How to Check Website Traffic for Any Site (7 Best Tools)

Do you want to check website traffic for any site, including your own?

Checking website traffic allows you to see how well your site performs and how it compares to your competition.

In this article, we’ll show you how to check website traffic for any website using various online tools.

Why Should You Check Your Website Traffic?

By checking your website stats, you can easily see how your website is performing.

Your website traffic data will show you where your traffic is coming from, how visitors engage with your site, and what digital marketing strategies are working.

If you want to get more email subscribers, more sales for your online store, or just more traffic overall, then you need to regularly check your website analytics.

By tracking your site’s traffic, you’ll know where your site currently stands and what you can do to improve.

Why Should You Check Your Competitor’s Website Traffic?

Analyzing your competitor’s website traffic statistics can reveal a lot of helpful information such as:

• The pages and posts bringing your competitors the most traffic
• Which keywords your competitors are ranking for
• The channels that are driving them the most traffic

All of this information can be used to improve your content marketing strategy, link building, keyword research process, and more.

By understanding what brings your competition the most traffic, you’ll be able to target those same keywords and topics to generate more traffic for your website.

Best Tools to Check Any Website Traffic (including Competitors)

There are a lot of free and paid traffic checking tools that you can use. Each one has unique features that set them apart.

Most experts use multiple tools to check website traffic estimates for their competitors. We always recommend readers to try at least two different tools to analyze web traffic stats.

By using various tools, you’ll be able to fill in the gaps and get more accurate traffic stats for any website.

As your WordPress site and budget grow, you can invest in multiple tools to gain more insights and dominate your market.

Having said that, let’s take a look at the best tools to check how much traffic a website gets.

1. SEMRush

SEMRush is an all-in-one traffic analysis and competition research tool. It’s the best tool for analyzing and monitoring traffic for any website.

We use this tool at WPBeginner for keyword research, tracking keyword rankings, and a lot more.

Once you enter a competitor URL, you’ll get a detailed breakdown of your competitor’s total traffic.

You’ll be able to see important website metrics like the volume of monthly traffic over time, traffic distribution by country, the keywords that bring them the most traffic, and more.

The Traffic Analytics tab gives you the number of unique visitors, total visits, average visit duration, number of pageviews, and the bounce rate the site receives.

This feature is like looking into your competitor’s Google Analytics account.

Another excellent feature called Bulk Traffic Analysis lets you analyze traffic levels for multiple competitors at once.

Depending on your pricing plan, you can compare up to 200 websites. This gives you a big picture view of your niche, the websites getting the most traffic, and any traffic opportunities you can act on.

You’ll also find detailed traffic analytics reports that give you information like which sites are sending the most referral traffic, which pages on their site are the most valuable, and which locations bring them the most traffic.

You can take advantage of the 14 day trial, or the limited free plan which gives you access to basic website data.

If you want full reports, then the premium plans start at $119.95 per month, which gives you full access to competitor traffic sources, rankings, social media, and more.

2. SimilarWeb

SimilarWeb is an online website traffic checker that gives you an overview of your competitor’s traffic and which channels are the most valuable.

Instead of just providing traffic from search, you’ll get detailed reports of a website’s entire traffic strategy.

Once you run a website through the tool, you’ll get a breakdown of the overall traffic, including a country by country report.

You’ll get engagement metrics like bounce rate, number of pages viewed per visit, average visit duration, and the top traffic sources for that website.

Beyond organic search traffic, you’ll find what paid keywords bring the website traffic, what social channels are the most valuable, and the display networks the site uses to monetize.

Finally, you’ll get a detailed breakdown of the site’s audience, what kind of other sites they’re interested in, the top referring sites, and a list of competitor sites for you to research further.

The free version of the tool provides you with useful traffic data. If you require more detailed reports, then you can create an enterprise account with custom pricing.

3. Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that lets you analyze your search engine traffic.

This tool gives you a complete picture of how your site is viewed by the search engines.

It shows the number of impressions, clicks, click-through rate (CTR), and the average position of your keywords in the search engines.

This helps you understand what keywords you’re ranking for and the search volume they’re bringing in. This information can help you improve your traffic.

For example, if you find that you’re ranking in position 11, then you can optimize the blog post to try to move it to the first page of the search results.

You can also see which pages are indexed, if any errors are present, and more.

Once you add your site to Google Search Console, you can start viewing your website data.

The easiest way is to connect your Google Search Console account with All in One SEO. For more details, see our guide on how to add your WordPress site to Google Search Console.

You can also use the MonsterInsights tool, mentioned below, to view your keyword rankings inside the WordPress admin area using Google Search Console data.

For more details, see our guide on how to see keywords people use to find your WordPress site.

4. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a free and premium tool from Neil Patel that offers a ton of useful website traffic data.

It’s straightforward to use and the interface is built for beginners. If you’ve never done keyword research or traffic analysis before, then this tool makes it incredibly simple.

The traffic analyzer feature gives you a detailed breakdown of your competitor’s traffic over time, the keywords bringing them the most traffic, and the most popular pages on the site.

All you have to do is enter the website URL you want to analyze and click ‘Search’.

The ‘Traffic Overview’ page gives you the total number of organic keywords the site ranks for, the organic monthly traffic, domain authority, and the total number of backlinks.

You can also dive deeper into each section of the traffic report. For example, you can expand the ‘Top Pages’ results to get a breakdown of each published page on the site and the estimated amount of traffic it brings in every month.

