# Neal Chester 3.0 ## Posts - [How to Have A Great Real Estate Website in 2020](https://nealchester.com/real-estate-website-guide/): In this guide, I'm going to tell you everything you need to have on your real estate website to make it a success in 2020. - [Moving from to https on WordPress: My process](https://nealchester.com/moving-from-to-https/): I’ve moved many WordPress sites from http to https. The easiest ways are as follows: If you’re hosted with SiteGround, they have a one-click option and it’s all done. The security certificate is free too. If you’re not on a host that automatically does it for you, and there’s no free SSL, you can do […] - [Google is about to change the way your website is viewed in Chrome](https://nealchester.com/google-chrome-https-rank-speed-alert/): All websites that don't start with HTTPS will be marked as "Not secure" by Chrome browsers starting July 2018 and this will affect your visitors' view of your website. - [How to discover your conversion rate and What's a good percentage?](https://nealchester.com/discover-conversion-rate/): The number of form completions (or page sales) divided by the total amount of page visitors, times one hundred equals your conversion rate. - [5 Reasons why you rarely get calls or emails from your website](https://nealchester.com/5-reasons-rarely-get-calls-or-emails-from-your-website/): Make sure your content speaks directly to your customers, and ensure that you have a strong call to action. - [GUIDE: How to craft a Customer Persona](https://nealchester.com/develop-customer-personas/): Developing a Customer Persona requires asking the right questions and listening to the stories behind the answers. - [Ideal Customer Profile vs. Customer Personas](https://nealchester.com/difference-between-ideal-customer-profile-customer-personas/): When you know your customer's motivations, frustrations, and aspirations, you have a Customer Persona. When you only know demographics, that's an Ideal Customer Profile. - [Moving from non-www to www in WordPress](https://nealchester.com/moving-from-non-www-to-www-in-wordpress/): So having your website prepended with www has some technical advantages. Not having www is called a “naked domain name.” There’s a bunch a benefits to www. So I updated my sites to www and here was the process: 1. Update your WordPress database URLs Using WP DB Migrate Pro, or some other tool, change your naked domain name […] - [From WAMP to Instant WordPress (IWP)](https://nealchester.com/from-wamp-to-instant-wordpress-iwp/): As a Windows user and WordPress developer, I used to develop websites on my local machine using WAMP (Windows Apache, MySQL, and PHP). This turns my computer into a server so I can run a database and everything that’s associated with a WordPress powered website. But WAMP was slow. It was supposed to be fast […] - [This idea about your business website is costing you money](https://nealchester.com/business-owners-think-websites/): This mindset among many business owners that a website is nothing more than a digital brochure is wasting their money. - [Four ways to speed up your WordPress website](https://nealchester.com/speed-wordpress-website/): Your hosting type, caching, image sizes and the use of a CDN have everything to do with the speed of your website. Learn about how each plays its part in your website's speed. - [Four things you can do to protect your website from hackers](https://nealchester.com/4-things-can-protect-website-hackers/): In short: always keep WordPress updated. Setup automated backups. Use strong passwords and a security plugin. - [How to lower your rank in Google](https://nealchester.com/mistakenly-lower-rank-google/): Blocking search bots, having broken links, using AJAX, having duplicate content and staying blacklisted for too long are some of the ways a business can mistakenly lower their rank in search engines. - [Schema, Rich Snippets and Microdata](https://nealchester.com/schema-rich-snippets-microdata/): Schema is the site that gives developers the proper code to display Rich Snippets. Rich Snippets are Google search results that stand out from the rest. Microdata is the type of code used to display Rich Snippets. - [Fixing a hacked site and what I learned](https://nealchester.com/fixing-a-hacked-site-and-what-i-learned/): So a client of mind, and his WordPress website that I didn’t build was hacked. He asked if I could fix it. Here’s what I learned throughout the process: If your site is hacked, you could get blacklisted by Google. This means when people visit your site, the site will have this big red warning […] - [How to rank higher in Google](https://nealchester.com/rank-higher-google/): Google takes a few other factors into consideration when ranking your website including, download speed, mobile friendly design, "breadcrumbed" organized content and more. - [How to do basic keyword research for your SEO campaign](https://nealchester.com/how-to-basic-keyword-research-seo/): Keyword research consists of brainstorming relevant search terms. Then using Google's planning tool to boil down the list to the best keywords. The goal is to choose keywords with a high search volume, but low competition. You'll discover that specific, key phrases are more effective than generic one-word keywords. - [Search