customers’ grievances in real-time. Depending on the industry and the issue, challenges may still arise, but the line of communication that once was challenging to establish is no longer nearly as difficult to do so.

Branding

The impression a brand gives off and the reputation it may have established can be greatly enhanced and showcased through your branded page and the posts you make. Social media allows businesses to publish content that matters to their target audience. This helps a lot in training their customers to keep their brand at the top of their mind whenever those important buying decisions need to happen.

As a social media marketer, I create content that aims to show off a brand culture and brand personality in order to stand out among the rest for the traits that make our brand different. I use it to tell our brand’s story and let others understand what we do. I use it to personify our brand and socialise with our audience not just as a branded page but as a real human being. That is the real power of social media, and I think it’s the biggest impact social media has on most brands.

Networking, Partnerships and Community Growth

Establishing quality relationships is now a lot easier with the streamlined communication we get from social media, and building relationships with key influencers ears a lot of value for your brand.

User-Generated Content

User-generated content is the best form of free advertising you could use on your prefered social platforms. The larger the audience, the more potential the content has to really impact a brand and its messaging.

Most brands will have people post their content with specific hashtags. So, the brand isn’t just receiving the content; the content is actually being posted throughout social networks.

Reach Potential Customers

Maintaining a brand’s respected reputation comes with an opportunity to impress potential customers through your content and more importantly, through how you handle even the most unrelated customer interactions.

People often turn to social media and online review sites to get a good idea of what they can expect from you. Just like marketers, consumers are using social media as a tool to help them make better purchases and decisions in general.

On average, people take into account 10 reviews of a local business before making a purchasing decision. This gives potential customers the chance to see that businesses truly care about their customers even after they’ve made the sale.

Competitor Monitoring

Social media channels allow us to keep our finger on the pulse of not just other marketing tactics and practices, but also with the tactics used by direct competitors. The truth is we can learn a lot from our competition.

Your competitors aim to do the same things as you – establish and protect their own brand’s reputation and ultimately sell their products and services. Monitoring the competitors’ activities and creating ways for your business to do better while keeping the audience entertained and informed play a major role in reaching your business goals.

Things You Need To Know Before Building Your Official Website

Owning an official website built for your business is very different from the points made above, especially when it comes to cost. When done professionally, a website is going to cost more than setting up free social media pages, but the differences don’t end there. Here are some things you’ll need to do and understand before building a website for your business:

Purchase Your Domain and Website Hosting Service

In a nutshell, your domain is your “address”, while your website hosting service provides the server space or the “land” where your website will live.

To get your website started, you have to purchase your domain name and pay for website hosting. Both of these have recurring costs that could vary depending on the duration that you select for your registration contract. The average cost for a domain will typically be anywhere from AU$ 14.00 to 17.00 if you’re going for a brand-new domain.

Some extensions like .biz, .xyz, or .info, along with hundreds of others will end up being incredibly cheap because internet users aren’t quite used to those extensions and they don’t pack the same kind of punch. Some extensions will lead to even higher registration fees, like .co, .ai, .io and others.

Website Builder, Development and Technical Experts

In reality, most small business owners cannot double as web designers. If you have the budget, you will most likely end up hiring a web designer to design, build, and occasionally update your website for you. But for the younger and smaller businesses, the costs are just too high to shoulder. The good news is that there is now a more cost-effective option to get your website up and running while still maintaining that much needed professional appeal.

Stacked Site is said to be the hybrid of a web builder and WordPress. It provides the ease of a builder and the flexibility and scalability of a WordPress site. Subscriptions are offered on monthly and yearly plans at AU$29 and AU$290 respectively – which is good for those who are on a tight budget.

You can expect that you’ll be provided with various online resources backed by streamlined support to ensure that you will be able to use their platform accordingly. The platform has an online community where Stacked Site Experts and Mentors can be contacted for support.

A collection of video tutorial to help new users to get started is available on their YouTube channel.

The team has also created a dedicated online course and an updated Knowledge Base to help you learn all the available features and functions of their web builder.

With all the available premium plugins and features and your new skills as a newbie website designer, you’ll never have to worry about hiring an expert for your website’s future updates.

Why Your Business Needs a Website

Gain Full Control of Your Online Presence

As a business owner, it’s important to get full control of your online presence, and the only way to do that is by setting up your shop in your very own space.

If you set up your business solely on one or more social platforms, your growth is ultimately at the mercy of those platforms. They can make changes any time and all that you can do is go with the new flow, even if it impacts your business. If that platform gets acquired and changed or shut down, you may no longer be able to reach your customers and you may even lose money in the process.

Some might say “Facebook will never shut down”, or “Instagram will always be around“. Who knows, right? Remember what happened to the social networking giants Friendster and Multiply? Both companies suspended their services due to the evolving landscape in the challenging industry and lack of engagement by the online community.