The results also give you the estimated number of backlinks, along with the number of Facebook and Pinterest shares. This data gives you a general overview of what you’ll have to do to outrank that page in the SERPs.

The free version of the tool gives you access to the last 3 months of data. Premium plans start at $29 per month, making it one of the cheapest tools on this list.

5. Serpstat

Serpstat offers a wide range of different SEO tools. What started as a simple keyword research tool has grown into an all-in-one website analysis tool.

Even though it’s packed with features, it’s still very easy to use. Just enter the URL and the tool will generate a traffic report.

There are traffic checking features along with backlink analysis, site auditing, and rank tracking tools.

The traffic analysis features give you all kinds of useful website data, including the organic and paid keywords that are driving traffic, the average number of visitors the site gets per month, and the pages that get the most traffic.

You’ll also find trend information, so you can see how the site’s rankings, traffic, and keywords are performing over time.

The free version of the tool gives you access to a portion of the total data that’s available for a domain name. Premium plans start at $69 per month and give you access to all of the data the tool provides.

6. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is one of the most popular SEO tools in the market trusted by brands like Netflix, Uber, and Facebook. It helps you see how much traffic your competition is getting and why they’re ranking so high.

Ahrefs crawls more than 6 billion web pages every day, with more than 200 million websites in their index. It’s a lot of data, but this gives you actionable insights to help you outrank your competitors and get more traffic.

The interface is very simple and user friendly. Simply enter the website URL in the search field and the tool will pull all available website information.

The search overview report gives you an overview of the organic search traffic a site receives, the domain authority, biggest competitors, and much more.

You can filter the report to view the traffic stats for the year, last 30 days, or all time.

Even though there’s a ton of data present, it’s easy to filter and find the website metrics you’re looking for.

Keep in mind that the traffic data only shows organic search data and not other sources like social media.

There’s a 7 day trial for $7, after that plans start at $99 per month. Considering the amount of data you have access to, it’s surprisingly affordable.

7. MonsterInsights

If you want to analyze your own traffic, then the only tool you should be using is Google Analytics. However, setting up Google Analytics on your own and analyzing your own data can be difficult.

We recommend using MonsterInsights, it’s the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and used by over 3 million sites, including Microsoft, Yelp, PlayStation, and more.

It allows you to easily set up Google Analytics in WordPress and view your traffic data directly in your WordPress dashboard.

You’ll be able to see your top performing posts, pages, landing pages, homepage traffic, and more. This helps you understand user behavior and makes it much easier to grow your WordPress blog.

Final Thoughts on How to Check Traffic on Your Website

There are all kinds of tools you can use to check your website traffic and competitor website traffic.

Checking competitor traffic will give you insights into your market and what you can do to get more traffic. While, monitoring your own website traffic will show you if your SEO, social media, and other traffic generation strategies are working.

The best way to check your own website traffic is with MonsterInsights. In a couple of clicks you can view your website traffic data directly in your WordPress dashboard.

If your goal is to do in-depth competitor research, and you want to check traffic on any website, then SEMRush is our top choice. Not only will it give you accurate traffic data, but it’s one of the best SEO tools in the market.

We hoped this article helped you learn how to check website traffic on any site. You may also want to take a look at our ultimate WordPress SEO guide, and our expert list of 24 must have WordPress plugins for business websites.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Check Website Traffic for Any Site (7 Best Tools) appeared first on WPBeginner.

April 13, 2021 at 05:00PM

How to Improve Organic Click Through Rate (CTR) in WordPress – 12 Proven Tips

Do you want to improve the organic click through rate (CTR) for your WordPress website?

Organic click-through rate is the average clicks a page gets when displayed in search results. Improving your CTR can help improve your SEO rankings and get more traffic to your website from search engines.

In this article, we’ll share our proven tips on how to easily improve organic click through rate (CTR) in WordPress like a total SEO pro.

Here is a quick overview of the topics we’ll cover in this guide.

• What is Organic Click Through Rate?
• How to Find Out Organic Click Through Rate?
• Improving your Organic Click Through Rate in WordPress
• Write Powerful Headlines and SEO Titles
• Use Dynamic SEO Titles for Better Headlines
• Write Helpful Meta Descriptions
• Use Meaningful URL Slugs
• Aim to Appear in Rich Snippets or Answer Box
• Use Rich Snippets Schema Markup to Standout
• Improve Local SEO for Higher Click-Through Rates
• Improve Older Articles for Better Click-Through Rates
• Fix Keyword Cannibalization Issues
• Improve Page Load Times for Better User Experience
• Keep Users Engaged on Your Site
• Bonus Tip: Convert Users Into Subscribers and Customers

What is Organic Click Through Rate?

Organic Click Through Rate is the percentage of users who click on an item in the search results.

Let’s suppose, one of your articles appeared 100 times in search results for a particular keyword. Out of those, 3 users clicked to view your article, which gives you a click-through rate of 3%.

Search engine algorithms use organic CTR to analyze the performance of your website in search results. The pages that have a higher click through rate tend to rank higher in search results.

Many SEO experts have found that improving your CTR is the fastest way to improve your SEO rankings.

As a website owner, you can see which pages on your website are getting more clicks, so you can replicate those techniques on other pages.

You can also find out which pages are not getting any clicks and then work to improve them, so they can get higher click through rate.

