SEO
How To Balance SEO And B2B Marketing Goals
Despite the benefits of aligning strategies, marketing and SEO managers don’t always have the same goals when it comes to promoting content, from what I have observed with clients and partners.
Often, SEO professionals are striving to meet their key performance indicators (KPIs) on time, yet depend on the output of the marketing team for success.
Meanwhile, the marketing department strives to deliver a long-term content strategy guided by the broader goals of the CEO and subsequent priorities of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) to advance brand awareness and demand generation strategies, to name but a few.
It is often the macro view of these goals which can lead to SEO not being leveraged to its full potential due to the time taken to yield results or attribute value.
While SEO strategies are often long-term, they are fundamental to maximizing the potential of content marketing and delivering the demand performance to boost exponential growth.
In this article, I present a four-step strategy to align both teams and make sure their goals are met, as well as four best practices to establish harmony between your SEO and marketing efforts.
4-Step Strategy To Balance SEO And B2B Marketing Goals
Avoid ambiguity and establish clear protocols for your creatives to make sure both marketing and SEO goals are met.
1. Create A Brand And Style Guide With SEO In Mind
To ensure SEO and marketing strategies are completely aligned, it is important for brand and style guides to consider SEO.
In other words, rather than SEO being an afterthought, it should be a key component of the marketing process – particularly for content marketing.
Dedicating a chapter to SEO in the brand and content style guides will solidify this relationship and set tasks for SEO pros to advance brand awareness.
This shifts the common “adjust content to rank for SEO” mindset toward the more effective “optimize SEO for marketing” approach, which is especially important for businesses that rely on writers and freelancers to be in charge of their own SEO efforts.
To maintain an amicable tug-of-war between CMO and SEO goals, it is also important for the marketing strategy to allow keywords that rank well but may bend grammatical rules (or not use the C-Suite’s preferred language).
An example is “top of funnel” as an adjective, which ranks better for SEO than the grammatically correct “top-of-funnel.”
Additional tips on what to include in the brand and style guides:
- Suggested and prohibited SEO keyword lists, so managers, new hires, and freelancers can consult the guides easily to avoid ranking for keywords deemed irrelevant.
- List of branded terms that can’t be adjusted for SEO, so the CMO and the marketing team don’t see their strategy impacted by keywords and branded terms that have been “tweaked” to rank better for SEO.
- Key content topics: Define key topics in the guide to advance brand awareness and rank for SEO. Implementing this in the guides (rather than only in a content calendar) makes the content strategy definitive and provides expectations for SEO managers to plan their long-term strategy.
2. Optimize Each Content Asset For SEO And Marketing Goals
Ideally, all content should rank for SEO.
However, the goal of each content piece will likely differ based on the topic covered, its search intent, as well as its role in brand awareness and shaping audience opinion.
Thought leadership, for instance, may present a challenge for implementing SEO, particularly if the author is pitching an innovative, original idea for their audience that has no search intent yet.
In this case, it is better to prioritize “marketing goals” and optimize to boost ranking where possible rather than guide content creation with SEO. This ensures content meets its purpose.
Consider amplifying reach via content syndication and paid media to boost the impact of this content.
On the other hand, content that is highly influenced by search intent, such as FAQs or guides, should focus on SEO first and foremost to inform content creation and rank better for highly-searched queries.
While branding may take a backseat here, it’s important that this content remains aligned.
Thus, to meet both outcomes, planning each piece of content beforehand with a marketing or SEO focus helps to determine KPIs for each asset – as well as guide the production and promotion of content to meet these goals effectively.
However, it is important to strive for harmony between CMO and SEO goals by establishing shared KPIs whenever possible and creating content that advances brand awareness while also ranking for popular queries.
3. Survey Your Audience To Measure The Impact Of SEO On Marketing
Survey your audience to assess if marketing goals are being met with content, as well as the impact of SEO on marketing strategies.
