As many of you know, I’m using WordPress for my blog, I’m learning WordPress on a daily basis.

But what about those people who want a website, but there aren’t sure which one to choose? For those, I have gathered a list with (for now) 5 website builders I found to be particularly useful WordPress alternatives:

• 1. Wix
• 2. Weebly
• 3. Webflow
• 4. Squarespace
• 5. Joomla

I will discuss about these website builders in a upcoming article. Stick around to find out more.

But before we do that, let’s also see a list with 5 myths&facts about these website builders listed above:

01. A website built with a website builder will never rank well

~ False ~

Any sites that produce poor content will not be well-received in the eyes of great Google, or any other search engines, for that matter.

From all website builders available out there, which includes Wix, Weebly, Webflow, Squarespace, Joomla, etc, only Squarespace is not recommended for blogging, because page titles and meta descriptions can’t be adjusted for individual blog posts.

02. A professional website needs professional hand working on it

~ True ~

Well, let’s say it depends on what kind of work your website needs. It can be content creation, graphic design or even web development, or all of the above. You may be qualified to do it yourself, or you can hire freelancers/agencies.

03. You won’t be able to modify your site once it has been built

~ False ~

You can do whatever please you to do with your site, however some changes may be restricted. For example, if you decide that Wix is for you, and you choose their free plan, once you select your template, you won’t be able to change it.

04. Switching for a website builder to another – Pain in the ass

~ True ~

Switching from a website builder to another can be a real pain in the ass, but the BAD part of switching is that you will need to start designing your website again. The GOOD part will be in case you are planning a whole re-design.

05. Once the traffic increases, your site will crash

~ FALSE / TRUE ~

The truth is, in case it’s happening, your hosting provider will cut off your bandwidth if your web space storage and monthly visitors number will be surpassed.

But in most cases, major hosting companies offer you an option to upgrade to a better plan, or a VPS / Dedicated Server. So, it’s not the end of the world if your site crashes due to increased traffic, it’s even better. It means that you are successful with your website. 🙂

I hope it helps!⁣

The post 5 Myths&facts About Website Builders You Need To Know first appeared on WOWLayers: Free WP Templates, Branding & Design Tips to Grow Your Online Business.

I’m not even going to ask if you’re serious about your website, blog, that would be a dumb a** rhetorical question. Right? Then you just can’t ignore these common platforms. I know I just can’t. How else can you make yourself noticeable?

What’s social media?

An online community created by users, where they can share ideas, pieces of information, personal messages, all kinds of content (videos, images, Gifs) and so on. Incredible, isn’t?

There’s no doubt that social media is here to stay, after all, it keeps everyone connected, and more to that, it can be the #1 tool for businesses to market and sell their products.

The reason for this article? To be honest, each of these platforms has different requirements for profile picture, cover images, etc., and I know this can be a bit overwhelming, especially for new users (newbies, no offense 🙂 ).

Solution? I made a list of image sizes for various social media platforms. The goal is to help you manage your social media settings without getting exasperated, distracted or even quitting.

I said it before, I say it now “Where there’s a will, there’s power”, luckily you don’t have to remember these image sizes, because by my nature I’m a giver and I want everybody to be happy. If you’re happy, I’m happy.

Without any reservation, I’m going to stick my neck out there and say that we are all kind of addicted to social media. Correct me if I’m wrong, please. Don’t know if there’s a bad thing or a good thing, but I can say that you can make the most of it.

Have I caught your attention so far? Bear with me, as we’re about to dig deeper to find out more.

Why social media is critical for your business?

First of all, it’s a way of saying “Hello, I’m here too. Now, can I have your attention?). And how we do that? Through words and images, of course.

Social media was and still is an essential part of your business marketing strategy (if it isn’t by now, go big and implement social media in your plan), which provides incredible benefits that help reach millions of customers worldwide.

Did you know that over 90% of all marketers say that social media marketing has increased their business exposure?

At this point, not having an ongoing social media presence is like going with a knife at a gunfight. You always have to remember that out there is someone who is using social media, and without knowing it, that someone can and/or will steal your customers, with no shame.

So, how about that? Do you really need a social media marketing strategy? Oh, yes, yes you do indeed, and here are some compelling reasons why:

• It gives you better exposure to your business, which can lead to more traffic, ergo more visitors;
• It gives you the opportunity to promote your business easily, in a cost-effective manner;
• It can create brand awareness;
• Using relevant content will grab the attention of potential customers;
• Marketing research – you can conduct surveys and polls to ask people around for their opinion about your products;
• The costs to maintain social media are minimal.

The importance of using the right social media image sizes

It is in your best interest to always use the right size for your images, but, you see, social platforms are constantly changing their guidelines when it comes to the display sizes and formats.

