FAQ: 11-17 September, 2023

Q: How do I do keywords research for content writing

Keyword research is important, totally agree. There are tools like Ubsersuggest or Ahrefs that will show you how difficult it is to rank for a specific keyword, and how many times per month people search it for. The most affordable is Ubersuggest, about $15/mo. Other tools are much more expensive. You can also try free tools, but you need to search for them on Google, and it will take time to get and compare results.

Here is a simple strategy that you can use:

  1. check online forums and groups (like Facebook ones) to see what people question people discuss within your niche
  2. check platforms like answerthepublic to get the same, but more structured information
  3. Use paid tools like Ubersuggest to get keyword ideas and information about the ranking difficulty.

What you need is some low-difficulty keywords, some long-tail terms, and a couple of popular ones (again, depending on the niche). Long-tail terms are very helpful and can bring pretty much of traffic.

Usually, I combine approaches and have a custom bot that checks some of the keywords regularly, because time from time their stats can change. Free tools are as powerful as paid ones in fact, except that paid combine multiple metrics, while you probably may need several free tools to get the same data.

Q: Can I add open graph (og:title) tags dynamically to React app without SSR, Helmet, or Express?

Yes. I’ve started working on a quick manual regarding this, and I’ll finish it when I have enough time. But now, briefly, here is a brief explanation of one trick. Please note that it’s more of a concept than a final solution, and it is not perfect anyway. But it works much, much better than Helmet (since Facebook doesn’t parse JS-based websites). So, you need an Apache or Nginx server. In my case, it was Apache, so in .htaccess I redirected all requests to the index.php file (instead of index.html). I copied the html code from index.html and added a small php snippet that read a file, fetched the data for the requested product, generated the og meta tags, and pasted them into the head tag. Of course, it’s not a good solution for 1000+ items, but for a small store (like mine in my case) it works very nice and fast. Instead of reading files, you can fetch data from, say, Redis or… anywhere.

If you need more details, please feel free to drop me a question.

Q: Should I switch my React app to SSR?

Well… the main question here is “why?”. SSR is a really, really great (old-school, haha) technology that provides very fast (well, if done properly, of course) responses and allows us to browse the Internet with old computers again (yes, in this case, we don’t need 16GB RAM to just open a website). That’s cool. Also, it has a positive impact on SEO. But if you already have a CSR React app, it’s up to you. It will take much time and effort to turn it into SSR properly, without breaking anything. If you designed it to be server-side rendered - then sure, go ahead. If not - ask yourself: is it working properly? Will you have significant benefits (like, say, SEO boost) if you switch to SSR? If not - it is not worth it. Otherwise - of course, why not? :)

Q: Can I add more than 100 product variants in Shopify?

Yes, sure. First of all, there are a bunch of apps that allow you to add as many variants as you need. Second, you don’t need any of them :). Actually, this can be achieved by modifying the theme. Unfortunately, generic advice cannot be given here because it heavily depends on the theme. If I’m not mistaken, there was a manual even on the Shopify blog about this. Briefly, you should modify the product template to combine all variants into a single array or JSON object and then parse it with JavaScript. But as I said, details depend on the theme.

Q: When I visit my website, I see a warning about “mixed content”

Yes, it happens (often with WordPress) when you move from http to https or from one hosting/domain to another. This message means that some parts of the content (usually images) are fetched from non-https source. First of all, check all your images, javascript files, and other static content. If you find any of them working from http instead of https, check your CMS or server setup to see why it happens.

Q: What stack is good for creating API?

Any you’re familiar with. Personally, I prefer PHP or Python for such kinds of tasks. PHP has a great framework called Slim, which is awesome for creating APIs, but it depends on the goal and project details. Laravel is also capable, give it a try if you are familiar with it. For Python I successfully used Flask. So, pick anything you know.

Q: Why and should I update WordPress plugins?

You should. Sometimes it becomes a non-trivial task, but in general, you should. And not only plugins but also WordPress itself. Sometimes serious security flaws can be found in any plugin (even very popular ones are attacked from time to time, bringing risk to both the website owners and visitors). Here is a very quick research on this topic: https://drew-k.com/blog/is-wordpress-safe-or-why-website-security-should-be-handled-/ So updates often patch some vulnerabilities. And you should do it regularly because if you skip several versions and try to update after some time, you have a higher chance to break the website.

Q: Is WordPress hosting more expensive than web hosting?

Usually, it happens vice versa. But I don’t recommend using WordPress hosting (maybe, except wordpress.org, but even in this case I’m not sure). One of the benefits of such hosting is that usually, they take care of updating WP and plugins. But the downsides are slow speed (but it depends on the hosting itself) and less control over the website from your side. If you need something that goes beyond simply installing plugins, you will need to contact the support team (or maybe, you won’t be able to implement it until you change the hosting). But it is nice for some pet/home/personal/blog projects, just choose wisely, do not pick up the cheapest one.