By asking questions about the values your audience associates with your brand as well as the top keywords that come to mind (to evaluate SEO priorities), you can gauge if the overall impression your audience currently forms of your brand is on par with the CMO and marketing team’s goals.
It is important to mention (particularly in this step) that SEO should be seen as a promotion tool for driving brand awareness and long-lasting demand.
Therefore, if the survey results point to values or keywords that are SEO-driven, yet don’t meet marketing expectations, then it is important to adjust the SEO-focused content to deliver the intended brand messaging.
If you wish to test certain assets or topics, then A/B test a “marketing-driven” and “SEO-driven” version to see which engages readers better, as well as survey their brand impressions.
This will provide plenty of intel to guide future content creation for your writers.
4. Create A Content Calendar And Hold Regular Meetings Between Marketing And SEO Managers
After assessing how your audience views your brand, it is time to create a content calendar to address possible unintended brand associations the public has made – all while meeting SEO goals.
Plan your content calendar per quarter, establishing “marketing” and “SEO” goals per topic/asset.
For SEO content, such as pure search intent content, outline the keywords beforehand to avoid unintended off-brand impressions after the content is launched.
As for the marketing content, establish goals for yielding engagement and the purpose of the content (to drive awareness or lead generation, for example), as well as branding goals and promotion methods – since SEO will not be the primary option for driving traffic.
Hold regular meetings between the marketing and SEO managers to discuss the metrics and impressions of the campaign as it is ongoing.
Social listening tools can assess the impact of the content and guide adjustments for writers before the next assets are promoted.
By gauging audience impressions while the campaign is ongoing, it becomes easier to adjust live content on a case-by-case basis, as well as change topics/assets to meet goals in the case of shared KPIs suffering.
4 Best Practices To Maintain Common Ground Between CMO And SEO Needs
Employ these four best practices to maintain harmony between marketing and SEO:
1. Onboard Writers With Marketing And SEO Dos And Don’ts
Onboarding writers, freelance or otherwise, is a crucial task for maintaining brand voice and content goals.
Considering that, it is also important to create an onboarding guide for writers that covers SEO dos and don’ts alongside additional training resources.
Typically, new writers will not be familiar with the minutia of your branding and style guides, so clarifying how to promote brand awareness correctly (such as boilerplate language, product descriptions, recommended adjectives, and allowed/forbidden keywords) will provide guidance for them to meet both marketing and SEO goals.
2. Utilize Social Listening
As mentioned previously, leveraging social listening tools can help to define your audience’s sentiment toward your brand and evaluate the results of your overall messaging.
This, combined with survey feedback, will help you make critical adjustments.
As a result, social listening tools are perhaps the most valuable weapon in your arsenal to balance CMO and SEO needs, so utilize them frequently to collect insights and guide future content creation.
Another approach is to search for your brand name and products on forums and social media channels manually, gaining insights from the way your audience comments on your solutions to evaluate if the discourse is aligned with your intended messaging and current SEO priorities.
3. Develop A Detailed Content Strategy
To meet your overarching content marketing and SEO goals, establish a strategy based on your content calendar to ensure that any content produced has a key role in driving your desired outcomes.
This should include how content pieces interlink and support one another, regardless of whether they are marketing or SEO-driven.
For example, start by defining an innovative thought leadership piece and link this out to supplementary videos, short blog posts, and podcast episodes.
As you analyze the performance of this content piece, you will be able to expand the topic to match the ICP’s buyer journey and search intent.
This could take the shape of a foundational SEO-focused piece for the topic that matches search intent and acts as a hub linking out to all the supplementary content that also ranks for keywords to drive brand traffic.
This strategy, combined with a consistent publishing cadence for your editorial calendar, will ensure that campaigns meet intended marketing and SEO outcomes.
While having content that speaks to marketing and SEO focuses independently, interlinking and guiding content with a long-term strategy is essential.
