[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":4152},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fchoosing-website-hosting":3,"blog-related-\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fchoosing-website-hosting":246},{"id":4,"title":5,"body":6,"category":234,"date":235,"description":236,"extension":237,"image":238,"meta":239,"navigation":240,"path":241,"readingTime":242,"seo":243,"stem":244,"updated":238,"video":238,"__hash__":245},"blog_en\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fchoosing-website-hosting.md","Website Hosting: How to Choose, What to Watch For, and When It's the Real Problem",{"type":7,"value":8,"toc":222},"minimark",[9,13,18,21,28,34,40,46,50,64,67,73,77,128,132,138,144,150,156,160,168,172,175,178,182,185,199,207,211,214],[10,11,12],"p",{},"Hosting is the least exciting decision in a website project, which is why it usually gets made in ten seconds, on price. A year later it introduces itself properly: the site opens slowly, the backup turns out not to exist, and support answers within two days. If the website is your business on the internet, hosting is the apartment it lives in — and it's worth knowing what you're actually renting.",[14,15,17],"h2",{"id":16},"what-youre-actually-buying-when-you-buy-hosting","What you're actually buying when you buy hosting",[10,19,20],{},"Four housing arrangements, in human language:",[10,22,23,27],{},[24,25,26],"strong",{},"Shared hosting."," A flatshare: hundreds of sites on the same server, sharing CPU, memory, and a queue. Cheap, and usually enough for a brochure site — as long as the neighbours stay quiet. When one of them lands a viral campaign or an infection, everyone feels it.",[10,29,30,33],{},[24,31,32],{},"Managed WordPress hosting."," Renting with a building committee: the provider maintains the server, updates, backs up, and keeps a cache for you. More expensive, and in return someone else gets up at night when something falls over.",[10,35,36,39],{},[24,37,38],{},"A private server (VPS)."," Your own place: fixed resources no neighbour can steal. But you're also the plumber and the electrician — without someone actually maintaining it, a VPS is just a more expensive way to neglect a server.",[10,41,42,45],{},[24,43,44],{},"A static site on a CDN."," Not an apartment at all — more on that below, because it's the option worth knowing about.",[14,47,49],{"id":48},"the-one-minute-test-that-exposes-tired-hosting","The one-minute test that exposes tired hosting",[10,51,52,53,57,58,63],{},"Before blaming the images or the plugins, check one thing: how long the server takes to ",[54,55,56],"em",{},"start"," answering. The metric is called TTFB — the time from the browser requesting the page until the first character arrives. Every other optimisation only begins after it finishes, and I covered it in ",[59,60,62],"a",{"href":61},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fpagespeed-100-guide","the speed guide",".",[10,65,66],{},"The home version of the test: open your site in the morning, after a night with no visitors. If the first visit is slow and the refresh right after is fast, your server \"fell asleep\" or is queuing behind the neighbours. That's almost always a sign of oversold shared hosting, and no amount of image compression will fix it.",[68,69,70],"blockquote",{},[10,71,72],{},"Good hosting won't save a heavy site. Bad hosting will bury an excellent one.",[14,74,76],{"id":75},"seven-things-to-check-before-signing","Seven things to check before signing",[78,79,80,87,98,104,110,116,122],"ol",{},[81,82,83,86],"li",{},[24,84,85],{},"Where the server sits."," An audience in Israel and a server in the US means every request crosses an ocean, twice. Look for a nearby server, or a CDN that serves content from a close edge.",[81,88,89,92,93,97],{},[24,90,91],{},"Backups — and not just that they exist."," Automatic, stored off the server, with a simple way to restore on your own. A backup sitting on the same server ",[59,94,96],{"href":95},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fwordpress-site-hacked-what-to-do","gets infected along with it",", and a backup you can't restore is hope, not a backup.",[81,99,100,103],{},[24,101,102],{},"Current versions."," PHP and the database on supported versions, with one-click upgrades. A provider running five-year-old versions is saving money at the expense of your security.",[81,105,106,109],{},[24,107,108],{},"SSL included."," An HTTPS certificate is basic infrastructure, not a \"premium add-on\". A provider that charges separately for it is telling you something about itself.",[81,111,112,115],{},[24,113,114],{},"A staging environment."," The ability to spin up a copy of the site, try an update or a change on it, and only then touch the live site.",[81,117,118,121],{},[24,119,120],{},"Support you can measure."," Not \"24\u002F7 support\" in the headline, but: how fast does a human answer, and in what language. Send a question before you're a customer — the answer teaches you more than any sales page.",[81,123,124,127],{},[24,125,126],{},"Isolation between sites."," On shared hosting, what happens when a neighbouring site gets hacked? Serious providers isolate accounts; the very cheap ones don't always.",[14,129,131],{"id":130},"what-sounds-important-and-isnt","What sounds important — and isn't",[10,133,134,137],{},[24,135,136],{},"\"Unlimited hosting.\""," There is always a limit; it's just written in a different clause, in terms like inodes or \"fair CPU use\". A normal business site never gets near the disk limits — it chokes on CPU and memory, which are exactly the resources nobody promises anything about.",[10,139,140,143],{},[24,141,142],{},"Hundreds of gigabytes of storage."," An optimised brochure site weighs less than one video from your phone. Storage is the easiest number to print and the least relevant one.",[10,145,146,149],{},[24,147,148],{},"\"Specially optimised for WordPress.\""," Sometimes it means a well-configured cache and automatic updates; sometimes it means a WordPress logo on the sales page. The difference shows up in the questions from the previous section, not in the headline.",[10,151,152,155],{},[24,153,154],{},"The control panel."," cPanel, Plesk, or a home-grown interface — if you log in twice a year, you won't feel the difference.",[14,157,159],{"id":158},"whose-name-is-on-the-account","Whose name is on the account",[10,161,162,163,167],{},"The rule from ",[59,164,166],{"href":165},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fwho-owns-your-website","the ownership guide"," applies here too: the hosting account is registered in your name, paid by you, and the developer gets access — not ownership. The day you want to switch providers or developers is not the day to discover the site lives in someone else's apartment.",[14,169,171],{"id":170},"the-option-fewer-people-know-a-static-site-on-a-cdn","The option fewer people know: a static site on a CDN",[10,173,174],{},"Most brochure sites don't actually need a server assembling every page on every visit. You can build the pages once, in advance, and distribute them as ready files across a global CDN. The result: no server to get tired, no database to break into, no queue behind noisy neighbours — and the site opens fast from anywhere.",[10,176,177],{},"The site you're reading right now is built exactly this way, and it's part of why it scores 100 on speed metrics without heroics. It doesn't fit everything — a store with live inventory or a members' area needs a server — but for a business site that presents services and collects enquiries, it's usually the fastest and most resilient option, and often the cheaper one.",[14,179,181],{"id":180},"switching-hosts-without-drama","Switching hosts without drama",[10,183,184],{},"Decided to move? The order matters more than the speed:",[78,186,187,190,193,196],{},[81,188,189],{},"Bring up a full copy of the site at the new provider and test it on a temporary address — forms, Hebrew, images.",[81,191,192],{},"Lower the TTL of your DNS records in advance, so the switch propagates quickly.",[81,194,195],{},"Point the domain at the new server — preferably at a quiet hour.",[81,197,198],{},"Keep the old server alive for a few more days, in case something was forgotten.",[10,200,201,202,206],{},"And if the move is not just a server but a platform too — that's where 301 redirects and a URL map come in, and I wrote ",[59,203,205],{"href":204},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fmigrate-to-wordpress-without-losing-google","a separate guide"," on it.",[14,208,210],{"id":209},"bottom-line","Bottom line",[10,212,213],{},"Hosting is not the place to pinch pennies, but it's also not the place to pay for meaningless numbers. A server near your audience, a backup that restores, current versions, and support that answers — that's the whole story, and it costs less than it seems.",[10,215,216,217,221],{},"Not sure what your current hosting is doing to your site? ",[59,218,220],{"href":219},"\u002Fen\u002Fcontact","Send me the address"," — I'll check and tell you whether the problem is the apartment or the furniture, including the answer \"your hosting is fine, keep it\".",{"title":223,"searchDepth":224,"depth":224,"links":225},"",2,[226,227,228,229,230,231,232,233],{"id":16,"depth":224,"text":17},{"id":48,"depth":224,"text":49},{"id":75,"depth":224,"text":76},{"id":130,"depth":224,"text":131},{"id":158,"depth":224,"text":159},{"id":170,"depth":224,"text":171},{"id":180,"depth":224,"text":181},{"id":209,"depth":224,"text":210},"Technology","2026-09-06","How to choose website hosting: a one-minute test that exposes a slow server, seven checks before signing, and when a static site is the better answer.","md",null,{},true,"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fchoosing-website-hosting",6,{"title":5,"description":236},"en\u002Fblog\u002Fchoosing-website-hosting","cRUU2UoQZfJSSoDvsFXHLUquID7tGLM7dUPu_jpzILE",[247,520,718,848,1253,1487,1775,2098,2315,2718,3088,3256,3554,3810],{"id":248,"title":249,"body":250,"category":504,"date":505,"description":506,"extension":237,"image":507,"meta":508,"navigation":240,"path":509,"readingTime":510,"seo":511,"stem":512,"updated":513,"video":514,"__hash__":519},"blog_en\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Faccessibility-demand-letter-what-to-do.md","Got a Website Accessibility Complaint? What to Do in the First Week",{"type":7,"value":251,"toc":489},[252,255,258,264,268,274,285,291,295,300,303,307,310,343,352,355,359,365,368,372,375,401,406,410,413,417,420,424,427,430,434,437,443,449,455,461,467,471,474,482],[10,253,254],{},"It almost always starts in the same order: first the letter arrives, and then the question — \"but we have an accessibility widget on the site, don't we?\"",[10,256,257],{},"So first — breathe. This isn't the end of the world, and it also isn't something you fix in ten minutes. Here's the order the steps are worth doing in, one after another.",[10,259,260,263],{},[24,261,262],{},"One clarification before we start:"," I'm a developer, not a lawyer. Everything here is the technical side of the story — what's broken on the site and how it gets fixed. For the legal side you'll want someone who does that for a living, and preferably early rather than late.",[14,265,267],{"id":266},"three-things-not-to-do-in-the-first-moment","Three Things Not to Do in the First Moment",[10,269,270,273],{},[24,271,272],{},"Don't take the site offline."," That's the instinctive reaction for a lot of business owners — no site, no problem. In practice you've done two kinds of damage: you've lost the traffic and the leads, and you've also erased your own best record of what the site actually looked like at the moment of the complaint.",[10,275,276,279,280,284],{},[24,277,278],{},"Don't install a floating widget and declare it fixed."," This is the biggest temptation, because it takes five minutes and comes with an icon that looks official. The problem is that a widget hovering above your site doesn't change the code underneath it, and anyone reviewing the site seriously will see that within a minute. I went into this in depth in ",[59,281,283],{"href":282},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fisraeli-website-accessibility-law","the guide to Israel's accessibility law",", but the bottom line is simple: the widget adds a layer, it doesn't repair the one below it.",[10,286,287,290],{},[24,288,289],{},"Don't ignore it."," A complaint that goes unanswered doesn't disappear, and it doesn't improve with age either. Even if your answer is \"we're reviewing this and will come back to you,\" it's better that it goes out.",[14,292,294],{"id":293},"what-to-do-in-order","What to Do, in Order",[296,297,299],"h3",{"id":298},"_1-document-the-current-state-today","1. Document the Current State, Today",[10,301,302],{},"Before anyone touches a line of code — screenshots of the main pages, desktop and mobile, with the date. If you have access to Google Analytics or Search Console, export the period as well. It sounds bureaucratic, but the moment you start fixing things the previous state disappears, and you will want to be able to show what was there and what you changed.",[296,304,306],{"id":305},"_2-find-whats-actually-broken-not-what-the-tool-says","2. Find What's Actually Broken, Not What the Tool Says",[10,308,309],{},"Automated tools (Lighthouse, axe, WAVE) are a good starting point, but they only catch a portion of the problems. The checks that surface most of what matters need no tools at all:",[311,312,313,319,325,331,337],"ul",{},[81,314,315,318],{},[24,316,317],{},"Keyboard only."," Unplug the mouse. Can you reach every link, every button and every form field with Tab? Can you see where the focus is at any given moment? Can you close a popup without a mouse?",[81,320,321,324],{},[24,322,323],{},"Zoom to 200%."," Does the text grow, or does everything break?",[81,326,327,330],{},[24,328,329],{},"Forms."," Does every field have a permanent label, or just a placeholder that vanishes the moment you start typing? Do error messages say what exactly went wrong?",[81,332,333,336],{},[24,334,335],{},"Images."," Do images that carry information have real alternative text, or \"image1.jpg\"?",[81,338,339,342],{},[24,340,341],{},"Video."," Are there captions?",[344,345],"blog-video",{"captions":346,"height":347,"poster":348,"src":349,"title":350,"width":351},"\u002Fvideos\u002Fkeyboard-only-demo.he.vtt",720,"\u002Fvideos\u002Fkeyboard-only-demo-poster.webp","\u002Fvideos\u002Fkeyboard-only-demo.mp4","Demo: the same two forms, keyboard only",1280,[10,353,354],{},"Write down everything that fails, in one list. That list is worth more than any automated report, because it describes what a real person experiences.",[296,356,358],{"id":357},"_3-understand-the-gap-against-the-requirement","3. Understand the Gap Against the Requirement",[360,361],"blog-figure",{"alt":362,"caption":363,"height":347,"src":364,"width":351},"Two identical-looking forms: broken and accessible — the live demo on the accessibility-check page","The live demo on this site — try it yourself","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Faccessibility-demand-letter-what-to-do\u002Fdemo-forms.webp",[10,366,367],{},"In Israel the relevant standard is IS 5568, which is based on WCAG 2.1 level AA. It isn't a document you need to read cover to cover — you need to know which clauses actually touch your site. A five-page brochure site and an accessible store checkout are two jobs of completely different scale.",[296,369,371],{"id":370},"_4-fix-it-in-code-in-priority-order","4. Fix It in Code, in Priority Order",[10,373,374],{},"Not all fixes are equal. If you have two weeks, this is the order I work in:",[78,376,377,383,389,395],{},[81,378,379,382],{},[24,380,381],{},"Hard blockers"," — anything that prevents completing an action: a form you can't fill in by keyboard, a popup that won't close, a menu that won't open.",[81,384,385,388],{},[24,386,387],{},"Navigation and structure"," — correct heading hierarchy, consistent navigation, a focus state you can see.",[81,390,391,394],{},[24,392,393],{},"Forms"," — labels, error messages, and the link between a field and its error.",[81,396,397,400],{},[24,398,399],{},"Contrast and alt text"," — the easiest to fix, which is exactly why people start here. Don't start here.",[68,402,403],{},[10,404,405],{},"A good accessibility fix doesn't add a layer on top of the site. It changes the site itself, which is also why it doesn't vanish with the next template update.",[296,407,409],{"id":408},"_5-a-real-accessibility-statement","5. A Real Accessibility Statement",[10,411,412],{},"Not a template you downloaded and swapped the company name into. A statement that describes the actual situation: what has been made accessible, what hasn't yet, how to contact you about it, and when it was last updated. A statement promising full accessibility on a site