Engine Optimization (SEO) How it works](https://nealchester.com/seo-understanding-search-engine-optimization/): You can't fool search engines anymore these days. The best way to boost your rank is through great content, lots of shares and the use of relevant keywords. There's three parts to SEO, on-page SEO and off-page SEO, but the most important part is keyword research. - [Three big misconceptions business owners have about their websites](https://nealchester.com/three-biggest-misconceptions-business-owners-websites/): Some people think a website is just a digital brochure. They emphasize website design over copywriting and place SEO over CRO. In this podcast you'll learn what matters the most and why. - [Why you absolutely need to use a password manager](https://nealchester.com/absolutely-need-use-password-manager/): Learn how a password manager can keep you protected from hackers and make logging in and out of multiple websites a breeze. - [Why WordPress is the best platform for business websites](https://nealchester.com/why-wordpress-is-the-best/): WordPress powered websites can save businesses money in frequent minor maintenance, and with thousands of plugins, it can extend the functionality of their site at a lower cost. Listen to more of my reasons in this podcast. - [Website startup solutions for small budgets](https://nealchester.com/website-startup-solutions-small-budgets/): Learn about the various options available for startup businesses who need a website, but have a small budget. - [The hidden costs of do-it-yourself website solutions](https://nealchester.com/the-hidden-costs-of-do-it-yourself-website-solutions/): While these services can save a small business money, they come with some hidden costs you need to be aware of: Time, ownership, control, migration, and sales. - [How to speed up WordPress and pass the Google Page Speed Test](https://nealchester.com/how-to-speed-up-wordpress-and-pass-the-google-page-speed-test/): Updated: Feb 2021 In order to speed up your website, you need to do the following 10 things. This will not only help you pass the Google Page Speed test but also make your site load under 3 seconds and your scores will be very high with sites like Pingdom and WebPageTest. These are not […] - [AdBlock blocks WordPress images](https://nealchester.com/adblock-blocks-wordpress-images/): I was using the WordPress plugin Force Regenerate Thumbnails to change the dimensions of product images on an ecommerce website. After making the changes, I noticed that none of my images displayed. I checked the code using Chrome’s Inspector and discovered that the images had styling added to them: element.style{ display: none !important; visibility: hidden !important; opacity: […] - [Website colors matter!](https://nealchester.com/website-colors-matter/): This infographic was developed by Webpage Ex. It’s an insightful look into color psychology. Your choice in colors effects your customers. This is something to look at when developing your brand, logo, and website. - [Marketing your service-based business the smart way](https://nealchester.com/smart-ways-marketing-service-business/): There are several low-cost and smart ways to market your business, but you must first start out on the right foundation. - [Why a mobile website is necessary, especially for restaurants](https://nealchester.com/restaurants-need-mobile-websites/): Some businesses (especially restaurants) lose out because their websites aren't updated for mobile users. People really do use mobile phones and tablets to browse your website. - [Visitors don’t buy on the first visit](https://nealchester.com/visitors-dont-buy-first-visit/): By asking for your visitor’s name and email, you can retain their contact information and build a relationship with them after they’ve left your site. - [Visitors judge your site’s credibility by its design alone](https://nealchester.com/visitors-judge-sites-credibility-design-alone/): Stanford University started a research project called the Web Credibility Project in which they discovered and noted: “People quickly evaluate a site by visual design alone… When designing your site, pay attention to layout, typography, images, consistency issues, and more…” So, how your website is designed plays a big part in a visitor’s perception of your organization or company. Without […] - [Visitors need direction when they come to your website](https://nealchester.com/visitors-need-direction-come-website/): Your call to action (CTA) includes prominent elements, sections, and buttons on a page that tell the visitor what you want them to do. - [Visitors don’t read most of the content on your page](https://nealchester.com/visitors-dont-read-content-page/): When visitors decide to read your web page, they only read about 20% of it. While that's tough, there's a way around that. - [Your website visitors have short attention spans](https://nealchester.com/website-visitors-short-attention-spans/): If people are coming to your website and immediately hitting the back button (known as "a bounce"), then the use of a tagline is something to consider. - [5 Things you can do to reduce that mountain of email](https://nealchester.com/reduce-that-mountain-of-email/): You know you have way too many emails flooding your inbox. Don't put up with