The best-performing content pieces are those that blend both priorities, establishing harmony between ranking for SEO keywords and leading the way in your industry with innovative thought leadership.
If done successfully, this will build long-term demand generation for your business.
4. Establish Joint Paid Media And Social Media Strategies And Goals
Bridge the gap between CMO and SEO by building upon both focuses with complimentary paid media and social media goals/strategies.
By viewing both as promotion methods for marketing and SEO goals, it is possible to fine-tune when to utilize paid media and social media to boost a variety of content pieces across a campaign that supports both SEO and marketing initiatives.
The more developed your content strategy and calendar, the better interlinked your content will be, facilitating your ability to craft omnichannel campaigns that deliver on all KPIs.
Conclusion
Meeting the demands of both the CMO and SEO manager requires a mindful approach that balances ranking in search engine results pages with promoting positive brand awareness.
This article presents best practices and a four-step strategy to achieve this balance, however, there are additional elements that you can incorporate into your content calendar to better meet CMO and SEO goals.
Developing a content strategy for the top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) stage, where search intent is less niche, is a good example of how to advance brand awareness while ranking for highly searched keywords.
You can then utilize this foundation to incentivize the lead to go through the buyer’s journey and consume thought-provoking, innovative content optimized with more specific keywords that further your marketing efforts.
By considering content marketing and SEO as two sides of the same coin, you can better align content creation to feed into each other, build an overall positive brand experience for your audience, and therefore leverage the full potential of your marketing efforts to drive demand.
More resources:
Featured Image: dzxy/Shutterstock
SEO
Google’s John Mueller On Website Recovery After Core Updates
John Mueller, a Google Search Advocate, provided guidance this week regarding the path forward for websites impacted by recent search algorithm updates.
The discussion started on X (formerly Twitter) by SEO professional Thomas Jepsen.
Jepsen tagged Mueller, asking:
“Google has previously said Google doesn’t hold a grudge and sites will recover once issues have been solved. Is that still the case after HCU?”
Mueller’s response offered hope to site owners while being realistic about the challenges ahead.
Addressing Recovery Timelines
Mueller affirmed Google’s stance on not holding grudges, stating, “That’s still the case.”
However, he acknowledged the complexity of rankings, saying:
“…some things take much longer to be reassessed (sometimes months, at the moment), and some bigger effects require another update cycle.”
That’s still the case. That said, some things take much longer to be reassessed (sometimes months, at the moment), and some bigger effects require another update cycle. https://t.co/WDy7Q4dpzb has some more.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 29, 2024
Mueller pointed to a Google help document explaining the nuances. The document reads:
“Broad core updates tend to happen every few months. Content that was impacted in Search or Discover by one might not recover—assuming improvements have been made—until the next broad core update is released.
Do keep in mind that improvements made by site owners aren’t a guarantee of recovery, nor do pages have any static or guaranteed position in our search results. If there’s more deserving content, that will continue to rank well with our systems.”
The Comments Sparking Debate
Jepsen probed further, asking, “Is a core update what’s needed for HCU-affected sites to recover (assuming they’ve fixed their issues)?”
Mueller’s response highlighted how situations can differ:
“It depends on the situation… I realize there’s a big space between the situations, but generalizing doesn’t help. Sometimes it takes a lot of work on the site, a long time, and an update.”
It depends on the situation. https://t.co/F9s3Hli9t7 and https://t.co/pLdm29PjPD has some on that. I realize there’s a big space between the situations, but generalizing doesn’t help. Sometimes it takes a lot of work on the site, a long time, and an update.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 29, 2024
The thread grew as user @selectgame raised concerns about Google Discover traffic, to which Mueller replied:
“Google Discover is affected by core updates as well as other parts of Search (and there are more policies that apply to Discover).”