How to Find Out Organic Click Through Rate?

The easiest way to find out your organic click-through rate is by using Google Search Console.

Google Search Console is the free tool offered by Google to help website owners see how their website is doing in search results.

If you haven’t already done so, then follow our guide to learn how to add your website to Google Search Console.

After that, you can login to your Google Search Console dashboard and switch to the Performance tab. At the top, you’ll see your website’s average click-through rate.

Click on the average click through rate to add it as a metric to your report. Next to it, you’ll also see the average position box, go ahead and click to select it as well.

Now you need to scroll down to the detailed report section. Under the Queries tab, you’ll see keywords you rank for with average clicks, impressions, CTR, and position.

You can click on any column to sort the results by position or by CTR.

Similarly, you can switch to the Pages tab to view the results for individual pages on your website instead of keywords.

Improving your Organic Click Through Rate in WordPress

Now that you know how to view your website’s average CTR scores, the next step is to improve your organic click through rate of your WordPress blog posts.

Ideally, you would want to start with pages that already rank higher, have good search impressions, with an average position of 1-10, but very low CTR.

After that, you would gradually move on to low-hanging fruits. These are the pages that rank on page 2 or 3 of the search results. You may want to improve their CTR, so you can rank higher and get more traffic.

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the proven tips that you can use to improve your click-through rates across the board.

1. Write Powerful Headlines and SEO Titles

Your blog post’s title or the headline is the most noticeable thing in search results.

It has to be relevant, catchy, and engaging to compel user’s attention and get them to click.

But how do you figure out which headline will help you get better click through rates in search results?

Luckily, there are several headline analyzer tools that will analyze your headlines and make suggestions for improvements.

We’ll be using the MonsterInsights plugin since it has a built-in headline analyzer. It is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and helps you see where your visitors are coming from and what they do on your website.

First, you need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: The free version of MonsterInsights also has the headline analyzer built-in.

Next, you’ll need to connect the plugin to your Google Analytics account. It will automatically you walk through it, but if you need help then see our tutorial on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

Once it is set up, you can simply edit any post or page where you want to optimize the headline. On the post edit screen, click on the Headline Analyzer button at the top right corner of the screen.

This will open the Headline Analyzer tool with a score and some practical tips to improve your post or page title. You can switch to the ‘Try New Headline’ tab and try new headlines without saving them.

Alternative: You can also try the web version of MonsterInsights headline analyzer tool, or the IsItWP’s Headline Analyzer tool both of which allows you to test headlines outside your WordPress admin area.

2. Use Dynamic SEO Titles for Better Headlines

By default, WordPress automatically uses your page or post title as the <title> tag in the HTML. This title tag is used by search engines to display your website listing.

You can use All in One SEO plugin to automatically generate better SEO titles for your older blog posts and pages.

It is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market used by over 2 million website owners to improve search rankings and click through rates.

First, you need to install and activate the All in One SEO plugin. There’s also a free version of AIOSEO available.

Upon activation, the plugin will walk you through a guided a set up wizard. You can follow along the instructions and if you need help then see our tutorial on how to properly set up All in One SEO for WordPress.

Once finished, you need to visit All in One SEO » Search Appearance page and switch to the Content Types tab.

From here, you can set up dynamic SEO titles and descriptions for all your posts, pages, products, or any other post types. This title will be used when a post or page doesn’t have its own SEO title or description.

You can also edit any post or page on your WordPress site to edit its SEO title and description. Simply edit the post and scroll down to the ‘AIOSEO Settings’ section below the post editor.

From here you can add a custom SEO title for your post and page. You’ll see a live snippet preview of how it will look in search results.

You can also use Dynamic tags like Current Month or Year in your post titles, so you don’t have to manually update them each year.

Don’t forget to Save and update your post once you’re done editing it.

3. Write Helpful Meta Descriptions

Most search engines automatically generate the description part when showing search results, so the most relevant content appears in the snippet.

However, for some results, they would just show the description provided by the website owner. This is why it is important to add an SEO description for all your posts and pages.

If you are using All in One SEO for WordPress, then you can edit each post and page and simply provide your own SEO-friendly description.

Make sure that your SEO description includes your target keywords and explains what users will see when they visit your website. This helps users understand your content better and encourages them to click more often.

4. Use Meaningful URL Slugs

WordPress uses SEO-friendly URL structure. This allows you to create meaningful URLs for your content like this:

https://example.com/best-coffee-shops-in-new-york-city/

The last part of these URLs is called the URL slug, and WordPress automatically generates it based on your post / page title.

However, if your post title contains numbers, years, or is too lengthy, then it could become less user-friendly.

To remedy that, make sure that you manually correct the URL slug before publishing any post or page. You can do that by clicking on the Gear icon at the top right corner of the content editor screen.

Switch to the Post tab and then expand the Permalink option. Here you can replace the default URL slug with your own. Make sure that your URL slug is not using any capital letters, and words are separated by dashes.

Don’t forget to save or update your post / page to store your settings.

5. Aim to Appear in Rich Snippets or Answer Box

What’s better than ranking #1 for a search query?

Ranking as the Answer box or Rich Results. The answer box is Google’s attempt to answer user’s search queries right on the search page with more detailed results.

According to research conducted by Advanced Web Ranking, Answer boxes secure a whopping 32.3% CTR on average.

However, there is no easy shortcut to rank as a rich snippet for a search term. The most common strategy that has worked for most websites is simply improving the content.