that isn't accessible is a problem in its own right.",[296,414,416],{"id":415},"_6-keep-a-record-of-what-was-fixed-and-when","6. Keep a Record of What Was Fixed and When",[10,418,419],{},"The list of fixes, the dates, and a re-test at the end. If the process drags on, being able to show that you acted methodically and immediately — rather than six months later — is worth a great deal.",[14,421,423],{"id":422},"how-long-this-takes","How Long This Takes",[10,425,426],{},"Entirely dependent on what you found in step 2. A standard brochure site without complex forms is usually a matter of days. A site with a customer account area, a store or a booking system is a matter of weeks, because every screen that involves user input needs checking on its own.",[10,428,429],{},"That said — the overwhelming majority of problems I find are repeats: the same forms, the same popups, the same menus. Once they're fixed at the template level, they close across the whole site at once.",[14,431,433],{"id":432},"how-to-know-you-actually-closed-it","How to Know You Actually Closed It",[10,435,436],{},"This is the part most people skip, and then discover six months later that the fix didn't hold. Re-testing isn't a formality — it's what turns \"we fixed it\" into \"we can show we fixed it\".",[10,438,439,442],{},[24,440,441],{},"Run the same list from step 2, from the top."," Same checks, same pages, after the work. If a check that failed before passes now, note the date. If it still fails, it isn't fixed, no matter who said it was.",[10,444,445,448],{},[24,446,447],{},"Test journeys, not just individual pages."," Accessibility breaks between pages rather than inside them: homepage, through the form, to the thank-you screen. If you couldn't finish the journey by keyboard alone, it isn't accessible, even if every page passes on its own.",[10,450,451,454],{},[24,452,453],{},"Check on a real device, not only in a tool."," A green automated report after the fix is a good sign, not proof. Five minutes with a keyboard and with text enlarged tells you more.",[10,456,457,460],{},[24,458,459],{},"Keep the result in writing."," What was checked, when, what was found, what was fixed. A one-page document. If the process drags on, that's precisely the document showing you acted methodically.",[10,462,463,466],{},[24,464,465],{},"Set a date for the next check."," Accessibility isn't a state, it's maintenance: every new page, banner, plugin and theme change can break it again. Once a quarter is a sensible rhythm for most sites.",[14,468,470],{"id":469},"the-bottom-line","The Bottom Line",[10,472,473],{},"The complaint isn't the problem, it's the moment the problem became visible. The site wasn't accessible the week before either — nobody had put it in writing.",[10,475,476,477,481],{},"The worst thing you can do right now is look for whichever fix appears fastest. The best thing is to go over the site properly once, fix it in code, and come out of it with a site that genuinely meets the requirement — including an ",[59,478,480],{"href":479},"\u002Fen\u002Fservices\u002Fweb-accessibility","accessibility statement"," you can stand behind.",[10,483,484,485,488],{},"Got a complaint and you're not sure where your site stands? ",[59,486,487],{"href":219},"Send me the URL"," — I'll go through it and tell you what's broken, what's critical, and what can be fixed this week.",{"title":223,"searchDepth":224,"depth":224,"links":490},[491,492,501,502,503],{"id":266,"depth":224,"text":267},{"id":293,"depth":224,"text":294,"children":493},[494,496,497,498,499,500],{"id":298,"depth":495,"text":299},3,{"id":305,"depth":495,"text":306},{"id":357,"depth":495,"text":358},{"id":370,"depth":495,"text":371},{"id":408,"depth":495,"text":409},{"id":415,"depth":495,"text":416},{"id":422,"depth":224,"text":423},{"id":432,"depth":224,"text":433},{"id":469,"depth":224,"text":470},"Accessibility","2026-08-10","An accessibility complaint about your site: what not to do first, how to find what's actually broken, why a widget won't save you, and what to document.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Faccessibility-demand-letter-what-to-do\u002Fog-en.jpg",{},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Faccessibility-demand-letter-what-to-do",7,{"title":249,"description":506},"en\u002Fblog\u002Faccessibility-demand-letter-what-to-do","2026-08-12",{"src":349,"poster":348,"captions":346,"duration":515,"uploadDate":516,"name":517,"description":518},"PT23S","2026-08-30","Demo: filling a form by keyboard only — broken vs accessible","23 seconds showing what happens when you leave the mouse: in an inaccessible form the focus vanishes and the button can't be reached; in an accessible one everything works. The difference a floating widget can't fix.","0iYbj5o-d1nNOOoBmtodFa-tyoQL0cVSwlQ-WDelk2s",{"id":521,"title":522,"body":523,"category":709,"date":513,"description":710,"extension":237,"image":711,"meta":712,"navigation":240,"path":713,"readingTime":242,"seo":714,"stem":715,"updated":716,"video":238,"__hash__":717},"blog_en\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-long-does-a-website-take.md","How Long Does a Website Take? The Honest Answer, by Type of Site",{"type":7,"value":524,"toc":701},[525,528,531,535,538,574,577,581,584,590,596,602,608,614,619,623,629,635,641,647,653,657,660,666,676,682,686,689,691,694],[10,526,527],{},"\"How long will it take?\" is always the second question, right after \"what does it cost\". And the honest answer — the one nobody likes giving — is that the part which depends on me is usually the shorter one.",[10,529,530],{},"I can tell you exactly how long my work takes. What I can't promise is how long it'll take you to settle on the headline for your homepage. And in most projects that run longer than expected, that's precisely where the clock stopped.",[14,532,534],{"id":533},"the-ranges-without-the-gloss","The Ranges, Without the Gloss",[10,536,537],{},"From the moment content and branding are in hand — not \"roughly\", actually in hand:",[311,539,540,546,552,558,568],{},[81,541,542,545],{},[24,543,544],{},"Landing page"," — 3 to 7 working days. One page, one message, one form.",[81,547,548,551],{},[24,549,550],{},"Small brochure site"," (4–6 pages) — around two to three weeks.",[81,553,554,557],{},[24,555,556],{},"Brochure site with a CMS"," you update yourself — three to five weeks, depending on how many content types there are.",[81,559,560,563,564,63],{},[24,561,562],{},"Online store"," — a month and up, often more. Not because of the design, but because of what's wired into it: payments, invoicing, delivery, stock. Each of those connections is a test in its own right, and I went into why in ",[59,565,567],{"href":566},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fshopify-vs-woocommerce-israel","the stores guide",[81,569,570,573],{},[24,571,572],{},"Making an existing site accessible"," — days to weeks, entirely dependent on what the first audit turns up.",[10,575,576],{},"Note the opening condition: \"from the moment content and branding are in hand\". That isn't a footnote, it's the clause that decides everything.",[14,578,580],{"id":579},"what-actually-causes-delays-and-its-almost-never-the-code","What Actually Causes Delays — and It's Almost Never the Code",[10,582,583],{},"Here's what holds projects up in practice, in order of how often it happens:",[10,585,586,589],{},[24,587,588],{},"1. There's no content."," A site skeleton sits finished, waiting three weeks for copy. This is the number one cause, by a wide margin.",[10,591,592,595],{},[24,593,594],{},"2. There are no images, or the images are bad."," Blurry phone shots of the product, a logo that exists only as a small JPG from 2014, and not one photo of the team. Good photography changes a site more than any effect.",[10,597,598,601],{},[24,599,600],{},"3. Too many decision-makers."," When four people must approve every headline, each round takes a week. A project with one contact who decides moves twice as fast.",[10,603,604,607],{},[24,605,606],{},"4. A change of direction mid-way."," \"Actually, should we add a store too?\" Entirely legitimate — but it's a different project, and it's worth saying so out loud rather than discovering it in the schedule.",[10,609,610,613],{},[24,611,612],{},"5. Access and credentials."," Who owns the domain? Who holds the hosting account? The answer \"oh, the guy who built our site six years ago\" easily adds a week.",[68,615,616],{},[10,617,618],{},"Projects almost never run late because the code was too hard. They run late waiting for the copy for an About page.",[14,620,622],{"id":621},"how-to-actually-shorten-it","How to Actually Shorten It",[10,624,625,628],{},[24,626,627],{},"Prepare the content before starting."," Even a rough draft. Editing an existing sentence is far easier than inventing one against a blank page.",[10,630,631,634],{},[24,632,633],{},"Appoint one decision-maker."," Everyone else can comment, but one person closes. That single change shortens timelines more than anything else.",[10,636,637,640],{},[24,638,639],{},"Gather the access up front."," Domain, hosting, Google account, brand assets. Five minutes now, a week saved later.",[10,642,643,646],{},[24,644,645],{},"Agree what's in the first version."," A live site with four good pages beats a perfect site that doesn't exist yet. The rest gets added afterwards.",[10,648,649,652],{},[24,650,651],{},"Book a photographer, if there's budget."," One shoot day does more for a site than two weeks of design polish.",[14,654,656],{"id":655},"the-day-after-launch-isnt-the-finish-line","The Day After: Launch Isn't the Finish Line",[10,658,659],{},"A common planning mistake is counting up to launch day and stopping there. There's another week or two of things that happen afterwards, and they belong inside the plan:",[10,661,662,665],{},[24,663,664],{},"Connecting the domain."," A DNS change usually propagates within hours but can take up to a day, depending on the provider. Don't schedule a launch for the hour a campaign is already running.",[10,667,668,671,672,63],{},[24,669,670],{},"Google doesn't see you on day one."," Indexing a new site takes days to weeks. Submit the sitemap, request indexing for the main pages — and don't panic that the site \"isn't on Google\" after two days. More in ",[59,673,675],{"href":674},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fwebsite-not-showing-in-google","the indexing guide",[10,677,678,681],{},[24,679,680],{},"The first week of real use."," The first leads expose things no test did: a question that keeps coming up by phone because the copy isn't clear, a form field people fill in wrong. Plan a small fix round for a week or two after launch — it's part of the project, not a bug in it.",[14,683,685],{"id":684},"and-what-about-urgent","And What About \"Urgent\"?",[10,687,688],{},"Sometimes it genuinely is urgent — a trade show, a campaign, a launch. We can work fast, but we have to be honest about what gets compressed. What I don't compress: speed, accessibility and testing. What can be compressed: the number of pages in version one, the design rounds, and how much of the copy gets written from scratch.",[14,690,470],{"id":469},[10,692,693],{},"A real timeline isn't a nice promise in a meeting — it's the result of agreeing up front what's being built, who decides, and what already exists. With me that's settled in a short document before anything starts, so nobody discovers surprises halfway through.",[10,695,696,697,700],{},"Got a date you need to hit? ",[59,698,699],{"href":219},"Tell me the date and what you already have"," — I'll tell you whether it's realistic, and if it isn't, what we can do by then instead.",{"title":223,"searchDepth":224,"depth":224,"links":702},[703,704,705,706,707,708],{"id":533,"depth":224,"text":534},{"id":579,"depth":224,"text":580},{"id":621,"depth":224,"text":622},{"id":655,"depth":224,"text":656},{"id":684,"depth":224,"text":685},{"id":469,"depth":224,"text":470},"Process","How long building a website really takes: real ranges by type, what actually causes delays (hint: not the code), and how to shorten it.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-long-does-a-website-take\u002Fog-en.jpg",{},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-long-does-a-website-take",{"title":522,"description":710},"en\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-long-does-a-website-take","2026-08-24","jtl623opG_zZ-39l5t0U6Y5tvLXcBSSjo5LlYe23nEI",{"id":719,"title":720,"body":721,"category":709,"date":516,"description":841,"extension":237,"image":842,"meta":843,"navigation":240,"path":844,"readingTime":510,"seo":845,"stem":846,"updated":238,"video":238,"__hash__":847},"blog_en\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-choose-a-web-developer.md","How to Choose a Web Developer: 9 Questions to Ask Before You Sign",{"type":7,"value":722,"toc":829},[723,726,729,733,742,746,749,753,760,764,771,775,782,786,789,793,796,800,803,807,810,815,819,822],[10,724,725],{},"Most people choose a web developer on two things: the price, and whether the portfolio looks good. Both matter and neither is enough. The sites that arrive for repair a year or two later were almost always built by someone with a reasonable portfolio and a sensible price — the problem was in what nobody asked beforehand.",[10,727,728],{},"Here are nine questions worth asking anyone who offers to build you a site. Including me. The answers matter less than the willingness to answer them clearly.",[14,730,732],{"id":731},"_1-whose-name-will-the-domain-hosting-and-code-be-in","1. Whose Name Will the Domain, Hosting and Code Be In?",[10,734,735,736,739,740,63],{},"The only acceptable answer: ",[24,737,738],{},"yours."," The domain registered to you, the hosting account yours, and the code — including admin access — in your hands from day one. A developer who registers the domain in their own name \"for convenience\" has created a dependency that will cost money the day you want to part ways. I went deeper in ",[59,741,166],{"href":165},[14,743,745],{"id":744},"_2-what-exactly-is-included-and-what-isnt","2. What Exactly Is Included, and What Isn't?",[10,747,748],{},"\"A website\" is a broad word. Content — who writes it? Images — who supplies them? Design — how many rounds? Languages — one or two? WhatsApp integration, forms, analytics? A good proposal itemises. A proposal that says \"complete brochure site\" in one line leaves all of those questions for an argument later.",[14,750,752],{"id":751},"_3-what-happens-after-launch","3. What Happens After Launch?",[10,754,755,756,759],{},"The question most people don't ask. Is there a warranty period for faults? What does a small change cost in six months? Is there a maintenance plan, and what does it cover? An unmaintained site breaks — ",[59,757,758],{"href":95},"I wrote about what happens when it blows up"," — and it's better to know in advance who's responsible.",[14,761,763],{"id":762},"_4-will-the-site-be-accessible-to-is-5568","4. Will the Site Be Accessible to IS 5568?",[10,765,766,767,770],{},"Not \"accessibility can be added\", but — is it part of the build. In Israel it's an obligation, not a feature. If the answer includes the words \"plugin\" or \"widget\", ",[59,768,769],{"href":282},"read this"," before continuing. A good answer talks about code, keyboard testing and an accessibility statement.",[14,772,774],{"id":773},"_5-how-will-you-make-sure-the-site-is-fast","5. How Will You Make Sure the Site Is Fast?",[10,776,777,778,781],{},"A good answer contains a number or a tool: \"we test in PageSpeed Insights before launch\", \"our target is green on mobile\". A weak answer: \"the site will be fast\". Speed isn't a feeling, it's ",[59,779,780],{"href":61},"a measurable metric"," — and you can ask to see one of their earlier sites in the tool, right now, in the meeting.",[14,783,785],{"id":784},"_6-can-i-see-a-site-you-built-two-years-ago-as-it-looks-today","6. Can I See a Site You Built Two Years Ago — as It Looks Today?",[10,787,788],{},"A portfolio shows launch day. The interesting question is what happened afterwards: is the site still up? Still fast? Still accessible? A good developer is happy to show an older site. If every example is from the last few months, it's worth asking why.",[14,790,792],{"id":791},"_7-who-do-i-talk-to-during-the-project","7. Who Do I Talk To During the Project?",[10,794,795],{},"The contact in the meeting isn't necessarily the builder. That's fine in a larger company, but know it up front: who answers a question on a Tuesday afternoon, and how quickly. \"A direct line to the person building it\" and \"a project manager who passes things along\" are two entirely different experiences, and both are legitimate — as long as you weren't promised one and given the other.",[14,797,799],{"id":798},"_8-if-you-disappear-tomorrow-what-do-i-do","8. If You Disappear Tomorrow — What Do I Do?",[10,801,802],{},"An uncomfortable question, and an important one. The good answer: \"you have every access, the code is documented, and any reasonable developer can pick it up.