Google Discover is affected by core updates as well as other parts of Search (and there are more policies that apply to Discover). If you’re seeing these changes when a core update rolled out, that might be what you’re seeing.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 29, 2024
Growing Frustrations
Prominent industry figure Lily Ray voiced mounting frustrations, stating,
“…many HCU-affected websites – which have been making all kinds of improvements over the last 7 months – have only seen further declines with the March Core Update.
I have seen some sites lose 90% or more of their SEO visibility since the HCU, with the last few weeks being the nail in the coffin, despite making significant improvements.”
Ray continued:
“And in my professional opinion, many of these sites did not deserve anywhere near that level of impact, especially the further declines over the past month.”
Mueller hasn’t responded to Ray’s tweet at this time.
John, any chance you can comment on the fact that many HCU-affected websites – which have been making all kinds of improvements over the last 7 months – have only seen further declines with the March Core Update?
I have seen some sites lose 90% or more of their SEO visibility… https://t.co/lvYRAScRQQ
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) April 29, 2024
Looking Ahead
As the search community awaits Google’s next moves, the path to recovery appears arduous for many impacted by recent algorithm reassessments of “Helpful Content.”
Site improvements don’t guarantee immediate recovery, so publishers face an uphill battle guided only by Google’s ambiguous public advice.
Why SEJ Cares
The March 2024 core update has proven disastrous for many websites, with severe traffic losses persisting even after sites try to improve low-quality content, address technical issues, and realign with Google’s guidelines.
Having clear, actionable guidance from Google on recovering from core update updates is invaluable.
As evidenced by the frustrations expressed, the current communications leave much to be desired regarding transparency and defining a straightforward recovery path.
How This Can Help You
While Mueller’s comments provide some insights, the key takeaways are:
- Regaining previous rankings after an algorithm hit is possible if sufficient content/site quality improvements are made.
- Recovery timelines can vary significantly and may require a future core algorithm update.
- Even with enhancements, recovery isn’t guaranteed as rankings depend on the overall pool of competing content.
The path is undoubtedly challenging, but Mueller’s comments underscore that perseverance with substantial site improvements can eventually pay off.
FAQ
Can SEO professionals predict recovery time for a website hit by core updates?
SEO professionals can’t pinpoint when a site will recover after a core Google algorithm update.
Reasons for this include:
- Google releases core updates every few months, so sites may need to wait for the next one.
- It can take months for Google to reassess and adjust rankings.
- How competitive the query is also impacts if and when a site recovers.
Does making site improvements after a core update ensure recovery in rankings and visibility?
After making improvements following a Google algorithm update, regaining your previous rankings isn’t guaranteed.
Reasons why include:
- Your impacted content may not recover until the next core update, provided you’ve implemented enough site improvements.
- Google’s search results are dynamic, and rankings can fluctuate based on the quality of competitor content.
- There’s no fixed or guaranteed position in Google’s search results.
What is the relationship between Google Discover traffic and core search updates?
Google’s core algorithm updates that impact regular search results also affect Google Discover.
However, Google Discover has additional specific policies that determine what content appears there.
This means:
- Improving your content and website quality can boost your visibility on Google Discover, just like regular searches.
- You may see changes in your Discover traffic when Google rolls out core updates.
- Your SEO and content strategy should account for potential impacts on regular searches and Google Discover.
Featured Image: eamesBot/Shutterstock
SEO
5 Things To Consider Before A Site Migration
One of the scariest SEO tasks is a site migration because the stakes are so high and the pitfalls at every step . Here are five tips that will help keep a site migration on track to a successful outcome.
Site Migrations Are Not One Thing
Site Migrations are not one thing, they are actually different scenarios and the only thing they have in common is that there is always something that can go wrong.
Here are examples of some of the different kinds of site migrations:
- Migration to a new template
- Migrating to a new web host
- Merging two different websites
- Migrating to a new domain name
- Migrating to a new site architecture
- Migrating to a new content management system (CMS)
- Migrating to a new WordPress site builder
There are many ways a site can change and more ways for those changes to result in a negative outcome.