For details, check out our complete guide on how to appear in Google Answer box / Rich snippets with real examples and practical tips.

6. Use Rich Snippets Schema Markup to Standout

Rich snippets schema markup allows you to provide structured data along with your content. This structured data is written in a special format called Schema.org markup.

Search engines use this markup to show your content with additional information in search results. This makes your page stand out among other results and improves CTR.

The easiest way to add rich snippets schema markup to your WordPress website is by using All in One SEO plugin. It comes with built-in support for schema markup, allowing you to set it up for each post type like posts, products, reviews, and more.

You can also change schema type markup for individual posts and pages. Allowing you to use your blog posts as recipes, reviews, articles, with additional structured data for search engines to use.

7. Improve Local SEO for Higher Click-Through Rates

Making your content appear for relevant terms but for the wrong audience can cause lower CTR. Local SEO helps you remedy that by allowing you to target regional audiences.

This allows you to rank for a targetted audience which makes your result more relevant and boosts CTR.

First, you may want to create a Google My Business account. This allows you to add your business listing, prove that you own the business, and manage your business information using Google’s My Business dashboard.

Next, you will need All in One SEO for WordPress plugin which has a Local SEO add-on. This addon allows you to add your local business information as Schema markup to your website.

You can provide your business information and opening hours by simply out the forms and AIOSEO adds the schema markup for search engines to use in their results.

8. Improve Older Articles for Better Click-Through Rates

You may have older articles on your website that have become outdated and dropped in ranking. Many WordPress blogs have several articles just ranking somewhere on page 2 of search results.

You can find them by simply sorting the Google Search Console’s Performance report by position.

It would be quite easy to improve these pages with additional updated content. Making this optimization a part of your regular content review routine is a quick and easy way boost search rankings.

9. Fix Keyword Cannibalization Issues

If your targeted keywords are in a very niche category, and your website has multiple resources on them, then it is likely that some of them will cannibalize others.

This may create a confusing situation for search engines. For instance, they may ignore your most important page for something that is less important or even less relevant.

You may be able to rank two pages for the same keyword, but they will give a contradictory impression. This can even create confusion for users as well.

We recommend keep an eye on your top keywords and consider merging similar keywords into one comprehensive resource when needed. After that, you can set up 301 redirects to point search engines to the main resource.

Related: See our guide on the best SEO keyword tracking tools.

10. Improve Page Load Times for Better User Experience

As of 2021, Google will be rolling out page experience algorithm updates. These updates will be focused on user experience and website speed.

Speed is already an important factor in SEO. Faster page loads affect your search rankings.

Here are some quick tips that you can apply right away.

• Use a better WordPress hosting service.
• Install and activate a WordPress caching plugin
• Optimize images for faster page loads
• Use Web Application firewall or a CDN service

We have a complete WordPress performance and speed guide with step by step instructions to optimize your website perfo

11. Keep Users Engaged on Your Site

Some of your pages may already have a very good organic CTR but very high bounce rate. This means users are coming to those pages but leaving without visiting any other pages.

Keeping users engaged allows you to show them other content and lead through your sales funnel to become a customer or a subscriber.

In our experience, nothing works better than internal linking to keep user engaged. Make sure that your top articles are linking to your other articles and giving users plenty of opportunities to click.

You can also add related posts or popular posts widgets to your site to add some more content discovery options for new users.

When users spend more time on a website, they’re more likely to visit more pages, join your email list, and buy your products.

For more details, see our detailed guide on how to reduce bounce rate and increase pageviews in WordPress.

12. Convert Users Into Subscribers and Customers

It is important to keep in mind that bringing traffic to your website is often not enough to grow your online business. Relying heavily on search traffic alone can hit your business hard when the algorithm update.

The ultimate goal for any business is to take advantage of higher CTR and convert those users into customers and subscribers.

This is where you’ll need OptinMonster. They have a free WordPress plugin that you can use.

It is the world’s best conversion optimization software. With OptinMonster, you can easily boost conversion rates, make more sales, and grow your email list.

It comes with beautifully designed lightbox popups, countdown timers, notification bars, slide-in pops, spin the wheel popups, and more.

All these tools help you nudge customers to spend more time on your website, buy products / services, follow you on social media or join your email list.

With powerful display rules, it allows you to show personalized campaigns at just the precise time. For instance, you can geo-target users in particular region with free delivery or give users a discount coupon just when they are about to leave your site.

With dozens of templates, you can easily convert traffic coming from your CTR into sales and returning visitors.

We hope this article helped you improve organic click through rate (CTR) for your WordPress website. You may also want to see our complete WordPress SEO guide for more tips, and our tutorial on how to add push notifications in WordPress to grow your traffic.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Improve Organic Click Through Rate (CTR) in WordPress – 12 Proven Tips appeared first on WPBeginner.

April 12, 2021 at 05:00PM

Wix vs WordPress – Which One is Better? (Pros and Cons)

Are you trying to decide between Wix vs WordPress to build your website? While WordPress is the most popular website builder in the world, it is not the only option.

After seeing TV commercials for Wix, some of our users asked us to do a detailed comparison of Wix vs WordPress to find out which is the better choice.

In this article, we will compare Wix vs WordPress and highlight the pros and cons. Our hope is that with this Wix review and comparison, you’ll be able to decide which platform is right for your needs.