However, you’ll need to keep up with these changes, first of all, because if the size is the wrong one, your images won’t be displayed properly, and we sure don’t need an incomprehensive image to represents our brand.

Did you know that people are 65% more likely to remember information if it’s associated with a picture?

The truth is that we tend to skip those posts, stories, etc. if its visual content doesn’t satisfy our eyes. So, if you want to maintain your customers, or even better to gain some possible future customers, you will have to pay attention to all these kinds of changes regarding social media platforms.

What size should images be for social media?

Without any further ado, let’s see the image sizes for these common and most used platforms in 2020:

Instagram

Profile Image: 110px wide by 110px tall ( or 1:1 aspect ratio);

Square Image: 1080px wide by 1080px tall;

Horizontal Image: 1080px wide by 566 px tall;

Vertical Image: 1080px wide by 1350px tall;

Stories: 1080px wide by 1920px tall.

Pinterest

Profile Image: 165px wide by 165px tall (1:1 aspect ratio);

Pinterest Pins: 1000px wide by 1500px tall (or 2:3 ratio aspect);

Board Covers:

– large thumbnails: 222px by 150px tall;
– small thumbnails: 55px wide by 55px tall.

Facebook

Profile Image: 180px wide by 180px tall (Scales to 170px by 170px on desktop, 128px by 128px on mobile devices, 32px by 32px as a thumbnail);

Event Cover Image: 1920px wide by 1080px tall;

Link Previews: 1200px wide by 630px tall (first, make sure your featured image on your link is sizes properly);

Stories: 1080px wide by 1920px tall;

Group Cover Image: 820px wide by 462px tall (viewed on group page), 820px wide by 250px tall (viewed on a desktop newsfeed display);

Ads (feed ads & right column ads): 1200px wide by 628px tall (with a minimum width/height 600px);

Carousel ads: min 1080px wide by 1080px tall, at least 2 images, max of 10 images with max size: 30MB.

Twitter

Header Image: 1500px wide by 500px tall;

Link Previews: 800px wide by 418px tall;

Profile Image: 400px wide by 400px tall.

LinkedIn

Profile Image: personal profile 400px wide by 400px tall (or higher), 10 MB max; business profile 300px wide by 300px tall, 4MB max;

Cover Image: personal profile 1584px wide by 396px tall, business profile 1536px wide by 768px tall;

Post Images: desktop 1200px wide by 1200px tall, mobile 1200px wide by 628px tall;

Snapchat

Stories: 1080px wide by 1920px tall.

YouTube

Channel Profile Image: displayed at 98px wide by 98px tall, upload at 822px wide by 822px tall;

Cover Image: 2560px wide by 1440px tall (recommended), 1546px wide by 423px tall (displayed without cropping);

How do I get images to these sizes?

Buddy, we’re in 2020, by now you don’t need to have a graphic designer on board to master the whole process of resizing. There are various tools available that can help you promptly and precisely resize images.

Consider using the following solutions:

• Photopea Online – As soon as you hit the button, an interface will show up. All you have to do is to start working on your PSD template;
• XnView – With a powerful built-in editor, batch processing and Photoshop plugin support, XnView is a complete photographer’s toolkit;
• GetPaint.net – you can download it just for free, it is regularly updated, light on computer memory, and can work with most, if not all, image formats;
• Pic Resize – A free and simple online tool for cropping, resizing and adding special effects to images;
• Landscape by Sprout Social – This free tool uses convenient drag-and-drop functionality to help non-technical users resize images for multiple social media platforms and positions in a streamlined.

Little known facts about social media

There are plenty of stats out there to fill you in on all the details of social media, but many of them are, honestly, tedious, and confusing. It takes time to manage more than 2 channels on social media, but with patience and dedication, you can make it. So, let’s see and memorize these following stats:

81% of all small and medium business use 2 or more social media channels;

The average daily time spent on social is around 142 minutes per day;

A recent study shows that over 80% of teenagers felt social media has a positive effect on their lives;

WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger handle 60 billion messages a day;

Around $90 billion was spent on social network advertising in 2019;

Google processes 100 billion searches a month, that’s an average of 40,000 searches every second;

Over 38% of organizations plan to spend more than 20% of their total advertising budget;

A study by AOL/Nielsen showed that 27 million pieces of content were shared every day, and over 3.2 billion images are shared each day;

Facebook is the market leader, roughly 68% of U.S. adults report that they are Facebook users;

73% of marketers believe social media marketing has been very effective for their business;

49% of consumers depend on reviews, on influencer’s recommendations on social media.

Happy Day, my friends 🙂

Peace & Love

The post Social Media | Image sizes list first appeared on WOWLayers: Free WP Templates, Branding & Design Tips to Grow Your Online Business.