The following is not a site migration checklist. It’s five suggestions for things to consider.
1. Prepare For Migration: Download Everything
Rule number one is to prepare for the site migration. One of my big concerns is that the old version of the website is properly documented.
These are some of the ways to document a website:
- Download the database and save it in at least two places. I like to have a backup of the backup stored on a second device.
- Download all the website files. Again, I prefer to save a backup of the backup stored on a second device.
- Crawl the site, save the crawl and export it as a CSV or an XML site map. I prefer to have redundant backups just in case something goes wrong.
An important thing to remember about downloading files by FTP is that there are two formats for downloading files: ASCII and Binary.
- Use ASCII for downloading files that contain code, like CSS, JS, PHP and HTML.
- Use Binary for media like images, videos and zip files.
Fortunately, most modern FTP software have an automatic setting that should be able to distinguish between the two kinds of files. A sad thing that can happen is to download image files using the ASCII format which results in corrupted images.
So always check that your files are all properly downloaded and not in a corrupted state. Always consider downloading a copy for yourself if you have hired a third party to handle the migration or a client is doing it and they’re downloading files. That way if they fail with their download you’ll have an uncorrupted copy backed up.
The most important rule about backups: You can never have too many backups!
2. Crawl The Website
Do a complete crawl of the website. Create a backup of the crawl. Then create a backup of the backup and store it on a separate hard drive.
After the site migration, this crawl data can be used to generate a new list for crawling the old URLs to identify any URLs that are missing (404), are failing to redirect, or are redirecting to the wrong webpage. Screaming Frog also has a list mode that can crawl a list of URLs saved in different formats, including as an XML sitemap, and directly input into a text field. This is a way to crawl a specific batch of URLs as opposed to crawling a site from link to to link.
3. Tips For Migrating To A New Template
Website redesigns can be can be a major source of anguish when they go wrong. On paper, migrating a site to a new template should be a one-to-one change with minimal issues. In practice that’s not always the case. For one, no template can be used off the shelf, it has to be modified to conform to what’s needed, which can mean removing and/or altering the code.
Search marketing expert Nigel Mordaunt (LinkedIn), who recently sold his search marketing agency, has experience migrating over a hundred sites and has important considerations for migrating to a new WordPress template.
This is Nigel’s advice:
“Check that all images have the same URL, alt text and image titles, especially if you’re using new images.
Templates sometimes have hard-coded heading elements, especially in the footer and sidebars. Those should be styled with CSS, not with H tags. I had this problem with a template once where the ranks had moved unexpectedly, then found that the Contact Us and other navigation links were all marked up to H2. I think that was more of a problem a few years ago. But still, some themes have H tags hard coded in places that aren’t ideal.
Make sure that all URLs are the exact same, a common mistake. Also, if planning to change content then check that the staging environment has been noindexed then after the site goes live make sure that the newly uploaded live site no longer contains the noindex robots meta tag.
If changing content then be prepared the site to perhaps be re-evaluated by Google. Depending on the size of the site, even if the changes are positive it may take several weeks to be rewarded, and in some cases several months. The client needs to be informed of this before the migration.
Also, check that analytics and tracking codes have been inserted into the new site, review all image sizes to make sure there are no new images that are huge and haven’t been scaled down. You can easily check the image sizes and heading tags with a post-migration Screaming Frog crawl. I can’t imagine doing any kind of site migration without Screaming Frog.”
4. Advice For Migrating To A New Web Host
Mark Barrera (LinkedIn), VP SEO, Newfold Digital (parent company of Bluehost), had this to say about crawling before a site migration in preparation for a migration to a new web host:
“Thoroughly crawl your existing site to identify any indexing or technical SEO issues prior to the move.
Maintain URL Structure (If Possible): Changing URL structures can confuse search engines and damage your link equity. If possible, keep your URLs the same.