Note: This article compares Wix vs Self Hosted WordPress.org NOT WordPress.com. See the difference between self-hosted WordPress.org vs WordPress.com sites.

We have broken down this comparison into 7 categories:

• Wix vs WordPress costs
• Ease of use comparison
• Design options in Wix vs WordPress
• Plugins and apps
• Wix vs WordPress – Which one is better for blogging?
• Ecommerce comparison
• Data portability
• Final Verdict: Wix vs WordPress – Which One is Better?
• Frequently Asked Questions – Wix vs WordPress

Let’s see how Wix and WordPress stack up into each of these categories.

1. Pricing and Costs

The cost of website building is an important factor when choosing your site builder platform. The total costs of developing and maintaining your site will entirely depend on your needs. Our goal is to make sure that you can do whatever you need within your budget.

Let’s compare the pricing of Wix and WordPress to find out which one gives you more bang for the buck.

Wix Pricing Comparison:

Wix offers a basic website builder for free. However, there are two major downsides to it.

First, it adds Wix branded advertisements on the top and bottom of your website. Second, you cannot use a custom domain name for your site, so your website address will be: username.wix.com/sitename

Apart from that, the basic plan does not offer necessary add-ons such as Google Analytics, Favicons, eCommerce, etc. To remove ads and get additional features from their apps market, you’ll have to upgrade to one of the premium plans they offer.

Each Wix premium plan has different storage and bandwidth limitations. You can pay monthly or choose a yearly plan.

The best value plans on Wix is the Unlimited plan ($12.50 / month).

If you need eCommerce and business features, then you need to select a Business & Ecommerce plan.

Pricing for small business website and eCommerce plans start from $17 / month.

Regardless of which plan you choose, this cost does not include any apps that you later choose to buy from the Wix app market to use on your website.

WordPress Pricing Comparison:

The WordPress software is open source, and it is available for free for anyone to use.

We often get asked about why is WordPress free and what’s the catch?

Well, the biggest catch is that you need your own domain name and web hosting to install it.

There are several WordPress hosting providers that you can choose from. See our guide on how to choose the best WordPress hosting company.

Depending on your budget, you can start with a basic plan with a WordPress hosting provider like Bluehost that will cost you $2.75 per month and includes a free custom domain name.

If your budget permits, then you can use a managed WordPress hosting provider like WP Engine which costs $29 per month.

The cost of a WordPress site will increase if you decide to use premium WordPress themes or plugins (similar to apps in WordPress).

However, there are thousands of free WordPress themes and plugins available that you can use to reduce costs. You can add any feature to your WordPress site using a plugin without upgrading your hosting plan.

For more information, see our guide on how much does it cost to build a WordPress website.

WordPress comes with full support for eCommerce out of the box. You can install the WooCommerce plugin to create an online store on your website. Just like WordPress, WooCommerce itself is free and opensource.

For more information, see our article on how much it costs to build an eCommerce website.

Conclusion:

WordPress beats Wix with flexible plans available from a variety of web hosting companies. The cost depends on how much resources you use, and you are free to use your WordPress website in any way you want.

2. Ease of Use

Most beginners choose Wix or WordPress because they don’t want to hire a website designer. Both Wix and WordPress allow you to create websites without learning to code.

Let’s take a look which one of them is easier to use for beginners with no coding experience.

Wix:

Wix comes with powerful and easy to use tools to build your own website. It offers a simple drag and drop interface where you can select any element on your site and start editing it in a WYSIWYG interface.

You can drag and drop items anywhere on your site, rearrange things on your pages, write content, and add media in a user-friendly environment. Many beginners would find this feature a blessing as it saves them from dealing with code.

WordPress:

WordPress comes with an incredibly powerful WordPress block editor that allows you to edit your pages with a live preview.

This allows you to create visually stunning layouts by adding blocks. There are blocks for all common elements like text, headings, buttons, background images, galleries, and more.

WordPress also gives you access to thousands of themes (website templates) to use on your site. Each of them is also fully-customizable using the live theme customizer.

Need even more code-free ways to edit your website visually? WordPress has some of the most intuitive drag and drop page builder plugins. These drag-and-drop editor provide you even more tools to create professional-looking websites without writing code.

For example you can use a page builder like SeedProd or Divi that lets you build completely custom websites without writing any code.

All of these options give a lot more choices and tools to edit your website.

Conclusion:

There is a tie when it comes to ease of use between Wix and WordPress. Both offer easy code-free ways to write content, make pages, and manage business and eCommerce websites.

Wix does a great job with their editor interface, but it lacks advanced capabilities. WordPress offers ease of use that can be extended with a little bit of a learning curve which is great in the long run.

3. Design and Layout

Your site’s design and layout play an important role in your success. Every site owner needs a web design that’s not only good-looking but also user-friendly and makes their brand stand-out.

Wix:

Wix comes with more than 900+ pre-made templates to choose from. All Wix designs are fully responsive and written in HTML5. Using the built-in tools, you can further tweak your site design, change the layout, and rearrange items as you see fit.

There are designs available for every kind of site. Templates are divided into categories like business, eCommerce, hobbies, arts & crafts, personal, etc.

One big disadvantage is that once you have selected a template, you cannot change it. You can modify it and customize it as much as you want using only the built-in tools, but you cannot switch to another template.

WordPress:

There are thousands of free and paid themes available for WordPress. Free themes come with limited support, but they also go through a strict review process. Paid themes generally offer more features and come with premium support options.