Just a little while ago when many branded pages were recently hurt due to an update that Facebook implemented that flipped its newsfeed algorithm, decreasing the organic reach of branded pages.

The same thing could happen on another social platform at any time. YouTube could start charging us to store videos on their servers. Twitter could decide to become a premium platform where businesses have to pay for every tweet. In either of these circumstances, if you don’t pay then you no longer get to reach your customers.

Your Website is the Hub of Your Online Presence – Your Social Media Page is a Marketing Tool

If you have your own website, it serves as the most accessible hub for your business. In this case, you have full control of your situation.

This is how you should treat social media – as a marketing platform to drive traffic back to your website. Use that traffic to grow your email and customer lists so you can communicate with them any time on your own terms.

At the end of the day, it’s much smarter to invest in something you own than to build on land that doesn’t belong to you. Some day the rules are going to change and it could have a major impact on your business if you aren’t in control. This is why we highly recommend that you invest in a website now and then use social media to drive traffic to your website and grow your business online the right way.

The post Website vs Social Media: What Does Your Business Need? appeared first on Dave Spicer.

I promised I’d tell you the tools I use, well – here they are.

First, I need to preface this email by saying 2 things.

1. We’re going to get geeky. There will probably be terminology and ideas that make little sense. If digital automation interests you, then lets chat about it. I do not charge for a chat, I’d love to learn about your business and often a small and simple tweak gets huge results… so you really have nothing to lose by chatting. SCHEDULE A TIME TO CHAT BELOW!
2. I also need to say not all businesses are created equal. Different businesses will most probably use different tools. Some tool sets work better with gSuite, while others are better suited for Office365. Some are more Mac oriented, while others are Windows. A creative studio with a team will probably centre their tool stack around a project management tool, whereas a consultant would be more interested in the CRM.

Anyway…you get the deal. Here’s we go!

My company, Stackd Design has changed it’s focus and structure over the years, from just me, to a team of 10 and now back to a smaller team with specialist consultants for specialty areas. Before I pay wages, my ENTIRE operational cost for software and subscriptions for the ENTIRE team is only $237 /month. This is a completely scaleable solution. Whether I am approached by 1 or 10 new clients in a week, that $237 price tag stays the same month to month. That means my business systems only costs $2,844 to run each year – and through digital automation I can earn much more than that.

It use to be that a business would need a big budget to run the business with any sort of digital automation. The truth these days, is there are so many alternatives to the big enterprise solutions that you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars each month to get something effective. You just need to know someone (like me) who can integrate great tools, directly with your website, to get results.

Here’s a break down of what I use.

Emails and Documents – GSUITE
CRM Choice – STREAK
Email Marketing – DRIP
Automated Outreach – REPLY UP
Project Management – TRELLO
Scheduling – RESOURCE GURU
Communication – SLACK
Integration – ZAPIER
Appointment Scheduling – CALENDLY
Book Keeping – XERO

This tool stack works great for me because 95% of my communication is through email. I’ve been using Gmail for the longest time with a whole set of extra extensions to super power it – so Streak CRM was appealing to me and my team, as it integrates directly with Gmail.

I have built multiple sales and nurture funnels directly in Streak. These are called ‘Pipelines’. As an email comes in – it goes into a pipeline. As it moves through the various stages of a pipeline it has tags automatically added and removed so I can segment my audience later on. When a contact record in my CRM changes it also syncs with the same contact record in DRIP. This allows automated workflows to run (just like the one you are on now). The workflows can send emails, split test, notify me, collect analytics, etc. Whenever work is low, one strategy for new clients revolves around my subscription to Reply up for Automated Outreach. This sends a series of emails to highly qualified prospects, but cuts the sequence if they reply. Once they reply they are automatically added to my CRM.

With all of this automation, my website is at the heart. My leads and clients are constantly heading back to either my landing pages, or forms which drive extra automation. Now that I have a great system setup and in place, it is automated and easy. This is what I really love to do and it is the thing that sets me apart from most other ‘web people’ out there.

I would be genuinely interested to know how much of this stuff you think is important, and if you have automated it already. Feel free to comment below and let me know.

If you are in contact with somebody who needs to get more leads from their website – then there’s a stack of ways to get in contact with me:

[email protected]
0408705939

Schedule a call.

( I Love Automation! )

Thank you for taking the time to read this email. I really do appreciate it. Please feel free to reach out if you have a questions, need advice, or want to chat.

Talk soon.
Dave

The post Here's a list of tools I use. appeared first on Dave Spicer.