\" If the answer revolves around \"we don't disappear\" — that isn't an answer. Developers don't vanish on purpose; they change careers, move abroad, close businesses. Your site needs to survive that.",[14,804,806],{"id":805},"_9-what-wont-you-do","9. What Won't You Do?",[10,808,809],{},"A developer who can say \"I don't do that, get someone who specialises\" is worth more than one who says yes to everything. Nobody is an expert in code, design, copywriting, paid campaigns and photography all at once. An honest answer about limits is a very good sign — it says the other answers were honest too.",[68,811,812],{},[10,813,814],{},"A good site isn't one that looks excellent on launch day. It's one that still works, is still yours and can still be fixed — three years from now.",[14,816,818],{"id":817},"how-to-use-the-list","How to Use the List",[10,820,821],{},"You don't need to interrogate anyone. Ask the questions in the intro call, pleasantly, and notice not just the answers but their pace. Someone who does this seriously answers all of them without effort, because they've already thought about it. Someone who stumbles on question 1 or 8 — think again.",[10,823,824,825,828],{},"And if you'd like to hear how I answer these nine — ",[59,826,827],{"href":219},"let's talk",". I promise to answer the eighth one too.",{"title":223,"searchDepth":224,"depth":224,"links":830},[831,832,833,834,835,836,837,838,839,840],{"id":731,"depth":224,"text":732},{"id":744,"depth":224,"text":745},{"id":751,"depth":224,"text":752},{"id":762,"depth":224,"text":763},{"id":773,"depth":224,"text":774},{"id":784,"depth":224,"text":785},{"id":791,"depth":224,"text":792},{"id":798,"depth":224,"text":799},{"id":805,"depth":224,"text":806},{"id":817,"depth":224,"text":818},"Nine questions to ask before commissioning a site: who owns the domain and code, what happens after launch, accessibility and speed, and what if they vanish.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-choose-a-web-developer\u002Fog-en.jpg",{},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-choose-a-web-developer",{"title":720,"description":841},"en\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-choose-a-web-developer","K0fI4rPa_yPBYQoNpYcEWJvakBIoK5klNUFmW8JZ6sI",{"id":849,"title":850,"body":851,"category":504,"date":1245,"description":1246,"extension":237,"image":1247,"meta":1248,"navigation":240,"path":282,"readingTime":1249,"seo":1250,"stem":1251,"updated":235,"video":238,"__hash__":1252},"blog_en\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fisraeli-website-accessibility-law.md","Website Accessibility in Israel: What the Law Actually Requires (IS 5568)",{"type":7,"value":852,"toc":1232},[853,856,859,863,866,869,883,886,890,893,896,899,903,906,968,975,979,984,987,992,995,998,1005,1009,1016,1019,1022,1026,1032,1063,1066,1070,1073,1128,1136,1140,1143,1146,1149,1163,1166,1170,1173,1176,1179,1183,1189,1195,1201,1207,1216,1218,1221],[10,854,855],{},"Let me be honest with you: most business owners have heard \"something about an accessibility law,\" installed a floating widget with a wheelchair icon, and moved on feeling covered. I understand the appeal — it takes five minutes and looks official. The problem is that in most cases it does not satisfy the legal requirements, and meanwhile accessibility lawsuits against websites are no longer a theoretical scenario in Israel. They are routine.",[10,857,858],{},"I've been working on website accessibility for years, and this article collects everything you actually need to know: who is obligated, what the Israeli standard really demands, what that means for your site in practice, and what genuine compliance looks like — as opposed to the \"we installed a plugin\" kind.",[14,860,862],{"id":861},"who-is-required-to-make-their-website-accessible","Who is required to make their website accessible?",[10,864,865],{},"The legal foundation is Israel's Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Law, together with the regulations enacted under it — the Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Regulations (Service Accessibility Adjustments). Regulation 35 of those regulations deals specifically with the accessibility of internet services, and it is what extends the accessibility obligation to websites.",[10,867,868],{},"The principle is simple: if you provide a service to the public, and your website is part of how the public receives that service, the website must be accessible. That casts a very wide net:",[311,870,871,874,877,880],{},[81,872,873],{},"Businesses selling products or services through their site — online stores, obviously, but also brochure sites with a contact form",[81,875,876],{},"Professional service providers: law firms, accountants, clinics, salons",[81,878,879],{},"Restaurants and cafes that display a menu or take orders online",[81,881,882],{},"Public bodies and government entities, which face even stricter requirements",[10,884,885],{},"The regulations do include certain exemptions and qualifications, some of them tied to the scale of the business — but I strongly recommend not banking on an exemption without checking with a professional. Exemptions come with specific conditions, and some still require you to take certain actions (such as publishing an accessibility statement). The assumption \"we're a small business, this doesn't apply to us\" is exactly the assumption that ends in a demand letter from a lawyer.",[14,887,889],{"id":888},"what-is-is-5568-and-how-does-it-relate-to-wcag","What is IS 5568, and how does it relate to WCAG?",[10,891,892],{},"Israeli Standard 5568 (ת\"י 5568) is the standard that defines what an \"accessible website\" means for the purposes of the regulations. The good news: the Standards Institution of Israel did not reinvent the wheel. The Israeli standard essentially adopts WCAG — the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines — the international guidelines for web content accessibility developed by the W3C, the body that standardizes the web itself.",[10,894,895],{},"WCAG defines three conformance levels: A (basic), AA (intermediate), and AAA (strict). The requirement in Israel, as in most of the Western world, is conformance at level AA. In other words: if your site meets WCAG at level AA, you are on the right track for the Israeli standard as well.",[10,897,898],{},"This carries an encouraging implication: accessibility is not some \"Israeli invention\" that requires special local solutions. A site built properly to accepted international standards is an accessible site. Anyone telling you that you need a \"special Israeli solution\" in the form of this or that plugin is probably selling you something.",[14,900,902],{"id":901},"what-does-aa-mean-in-practice-ten-real-world-examples","What does AA mean in practice? Ten real-world examples",[10,904,905],{},"\"Level AA conformance\" sounds like a contract clause. In practice it is a list of very concrete requirements. Here are ten of the central ones, in human language:",[78,907,908,914,920,926,932,938,944,950,956,962],{},[81,909,910,913],{},[24,911,912],{},"Full keyboard navigation."," Everything a user can do with a mouse — menus, buttons, forms, popups — must also be possible with a keyboard alone. People with motor disabilities, and screen reader users, simply don't use a mouse.",[81,915,916,919],{},[24,917,918],{},"Alternative text for images (alt text)."," Every image that conveys information needs a text description a screen reader can announce. A banner image saying \"50% off everything\" with no alt text is, for a blind user, an empty rectangle.",[81,921,922,925],{},[24,923,924],{},"Sufficient color contrast."," Light gray text on a white background looks \"clean\" to a designer but is unreadable for people with low vision — and for anyone checking their phone in the sun. The standard defines minimum contrast ratios between text and background.",[81,927,928,931],{},[24,929,930],{},"Forms with clear labels."," Every form field needs a label programmatically associated with it, and error messages must explain what went wrong and how to fix it — not just turn the field red.",[81,933,934,937],{},[24,935,936],{},"Captions for videos."," Video content with speech needs captions so that deaf and hard-of-hearing users can consume it.",[81,939,940,943],{},[24,941,942],{},"A proper heading structure."," Headings (H1, H2, H3) must reflect the logical structure of the page, because screen reader users navigate through them. A heading that is really just large bold text doesn't count.",[81,945,946,949],{},[24,947,948],{},"Links that explain themselves."," \"Click here\" and \"read more\" are meaningless when announced out of context. A link should say where it leads.",[81,951,952,955],{},[24,953,954],{},"The ability to stop moving content."," Carousels, animations, and auto-rotating sliders must be pausable. Content in constant motion is a genuine barrier for people with attention and cognitive disabilities.",[81,957,958,961],{},[24,959,960],{},"Text resizing without breaking the page."," A user who enlarges the text in their browser should get a readable, usable page — not a salad of overlapping elements.",[81,963,964,967],{},[24,965,966],{},"Screen reader compatibility."," Interactive components — accordions, modal dialogs, tabs — must be built so a screen reader understands what they are and what state they're in. That requires proper semantic code, and sometimes judicious use of ARIA.",[10,969,970,971,974],{},"Notice the pattern: every one of these requirements concerns how the site is ",[54,972,973],{},"built",". Which brings us to the most important point in this article.",[14,976,978],{"id":977},"why-an-overlay-widget-doesnt-solve-your-problem","Why an overlay widget doesn't solve your problem",[360,980],{"alt":981,"caption":982,"height":347,"src":983,"width":351},"Two identical-looking forms: one broken, one accessible","From the live demo on this site","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fisraeli-website-accessibility-law\u002Fdemo-forms.webp",[10,985,986],{},"Floating accessibility overlays — those widgets that add a corner icon with options like text enlargement and contrast toggles — are the most common \"solution\" in the Israeli market. They are also, in most cases, not enough.",[68,988,989],{},[10,990,991],{},"An overlay can change how your site looks. It cannot change how your site is built — and most of the standard's requirements are about exactly that.",[10,993,994],{},"Look back at the list above: a widget cannot add meaningful alt text to your images, because it has no idea what's in them. It cannot fix a form built without labels, cannot reorganize a broken heading structure, and cannot turn a menu that doesn't work with a keyboard into one that does. It is a cosmetic layer over the existing code.",[10,996,997],{},"Worse — some overlays actively interfere with assistive technology users, because they manipulate the page in ways that clash with screen readers users have already configured exactly how they need them. And the legal bottom line: installing a widget does not, by itself, confer conformance with the standard, and accessibility lawsuits are filed against sites with a prominent accessibility icon in the corner all the time.",[10,999,1000,1001,1004],{},"That doesn't mean overlays have no place — some of what they offer is a nice addition ",[54,1002,1003],{},"on top of"," a properly accessible site. An addition, though. Not a substitute.",[14,1006,1008],{"id":1007},"what-happens-if-you-dont-comply-on-legal-exposure","What happens if you don't comply? On legal exposure",[10,1010,1011,1012,1015],{},"Here's the part that makes business owners sit up straight. The Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Law allows for statutory compensation — meaning monetary damages awarded ",[24,1013,1014],{},"without any need to prove actual harm",". A person with a disability who encounters an inaccessible website does not need to show they lost money or suffered tangible injury; the discrimination itself is the cause of action.",[10,1017,1018],{},"The practical consequence: a whole field of website accessibility litigation has emerged in Israel, and some plaintiffs scan sites systematically. A business with an inaccessible website is an easy target — the check is simple, the violation is easy to demonstrate, and the compensation doesn't require proof of damages. I'm deliberately avoiding specific figures, because they vary between cases and you should get current legal advice; but trust me that the cost of proper accessibility work is significantly lower than the cost of dealing with a lawsuit, even one that ends in a settlement.",[10,1020,1021],{},"Beyond the legal angle, there's plain business logic: people with disabilities are a large customer base, and an inaccessible site is a site voluntarily turning customers away. There's a bonus, too: many accessibility principles (semantic structure, alt text, heading hierarchy) overlap with the principles of good SEO. An accessible site is almost always a better-ranking site.",[14,1023,1025],{"id":1024},"the-accessibility-statement-the-page-your-site-must-have","The accessibility statement: the page your site must have",[10,1027,1028,1029,1031],{},"Part of the requirements is publishing an ",[24,1030,480],{}," on the site — a dedicated page, itself accessible and easy to find (usually linked from the footer), which details:",[311,1033,1034,1040,1046,1052,1058],{},[81,1035,1036,1039],{},[24,1037,1038],{},"The site's accessibility status"," — which adjustments it meets, under which standard and at what level",[81,1041,1042,1045],{},[24,1043,1044],{},"Which parts are not accessible",", if any, and why (for example, a third-party component you don't control)",[81,1047,1048,1051],{},[24,1049,1050],{},"Contact details for the accessibility coordinator or responsible person"," — name, phone, email — so a user who hits a barrier knows who to turn to",[81,1053,1054,1057],{},[24,1055,1056],{},"Physical accessibility arrangements",", if the business has a branch or office serving the public (accessible parking, wheelchair access, and so on)",[81,1059,1060],{},[24,1061,1062],{},"The date the statement was last updated",[10,1064,1065],{},"An accessibility statement is not marketing copy, and not a file to copy-paste from another site. A statement declaring \"this site is fully accessible\" when it isn't can actually make your position worse — it documents, in your own words, that you knew what was required.",[14,1067,1069],{"id":1068},"a-practical-checklist-where-to-start","A practical checklist: where to start",[10,1071,1072],{},"If you've read this far and want to know what to do tomorrow morning, here's the order of operations I recommend:",[78,1074,1075,1081,1087,1093,1099,1105,1111,1117],{},[81,1076,1077,1080],{},[24,1078,1079],{},"Audit the current state."," Run an automated scan (tools like Lighthouse or WAVE give a free first impression), but remember automated testing catches only a portion of the issues. Manual testing with a keyboard and a screen reader is the real test.",[81,1082,1083,1086],{},[24,1084,1085],{},"Navigate your site with a keyboard only."," Try reaching every menu, button, and form without touching the mouse. If you get stuck, so do your users.",[81,1088,1089,1092],{},[24,1090,1091],{},"Check your images."," Do meaningful images have descriptive alt text? Are decorative images marked as such?",[81,1094,1095,1098],{},[24,1096,1097],{},"Check contrast."," Free tools will measure text-to-background contrast ratios against the standard.",[81,1100,1101,1104],{},[24,1102,1103],{},"Go through your forms."," Labels, clear error messages, and the ability to complete and submit with a keyboard.",[81,1106,1107,1110],{},[24,1108,1109],{},"Handle video and moving content."," Captions for videos, a pause control for carousels.",[81,1112,1113,1116],{},[24,1114,1115],{},"Write and publish an accessibility statement"," that reflects the true state of things, including contact details.",[81,1118,1119,1122,1123,1127],{},[24,1120,1121],{},"Set up ongoing maintenance."," Accessibility is not a one-time project — every new page, banner, or plugin can break it. Fold an accessibility check into every significant update, and if your site accumulates technical issues over time, ",[59,1124,1126],{"href":1125},"\u002Fen\u002Fservices\u002Fwebsite-fixes","proper fixes and maintenance work"," is the place to address that too.",[10,1129,1130,1131,1135],{},"And if your site is old, built on an outdated template, or full of code nobody understands anymore — sometimes ",[59,1132,1134],{"href":1133},"\u002Fen\u002Fservices\u002Fwebsite-development","rebuilding it as an accessible site from the ground up"," is cheaper and simpler than retrofitting