301 Redirects: 301 Redirects are your friend. Search engines need to be informed that your old content now lives at a new address. Implementing 301 redirects from any old URLs to their new counterparts preserves link equity and avoids 404 errors for both users and search engine crawlers.
Performance Optimization: Ensure your new host provides a fast and reliable experience. Site speed is important for user experience.
Be sure to do a final walkthrough of your new site before doing your actual cutover. Visually double-check your homepage, any landing pages, and your most popular search hits. Review any checkout/cart flows, comment/review chains, images, and any outbound links to your other sites or your partners.
SSL Certificate: A critical but sometimes neglected aspect of hosting migrations is the SSL certificate setup. Ensuring that your new host supports and correctly implements your existing SSL certificate—or provides a new one without causing errors is vital. SSL/TLS not only secures your site but also impacts SEO. Any misconfiguration during migration can lead to warnings in browsers, which deter visitors and can temporarily impact rankings.
Post migration, it’s crucial to benchmark server response times not just from one location, but regionally or globally, especially if your audience is international. Sometimes, a new hosting platform might show great performance in one area but lag in other parts of the world. Such discrepancies can affect page load times, influencing bounce rates and search rankings. “
5. Accept Limitations
Ethan Lazuk, SEO Strategist & Consultant, Ethan Lazuk Consulting, LLC, (LinkedIn, Twitter) offers an interesting perspective on site migrations on the point about anticipating client limitations imposed upon what you are able to do. It can be frustrating when a client pushes back on advice and it’s important to listen to their reasons for doing it.
I have consulted over Zoom with companies whose SEO departments had concerns about what an external SEO wanted to do. Seeking a third party confirmation about a site migration plan is a reasonable thing to do. So if the internal SEO department has concerns about the plan, it’s not a bad idea to have a trustworthy third party take a look at it.
Ethan shared his experience:
“The most memorable and challenging site migrations I’ve been a part of involved business decisions that I had no control over.
As SEOs, we can create a smart migration plan. We can follow pre- and post-launch checklists, but sometimes, there are legal restrictions or other business realities behind the scenes that we have to work around.
Not having access to a DNS, being restricted from using a brand’s name or certain content, having to use an intermediate domain, and having to work days, weeks, or months afterward to resolve any issues once the internal business situations have changed are just a few of the tricky migration issues I’ve encountered.
The best way to handle these situations require working around client restrictions is to button up the SEO tasks you can control, set honest expectations for how the business issues could impact performance after the migration, and stay vigilant with monitoring post-launch data and using it to advocate for resources you need to finish the job.”
Different Ways To Migrate A Website
Site migrations are a pain and should be approached with caution. I’ve done many different kinds of migrations for myself and have assisted them with clients. I’m currently moving thousands of webpages from a folder to the root and it’s complicated by multiple redirects that have to be reconfigured, not looking forward to it. But migrations are sometimes unavoidable so it’s best to step up to it after careful consideration.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Krakenimages.com
SEO
Studio By WordPress & Other Free Tools
WordPress announced the rollout of Studio by WordPress, a new local development tool that makes it easy for publishers to not just develop and update websites locally on their desktop or laptop but is also useful for learning how to use WordPress. Learn about Studio and other platforms that are make it easy to develop websites with WordPress right on your desktop.
Local Development Environments
Local Environments are like web hosting spaces on the desktop that can be used to set up a WordPress site. They’re a fantastic way to try out new WordPress themes and plugins to learn how they work without messing up a live website or publishing something to the web that might get accidentally indexed by Google. They are also useful for testing if an updated plugin causes a conflict with other plugins on a website, which is useful for testing updated plugins offline before committing to updating the plugins on a live website.
Studio joins a list of popular local development environments that are specific for WordPress and more advanced platforms that are that can be used for WordPress on the desktop but have greater flexibility and options but may be harder to use for non-developers.