it. Learn how to reduce your email to only the ones that matter. - [7 Principles you should be following to meet your goals online](https://nealchester.com/7-principles-to-website-success/): It's important to note that design is only mentioned once on this list and everything else has to do with content. After reading you'll know why. - [6 Common user behaviors that affect your website's success](https://nealchester.com/6-common-user-behaviors/): Once you understand how people interact with websites, you’ll be ready to understand how to build a website that meets your goals. - [Find out what successful company logos have in common](https://nealchester.com/professional-logos/): The best logos are simple, readable at any size, and designed in a way that can be easily displayed on multiple media. - [6 Reasons why you need a Google account for your website](https://nealchester.com/why-you-need-a-google-account-for-your-website/): A Google account is essential for any serious website owner. The following are a few useful tools a free account provides. - [5 mistakes people make when buying a domain name](https://nealchester.com/how-to-buy-the-best-domain-name-for-your-website/): Your domain name should be easy to remember, say and type. Avoid dashes, underscores, or attaching INC, LLC, and etc. to the end of it. Try to stick with dot-com and avoid not so common extensions. - [WordPress Theme Support](https://nealchester.com/wordpress-theme-support/): I see these job ads for as­sist­ance with Word­Press themes. Usu­ally the per­son wants some ad­di­tion­al func­tion­al­ity ad­ded, or it’s a bug that needs to be fixed. In most cases I’m as­sum­ing the user pur­chased the theme. Wheth­er they pur­chased them or not, I just wish these theme de­velopers would be avail­able to fix their […] - [Custom Style All Your Form Elements with Pure CSS and NO Javascript](https://nealchester.com/custom-style-all-your-form-elements-with-pure-css-and-no-javascript/): As a de­sign­er, be­ing able to style every HTML ele­ment with CSS is what I de­sire, and not hav­ing to use ad­di­tion­al scripts to do it is an even big­ger de­sire. We already have a good amount of con­trol over text, para­graph fields and sub­mit but­tons, but not much con­trol over oth­er form ele­ments. In an […] - [Firefox & Responsive Testing](https://nealchester.com/firefox-responsive-testing/): Someone no­ti­fied me of a prob­lem they were hav­ing test­ing a re­spons­ive site us­ing Fire­fox. The site wasn’t shrink­ing in the browser win­dow. The me­dia quer­ies were in place, but noth­ing but the ho­ri­zont­al bar kept com­ing up. However, my Fire­fox (16) worked fine along with my oth­er browsers. I did some dig­ging around and […] - [Micro Center micro SD cards](https://nealchester.com/micro-center-micro-sd-cards/): For some reas­on, my Mi­cro Cen­ter branded SD card just stop work­ing re­cently. I didn’t use it for more than 3 months be­fore it failed. One day the data was in­ac­cess­ible on the card, then it tells me to format it, but I couldn’t format it be­cause it was (some­how) write pro­tec­ted, and then there […] - [Hi-Res Screens are a Natural Progression for the Web](https://nealchester.com/hi-res-for-the-web/): It seems like only yes­ter­day we as web de­velopers over­came the chal­lenges of de­vel­op­ing for mul­tiple screen sizes that an­oth­er chal­lenge comes along: high res­ol­u­tion screens. No longer does 72ppi based graph­ics look sharp on the new hi-res Apple products be­cause of the dens­ity change — the pixels per inch (ppi) have been doubled. While it’s a […] - [Web Thumbnails & Touch Icons](https://nealchester.com/web-thumbnails-touch-icons/): In designing a website, there are other small details that one needs to consider, like the favicon, the social media thumbnail and the home screen touch icon for mobile devices. Here is the HTML I use: Social Media Thumbnail Instead of allowing social sites to grab whatever image they feel works best, why not just […] - [Learning how to use WordPress](https://nealchester.com/learning-how-to-use-wordpress/): I recently found it redundant to teach people how to use WordPress. At first, I created some videos of my own, but with WordPress constantly coming out with new features and interface changes, it would become time consuming and tedious to keep making videos for each update. So I found some professional services whose sole job it […] - [How to transport a WordPress website](https://nealchester.com/how-to-transport-a-wordpress-website/): So, this is very simple: First of all, you need to know how WP works. Your serv­er has Word­Press’ core pro­gram files, your theme files, your plu­gins and your up­loads. All these files can be zipped in­to one file and up­loaded to the new serv­er. The oth­er side of Word­Press is the data­base: you can’t […] - [Using Advanced Custom Fields](https://nealchester.com/using-advanced-custom-fields/): Us­ing ACF to make Word­Press more user-friendly for my cli­ents has been fun. What I’ve come across with this plu­gin and oth­ers like it is the pat­tern of any field oth­er than the text or text box work­ing prop­erly. I worked in both Fire­fox and Chrome and had this prob­lem hap­pen to me. If I try to use a […] - [My review of Five Second Test](https://nealchester.com/my-review-of-five-second-test/): I