accessibility onto what exists. That's a calculation worth making with open eyes.",[14,1137,1139],{"id":1138},"the-part-people-break-without-noticing-embedded-widgets","The Part People Break Without Noticing: Embedded Widgets",[10,1141,1142],{},"Plenty of sites that were made properly accessible break a week later for the same reason: someone embedded a third-party component. A booking form, a chat widget, a map, a video player, a calculator, a payment module.",[10,1144,1145],{},"These usually sit inside an iframe, which makes them a world of their own — your code doesn't control them, and your accessibility work doesn't apply to them. If the chat can't be closed by keyboard, or a booking can't be completed without a mouse, that counts as a blocker on your site, even though the code isn't yours.",[10,1147,1148],{},"What I check on every embedded component before it goes in:",[311,1150,1151,1154,1157,1160],{},[81,1152,1153],{},"Can you enter and leave it by keyboard alone, without getting trapped inside it?",[81,1155,1156],{},"Can you complete the action it exists for — book, pay, send — without a mouse?",[81,1158,1159],{},"Does it have alternative text or a description for someone who can't see it?",[81,1161,1162],{},"If it fails to load, is there still another way to complete the action?",[10,1164,1165],{},"If the answer to any of those is no, there are three options: ask the vendor for an accessible version (sometimes one exists), switch vendor, or leave a clear alternative route — phone, WhatsApp, a plain form — that completes the same action. The third is usually the quickest, and it's simply good service anyway.",[14,1167,1169],{"id":1168},"the-files-you-upload-count-too-pdfs-menus-and-catalogs","The Files You Upload Count Too: PDFs, Menus, and Catalogs",[10,1171,1172],{},"A common blind spot: the site itself was made properly accessible, but the menu is a photo uploaded as a PDF, the price list is an image of a table, and the catalog is a scan of the printed brochure. To a screen reader, all of these are blank pages — and they are part of the service your site provides, exactly like any other page on it.",[10,1174,1175],{},"The order of priorities I recommend: first, whatever can live as a regular page on the site should live as a regular page. A restaurant menu as HTML text is accessible, indexable by Google, and quick to open on a phone — three birds on the same page. If a PDF is genuinely needed (a printable document, an official form), it should be generated from a text file — Word or a design tool with accessible export — not from a scan, so the text inside it can be selected and read aloud.",[10,1177,1178],{},"And wherever an inaccessible file remains, the rule from the previous section applies here too: a clear alternative way to get the same information — a parallel text page, or at least a phone number someone answers.",[14,1180,1182],{"id":1181},"questions-that-keep-coming-up","Questions That Keep Coming Up",[10,1184,1185,1188],{},[24,1186,1187],{},"\"My site is on Wix\u002FShopify — does that cover me?\"","\nNo. The obligation sits with the site owner, not the platform. A good platform makes the work easier because some of the underlying structure is already accessible, but the content you uploaded, the theme you picked and the apps you added are yours.",[10,1190,1191,1194],{},[24,1192,1193],{},"\"My site is small, five pages. Even then?\"","\nYes. Size doesn't change the obligation — it only changes how much work there is. Five pages without complex forms is usually a short job.",[10,1196,1197,1200],{},[24,1198,1199],{},"\"I made the site accessible three years ago. Does that still hold?\"","\nDepends what happened since. Every new page, banner, plugin and theme change can break existing accessibility. If nobody has touched the site, you're probably fine. If a store, a form or a popup went in, it's worth re-checking.",[10,1202,1203,1206],{},[24,1204,1205],{},"\"Who is supposed to sign the accessibility statement?\"","\nThe statement sets out the state of the site and how to raise an issue, and responsibility for it sits with the site owner. If someone offers you a generic statement without actually reviewing the site, it isn't worth the file it's written in.",[10,1208,1209,1212,1213,63],{},[24,1210,1211],{},"\"I received an accessibility complaint. What now?\"","\nThat's a different situation with its own order of operations — I wrote a separate guide on it: ",[59,1214,1215],{"href":509},"what to do in the first week after an accessibility complaint",[14,1217,210],{"id":209},[10,1219,1220],{},"Website accessibility in Israel is a legal obligation, but I'd suggest looking at it another way too: it's an opportunity to build a better site — one more people can use, one Google likes more, and one that isn't waiting for a demand letter in the mail. A floating widget won't do the job; professional work on the code, content, and structure will.",[10,1222,1223,1224,1227,1228,1231],{},"Feeling like your site isn't there yet? I offer ",[59,1225,1226],{"href":479},"a professional accessibility audit and remediation to IS 5568"," — ",[59,1229,1230],{"href":219},"get in touch"," and we'll go through it together, no jargon and no scare tactics.",{"title":223,"searchDepth":224,"depth":224,"links":1233},[1234,1235,1236,1237,1238,1239,1240,1241,1242,1243,1244],{"id":861,"depth":224,"text":862},{"id":888,"depth":224,"text":889},{"id":901,"depth":224,"text":902},{"id":977,"depth":224,"text":978},{"id":1007,"depth":224,"text":1008},{"id":1024,"depth":224,"text":1025},{"id":1068,"depth":224,"text":1069},{"id":1138,"depth":224,"text":1139},{"id":1168,"depth":224,"text":1169},{"id":1181,"depth":224,"text":1182},{"id":209,"depth":224,"text":210},"2026-06-10","A plain-language guide to Israel's website accessibility law: who must comply, what IS 5568 and WCAG AA require, and why overlay widgets fall short.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fisraeli-website-accessibility-law\u002Fog-en.jpg",{},9,{"title":850,"description":1246},"en\u002Fblog\u002Fisraeli-website-accessibility-law","PVBo444WTA6L6taYhygKUzbvB3t-RM1ayLaAeGCydMs",{"id":1254,"title":1255,"body":1256,"category":1478,"date":1479,"description":1480,"extension":237,"image":1481,"meta":1482,"navigation":240,"path":1483,"readingTime":510,"seo":1484,"stem":1485,"updated":516,"video":238,"__hash__":1486},"blog_en\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Flocal-seo-google-business-profile.md","Business With a Physical Address? Your Google Profile Matters More Than Your Site",{"type":7,"value":1257,"toc":1469},[1258,1261,1268,1271,1275,1282,1289,1292,1296,1299,1305,1311,1317,1323,1329,1334,1338,1344,1370,1374,1380,1386,1392,1396,1399,1437,1441,1455,1458,1460,1463],[10,1259,1260],{},"Before talking about the website at all, it's worth stopping on one question: when someone searches Google for \"Italian restaurant in Herzliya\", what do they actually see?",[10,1262,1263,1264,1267],{},"The answer isn't websites. The answer is a map with three pins, opening hours, a star rating and a directions button. The website, at best, appears below that. Which means that for a business with a physical address, ",[24,1265,1266],{},"the most important digital asset isn't the site — it's the Google Business Profile",", and it's free.",[10,1269,1270],{},"That doesn't mean the site is unimportant. It means the order matters, and most people get it backwards.",[14,1272,1274],{"id":1273},"why-it-works-this-way","Why It Works This Way",[360,1276],{"alt":1277,"caption":1278,"height":1279,"src":1280,"width":1281},"What local search shows — before any website","Schematic illustration, not a screenshot",630,"\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Flocal-seo-google-business-profile\u002Fmap-pack-en.webp",1200,[10,1283,1284,1285,1288],{},"A search with local intent — \"near me\", \"in Tel Aviv\", \"open now\" — is a search where Google assumes you want to ",[54,1286,1287],{},"get somewhere",", not read about it. So it shows what answers that: who's close, who's open, who's well rated, and how to get there.",[10,1290,1291],{},"The practical consequence: you can do excellent work on the website and not move a millimetre on those searches, simply because the game is being played on a different field.",[14,1293,1295],{"id":1294},"what-actually-moves-the-needle","What Actually Moves the Needle",[10,1297,1298],{},"There's no published formula, but there are things that recur in every business that improves:",[10,1300,1301,1304],{},[24,1302,1303],{},"1. A complete profile, not half of one."," An accurate primary category (a common mistake — \"restaurant\" instead of \"Italian restaurant\"), correct hours including holidays, phone, website, description, and a service area if relevant. An incomplete profile is one Google trusts less.",[10,1306,1307,1310],{},[24,1308,1309],{},"2. Real photos, added regularly."," Not three pictures from 2019. The inside, the outside (so people recognise it from the street), the team, the product. Businesses that post photos consistently look active — to Google and to a person choosing between two options.",[10,1312,1313,1316],{},[24,1314,1315],{},"3. Reviews, and replies to reviews."," This is the factor most businesses neglect and the one that most affects the actual decision. Ask a happy customer for a review in the moment, not a fortnight later. And reply — to the good and the bad. A measured reply to a negative review makes a better impression than ten glowing ones.",[10,1318,1319,1322],{},[24,1320,1321],{},"4. Consistent details."," The same name, address and phone — on the profile, the site, Facebook, directory listings. When the details disagree, Google has to guess which is right, and that isn't in your favour.",[10,1324,1325,1328],{},[24,1326,1327],{},"5. Updates and posts."," An offer, special holiday hours, a new product. It's content and a sign of life at once.",[68,1330,1331],{},[10,1332,1333],{},"A Google Business Profile isn't \"another channel\". For a business with a door that opens, it's the first shop window — and unlike the website, it costs nothing.",[14,1335,1337],{"id":1336},"no-shopfront-businesses-that-go-to-the-customer","No Shopfront? Businesses That Go to the Customer",[10,1339,1340,1341,63],{},"An electrician, movers, cleaners, a personal trainer — businesses that come to the customer rather than the other way round. The profile matters to them too, arguably more, because they have no other shop window. The difference: set the profile up as a ",[24,1342,1343],{},"service-area business",[311,1345,1346,1352,1358,1364],{},[81,1347,1348,1351],{},[24,1349,1350],{},"Hide the address."," If there's no place customers come to, your home address shouldn't appear on the map — and it's better that it doesn't. Google lets you hide it and show a service area instead.",[81,1353,1354,1357],{},[24,1355,1356],{},"Set a real service area."," The towns and areas you actually travel to — not \"the whole country\" to look big. An unrealistic area hurts ranking in the local searches that actually matter to you.",[81,1359,1360,1363],{},[24,1361,1362],{},"Reviews work exactly the same way."," A customer served at home can leave a review just like one in a shop. Asking at the end of the job matters even more, because there's no \"before you leave\" moment.",[81,1365,1366,1369],{},[24,1367,1368],{},"The site needs to say it explicitly."," \"We serve Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Givatayim and Bnei Brak\" in text, not only in the profile. That's what Google reads to connect the search with the site.",[14,1371,1373],{"id":1372},"what-not-to-do","What Not to Do",[10,1375,1376,1379],{},[24,1377,1378],{},"No fake reviews."," They get detected, and they damage the profile in ways that are hard to undo.",[10,1381,1382,1385],{},[24,1383,1384],{},"Don't stuff keywords into the business name."," \"Home Pizza — Best Pizza in Tel Aviv, Delivery\" is not a business name. It's against Google's guidelines and it can get your profile suspended.",[10,1387,1388,1391],{},[24,1389,1390],{},"No fake address"," to appear close to a desirable area.",[14,1393,1395],{"id":1394},"and-what-the-site-should-do","And What the Site Should Do",[10,1397,1398],{},"This is where the website comes in — not as a competitor to the profile, but as its reinforcement:",[311,1400,1401,1407,1413,1419,1428],{},[81,1402,1403,1406],{},[24,1404,1405],{},"A page per branch."," A chain with four branches needs four pages, each with its address, phone, hours and a map. One \"Branches\" page with a list is a wasted opportunity.",[81,1408,1409,1412],{},[24,1410,1411],{},"Exactly the same details"," as the profile. If the phone number on the site differs, you fixed something in one place and forgot the other.",[81,1414,1415,1418],{},[24,1416,1417],{},"Structured data (Schema)."," Local business markup helps Google read the address, hours and rating with confidence. Not magic, but it removes guesswork.",[81,1420,1421,1424,1425,63],{},[24,1422,1423],{},"Speed on mobile."," All this traffic arrives from a phone, on the way somewhere. A site that loads slowly at exactly that moment loses the customer to a competitor who already opened Waze. I went into what slows sites down in ",[59,1426,1427],{"href":61},"the PageSpeed guide",[81,1429,1430,1433,1434,63],{},[24,1431,1432],{},"Don't block Google."," If the site isn't indexed at all, the profile loses an anchor. How to check that is ",[59,1435,1436],{"href":674},"here",[14,1438,1440],{"id":1439},"the-order-i-recommend","The Order I Recommend",[78,1442,1443,1446,1449,1452],{},[81,1444,1445],{},"Complete the Business Profile fully. A week of scattered work, zero budget.",[81,1447,1448],{},"Build a habit of asking for reviews. Even one sentence at the end of a service.",[81,1450,1451],{},"Make sure the site agrees with the profile on every detail.",[81,1453,1454],{},"Only then talk about ad budgets.",[10,1456,1457],{},"That order saves a lot of money, because it fixes what's free before buying traffic.",[14,1459,470],{"id":469},[10,1461,1462],{},"For a business with an address, local search isn't a niche — it's most of the intent. A complete profile, real reviews and a site that agrees with it will bring you more phone calls than any design change to your homepage.",[10,1464,1465,1466,1468],{},"Got one branch or ten and you're not sure the site supports them properly? ",[59,1467,487],{"href":219}," — I'll check what the profile says, what the site says, and where the two disagree.",{"title":223,"searchDepth":224,"depth":224,"links":1470},[1471,1472,1473,1474,1475,1476,1477],{"id":1273,"depth":224,"text":1274},{"id":1294,"depth":224,"text":1295},{"id":1336,"depth":224,"text":1337},{"id":1372,"depth":224,"text":1373},{"id":1394,"depth":224,"text":1395},{"id":1439,"depth":224,"text":1440},{"id":469,"depth":224,"text":470},"SEO","2026-08-22","Local search for Israeli businesses: what actually moves your Google Business Profile, and what the website must do to support it.