Desktop WordPress Development Environments
There are currently a few local environments that are specific to WordPress. The advantages of using a dedicated WordPress environment is that they make it easy to start creating with WordPress for those who only need to work with WordPress sites and nothing more complicated than that.
Studio By WordPress.com
Studio is an open source project that allows developers and publishers to set up a WordPress site on their desktop in order to design, test or learn how to use WordPress.
According to the WordPress announcement:
“Say goodbye to manual tool configuration, slow site setup, and clunky local development workflows, and say hello to Studio by WordPress.com, our new, free, open source local WordPress development environment.
Once you have a local site running, you can access WP Admin, the Site Editor, global styles, and patterns, all with just one click—and without needing to remember and enter a username or password.”
The goal of Studio is to be a simple and fast way to create WordPress sites on the desktop. It’s currently available for use on a Mac and a Windows version is coming soon.
Download the Mac version here.
Other Popular WordPress Local Development Environments
DevKinsta
DevKinsta, developed by Kinsta managed web host, is another development environment that’s specifically dedicated for quickly designing and testing WordPress sites on the desktop. It’s a popular choice that many developers endorse.
That makes it a great tool for publishers, SEOs and developers who just want a tool to do one thing, create WordPress sites. This makes DevKinsta a solid consideration for anyone who is serious about developing WordPress sites or just wants to learn how to use WordPress, especially the latest Gutenberg Blocks environment.
Download DevKinsta for free here.
Local WP
Local WP is a popular desktop development environment specifically made for WordPress users by WP Engine, a managed WordPress hosting provider.
Useful Features of Local WP
Local WP has multiple features that make it useful beyond simply developing and testing WordPress websites.
- Image Optimizer
It features a free image optimizer add-on that optimizes images on your desktop which should be popular for those who are unable to optimize images on their own. - Upload Backups
Another handy feature is the ability to upload backups to Dropbox and Google Drive. - Link Checker
The tool has a built-in link checker that scans your local version of the website to identify broken links. This is a great way to check a site offline without using server resources and potentially slowing down your live site. - Import & Export Sites
This has the super-handy ability to import WordPress website files and export them so that you can work on your current WordPress site on your desktop, test out new plugins or themes and if you’re ready you can upload the files to your website.
Advanced Local Development Environments
There are other local development environments that are not specific for WordPress but are nonetheless useful for designing and testing WordPress sites on the desktop. These tools are more advanced and are popular with developers who appreciate the freedom and options available in these platforms.
DDEV with Docker
An open source app that makes it easy to use the Docker software containerization to quickly install a content management system and start working, without having to deal with the Docker learning curve.
Download DDEV With Docker here.
Laragon
Laragon is a free local development environment that was recommended to me by someone who is an advanced coder because they said that it’s easy to use and fairly intuitive. They were right. I’ve used it and have had good experiences with it. It’s not a WordPress-specific tool so that must be kept in mind.
Laragon describes itself as an easy to use alternative to XXAMPP and WAMP.
Mamp
Mamp is a local development platform that’s popular with advanced coders and is available for Mac and Windows.
David McCan (Facebook profile), a WordPress trainer who writes about advanced WordPress topics on WebTNG shared his experience with MAMP.
“MAMP is pretty easy to setup and it provides a full range of features. I currently have 51 local sites which are development versions of my production sites, that I use for testing plugins, and periodically use for new beta versions of WordPress core. It is easy to clone sites also. I haven’t noticed any system slowdown or lag.”
WAMP And XAMPP
WAMP is a Windows only development environment that’s popular with developers and WordPress theme and plugin publishers.
XAMPP is a PHP development platform that can be used on Linux, Mac, and Windows desktops.
So Many Local Development Platforms
Studio by WordPress.com is an exciting new local development platform and I’m looking forward to trying it out. But it’s not the only one so it may be useful to try out different solutions to see which one works best for you.
Read more about Studio by WordPress:
Meet Studio by WordPress.com—a fast, free way to develop locally with WordPress
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Wpadington
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