WordPress themes range from small personal sites to full-fledged eCommerce sites. Most themes come with built-in customization options of their own. You can also use one of the many styling plugins to further style or customize your WordPress themes.

Users can download free themes from WordPess.org directory. For paid themes, there are several WordPress theme shops like Astra, StudioPress, Themify, CSSIgniter, and more. See our list of the best commercial WordPress theme shops.

Furthermore, you can hire a developer or learn to create a completely custom theme for your company.

There are also plugins like SeedProd, a landing page builder plugin that allows you to quickly deploy a website, a sales page, product page, or even a coming soon page regardless of which theme you are using.

More importantly, you can change your WordPress theme anytime you want and use a different theme. This allows your website design to grow and evolve with your business.

Conclusion:

WordPress has a much larger range of themes and design layouts than Wix. WordPress users can also easily switch themes or customize them as much as they want without any restrictions.

4. Plugins and Apps

Plugins and apps are like third-party extensions that you can use with your platform to add more features.

Wix calls them apps, and in the WordPress ecosystem, they are called plugins.

Let’s compare apps and plugins available on both platforms and what you can do with them.

Wix:

Wix comes with nearly 200+ apps that you can add to your site. These apps offer a wide range of features like adding contact forms, gallery, comments, social media buttons, email marketing and so on.

Many of the apps are free or have a lite version. Other apps require monthly payments and vary in prices. Even though there is a limited collection of apps, they cover the most commonly requested features by site owners.

WordPress:

At the time of writing this article, there are more than 58,000+ free plugins available in the WordPress.org plugin directory alone. Not to mention, premium plugins available on other marketplaces.

The saying goes: if you can think of a feature, there’s probably a WordPress plugin that makes it happen.

Whether you want to create a contact form, install Google Analytics, build a membership website, or sell online courses, there’s a plugin for that.

You can do just about anything you like with WordPress. There are plenty of plugins both free and paid which you can use to build the website of your dreams.

Conclusion:

WordPress easily beats Wix in this area as well. Even though Wix’s app library is growing, it is still limited in comparison to the huge choice available to WordPress users.

5. Wix vs WordPress – Which one is better for blogging?

Many users are looking for an easier platform to start blogging. Wix and WordPress both can be used to create blogs. Let’s take a look at which one does it better.

Blogging with Wix

Wix allows you to easily add a blog section to your website. It has all the basic blogging features you’ll commonly use. For example, categories and tags, photos and videos, archives, etc.

Comments on Wix blogs are slow and not as easy to manage as WordPress. Many users end up installing third-party commenting systems like Facebook or Disqus both of them require users to create accounts.

It also lacks several features like backdating posts, creating private posts, and more.

The writing interface for blog posts is not the same as the Wix website builder. Instead, it uses a plain text editor which is very limited in terms of formatting options.

Blogging with WordPress

WordPress started out as a blogging platform and evolved into a full-blown website builder. Today it powers nearly 40% of all websites.

It has all the blogging features you’ll need like a native commenting system and all other advanced features that are missing from Wix.

It comes with the powerful Gutenberg block editor which allows you to create beautiful layouts for your blog posts.

Most importantly, you can extend your blog using plugins and add any feature that you can think of.

Conclusion

WordPress totally outshines Wix as a blogging platform. Wix blogs are too basic and lack several important features. If you are thinking about starting a blog, then Wix doesn’t even come close to WordPress.

6. Wix vs WordPress Ecommerce Comparison

Selling things online is another important feature that most beginners look for. Let’s see how WordPress and Wix compare in eCommerce.

Wix:

Wix offers eCommerce with their paid plans. This means users with the free plan cannot run their eCommerce store on Wix without upgrading to a paid plan.

With the Wix Stores, you can accept payments using their own native payments system or use third-party apps to connect different payment gateways including PayPal, Authorize.net, and more.

If you choose to use Wix Payments, then they charge 2.9% of the transaction amount + 0.30 USD for the US region. As you sell more products, this processing fee becomes a substantial amount.

There are a few third-party apps that you can use to help promote your store and sell things online. The overall features of the eCommerce platform are limited too.

WordPress:

WordPress makes it super easy to create your online store using WooCommerce, which is the most popular eCommerce platform in the world.

There are also plenty of other eCommerce plugins available for WordPress that you can use to sell physical or digital goods, services, events, subscriptions, and more.

WordPress is also the best platform to sell digital subscriptions using MemberPress. It allows you to sell online courses, pay per view content, and membership plans for your online community.

Most eCommerce plugins for WordPress even have their own dedicated themes and add-on plugins. See our list of best WooCommerce themes for some excellent examples.

Conclusion:

If you want to build a proper online store and be ready for growth, then WordPress + WooCommerce offers much more flexibility, freedom, and choices when compared to Wix.

7. Data Portability Options in Wix vs WordPress

Data portability allows you the freedom to move your content away when you need it. Let’s take a look at how Wix and WordPress help you move your content and use it elsewhere.

Data portability options in Wix

Wix comes with very limited options to move your content to another platform. You can only export your blog posts in XML format. You’ll have to manually download your pages, images, videos, and other content.

According to Wix documentation, all your content is hosted exclusively on Wix’s servers and cannot be exported elsewhere.