was test­ing a new logo out and I wanted to get people’s first im­pres­sions and also what they thought the com­pany rep­res­en­ted, so I ran it through Five Second Test. Five Second Test helps you fine tune your land­ing pages and calls to ac­tion by ana­lyz­ing the most prom­in­ent ele­ments of your design only […] - [Where to start learning Web Design](https://nealchester.com/where-to-start-learning-web-design/): A con­nec­tion on Linked In con­tac­ted me and asked me a ques­tion: … My ques­tion is: there is so much I want to learn as far as web design. I don’t know where to start first: jquery, CSS, flash, HTML, search en­gine op­tim­iz­a­tion, etc. What would you sug­gest? And what sites would you sug­gest for […] - [Targeting IE or everything except IE](https://nealchester.com/conditional-ie-in-reverse/): I’ve known for a long time that you can use conditional statements to target Internet Explorer while excluding all the other browsers. Today I learned something new — you can do it in reverse. You can exclude IE from seeing code without effecting the rest of the browsers. This came into need when I wanted […] - [How to regain control of your WordPress site if blocked out](https://nealchester.com/how-to-regain-control-of-your-wordpress-site-if-blocked-out-by-buggy-plugins/): I was us­ing a plug-in called Bet­ter WP Se­cur­ity (which I strongly don’t re­com­mend). It had a fea­ture that blocks ac­cess to the ad­min sec­tion for a cer­tain time frame. I mis­takenly set the wrong times and when it was time to edit the site I couldn’t be­cause I was blocked out. If something like […] - [Mac is for designers?](https://nealchester.com/mac-is-for-designers/): I’m tired of de­sign­ers think­ing Mac com­puters are for cre­at­ive things, as if Mac isn’t your tool of choice, something is wrong with you. I much prefer the PC, here are my reas­ons: I can de­lete a file with just one key The Home and End keys work prop­erly when nav­ig­at­ing a doc­u­ment I can man­age […] - [Notepad++, alternative to Dreamweaver](https://nealchester.com/notepad-alternative-to-dreamweaver/): It was time to up­grade my soft­ware and I de­cided to find a free al­tern­at­ive to Adobe’s Dream­weaver. I love DW, but it’s bloated with stuff I nev­er use, and it’s ex­pens­ive. Note­Pad++ has proven to be a much bet­ter deal. It in­cludes many of the fea­tures I love and ac­tu­ally used in Dream­weaver, but […] - [This is why I use WordPress](https://nealchester.com/this-is-why-i-use-wordpress/): This info graphic by Devious Media says it all: - [More about HTML5](https://nealchester.com/more-about-html5/): I thought this was an informative article for non-tech folks who have questions about HTML5. The HTML5 Doctors decided to answer them (without the techno-jargon): What is HTML5? Why has HTML5 been invented? How many HTML5-compliant browsers are there? Is HTML5 just about mobile? Will HTML5 kill Adobe Flash and mobile applications? Is HTML5 incompatible […] - [From Firefox to Chrome](https://nealchester.com/from-firefox-to-chrome/): I’ve been a loyal Firefox user since it first came out, but Chrome has beaten it. The biggest reason why I switched was because of speed. Firefox takes up entirely too much RAM. From version 4 to the latest version 6, FF has been sluggish. Now, of course, I could just purchase more RAM and […] - [How e-commerce works](https://nealchester.com/e-commerce-works/): Here, I explain the six-step process of how e-commerce works---from your website to your bank account. - [Why work doesn’t happen at work by Jason Fried](https://nealchester.com/why-work-doesnt-happen-at-work-by-jason-fried/): Jason Fried has a radical theory of working: that the office isn’t a good place to do it. At TEDxMidwest, he lays out the main problems (call them the M&Ms) and offers three suggestions to make work work. See video on TED Talks Jason Fried thinks deeply about collaboration, productivity and the nature of work. […] - [Web Designer vs. Web Developer](https://nealchester.com/web-designer-vs-web-developer/): Someone posted this on Craig’s List. I thought it was insightful and educational for people requesting services in the web industry. What really is the difference between a web designer and a web developer? The author of this post makes it clear. I’ve found that over 80% of you people who post in here looking […] - [Security certificates for speed and your customer's peace of mind](https://nealchester.com/website-security-ssl-certificates-https/): If you sell anything online, transfer sensitive data, or you want your website to load faster, you need to have an SSL installed. - [Mobile Coding Cheat Sheet](https://nealchester.com/mobile-coding-cheat-sheet/): This is the beginning of another cheat sheet, this time, for mobile coding. A mobile design is basically a miniature copy of your desktop designed site, usually displaying only the important information first, with links to the rest. Its design is fluid because it has to accommodate different sizes of mobile devices. Make sure you […] - [Coding HTML Emails](https://nealchester.com/coding-html-emails/): If you haven’t coded for email clients, you’ll learn that you have to go back to tables and use a lot of repetitive inline CSS. The following is the gist of coding