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Flocal-seo-google-business-profile\u002Fog-en.jpg",{},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Flocal-seo-google-business-profile",{"title":1255,"description":1480},"en\u002Fblog\u002Flocal-seo-google-business-profile","B3jkhe7lBqY9_Bi5QgvNDFHcWBldJg6X_vvybSHFBwM",{"id":1488,"title":1489,"body":1490,"category":1767,"date":1479,"description":1768,"extension":237,"image":1769,"meta":1770,"navigation":240,"path":204,"readingTime":1771,"seo":1772,"stem":1773,"updated":516,"video":238,"__hash__":1774},"blog_en\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fmigrate-to-wordpress-without-losing-google.md","Moving to WordPress Without Losing Your Place in Google: The Full Checklist",{"type":7,"value":1491,"toc":1756},[1492,1495,1502,1505,1509,1513,1516,1522,1528,1534,1541,1545,1548,1554,1560,1573,1579,1583,1589,1595,1601,1608,1612,1633,1637,1654,1659,1663,1689,1695,1699,1702,1712,1718,1724,1730,1734,1740,1742,1749],[10,1493,1494],{},"A platform migration is the project most people underestimate, and it's also where the ugliest drops in traffic happen. Not because the new site is bad — usually it's far better — but because someone treated the site's URLs as a technical detail.",[10,1496,1497,1498,1501],{},"They aren't a technical detail. ",[24,1499,1500],{},"The URLs are the asset."," Every link pointing at you from another site, every page Google has indexed over the last three years, every share on WhatsApp — they all point at a specific address. If that address stops answering, you've lost what it accumulated.",[10,1503,1504],{},"The good news: this sounds frightening and is really just orderly work. Here's the order.",[14,1506,1508],{"id":1507},"before-touching-the-new-site-the-url-map","Before Touching the New Site: The URL Map",[360,1510],{"alt":1511,"caption":1278,"height":1279,"src":1512,"width":1281},"The URL map: one to one","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fmigrate-to-wordpress-without-losing-google\u002Furl-map-en.webp",[10,1514,1515],{},"This is the step you can't skip, and the step everyone skips.",[10,1517,1518,1521],{},[24,1519,1520],{},"1. Export a list of every existing URL."," From Search Console (the pages report), from the current sitemap, and from Google Analytics — the pages that got traffic in the last year. The three sources together give a fuller picture than any one alone.",[10,1523,1524,1527],{},[24,1525,1526],{},"2. Mark the important ones."," Not every page is worth the same. Sort by traffic and inbound links. The top twenty pages are 80% of the story.",[10,1529,1530,1533],{},[24,1531,1532],{},"3. Build a two-column table:"," old URL → new URL. One row per page. That table is the entire secret of a successful migration.",[10,1535,1536,1537,1540],{},"The rule: ",[24,1538,1539],{},"one to one."," Every old page gets its closest equivalent. A page about \"air conditioner repair in Haifa\" goes to the page about air conditioner repair in Haifa — not to the homepage.",[14,1542,1544],{"id":1543},"the-redirects-how-to-do-a-301-properly","The Redirects: How to Do a 301 Properly",[10,1546,1547],{},"A 301 is a permanent redirect. It tells Google \"this page moved there, pass along what it earned\". That's the tool, and there are three ways to get it wrong:",[10,1549,1550,1553],{},[24,1551,1552],{},"Redirecting everything to the homepage."," The classic mistake. Google treats an irrelevant redirect as a soft error, and everything the page accumulated is discarded. If there genuinely is no equivalent, a proper 404 beats a dishonest redirect.",[10,1555,1556,1559],{},[24,1557,1558],{},"Redirect chains."," URL A redirects to B which redirects to C. It works, but it wastes crawl budget and is slow for the visitor. Point straight at the final destination.",[10,1561,1562,1565,1566,1570,1571,63],{},[24,1563,1564],{},"Forgetting the variants."," With and without ",[1567,1568,1569],"code",{},"www",", http and https, with and without a trailing slash. Every variant needs to land on one agreed version. This is an especially common source of quiet faults, and I wrote about that side of it in ",[59,1572,675],{"href":674},[10,1574,1575,1578],{},[24,1576,1577],{},"One more rule that saves pain:"," if you can, keep the existing URL structure. A migration where the addresses stay identical is the safest migration there is.",[14,1580,1582],{"id":1581},"what-transfers-and-what-doesnt","What Transfers and What Doesn't",[10,1584,1585,1588],{},[24,1586,1587],{},"What usually transfers fine:"," text, images, posts, basic products.",[10,1590,1591,1594],{},[24,1592,1593],{},"What almost always needs manual work:"," the design (it doesn't transfer, it gets rebuilt), forms and their settings, existing redirects, per-page SEO tags, structured data, and every integration — payments, invoicing, mailing list.",[10,1596,1597,1600],{},[24,1598,1599],{},"What doesn't transfer at all:"," the old platform's plugins and apps. Each one needs an equivalent, and it's a good moment to check whether you actually need it.",[10,1602,1603,1604,1607],{},"Also: if you're rebuilding anyway, this is the cheap moment to fix ",[59,1605,1606],{"href":479},"accessibility"," and speed, because you're already inside the code. Fixing it later is a separate project.",[14,1609,1611],{"id":1610},"a-week-before-launch","A Week Before Launch",[311,1613,1614,1621,1624,1627,1630],{},[81,1615,1616,1617,1620],{},"The new site sits in a staging environment ",[24,1618,1619],{},"blocked from indexing",". Important.",[81,1622,1623],{},"Every 301 configured and tested — not \"should work\", actually tested, row by row against the table.",[81,1625,1626],{},"Accessibility and speed checked on the new site, before rather than after.",[81,1628,1629],{},"A full backup of the old site. Not just files — the database too, and a copy of the URL list.",[81,1631,1632],{},"Who holds the domain and who holds the DNS. Find out now, not at the moment of truth.",[14,1634,1636],{"id":1635},"on-launch-day","On Launch Day",[78,1638,1639,1645,1648,1651],{},[81,1640,1641,1644],{},[24,1642,1643],{},"Remove the indexing block."," This is the number one launch mistake — the site goes live and stays hidden from Google for weeks.",[81,1646,1647],{},"Upload a new sitemap and submit it in Search Console.",[81,1649,1650],{},"If the domain is changing, use Google's Change of Address tool and add the new property.",[81,1652,1653],{},"Walk the top twenty pages and confirm they load, and that the 301 from the old address reaches them.",[68,1655,1656],{},[10,1657,1658],{},"A successful migration is measured in the fortnight after, not on the day the site went live. Until then nobody knows what broke.",[14,1660,1662],{"id":1661},"two-weeks-later-what-to-monitor","Two Weeks Later: What to Monitor",[311,1664,1665,1671,1677,1683],{},[81,1666,1667,1670],{},[24,1668,1669],{},"The errors report in Search Console."," Growing 404s are URLs you missed in the table. Add a redirect and move on.",[81,1672,1673,1676],{},[24,1674,1675],{},"The pages report."," Are the new pages entering the index at a reasonable rate?",[81,1678,1679,1682],{},[24,1680,1681],{},"Organic traffic against the same period last year",", not against last week — so you don't confuse seasonality with damage.",[81,1684,1685,1688],{},[24,1686,1687],{},"Speed",", on real field data rather than a lab test alone.",[10,1690,1691,1694],{},[24,1692,1693],{},"And about a drop?"," A small, temporary dip in the first weeks is normal — Google has to re-crawl and digest the change. A sharp drop that hasn't recovered after a month is a sign something in the URL map didn't close.",[14,1696,1698],{"id":1697},"if-the-domain-changes-too-what-to-do-with-the-old-one","If the Domain Changes Too: What to Do With the Old One",[10,1700,1701],{},"A platform migration with a new domain is the riskiest version, and it carries a question that's routinely forgotten — what happens to the old domain once the new one is live.",[10,1703,1704,1707,1708,1711],{},[24,1705,1706],{},"Don't give it up."," Keep it registered and renewed ",[24,1709,1710],{},"for at least a year, preferably longer"," — for as long as traffic, links, or people typing it from memory still arrive. An active business's domain released to the market gets grabbed within days, and whoever grabs it inherits every link you accumulated.",[10,1713,1714,1717],{},[24,1715,1716],{},"The redirects stay live."," The old domain keeps 301-ing to the matching addresses on the new one — not to the homepage — for as long as it's registered. A redirect that lapses after six months loses exactly what you were trying to keep.",[10,1719,1720,1723],{},[24,1721,1722],{},"Update whatever can't follow a redirect:"," the Google Business Profile, Facebook and Instagram, the email signature, business cards, the sticker on the van. Redirects work in a browser — not on a sign.",[10,1725,1726,1729],{},[24,1727,1728],{},"And email."," If mailboxes lived on the old domain, they need to keep receiving or forwarding. A customer who writes to an old address and gets a bounce assumes you've closed.",[14,1731,1733],{"id":1732},"one-mistake-worth-avoiding","One Mistake Worth Avoiding",[10,1735,1736,1739],{},[24,1737,1738],{},"Don't change everything at once."," New platform, new domain, new design and new content structure — all on one day. If traffic falls, you won't know which of the four caused it. If you can, separate them: platform first with the same URLs, then the rest.",[14,1741,470],{"id":469},[10,1743,1744,1745,63],{},"Moving to WordPress isn't a risk in itself. What's risky is moving without a URL map. With an orderly table, one-to-one 301s and a fortnight of monitoring, you can move without paying for it in traffic — and come out with a site you can ",[59,1746,1748],{"href":1747},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fwordpress-vs-custom-website","take anywhere",[10,1750,1751,1752,1755],{},"Considering a move? ",[59,1753,1754],{"href":219},"Tell me from what to what, and how many pages"," — I'll tell you what the URL map needs to cover and the specific risks in your case.",{"title":223,"searchDepth":224,"depth":224,"links":1757},[1758,1759,1760,1761,1762,1763,1764,1765,1766],{"id":1507,"depth":224,"text":1508},{"id":1543,"depth":224,"text":1544},{"id":1581,"depth":224,"text":1582},{"id":1610,"depth":224,"text":1611},{"id":1635,"depth":224,"text":1636},{"id":1661,"depth":224,"text":1662},{"id":1697,"depth":224,"text":1698},{"id":1732,"depth":224,"text":1733},{"id":469,"depth":224,"text":470},"WordPress","Migrating from Wix or a closed platform to WordPress? What to map before launch, how to do 301s properly, and what to watch in the first two weeks.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fmigrate-to-wordpress-without-losing-google\u002Fog-en.jpg",{},8,{"title":1489,"description":1768},"en\u002Fblog\u002Fmigrate-to-wordpress-without-losing-google","d6PYBFCuHraXHp7LI21NOpIRo1zCHTSYnttuefxLSCc",{"id":1776,"title":1777,"body":1778,"category":2090,"date":2091,"description":2092,"extension":237,"image":2093,"meta":2094,"navigation":240,"path":61,"readingTime":510,"seo":2095,"stem":2096,"updated":235,"video":238,"__hash__":2097},"blog_en\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fpagespeed-100-guide.md","A 100 PageSpeed Score: How a Fast Website Generates More Leads (and What's Killing Yours)",{"type":7,"value":1779,"toc":2073},[1780,1783,1786,1789,1793,1797,1800,1804,1807,1811,1814,1818,1825,1829,1832,1836,1839,1845,1851,1857,1861,1867,1877,1882,1886,1893,1899,1909,1912,1929,1932,1936,1939,1942,1945,1949,1952,1955,1958,1984,1990,1994,1997,2035,2041,2045,2052,2056,2059,2066],[10,1781,1782],{},"When I tell business owners that my site scores 100 on PageSpeed, the usual reaction is \"nice, but who cares about a score.\" Fair enough — the score itself isn't the goal. But what the score measures is something your customers care about a great deal: how long it takes from the moment they tap your link until they can read, click, and leave their details.",[10,1784,1785],{},"Google's own research has shown the same thing again and again: the slower a page loads, the more people abandon it before ever seeing what you have to offer. Every unnecessary second is leads walking over to the competitor whose site opens instantly. And beyond abandonment, Google uses speed metrics as part of its ranking — so a slow site also gets less traffic in the first place. A double penalty.",[10,1787,1788],{},"After years of fixing slow websites, I can tell you it's almost always the same five suspects. Let's go through them.",[14,1790,1792],{"id":1791},"the-five-things-that-actually-kill-small-business-websites","The five things that actually kill small-business websites",[296,1794,1796],{"id":1795},"_1-a-page-builder-plus-forty-plugins","1. A page builder plus forty plugins",[10,1798,1799],{},"The classic story: the site was built with Elementor or another builder, and over the years plugins piled up — one for forms, one for galleries, one for popups, three \"optimization\" plugins fighting each other. Every plugin injects CSS and JavaScript files into every page on the site, including pages that never use it. The result: your visitor's browser downloads and executes a mountain of code just to display an \"About\" page with three paragraphs. The builder itself adds another layer of generic code on top of everything.",[296,1801,1803],{"id":1802},"_2-unoptimized-images","2. Unoptimized images",[10,1805,1806],{},"The most common culprit, and the easiest to fix: an image straight out of a camera or Canva, weighing several megabytes, uploaded as-is and displayed at postage-stamp size. The visitor downloads an image thousands of pixels wide to see it in a small grid square. Modern formats (WebP, AVIF), dimensions matched to the actual display size, and lazy loading for below-the-fold images solve most of this problem.",[296,1808,1810],{"id":1809},"_3-font-loading","3. Font loading",[10,1812,1813],{},"Beautiful web fonts are a wonderful thing, but the average site loads three or four weights of two fonts from external servers — and while that happens, the text is either completely hidden or jumps and reshapes when the font finally arrives. The fix: host the fonts on your own server, load only the weights you actually use, and configure loading so text is visible immediately, even before the font lands.",[296,1815,1817],{"id":1816},"_4-third-party-widgets","4. Third-party widgets",[10,1819,1820,1821,1824],{},"A WhatsApp chat bubble, a floating accessibility overlay, Facebook and TikTok pixels, an embedded Google Map — each one sounds small, and together they sometimes weigh more than the site itself. They load from external servers you don't control, and many of them block or delay the things that actually matter. Incidentally, I wrote ",[59,1822,1823],{"href":282},"a whole article"," about the floating accessibility overlay — it's problematic for more than just performance. Whatever must stay can be loaded intelligently: after the page has rendered, or only when the visitor actually needs it.",[296,1826,1828],{"id":1827},"_5-sliders-and-carousels","5. Sliders and carousels",[10,1830,1831],{},"The hero slider is perhaps the most popular and least rewarding element on the web: it loads five huge images and an entire JavaScript library so that most visitors see only the first slide and scroll past. One good static, optimized hero image does the job better — both for marketing and for the browser.",[14,1833,1835],{"id":1834},"the-three-metrics-in-human-language","The three metrics, in human language",[10,1837,1838],{},"Google measures loading experience through three core metrics (Core Web Vitals). Here's what they mean in practice:",[10,1840,1841,1844],{},[24,1842,1843],{},"LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)"," — how long until the largest element on the page — usually the hero image or main headline — appears on screen. This is the metric closest to the feeling of \"the site opened\": when LCP is slow, the visitor stares at a blank screen wondering whether the link even works.",[10,1846,1847,1850],{},[24,1848,1849],{},"CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)"," — how much the page \"jumps around\" while loading. You know when you're about to tap a button and an ad loads, pushes everything down, and your tap lands on something else? That's bad CLS. It's caused by images without defined dimensions, fonts that reshape text, and banners injected late.",[10,1852,1853,1856],{},[24,1854,1855],{},"INP (Interaction to Next Paint)"," — how quickly the page responds when you interact with it. Opened a menu and it appeared after a half-second of lag? That's bad INP, and the culprit is almost always excess JavaScript keeping the browser busy while the visitor is trying to talk to it.",[14,1858,1860],{"id":1859},"what-does-good-look-like","What does \"good\" look like?",[360,1862],{"alt":1863,"caption":1864,"height":1865,"src":1866,"width":351},"A real PageSpeed Insights report of this very site, on mobile","Screenshot: PageSpeed Insights",1000,"\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fpagespeed-100-guide\u002Fpsi-mobile.webp",[10,1868,1869,1870,1876],{},"Google publishes official thresholds for each metric — green, orange, and red — and the free ",[59,1871,1875],{"href":1872,"rel":1873},"https:\u002F\u002Fpagespeed.web.dev",[1874],"nofollow","PageSpeed Insights"," tool will show you exactly where you stand, on both lab data and real-user data. But the simplest test requires no tools at all: open your site on your phone, on mobile data, in an incognito window. Count to yourself. If you reached three before you could read the headline — there's work to do.",[68,1878,1879],{},[10,1880,1881],{},"A 100 score isn't magic and isn't luck. It's the result of removing everything from the page that doesn't serve the visitor — and loading what's left in the right order.",[14,1883,1885],{"id":1884},"i-tested-yesterday-and-got-92-today-its-68-why-the-score-jumps","\"I tested yesterday and got 92, today it's 68\" — why the score jumps",[10,1887,1888,1889,1892],{},"This is probably the question I answer most, and fairly so: it's hard to take a number seriously when it moves on every refresh. The reason is that there are ",[24,1890,1891],{},"two completely different kinds of data",", and both appear on the same screen.",[10,1894,1895,1898],{},[24,1896,1897],{},"Lab data."," The test that ran the moment you clicked. Google simulates a mid-range device on a throttled mobile network and measures once. That figure is noisy by nature: a briefly busy server, a third-party script that responded slowly, or simply a queue on Google's side — and you're ten points down. The big coloured score is this one.",[10,1900,1901,1904,1905,1908],{},[24,1902,1903],{},"Field data."," What actually happened to your real visitors over the last 30 days, drawn from