This makes it a bit difficult to move your content to another platform if needed. However, you can still transfer a Wix site. See our article, on how to switch from Wix to WordPress for more details.

Data portability options in WordPress

WordPress is a proper content management system and makes it extremely easy to export your content. It comes with a one-click exporter that allows you to download your content in XML format.

Since it is a self-hosted platform, you can also create complete WordPress backups, download your media files, and even manually export your WordPress database.

You can then easily move your WordPress site to a new host if you are not satisfied with your current WordPress hosting company.

Conclusion:

WordPress is a lot better when it comes to downloading and moving your data. Wix, on the other hand, makes it quite difficult to move your content away.

Final Verdict: Wix vs WordPress – Which One is Better?

WordPress is far superior to Wix as a web publishing platform for any kind of website. While Wix offers an easy-to-use website builder, you can accomplish a lot more with WordPress over the long run.

See our guide on how to make a website using WordPress for step by step instructions.

Frequently Asked Questions – Wix vs WordPress

Do you still have a few questions? Here are some of the most commonly asked questions users asked us when deciding between Wix vs WordPress.

1. Which one is cheaper Wix vs WordPress?

Wix has free plans with their own branded domain name and advertisements. Their paid plans allow you to remove the branding and use your own domain name and they start at $4.50 per month with very limited storage and features. Your costs increase if you want to upgrade to more feature rich plans.

On the other hand, WordPress just needs hosting and domain name. For instance, you can get started with Bluehost for $2.75 per month with a free domain name and SSL certificate. Considering that it also gives you flexibility to add any feature you want to your website, WordPress becomes a lot cheaper in the long run.

2. Can I transfer my domain away from Wix?

Yes, you can transfer your domain away from Wix. However, Wix makes it a bit difficult to transfer your website files and content. For more details, see our article on how to transfer a website from Wix to WordPress.

3. What are Pros and Cons of using Wix?

For a quick comparison, here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using Wix over WordPress.

Pros:

• You don’t need to install software or manage updates on Wix
• It offers a simpler and easy to use interface to edit websites
• Wix is a hosted solution so you don’t need to worry about backups and security

Cons:

• Wix is more expensive than WordPress in the long run
• It is very limited in terms of functionality when compared to WordPress
• It has fewer design choices and third-party integrations
• The eCommerce and business features are no where close to what other platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce offer

4. Which platform offers more storage and bandwidth?

Most WordPress hosting companies offer unlimited storage and bandwidth. Compared to Wix, which limits the storage space based on the plan you choose. For instance, their basic plan gives users just 500 MB storage, 1 GB bandwidth, and no video hours.

5. Which one is better for SEO Wix vs WordPress

WordPress is better for SEO as you can use SEO plugins and tools, which you can use to do things like adding open graph meta tags, advanced XML sitemaps, On-site SEO analysis, and more.

We recommend using All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin to improve your WordPress ranking.

Wix offers some search engine optimization features built into their platform. This allows you to perform basic SEO for your website.

We hope this article helped you compare Wix vs WordPress and learn their pros and cons. You may also want to see our article on easy to start online business ideas and how to increase your website traffic without spending too much money.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post Wix vs WordPress – Which One is Better? (Pros and Cons) appeared first on WPBeginner.

April 10, 2021 at 03:00PM

5 Best Transcription Services of 2021 Compared (Cheap & Accurate)

Are you looking for the best transcription services?

Transcription services let you simply convert speech to text. You can use these transcriptions for video subtitles, podcast notes, additional written content, and more.

In this article, we’ve hand picked some of the best transcription services you can use to transcribe your existing audio and videos.

Why Use a Transcription Service?

Using an online transcription service saves you the time you’d spend trying to transcribe your audio and videos files yourself.

An automated transcription service helps you simply transcribe audio and video content into written text with a couple of clicks.

Transcribed audio helps you remember important details from meetings, calls, and webinars. Plus, it also gives you an easy way to transform & repurpose your existing content into multiple formats.

There are all kinds of ways you can use transcribed text with your WordPress site. Here are a few:

• Create podcast show notes to post as blog posts
• Summarize Zoom meeting notes for your remote team
• Add accurate video captions to your videos to improve accessibility
• Quickly create written materials to improve your online courses
• Create content upgrades to grow your email list

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best transcription services in the market today.

1. Rev

Rev is a transcription service provider that offers a range of different transcription related services.

You’ll find support for audio transcriptions, video transcriptions, captions, subtitles, and translations for a wide range of audio and video files.

Rev is the best transcription service when it comes error rate and transcription speed. It’s not the fastest provider, but it’s fast enough for providing nearly perfect text.

Generally, easy transcriptions can be completed in a few hours, with an accuracy rate of 99%.

They’re a unique service in that they have humans transcribers that utilize speech recognition AI. This gives you the best of both worlds.

Plus, all transcriptions done through this service are FCC and ADA approved and meet section 508 requirements. So, your transcriptions will be fully compliant with accessibility guidelines.

Beyond transcriptions, captioning, and subtitles, there’s a unique feature that provides live captions for Zoom meetings and webinars.

This ensures your meetings and online presentations are accessible to all.

Another unique feature Rev provides is support for foreign subtitles. If you have an international audience, then you can simply create multi language subtitles for all the videos you edit.

Finally, there’s a great mobile app for iPhone and Android. It lets you capture your ideas, meetings, lectures, and more on the go. Then, you can transcribe your audios with a single click from the app.