HTML emails: Use tables and inline CSS styling. Use basic HTML (old-school) styling attributes first. The only one to drop is the font […] - [Refreshing & Formatting XML](https://nealchester.com/refreshing-formatting-xml/): In a recent client project, it called for videos with play lists. I used Longtail’s JW player to handle this. The setup required XML files for the play list. Having not worked that much with XML before, I ran into two problems which I eventually found a solution for. Problem 1: Making XML refresh Long […] - [What web designers do](https://nealchester.com/what-web-designers-do/): Some people are surprised at the amount of work, skill, talent, and time that goes into building a professional website. The following information will show you exactly what web designers do for almost every project. Research and Writing We first learn your industry through research & talking with you We create the appropriate content for […] - [HTML5](https://nealchester.com/html5/): I wanted to understand the new HTML5 tags. This is a record of my studies and doesn’t include every new element and attribute.
This represents independent content which can stand on its own – content that could be syndicated. In other words, if it can show up in a RSS feed, it should be […] - [How to build a successful charity website Pt.3](https://nealchester.com/successful-charity-websites-pt-3/): In the last part, we discussed how to get support, but maintaining support is the primary goal. To do this, you’ll need to give your supporters three essential things: Interaction, praise, and updates. Updates Supporters need to know what’s going on with the charity because after all, they are a part of the cause. They […] - [How to build a successful charity website Pt.2](https://nealchester.com/successful-charity-websites-pt-2/): OK, so now that we have answered the biggest questions in supporters’ minds, we have to make a way for them to support. Donate, volunteer and support links should be easily found on the website. I’ve seen some sites lose these important links in complicated navigation, and I’ve seen them presented boldly and clearly on […] - [How to build a successful charity website Pt.1](https://nealchester.com/successful-charity-websites-pt-1/): How is this done? Well, we begin by answering the two most often asked questions by supporters and potential supporters. - [Using Advanced Custom Fields (plugin) for SEO](https://nealchester.com/using-advanced-custom-fields-plugin-for-seo/): If you’re already using the Advanced Custom Fields for clients and you want to incorporate SEO fields for clients, I add this code to the section (this is conditional): - [Native custom fields for SEO functionality](https://nealchester.com/native-custom-fields-for-seo-functionality/): Sometimes plugins conflict and not using a plugin at all for SEO is best. Instead of using a plugin like WordPress SEO by Yoast, or All in one SEO pack, you can get the same results using custom fields. With SEO all you really need access to are the and <meta name="description">. While I […] - [How to Write Great Content for Your Website](https://nealchester.com/how-to-write-great-content-for-your-website/): What Is Great Con­tent? In the con­text of ser­vice in­dustry web­sites (which is our fo­cus), great con­tent gives the vis­it­or ex­actly what they want from your web­site: in­form­a­tion. A web­site with great con­tent will also be­come more at­tract­ive to search en­gines like Google; boost­ing you high­er to the first page. People Don’t Read. Ac­cord­ing to […] - [What is Usability?](https://nealchester.com/what-is-usability/): It’s im­port­ant that your web­site be simple and easy to use, if not, your vis­it­ors will be­come frus­trated and soon leave. Here are a few guidelines that we fol­low based on our re­search and ex­per­i­ence: The User Ex­per­i­ence: Avoid us­ing pop-ups. Users hate an­noy­ing pop-ups win­dows, so we avoid them; but as al­ways, there are […] - [What are Web Standards?](https://nealchester.com/what-are-web-standards/): Is your web­site up to stand­ard? It’s im­port­ant that your web­site com­ply with the latest stand­ards – you could be los­ing vis­it­ors. Web Stand­ards were cre­ated by the World Wide Web Con­sor­ti­um (W3C) so the Web would work bet­ter for every­one. A site built to web stand­ards should be lean, clean, CSS-based, ac­cess­ible, us­able and […] - [Writing Web Content](https://nealchester.com/writing-web-content/): Writing for the web is different than writing for print. Visitors scan web pages, rather than reading entire paragraphs. Always provide information that will empower your visitors and help them make an informed buying decision. ## Pages - [Blog](https://nealchester.com/blog/) - [NealChester.com](https://nealchester.com/): Interested? Let’s Talk I am available remotely for short-term projects and long-term contracts (including work-to-hire) (W2 or 1099). 2-4K/weekly preferred. Or email me - [Privacy Policy](https://nealchester.com/privacy-policy/): Who we are Our website address is: https://nealchester.local. What personal data we collect and why we collect it Comments When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. An anonymized string created from […] [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)