Chrome usage data. This figure is stable, it doesn't move between tests, and it's ",[24,1906,1907],{},"the one Google acts on",". It appears at the top of the report, and only if the site has enough traffic.",[10,1910,1911],{},"What that means in practice:",[311,1913,1914,1917,1920,1926],{},[81,1915,1916],{},"Don't draw conclusions from a single test. Run three and take the middle one.",[81,1918,1919],{},"Always test under the same conditions: mobile against mobile, same page, incognito (browser extensions distort the result).",[81,1921,1922,1923,63],{},"If you have field data, that's your answer. Lab data is a diagnostic tool that shows you ",[54,1924,1925],{},"why",[81,1927,1928],{},"After a fix, field data updates gradually over weeks, not immediately. Don't panic when the number hasn't moved the next day.",[10,1930,1931],{},"And when the gap between the two is large — green in the lab, red in the field — it almost always means your real visitors are on weaker devices or slower networks than the test simulates.",[14,1933,1935],{"id":1934},"desktop-green-mobile-red-which-one-counts","Desktop green, mobile red — which one counts?",[10,1937,1938],{},"The report shows two tabs, and they almost always tell different stories: 95 on desktop, 60 on mobile. Both numbers are correct. Only one of them matters.",[10,1940,1941],{},"The mobile test deliberately simulates a mid-range device on a throttled cellular network — not because Google is pessimistic, but because that's a real visitor's phone on the way to work. And that's exactly where most traffic to business sites comes from: ads, WhatsApp, a search on the phone. Google also ranks by the mobile version of your site, not the desktop one.",[10,1943,1944],{},"So the desktop score is nice for the ego, and the mobile score decides the leads. If you must track a single number — it's the second one.",[14,1946,1948],{"id":1947},"the-one-thing-you-cant-fix-in-code-server-response-time","The One Thing You Can't Fix in Code: Server Response Time",[10,1950,1951],{},"There's one component that won't budge no matter how hard you compress images: how long the server takes to start answering at all. It's called TTFB, and in plain terms it's the time from the browser asking for the page to the first character arriving. Every other optimisation only begins after that finishes.",[10,1953,1954],{},"How to tell it's your problem: if the report shows images are fine and scripts are reasonable and the score is still low, look at response time. And if the first test in the morning is slow while the second is fast, that's almost always shared hosting that was busy.",[10,1956,1957],{},"What's usually to blame:",[311,1959,1960,1966,1972,1978],{},[81,1961,1962,1965],{},[24,1963,1964],{},"Cheap shared hosting"," where hundreds of sites share the same resources. You pay little and wait in the queue.",[81,1967,1968,1971],{},[24,1969,1970],{},"A bloated database"," — tables filled with old post revisions, plugin logs and job queues nobody has cleared in years.",[81,1973,1974,1977],{},[24,1975,1976],{},"No caching."," Without a caching layer, WordPress rebuilds every page on every request, even when the page hasn't changed in six months.",[81,1979,1980,1983],{},[24,1981,1982],{},"A server far from your visitors."," If the audience is in Israel and the server is in the US, every request makes a round trip.",[10,1985,1986,1987,63],{},"The good news: this is usually the cheapest fix relative to its impact. Moving to decent hosting with proper caching can take a full second off without touching a line of code — and that second is felt on every page, not just the homepage. How to choose hosting like that, and what to watch out for on the way — ",[59,1988,1989],{"href":241},"in the hosting guide",[14,1991,1993],{"id":1992},"whats-fixable-without-a-rebuild","What's fixable without a rebuild",[10,1995,1996],{},"Good news: a large share of the problems can be handled on the existing site, without touching the design:",[311,1998,1999,2005,2011,2017,2023,2029],{},[81,2000,2001,2004],{},[24,2002,2003],{},"Compressing and converting images"," to modern formats, with correct dimensions and lazy loading",[81,2006,2007,2010],{},[24,2008,2009],{},"Pruning plugins"," — removing what's unused and consolidating duplicates (three caching plugins is not \"extra speed,\" it's an accident waiting to happen)",[81,2012,2013,2016],{},[24,2014,2015],{},"Self-hosting fonts"," and loading only the necessary weights",[81,2018,2019,2022],{},[24,2020,2021],{},"Deferring third-party widgets"," until after the initial render",[81,2024,2025,2028],{},[24,2026,2027],{},"Caching and a CDN"," configured properly at the server level",[81,2030,2031,2034],{},[24,2032,2033],{},"Replacing the slider"," with a single static hero image",[10,2036,2037,2038,63],{},"Work like this delivers a noticeable jump for most sites — it's exactly the kind of thing I do in my ",[59,2039,2040],{"href":1125},"website fixes and improvements service",[14,2042,2044],{"id":2043},"one-thing-to-check-before-investing-in-speed","One thing to check before investing in speed",[10,2046,2047,2048,2051],{},"Speed multiplies an existing result — it doesn't create one. If the site isn't appearing in Google at all, the problem is probably technical and entirely different, and I covered it separately: ",[59,2049,2050],{"href":674},"6 technical reasons a site doesn't show up in Google",". Worth making sure the door is open before you renovate the living room.",[14,2053,2055],{"id":2054},"and-when-does-a-rebuild-pay-off","And when does a rebuild pay off?",[10,2057,2058],{},"There's a point where optimization becomes a race against the architecture. If the site sits on a heavy builder with dozens of plugins, every improvement is a fight with the structure's limits: you can climb from a score of 40 to 70, but the last 30 points are locked inside foundations you can't swap without dismantling everything. The signs you've reached that point: every new plugin breaks something, updates scare you, and you've already paid two \"speed experts\" who barely moved the needle.",[10,2060,2061,2062,2065],{},"At that stage, a new site built lean and correct from the ground up — no layers of generic code, with performance as a baseline requirement rather than an afterthought — pays for itself within a year or two, in both money and leads. That's exactly what I build in my ",[59,2063,2064],{"href":1133},"website development service",": sites that score 100 because they were built for it, not because someone fought them into submission.",[10,2067,2068,2069,2072],{},"Want to know where your site stands and which route makes more sense in your case — optimization or a rebuild? ",[59,2070,2071],{"href":219},"Get in touch"," and I'll come back with an honest answer, even if it's \"your site is fine, spend the money on marketing instead.\"",{"title":223,"searchDepth":224,"depth":224,"links":2074},[2075,2082,2083,2084,2085,2086,2087,2088,2089],{"id":1791,"depth":224,"text":1792,"children":2076},[2077,2078,2079,2080,2081],{"id":1795,"depth":495,"text":1796},{"id":1802,"depth":495,"text":1803},{"id":1809,"depth":495,"text":1810},{"id":1816,"depth":495,"text":1817},{"id":1827,"depth":495,"text":1828},{"id":1834,"depth":224,"text":1835},{"id":1859,"depth":224,"text":1860},{"id":1884,"depth":224,"text":1885},{"id":1934,"depth":224,"text":1935},{"id":1947,"depth":224,"text":1948},{"id":1992,"depth":224,"text":1993},{"id":2043,"depth":224,"text":2044},{"id":2054,"depth":224,"text":2055},"Performance","2026-06-24","What actually slows small-business sites: bloated builders, heavy images, fonts and widgets — what to fix without a rebuild, and when rebuilding pays.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fpagespeed-100-guide\u002Fog-en.jpg",{},{"title":1777,"description":2092},"en\u002Fblog\u002Fpagespeed-100-guide","GNzCOY9Vmg7z_Tscv0j6jnZaEbwVJk9RweLga-qPNjA",{"id":2099,"title":2100,"body":2101,"category":2307,"date":716,"description":2308,"extension":237,"image":2309,"meta":2310,"navigation":240,"path":2311,"readingTime":510,"seo":2312,"stem":2313,"updated":238,"video":238,"__hash__":2314},"blog_en\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fprivacy-law-amendment-13-guide.md","Israel's Privacy Law Amendment 13: What a Site Owner Actually Has to Do",{"type":7,"value":2102,"toc":2298},[2103,2106,2112,2116,2119,2145,2151,2155,2158,2165,2169,2175,2178,2192,2199,2202,2207,2211,2214,2217,2221,2227,2271,2274,2278,2281,2283,2286],[10,2104,2105],{},"Is there a contact form on your site? A name and phone field? Then Amendment 13 to Israel's Privacy Protection Law is talking to you too — not just to banks and HMOs. It has been in force since 14 August 2025, and most small sites simply haven't caught up yet.",[10,2107,2108,2111],{},[24,2109,2110],{},"The usual clarification first:"," I'm a developer, not a lawyer. What's written here is the site's side — what the code and the pages need to do. The full legal side gets closed with a lawyer, preferably one who works in privacy.",[14,2113,2115],{"id":2114},"what-changed-in-two-minutes","What Changed, in Two Minutes",[10,2117,2118],{},"The Privacy Protection Law dates from 1981. Amendment 13 is its big update for an era where every business collects digital information, and it does several things at once:",[311,2120,2121,2127,2133,2139],{},[81,2122,2123,2126],{},[24,2124,2125],{},"Expands the duty of notification."," When personal information is collected, the person must be told clearly: what is collected, for what purpose, whether it is passed to anyone else, and what their rights are — access, correction and deletion.",[81,2128,2129,2132],{},[24,2130,2131],{},"Significantly strengthens enforcement."," The Privacy Protection Authority has broader powers than before, and there is exposure to lawsuits as well. I deliberately avoid quoting amounts — they depend on circumstances, and that is what legal counsel is for.",[81,2134,2135,2138],{},[24,2136,2137],{},"Requires appointing a privacy protection officer"," in certain kinds of organisations.",[81,2140,2141,2144],{},[24,2142,2143],{},"Reduces the database registration obligation"," — less bureaucracy on that side, more responsibility on the transparency side, toward the people themselves.",[10,2146,2147,2148],{},"For an average site owner, the line that matters is the first one: ",[24,2149,2150],{},"the duty of notification meets you at every form.",[14,2152,2154],{"id":2153},"what-counts-as-personal-information-on-a-normal-site","What Counts as \"Personal Information\" on a Normal Site",[10,2156,2157],{},"More than you'd think. A name and phone in a form — yes. A newsletter email address — yes. But also what you can't see: a Facebook pixel identifying visitors, an analytics system recognising a return visit, a mailing platform tracking opens. If something on the site sends data about the visitor to any server — it's in scope.",[10,2159,2160,2161,2164],{},"Which is why the first step is not writing a policy. The first step is ",[24,2162,2163],{},"mapping",": which forms exist, which scripts run, and what each one collects. You can't notify about what you haven't mapped.",[14,2166,2168],{"id":2167},"the-duty-of-notification-on-forms-what-right-looks-like","The Duty of Notification on Forms: What Right Looks Like",[360,2170],{"alt":2171,"caption":2172,"height":2173,"src":2174,"width":351},"This site's contact form, with the notification line beside the submit button","How it looks on this site",900,"\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fprivacy-law-amendment-13-guide\u002Fform-notice.webp",[10,2176,2177],{},"The requirement is not a long legal page beside every field. It's a few clear lines, attached to the form itself:",[311,2179,2180,2183,2186,2189],{},[81,2181,2182],{},"What is collected (name, phone, email).",[81,2184,2185],{},"Why (to get back to you about your enquiry).",[81,2187,2188],{},"Whether the information is passed on (to a mailing system, for example).",[81,2190,2191],{},"A link to the full privacy policy, and how to request access or deletion.",[10,2193,2194,2195,2198],{},"Two principles turn this from fine print into something real: the notice sits ",[24,2196,2197],{},"beside the form",", not buried in the footer; and it's written in human language, not contract language.",[10,2200,2201],{},"And if there's marketing email — its consent is separate, not pre-ticked, and not a condition for getting the service.",[68,2203,2204],{},[10,2205,2206],{},"A privacy policy is a declaration. What matters is whether the site actually does what it says — and doesn't do what it doesn't say.",[14,2208,2210],{"id":2209},"the-common-mistake-a-generated-policy","The Common Mistake: a Generated Policy",[10,2212,2213],{},"Because the law came into force, tools popped up that produce a \"customised privacy policy\" in one click. The problem is identical to floating accessibility widgets, and regular readers already know the line: the generator adds a page, it doesn't change what the site does.",[10,2215,2216],{},"If the policy declares \"we do not share information with third parties\" while a Meta pixel fires on every page — you've created a document that contradicts reality, which is worse than writing nothing. The right order is the reverse: first fix what the site does, then write down what it does.",[14,2218,2220],{"id":2219},"a-practical-site-checklist","A Practical Site Checklist",[360,2222],{"alt":2223,"caption":2224,"height":2225,"src":2226,"width":351},"This site's cookie notice — one button, no toggles","This site's cookie notice",300,"\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fprivacy-law-amendment-13-guide\u002Fcookie-notice.webp",[78,2228,2229,2235,2241,2247,2253,2259,2265],{},[81,2230,2231,2234],{},[24,2232,2233],{},"Map."," Every form, every external script, everything that collects something. Half an hour's work on most small sites.",[81,2236,2237,2240],{},[24,2238,2239],{},"A notice beside every form."," Short, clear, in human language.",[81,2242,2243,2246],{},[24,2244,2245],{},"Separate marketing consent",", never pre-ticked.",[81,2248,2249,2252],{},[24,2250,2251],{},"Cookie and measurement disclosure."," A notice about the use, detail in the policy.",[81,2254,2255,2258],{},[24,2256,2257],{},"A privacy policy describing this site",", not a generic one — including a contact route for access and deletion requests.",[81,2260,2261,2264],{},[24,2262,2263],{},"HTTPS and minimisation."," Don't collect fields you don't need. Every field removed from a form is both one less obligation and more conversions.",[81,2266,2267,2270],{},[24,2268,2269],{},"A consistency check",": the policy, the forms and the actual behaviour all say the same thing.",[10,2272,2273],{},"If you want to see it live — this very site went through the process: a cookie notice, form notification, and a policy written from what actually runs here.",[14,2275,2277],{"id":2276},"what-about-sites-that-also-serve-abroad","What About Sites That Also Serve Abroad?",[10,2279,2280],{},"Amendment 13 is Israeli law and applies to your Israeli site regardless. If you also sell to customers in the EU, GDPR is a separate and in places stricter obligation. The good news: a site in order under Amendment 13 has covered serious ground in that direction too.",[14,2282,470],{"id":469},[10,2284,2285],{},"Amendment 13 is not a reason to panic, but it is the end of the era when a form on a site was purely a design decision. For an average site, compliance is orderly work of days, not months — and it costs far less than the alternative.",[10,2287,2288,2289,2293,2294,2297],{},"Want to know where your site stands? That's exactly ",[59,2290,2292],{"href":2291},"\u002Fen\u002Fservices\u002Fprivacy-amendment-13","the service"," — or just ",[59,2295,2296],{"href":219},"send me the URL"," and I'll tell you what's missing, jargon-free.",{"title":223,"searchDepth":224,"depth":224,"links":2299},[2300,2301,2302,2303,2304,2305,2306],{"id":2114,"depth":224,"text":2115},{"id":2153,"depth":224,"text":2154},{"id":2167,"depth":224,"text":2168},{"id":2209,"depth":224,"text":2210},{"id":2219,"depth":224,"text":2220},{"id":2276,"depth":224,"text":2277},{"id":469,"depth":224,"text":470},"Privacy","Amendment 13 covers almost any site collecting details: what the duty of notification requires on forms, what to do about pixels, and a policy that holds up.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fprivacy-law-amendment-13-guide\u002Fog-en.jpg",{},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fprivacy-law-amendment-13-guide",{"title":2100,"description":2308},"en\u002Fblog\u002Fprivacy-law-amendment-13-guide","tYIlHkJvtDU4bWF1KRXZduMBU7ZHCIqHSDAHIW-grqI",{"id":2316,"title":2317,"body":2318,"category":2711,"date":513,"description":2712,"extension":237,"image":2713,"meta":2714,"navigation":240,"path":566,"readingTime":1249,"seo":2715,"stem":2716,"updated":716,"video":238,"__hash__":2717},"blog_en\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fshopify-vs-woocommerce-israel.md","Shopify or WooCommerce? A Decision Guide for an Israeli Online Store",{"type":7,"value":2319,"toc":2693},[2320,2326,2329,2333,2343,2346,2350,2376,2379,2383,2409,2415,2419,2423,2426,2432,2435,2439,2442,2446,2449,2453,2460,2465,2470,2474,2483,2565,2568,2572,2578,2581,2591,2594,2598,2601,2607,2613,2619,2622,2626,2634,2640,2646,2650,2653,2673,2676,2678,2681],[10,2321,2322,2323,63],{},"Most conversations about an online store open with the wrong question: \"which one is better?