Did you know I play music? Jazz Piano and Singing specifically and I’m actually pretty good at it (if I do say so). It’s not just me saying that, I’ve won awards and everything. This is actually how I became a Website and Digital Automation guy.

I’ve had a thousand gigs and travelled the world with music. Some gigs have been big – some very small. In fact I remember one night years ago, I played a massive main stage festival gig to 10,000 people – a screaming sea of heads loving every moment of it… then I drove from that gig straight to an 80th birthday where they asked me to play in a different room (away from guests) on an out of tune piano. I learnt humility quickly – that’s for sure!

Anyway… I had an idea to start a music lesson website almost 20 years ago. The website alone cost me my life savings – $20,000. If I wanted to update it I had to pay an extra $100 for every change. But that didn’t matter… because the website got hacked anyway – only 6 months in.  I was devastated. Turns out the developer had saved a file in the root directory called ‘passwords.txt’ and it was visible to the world. I lost absolutely everything and needed to start again. My second website cost a lot less. Only $5,000. It lasted only 1 year before it got hacked.

I was out of money so I did something that many people only learn out of necessity, something daring, something radical… I learnt to code. I quickly learnt that to have a successful website I would also need to learn photoshop, illustrator and some design skills. Then I needed to figure out some marketing, and lead generation, systems, software, don’t forget sales, oh yeah – accounting, etc, etc.  Any small business owner will understand they need to wear a lot of hats.  I have had a lot of opportunities to learn lessons over the past 20 years, some huge wins, and some crushing defeats. All making me stronger and helping me understand how all the pieces fit together.

My approach to business and life is a real no BS approach. I talk openly and truthfully about everything and am able to find solutions that are a win/win for everybody. I don’t like ‘breaking the bank’ and usually find ways with new clients to stage the work so that we can get quick wins… start getting some return on the investment, then it makes sense to proceed to the next piece of work.

I find creating websites that are both visually appealing and technically powerful is much like a music concert. For over 15 years I have been designing digital and web solutions and have been a professional jazz and concert musician for even longer. Having a deep understanding of every instrument and element and how they inter-relate is the key for both a high functioning website and a performance that engages and inspires.

If you are in contact with somebody who needs to get more leads from their website – then there’s a stack of ways to get in contact with me:

[email protected]
+61 408 705 939

Book a time to talk with this tool I use.

I love automation!

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I really do appreciate it. Please feel free to reach out if you have a questions, in need of advice, or simply want to chat. You can also leave a comment below!

Talk soon.
Dave

The post How I Got Hacked appeared first on Dave Spicer.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post! I’d really like us both to get to know each other better.

I’m Dave Spicer, founder of Stackd Design. Considering I’m an expert at Digital Automation, – I’d like to share with you exactly what I do using an automated email workflow I built using DRIP. I really do respect your time AND your inbox – so this workflow only contains three emails from me. If you don’t think there’s any value in my three emails then you can either not join the workflow, or after an email or two – hit unsubscribe in the footer – but I promise to share with you all the automation tools, secrets and integrations I’m personally using for Stackd Design within the next 3 emails.

Oops! We could not locate your form.

So what exactly do I, Dave Spicer do at Stackd? What is the mission? What get’s me up in the morning?… I am passionate about building smarter websites that work, nurture & convert.

You might think… what’s so hard about building a website? Well… nothing. Let’s be honest, it’s not hard to build a website these days. Many businesses choose to find a website builder platform and throw something together over a weekend. These websites often look great too! They are often templates from award winning designers and sometimes have a real ‘wow’ factor.

Is that what I do though? … No way – because I don’t really want my clients to have a new website… I want them to get leads and new business – that usually requires a smarter website.

Within my business, I know that it often takes 7 to 12 touch points to build trust and a relationship that might lead to new business. To be brutally honest with you, this is part of the reason you are receiving this email in the first place! My website is just one piece of the puzzle, but then I also use GSUITE for emails and documents, I schedule appointments through CALENDLY, I use STREAK for Customer Relationship Management and Sales Funnels, DRIP handles my automated workflows, TRELLO for project management, SLACK for team communication, and more!

And guess what… this completely automated, well oiled, lead nurturing machine all centres around the website. That’s how I build smarter websites that work, nurture & convert.

These tools I mentioned aren’t perfect for everyone.. but they seem perfect for me, right now. Different business models may require a different set of tools. I’ve used almost all of them so if you are comparing I’m happy to have a chat. Also, If you are in contact with somebody who needs to get more leads from their website – then there’s a stack of ways to get in contact with me:

[email protected]
0408705939

Schedule a call.

( I Love Automation! )

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I really do appreciate it. Please feel free to reach out if you have a questions, need advice, or want to chat. You can also leave a comment below!

Talk soon.
Dave

The post Who is behind Stackd Design? appeared first on Dave Spicer.