Price: Rev transcriptions start at $1.25 per minute and $0.25 per minute for a machine generated transcript with 80% accuracy.

Rush transcripts are available for an extra dollar per audio or video minute and will be completed 5 times faster.

2. Scribie

Scribie is a great transcription provider that offers both automated and manual transcription services. You’ll find a wide range of features and transcription options for any budget.

The manual transcription service is 99% accurate and has a 36 hour turnaround. You also have the option to add a subtitle file, time coding, strict verbatim, speaker tracking, and more.

You can track the progress of your transcription and even download versions as they’re being completed. This can be helpful if you need a working version of the document to use right away.

They also stand behind the quality of their transcripts. If you’re not satisfied with the quality, then you can ask for a free re-review that’ll have a quick one day turnaround.

The transcription process with Scribie is super easy. All you have to do is upload your file, choose your plan, make a payment, and you’ll get a Word file back in your selected timeline.

Price: Scribie pricing starts at $0.80 per minute for manual transcription and $0.10 per minute for automated transcription.

There’s an additional fee of $0.50 per minute for files where the speaker has an accent, the audio file is poor quality, or background noise is present.

3. GoTranscript

GoTranscript is one of the most accurate transcription services.

They provide very accurate transcriptions for audio files with hard to understand accents. Plus, there’s support for 48 different languages and files that have multiple accents in a single audio.

If you have audio that’s hard to decipher, has a ton of background noise, or is otherwise low quality, then it’s worth testing out GoTranscript.

They do a great job at handling complex projects, like STEM, academic, and technical papers too.

There’s a quick turnaround, especially considering its manual transcription for complex and in-depth topics.

However, if you’re not located in Britain, then the timing can be different since time quotes are based on their timezone.

The pricing is pretty affordable, considering the accuracy of the transcription you’ll be getting.

Price: GoTranscript starts at $0.90 per audio minute. Pricing increases for fast turnaround, low quality audio, number of speakers, and your language preference.

4. Sonix

Sonix is a fully automated AI transcription software. Since it’s AI based, it’s incredibly fast, and you won’t have to wait on human transcribers.

But, this also means you won’t get the same level of accuracy as human transcription. Still, the easy to use editing tools and low price can balance this out.

You can use the in-browser editor to polish your transcript. It has features like word-by-word timestamps, commenting and notes for you and your team, speaker labeling, multiple export options, and more.

You’ll also find tools for automated translation, subtitles, and collaboration features. Plus, there are plenty of integrations with tools you already use like Zoom, Vimeo, YouTube, Dropbox, and more.

Price: Sonix pricing starts at $10 per hour of audio, which is just under $0.17 per audio minute.

5. GMR Transcription

GMR Transcription is a versatile audio transcription service. It offers standard transcription services, both AI automated or human powered.

You’ll find other related services like video transcriptions and Spanish transcriptions.

Plus, a unique text transcription service that can transcribe physical documents into electronic documents. Perfect for companies transiting into a paperless office.

The transcription quality is very high. But, you’ll pay more and the turnaround is slower than other providers on this list.

However, same day transcription is offered in some circumstances.

Price: GMR Transcription starts at $1.25 per audio minute with rates increasing based on the number of speakers, audio quality, and selected turnaround time.

What is the Best Transcription Service for You?

After reviewing all the most popular transcription services, we believe that Rev is the best transcription service.

Their transcriptions quality is 99% accurate, and their turnaround is pretty fast with very affordable pricing.

You can use it to transcribe your YouTube videos, podcasts, add captions, and there’s even support for foreign language subtitling.

Another great choice is Scribie, which offers very fast and accurate transcriptions at an affordable rate.

Aside from the top transcription services on our list, we also looked at other transcription providers like Temi, TranscribeMe, Trint, Otter, and iScribed.

However, we decided to not list them to help make your choice as easy as possible and avoid decision paralysis.

Best Transcription Services FAQs

Helping tons of our readers find the best transcription services for their needs, we’ve answered a lot of questions.

Below are some of the most frequently asked questions we’ve received about online transcription providers.

What is the going rate for transcribing?

In general, the standard rate for transcribing is going to fall between $0.10 to $1.50 and beyond per audio minute.

The rate you pay will depend on things like the audio quality, accents present, whether or not it’s human or AI transcription, and more.

Overall, the more you pay per audio minute, the more high quality the finished transcription will be.

How long does it take to transcribe 1 hour of audio?

Typically, it takes individual transcriptionists 4 hours to transcribe 1 hour of audio. This will differ based on the transcriber’s skill, whether they’re using AI, and the audio file’s quality.

Different transcription services have different turnaround times, based on what you pay and if you require rush delivery.

What is the best free transcription software?

Some of the best free transcription software includes the Google Docs dictation feature and automatic YouTube transcriptions you can download after uploading a video.

However, the big issue with free transcription apps and software is they aren’t going to be that accurate.

If you’re looking for the cheapest option, then Rev has a free trial that allows you to test out 30 minutes of audio for free. If the quality is up to your standards, then the paid plans start at $10 per hour of audio.

We hoped this article helped you find the best transcription service for you to use along with your WordPress site. You may also want to see our list of the best online course platforms and our expert picks of the must have WordPress plugins for your business.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 5 Best Transcription Services of 2021 Compared (Cheap & Accurate) appeared first on WPBeginner.

April 09, 2021 at 04:12PM