\" Both are good. People run stores on both that sell in the millions. The right question is ",[24,2324,2325],{},"who runs the store day to day, and what happens when something breaks on a Saturday night",[10,2327,2328],{},"And in Israel specifically there's a layer no American guide covers: local card processing, tax invoices, local couriers, and Hebrew that has to run right-to-left without falling apart. That's usually what decides it — not the feature list.",[14,2330,2332],{"id":2331},"the-real-difference-in-one-line","The Real Difference, in One Line",[10,2334,2335,2338,2339,2342],{},[24,2336,2337],{},"Shopify"," rents you a finished store and takes the technical operation off your hands. ",[24,2340,2341],{},"WooCommerce"," gives you the store outright, and the technical operation is yours — alone or with someone like me.",[10,2344,2345],{},"Everything else follows from that.",[14,2347,2349],{"id":2348},"when-shopify-is-the-right-call","When Shopify Is the Right Call",[311,2351,2352,2358,2364,2370],{},[81,2353,2354,2357],{},[24,2355,2356],{},"You have no technical person and don't want one."," That's the strongest argument, and it's enough on its own. Security, backups, updates and compatibility are not your problem.",[81,2359,2360,2363],{},[24,2361,2362],{},"You want to sell tomorrow, not next month."," A simple catalogue goes live fast.",[81,2365,2366,2369],{},[24,2367,2368],{},"The catalogue is standard."," Products, size and colour variants, stock. Exactly what the system was built for.",[81,2371,2372,2375],{},[24,2373,2374],{},"You also sell through other channels"," — Instagram, marketplaces, a physical point of sale.",[10,2377,2378],{},"What you give up: control. Some things simply cannot be changed, and you pay a monthly subscription plus a transaction fee, every month, indefinitely.",[14,2380,2382],{"id":2381},"when-woocommerce-is-the-right-call","When WooCommerce Is the Right Call",[311,2384,2385,2391,2397,2403],{},[81,2386,2387,2390],{},[24,2388,2389],{},"Your logic isn't \"product-size-colour\"."," Products sold by the metre, assemblies, quantity-based pricing, made-to-order items, products that depend on each other. Woo wins here comfortably, because everything is open.",[81,2392,2393,2396],{},[24,2394,2395],{},"You need to connect to a system you already run"," — ERP, inventory, POS, loyalty. With open source, any integration is possible.",[81,2398,2399,2402],{},[24,2400,2401],{},"Content is part of the sale."," Blog, guides, landing pages — all on the same system.",[81,2404,2405,2408],{},[24,2406,2407],{},"You want ownership."," Your data, your server, and nobody who can change the terms on you.",[10,2410,2411,2412,63],{},"What comes with that: responsibility. An unmaintained Woo store is a store that will break — not if, but when. I went deeper on the underlying trade-off in ",[59,2413,2414],{"href":1747},"the WordPress vs custom guide",[14,2416,2418],{"id":2417},"now-the-israeli-part-which-usually-decides-it","Now the Israeli Part, Which Usually Decides It",[296,2420,2422],{"id":2421},"card-processing","Card Processing",[10,2424,2425],{},"This is the first thing I check, before any conversation about design. Israel has several local payment providers, and their level of support differs by platform — some have an official WordPress plugin, some a Shopify app, some one and not the other.",[10,2427,2428,2431],{},[24,2429,2430],{},"What to do:"," choose your payment provider first, ask them explicitly which platform they support and how, and only then decide. Stores do get built in full before anyone discovers the payment integration needs a workaround. That order of operations saves a lot of pain.",[10,2433,2434],{},"It's also worth asking about the local payment methods your audience expects, and about instalments.",[296,2436,2438],{"id":2437},"invoicing","Invoicing",[10,2440,2441],{},"An Israeli store has to issue a tax invoice. There are several common invoicing systems and all of them have a way to connect — but again, not necessarily to both platforms with equal ease. Make sure the connection is automatic and not \"export a CSV once a month,\" because otherwise it's manual work you'll hate within a fortnight.",[296,2443,2445],{"id":2444},"delivery","Delivery",[10,2447,2448],{},"Self-collection, pickup points, local courier firms, Israel Post. Check how shipping cost is calculated by locality, and how the tracking number gets back to the customer. It sounds like plumbing, but it's exactly what generates \"where is my order\" enquiries.",[296,2450,2452],{"id":2451},"hebrew-and-rtl","Hebrew and RTL",[10,2454,2455,2456,2459],{},"Here I want to be blunt, because this is my field: ",[24,2457,2458],{},"a theme that wasn't built for RTL doesn't \"flip\" at the press of a button."," It flips about 80% of the way, and the rest — cart, filter bars, breadcrumbs, quantity steppers — comes out mirrored or broken.",[10,2461,2462,2464],{},[24,2463,2430],{}," before falling in love with a theme, open its demo, switch to Hebrew, and try to complete a full purchase. If something looks odd in the demo, it will look odd on your store too, just with your products in it.",[68,2466,2467],{},[10,2468,2469],{},"Nobody abandons a cart because of the platform. They abandon because of a long form, unclear delivery, and a site that's slow on mobile.",[14,2471,2473],{"id":2472},"what-shopify-actually-costs-and-why-israel-is-different","What Shopify Actually Costs — and Why Israel Is Different",[10,2475,2476,2477,2482],{},"This is the part it's hardest to get a straight answer on, so here are the figures as they appear on Shopify's official pricing page as of August 2026. Prices are in US dollars and do change from time to time — always worth checking the ",[59,2478,2481],{"href":2479,"rel":2480},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.shopify.com\u002Fpricing",[1874],"pricing page"," before deciding.",[2484,2485,2486,2505],"table",{},[2487,2488,2489],"thead",{},[2490,2491,2492,2496,2499,2502],"tr",{},[2493,2494,2495],"th",{},"Plan",[2493,2497,2498],{},"Billed monthly",[2493,2500,2501],{},"Billed annually",[2493,2503,2504],{},"Third-party gateway fee",[2506,2507,2508,2523,2537,2551],"tbody",{},[2490,2509,2510,2514,2517,2520],{},[2511,2512,2513],"td",{},"Basic",[2511,2515,2516],{},"$39\u002Fmo",[2511,2518,2519],{},"$29\u002Fmo",[2511,2521,2522],{},"2%",[2490,2524,2525,2528,2531,2534],{},[2511,2526,2527],{},"Grow",[2511,2529,2530],{},"$105\u002Fmo",[2511,2532,2533],{},"$79\u002Fmo",[2511,2535,2536],{},"1%",[2490,2538,2539,2542,2545,2548],{},[2511,2540,2541],{},"Advanced",[2511,2543,2544],{},"$399\u002Fmo",[2511,2546,2547],{},"$299\u002Fmo",[2511,2549,2550],{},"0.6%",[2490,2552,2553,2556,2559,2562],{},[2511,2554,2555],{},"Plus",[2511,2557,2558],{},"from $2,300\u002Fmo",[2511,2560,2561],{},"—",[2511,2563,2564],{},"0.2%",[10,2566,2567],{},"There are no setup fees on any plan, and there's a short trial period before billing begins.",[296,2569,2571],{"id":2570},"and-heres-the-part-most-guides-miss","And Here's the Part Most Guides Miss",[360,2573],{"alt":2574,"caption":2575,"height":1865,"src":2576,"width":2577},"Shopify's official pricing page","Screenshot: shopify.com\u002Fpricing, August 2026","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fshopify-vs-woocommerce-israel\u002Fshopify-pricing.webp",1440,[10,2579,2580],{},"That last column isn't a footnote — in Israel it always applies.",[10,2582,2583,2584,2587,2588,2590],{},"Shopify runs its own processing system, Shopify Payments, and merchants using it don't pay that fee. But it's currently available in 49 countries, ",[24,2585,2586],{},"and Israel isn't one of them",". The practical consequence for an Israeli store: you must use a local payment provider, so Shopify's additional fee — 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced — always applies to you, ",[24,2589,1003],{}," whatever the Israeli provider charges in its own right.",[10,2592,2593],{},"Do that arithmetic before choosing a plan, because it changes the picture: on a store with serious turnover, the gap between 2% and 1% can justify moving up a tier on its own. And against WooCommerce, which has no extra fee layer sitting above the gateway, this is exactly where the real difference appears.",[14,2595,2597],{"id":2596},"the-question-nobody-asks-on-day-one-how-do-you-leave","The Question Nobody Asks on Day One: How Do You Leave",[10,2599,2600],{},"A platform gets chosen as if it's forever, but businesses change: the catalogue grows, an integration becomes necessary, or the monthly subscription starts feeling heavy. It's worth knowing in advance what leaving each one looks like.",[10,2602,2603,2606],{},[24,2604,2605],{},"Leaving Shopify:"," the content exports — products, customers and orders come down as orderly files. What doesn't leave with you: the design, the apps and their settings, and the history inside those apps. Moving out means rebuilding the store around your data.",[10,2608,2609,2612],{},[24,2610,2611],{},"Leaving WooCommerce:"," the site lives with you, so \"leaving\" usually means changing hosts or changing systems — all under your control, full database included.",[10,2614,2615,2616,63],{},"In both cases, what most determines how much the move hurts isn't the platform — it's the URLs. I broke that down step by step in ",[59,2617,2618],{"href":204},"the migration guide that doesn't lose Google",[10,2620,2621],{},"The practical takeaway: if there's a fair chance you'll want out in two years, prefer the platform that's cheap to leave — or at least keep a simple URL structure you can carry forward.",[14,2623,2625],{"id":2624},"what-matters-less-than-you-think","What Matters Less Than You Think",[10,2627,2628,2631,2632,63],{},[24,2629,2630],{},"\"Which is faster?\""," Neither. Both can be fast and both can be slow — it depends on images, theme, and how many add-ons you piled on. A clean Woo store will beat an app-heavy Shopify store easily, and the reverse is just as true. I wrote about what actually slows sites down in ",[59,2633,62],{"href":61},[10,2635,2636,2639],{},[24,2637,2638],{},"\"Which is better for Google?\""," Both are fine. Structure, content and speed decide it — not the platform's logo.",[10,2641,2642,2645],{},[24,2643,2644],{},"\"Which is cheaper?\""," Depends on the horizon. Shopify is a fixed, predictable monthly cost — the figures are above, and don't forget the third-party gateway fee. Woo has fewer fixed payments and more dependence on maintenance — which also costs, in money or in your time. An unmaintained store isn't a cheap store, it's a store waiting for an incident.",[14,2647,2649],{"id":2648},"how-i-actually-decide","How I Actually Decide",[10,2651,2652],{},"Three questions, in this order:",[78,2654,2655,2661,2667],{},[81,2656,2657,2660],{},[24,2658,2659],{},"Who maintains it?"," No good answer → Shopify.",[81,2662,2663,2666],{},[24,2664,2665],{},"Does the catalogue break the standard mould, or need to connect to an existing system?"," Yes → WooCommerce.",[81,2668,2669,2672],{},[24,2670,2671],{},"Which of the two does your payment and invoicing provider support properly?"," That answer breaks the tie.",[10,2674,2675],{},"That's it. There is no fourth question.",[14,2677,470],{"id":469},[10,2679,2680],{},"The platform isn't what determines whether the store succeeds. Good product photography, honest descriptions, clear delivery, a fast site on mobile and quick replies to enquiries will determine that. The platform only has to stay out of the way.",[10,2682,2683,2684,2687,2688,2692],{},"Weighing it up? ",[59,2685,2686],{"href":219},"Send me what you sell, who you sell it to, and who'll be running it"," — I'll tell you which of the two I'd build it in, and why. If the answer is the one I build in less often, I'll say that too. You can also start from ",[59,2689,2691],{"href":2690},"\u002Fen\u002Fservices\u002Fecommerce","the online stores page"," and see what it looks like in practice.",{"title":223,"searchDepth":224,"depth":224,"links":2694},[2695,2696,2697,2698,2704,2707,2708,2709,2710],{"id":2331,"depth":224,"text":2332},{"id":2348,"depth":224,"text":2349},{"id":2381,"depth":224,"text":2382},{"id":2417,"depth":224,"text":2418,"children":2699},[2700,2701,2702,2703],{"id":2421,"depth":495,"text":2422},{"id":2437,"depth":495,"text":2438},{"id":2444,"depth":495,"text":2445},{"id":2451,"depth":495,"text":2452},{"id":2472,"depth":224,"text":2473,"children":2705},[2706],{"id":2570,"depth":495,"text":2571},{"id":2596,"depth":224,"text":2597},{"id":2624,"depth":224,"text":2625},{"id":2648,"depth":224,"text":2649},{"id":469,"depth":224,"text":470},"E-commerce","Shopify or WooCommerce for an Israeli store: card processing, invoicing, delivery, Hebrew RTL, and who actually maintains it. From someone who builds both.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fshopify-vs-woocommerce-israel\u002Fog-en.jpg",{},{"title":2317,"description":2712},"en\u002Fblog\u002Fshopify-vs-woocommerce-israel","-DkYj8KsxwhIF0-6ras0ECfU4B4Oq4ICxxOf2cLonmM",{"id":2719,"title":2720,"body":2721,"category":1478,"date":505,"description":3082,"extension":237,"image":3083,"meta":3084,"navigation":240,"path":674,"readingTime":242,"seo":3085,"stem":3086,"updated":1479,"video":238,"__hash__":3087},"blog_en\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fwebsite-not-showing-in-google.md","Your Website Isn't Showing Up on Google? The 6 Technical Causes I Find Most",{"type":7,"value":2722,"toc":3069},[2723,2726,2729,2733,2737,2744,2753,2756,2776,2779,2783,2786,2796,2806,2810,2814,2825,2831,2834,2843,2847,2850,2857,2861,2864,2869,2873,2879,2882,2887,2891,2897,2903,2907,2910,2913,2916,2948,2964,2968,2975,2978,3016,3019,3027,3035,3039,3042,3045,3047,3057,3063],[10,2724,2725],{},"\"We built a site six months ago. If I search Google for the business name — I can't find it.\" That's a very common situation, and it usually surfaces after someone has already been paid for SEO and nothing happened.",[10,2727,2728],{},"Here's what I say every time: before we talk about ranking, we need to confirm Google can even get into the site and add it to its index. Promoting a site Google can't see is like hanging a sign on a locked shop. And in most cases the problem isn't competition and isn't content — it's a five-minute technical fault nobody checked.",[14,2730,2732],{"id":2731},"first-a-thirty-second-check","First: A Thirty-Second Check",[360,2734],{"alt":2735,"caption":1278,"height":1279,"src":2736,"width":1281},"The thirty-second check","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fwebsite-not-showing-in-google\u002Fsite-check-en.webp",[10,2738,2739,2740,2743],{},"Open Google and search for ",[1567,2741,2742],{},"site:"," followed by your address, with no space. For example:",[2745,2746,2751],"pre",{"className":2747,"code":2749,"language":2750},[2748],"language-text","site:example.com\n","text",[1567,2752,2749],{"__ignoreMap":223},[10,2754,2755],{},"What comes back is the list of pages Google knows about on your site.",[311,2757,2758,2764,2770],{},[81,2759,2760,2763],{},[24,2761,2762],{},"Zero results"," — the site isn't indexed at all. The cause is almost always in points 1–3 below.",[81,2765,2766,2769],{},[24,2767,2768],{},"Some of the pages"," — partial indexing; points 4–5.",[81,2771,2772,2775],{},[24,2773,2774],{},"Every page appears, but you still don't show up in searches"," — that's no longer an indexing problem, it's a ranking one. Point 6.",[10,2777,2778],{},"This check saves a lot of guesswork, so it's worth doing before any conversation about ad budgets.",[14,2780,2782],{"id":2781},"_1-the-site-is-still-marked-do-not-index","1. The Site Is Still Marked \"Do Not Index\"",[10,2784,2785],{},"This is the number one cause, by a distance. When a site is being built, it gets closed off to search engines so the unfinished version doesn't end up in Google. Then it goes live, and nobody removes the flag.",[10,2787,2788,2789,2792,2793,63],{},"In WordPress it's a single checkbox: ",[24,2790,2791],{},"Settings → Reading → \"Discourage search engines from indexing this site.\""," On other sites it's a tag in the code: ",[1567,2794,2795],{},"\u003Cmeta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex\">",[10,2797,2798,2801,2802,2805],{},[24,2799,2800],{},"How to check:"," right-click the page → \"View source\" → search for ",[1567,2803,2804],{},"noindex",". If it's there, you've found it.",[14,2807,2809],{"id":2808},"_2-robotstxt-is-blocking-what-it-shouldnt","2. robots.txt Is Blocking What It Shouldn't",[360,2811],{"alt":2812,"caption":1278,"height":1279,"src":2813,"width":1281},"A robots.txt that blocks the whole site","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fwebsite-not-showing-in-google\u002Frobots-blocking-en.webp",[10,2815,2816,2817,2820,2821,2824],{},"The ",[1567,2818,2819],{},"robots.txt"," file lives at ",[1567,2822,2823],{},"example.com\u002Frobots.txt"," and tells Google where it's allowed to go. One wrong line left over from the development environment can block the entire site:",[2745,2826,2829],{"className":2827,"code":2828,"language":2750},[2748],"User-agent: *\nDisallow: \u002F\n",[1567,2830,2828],{"__ignoreMap":223},[10,2832,2833],{},"That line says \"don't go anywhere.\" Blocking your styling or script folders can hurt too, because it stops Google rendering the page the way a visitor sees it.",[10,2835,2836,2838,2839,2842],{},[24,2837,2800],{}," just open the address in a browser. If you see ",[1567,2840,2841],{},"Disallow: \u002F"," — there's your answer.",[14,2844,2846],{"id":2845},"_3-nobody-connected-search-console-and-theres-no-sitemap","3. Nobody Connected Search Console, and There's No Sitemap",[10,2848,2849],{},"Google Search Console is free, and it's the only real way to see what Google thinks of your site: which pages went in, which were rejected and why. If nobody has connected it, you're guessing.",[10,2851,2852,2853,2856],{},"Two things are worth doing inside it on day one: submit the sitemap (usually ",[1567,2854,2855],{},"example.com\u002Fsitemap.xml","), and run a URL inspection on your homepage. That inspection will tell you exactly whether the page is indexed and, if not, why not.",[14,2858,2860],{"id":2859},"_4-the-content-only-exists-after-javascript-runs","4. The Content Only Exists After JavaScript Runs",[10,2862,2863],{},"Some sites hand the browser a nearly empty page and only then load the content with JavaScript. Google can run JavaScript, but it does so in a separate, slower pass — and if the content only appears after a user interaction (clicking a tab, scrolling to trigger a load), there's a good chance it simply never gets in.",[10,2865,2866,2868],{},[24,2867,2800],{}," \"View source\", then search for a sentence from the page. If the sentence isn't in the source but is on screen, that's what's happening.",[14,2870,2872],{"id":2871},"_5-every-page-points-at-the-same-canonical","5. Every Page Points at the Same Canonical",[10,2874,2816,2875,2878],{},[1567,2876,2877],{},"canonical"," tag tells Google \"this is the official address for this page.\" When it's set wrong — a template declaring the homepage on every page of the site, for instance — you're effectively asking Google to disregard everything else.",[10,2880,2881],{},"The classic result: the homepage shows up nicely and not one service page or article is found. It also happens a lot after a domain move, when the old addresses are left behind in the tags.",[68,2883,2884],{},[10,2885,2886],{},"Most of what gets sold as an \"SEO problem\" is an infrastructure problem. There's no point pushing a site forward while the door is locked from the inside.",[14,2888,2890],{"id":2889},"_6-it-is-indexed-theres-just-no-page-answering-the-question","6. It Is Indexed — There's Just No Page Answering the Question",[10,2892,2893,2894,2896],{},"If ",[1567,2895,2742],{}," returns all your pages and you still don't appear, the problem has moved from indexing to ranking. The common cause: no page on the site speaks the language people are searching in.",[10,2898,2899,2900,2902],{},"A site with one \"Services\" page mentioning eight things in a paragraph won't appear for any of them. A site with a dedicated page per service, headed with the words people actually type, will. Speed matters too — I went into that in ",[59,2901,1427],{"href":61}," — but it multiplies an existing result rather than creating one from nothing.",[14,2904,2906],{"id":2905},"bonus-for-bilingual-sites-when-google-shows-the-wrong-version","Bonus for Bilingual Sites: When Google Shows the Wrong Version",[10,2908,2909],{},"This is very common in Israel and nobody warns you about it: you have a site in Hebrew and English, and a Hebrew search returns the English page. Or worse — Google shows only one version and ignores the other entirely.",[10,2911,2912],{},"The cause is almost always the same: Google doesn't know the two pages are the same content in two languages, so it treats them as competing pages and picks one.",[10,2914,2915],{},"What should be there:",[311,2917,2918,2928,2936,2942],{},[81,2919,2920,2927],{},[24,2921,2922,2923,2926],{},"Reciprocal ",[1567,2924,2925],{},"hreflang"," tags."," The Hebrew page points at the English one, and the English points back at the Hebrew. If the link only goes one way, Google ignores it.",[81,2929,2930,2935],{},[24,2931,2932],{},[1567,2933,2934],{},"x-default",", marking which version to send anyone who matches neither language.",[81,2937,2938,2941],{},[24,2939,2940],{},"Consistent URLs."," If the tags point at one address and the site serves another — with or without a trailing slash, for instance — the link breaks silently. Worth checking that the address in the tags is exactly the one returning 200 rather than a redirect.",[81,2943,2944,2947],{},[24,2945,2946],{},"A real translation, not the same text."," Two versions with identical content count as duplication, not translation.",[10,2949,2950,2952,2953,2955,2956,2959,2960,2963],{},[24,2951,2800],{}," open \"View source\" on the Hebrew page, search for ",[1567,2954,2925],{},", confirm both ",[1567,2957,2958],{},"he"," and ",[1567,2961,2962],{},"en"," are there — then do the same on the English page and check it points back. Two minutes, and it explains a great many cases of \"the page exists but doesn't show up\".",[14,2965,2967],{"id":2966},"the-opposite-problem-too-many-pages-in-the-index","The Opposite Problem: Too Many Pages in the Index",[10,2969,2970,2971,2974],{},"So far we've talked about pages that don't get in. There's also the reverse, and it's common in WordPress: Google has indexed ",[24,2972,2973],{},"hundreds"," of pages you never intended to exist — and that harms the pages that matter.",[10,2976,2977],{},"Where they come from:",[311,2979,2980,2986,2996,3010],{},[81,2981,2982,2985],{},[24,2983,2984],{},"Tag and author archives."," Every tag you create gets its own page. Fifty tags means fifty thin pages that all look alike.",[81,2987,2988,2991,2992,2995],{},[24,2989,2990],{},"URLs with parameters."," Filtering, sorting and internal search generate addresses like ",[1567,2993,2994],{},"?orderby=price"," — every combination is a different \"page\" as far as Google is concerned. On a store that can explode into hundreds.",[81,2997,2998,3001,3002,3005,3006,3009],{},[24,2999,3000],{},"Endless pagination"," (",[1567,3003,3004],{},"\u002Fpage\u002F2",", ",[1567,3007,3008],{},"\u002Fpage\u002F3","...).",[81,3011,3012,3015],{},[24,3013,3014],{},"Images as pages."," WordPress creates a separate page for every media file. Nobody searches for those.",[10,3017,3018],{},"Why it hurts: Google has a limited crawl budget for your site. If it's spent on an empty tag archive, less is left for your service pages and articles. On top of that, a mass of thin, similar-looking pages dilutes the picture of the site.",[10,3020,3021,3023,3024,3026],{},[24,3022,2800],{}," run ",[1567,3025,2742],{}," on the domain and look at the result count. If you have a 15-page site and Google knows about 300, you've found it. In Search Console, the pages report shows exactly which kinds of URL went in.",[10,3028,3029,3031,3032,3034],{},[24,3030,2430],{}," mark ",[1567,3033,2804],{}," on what was never meant for search (tag archives, media pages, internal search results), and make sure parameter URLs point their canonical at the clean version. Don't delete them — just stop offering them for indexing.",[14,3036,3038],{"id":3037},"what-this-isnt","What This Isn't",[10,3040,3041],{},"This isn't \"SEO magic,\" and it isn't a promise of first place. Nothing here will push you past larger competitors — it only makes sure you're in the game at all. A technically sound site is the starting line, not the finish.",[10,3043,3044],{},"Also: once it's fixed, it doesn't happen the same day. Google has to re-crawl, and that takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks depending on the size of the site.",[14,3046,470],{"id":469},[10,3048,3049,3050,3052,3053,3056],{},"Before you pay anyone for SEO, run the ",[1567,3051,2742],{}," check. If it returns zero, no amount of ad spend will help — what's needed is a ",[59,3054,3055],{"href":1125},"technical fix",", not a campaign.",[10,3058,3059,3060,63],{},"And if you have a physical address, it's worth knowing that most searches relevant to you don't end at the website at all — I went into that in ",[59,3061,3062],{"href":1483},"the local search guide",[10,3064,3065,3066,3068],{},"Want me to look? ",[59,3067,487],{"href":219}," — I'll go through these six and tell you exactly which one your site is falling on.",{"title":223,"searchDepth":224,"depth":224,"links":3070},[3071,3072,3073,3074,3075,3076,3077,3078,3079,3080,3081],{"id":2731,"depth":224,"text":2732},{"id":2781,"depth":224,"text":2782},{"id":2808,"depth":224,"text":2809},{"id":2845,"depth":224,"text":2846},{"id":2859,"depth":224,"text":2860},{"id":2871,"depth":224,"text":2872},{"id":2889,"depth":224,"text":2890},{"id":2905,"depth":224,"text":2906},{"id":2966,"depth":224,"text":2967},{"id":3037,"depth":224,"text":3038},{"id":469,"depth":224,"text":470},"Site not appearing in Google? Before paying for SEO: check if you're indexed at all, the forgotten noindex, robots.txt, sitemaps — and how to fix each one.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fwebsite-not-showing-in-google\u002Fog-en.jpg",{},{"title":2720,"description":3082},"en\u002Fblog\u002Fwebsite-not-showing-in-google","p2N8MWqMbuLLrem_fBtM7zBgaNNKIbkmdLgY1ko6MSo",{"id":3089,"title":3090,"body":3091,"category":3249,"date":516,"description":3250,"extension":237,"image":3251,"meta":3252,"navigation":240,"path":165,"readingTime":242,"seo":3253,"stem":3254,"updated":238,"video":238,"__hash__":3255},"blog_en\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fwho-owns-your-website.md","Who Actually Holds Your Website? The Domain, Hosting and Access Checklist",{"type":7,"value":3092,"toc":3242},[3093,3096,3104,3108,3118,3124,3130,3136,3142,3146,3150,3167,3170,3175,3179,3185,3191,3197,3201,3231,3233,3236],[10,3094,3095],{},"There's a kind of fault that doesn't look like a fault until it becomes a disaster: the site works perfectly, and then one day something needs changing — and it turns out you have access to nothing. The domain is registered to the guy who built the site six years ago. The hosting is on the credit card of someone who left. The admin password — \"I think the designer has it.\"",[10,3097,3098,3099,3103],{},"This isn't rare. It's one of the first things that surfaces in every ",[59,3100,3102],{"href":3101},"\u002Fwebsite-rescue","site rescue",", and it's usually what eats the first week. Here's how to check it isn't your situation, and what to do if it is.",[14,3105,3107],{"id":3106},"the-checklist-five-things-that-must-be-in-your-name","The Checklist: Five Things That Must Be in Your Name",[10,3109,3110,3113,3114,3117],{},[24,3111,3112],{},"1. The domain."," The most important asset — it's the address every customer knows. Check who's listed as owner and administrative contact, and which registrar manages it. If you don't know, a free WHOIS lookup will show you at least the registrar. ",[24,3115,3116],{},"The email attached to the registrar account must be yours"," — it's the one that receives renewal notices.",[10,3119,3120,3123],{},[24,3121,3122],{},"2. The hosting account."," Who pays, and who can log in. Hosting registered under the developer's account looks convenient until they stop paying — or stop answering — and the site disappears without notice.",[10,3125,3126,3129],{},[24,3127,3128],{},"3. The admin system."," An administrator user in WordPress (or whatever you have) in your name, with a password you know and two-factor authentication tied to your phone. Not the developer's, not the designer's.",[10,3131,3132,3135],{},[24,3133,3134],{},"4. The code and the backups."," Where backups are kept and how to restore them without the developer. On a custom site — where the code lives (a Git repository? a folder?) and whether you have access. A backup that sits only on someone else's computer isn't your backup.",[10,3137,3138,3141],{},[24,3139,3140],{},"5. The surrounding accounts."," Google Search Console, Google Analytics, the Google Business Profile, Tag Manager, the ad account, the mailing platform. Each needs at least one owner who is you — not merely an \"editor\".",[14,3143,3145],{"id":3144},"the-ten-minute-check","The Ten-Minute Check",[360,3147],{"alt":3148,"caption":1278,"height":1279,"src":3149,"width":1281},"A WHOIS lookup — what you must know","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fwho-owns-your-website\u002Fwhois-en.webp",[78,3151,3152,3155,3158,3161,3164],{},[81,3153,3154],{},"Look up the domain in a WHOIS service. The registrar and the expiry date should be known to you.",[81,3156,3157],{},"Try logging in to the registrar account. If you don't know how — that's your answer.",[81,3159,3160],{},"Try logging in to the hosting. Same.",[81,3162,3163],{},"Log in to the admin system with a user that's yours, and confirm it's an administrator, not an editor.",[81,3165,3166],{},"Open Search Console and the Google Business Profile, and confirm you're listed as owner.",[10,3168,3169],{},"Every step that fails is a point of dependency. Write it down.",[68,3171,3172],{},[10,3173,3174],{},"A site you pay for but can't log in to isn't yours. It's rented — on terms nobody agreed to.",[14,3176,3178],{"id":3177},"what-to-do-when-something-isnt-in-your-name","What to Do When Something Isn't in Your Name",[10,3180,3181,3184],{},[24,3182,3183],{},"The developer is available and perfectly fine."," Most cases. Ask for an orderly transfer: the domain to a registrar account of yours, the hosting to your account, a new administrator user, and a list of access credentials. A decent developer does this without drama — usually they don't want to be responsible for your assets either.",[10,3186,3187,3190],{},[24,3188,3189],{},"The developer isn't answering."," First make sure the domain isn't about to expire — that's the urgent part. Then: registrars have procedures for transferring ownership given proof of belonging (invoices, correspondence, a site displaying your business details). It takes time, but it's possible. For hosting, it's usually easier to move the site to a new account than to recover the old one.",[10,3192,3193,3196],{},[24,3194,3195],{},"The domain has expired."," Most registrars give a short grace period for renewal, then a window where it can still be rescued at a higher cost. After that it's released to the market, and domains of active businesses get grabbed fast. If this has happened — it's today, not next week.",[14,3198,3200],{"id":3199},"the-habits-that-prevent-all-of-this","The Habits That Prevent All of This",[311,3202,3203,3209,3215,3221],{},[81,3204,3205,3208],{},[24,3206,3207],{},"Auto-renewal on the domain",", on your card, plus a calendar reminder a month before expiry regardless.",[81,3210,3211,3214],{},[24,3212,3213],{},"A dedicated email for technical accounts"," (admin@ your business, say) — not the personal address of whoever works for you right now.",[81,3216,3217,3220],{},[24,3218,3219],{},"One access document",", in a password manager, listing every account and its owner. Updated when someone joins or leaves.",[81,3222,3223,3226,3227,3230],{},[24,3224,3225],{},"On every new project"," — an ownership clause in the quote, before anything starts. ",[59,3228,3229],{"href":844},"It's one of the questions worth asking"," anyone building something for you.",[14,3232,470],{"id":469},[10,3234,3235],{},"Every disaster in this category is slow and quiet: years of \"it works, why touch it\" and then one week of panic. Ten minutes of checking today saves that week.",[10,3237,3238,3239,3241],{},"Not sure what's registered to whom? ",[59,3240,487],{"href":219}," — I'll check what's publicly visible, tell you what's worth transferring, and if needed do the transfer properly.",{"title":223,"searchDepth":224,"depth":224,"links":3243},[3244,3245,3246,3247,3248],{"id":3106,"depth":224,"text":3107},{"id":3144,"depth":224,"text":3145},{"id":3177,"depth":224,"text":3178},{"id":3199,"depth":224,"text":3200},{"id":469,"depth":224,"text":470},"Maintenance","Domain in the developer's name? Passwords with someone who no longer answers? The checklist that proves your site is really yours — and what to do if it isn't.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fwho-owns-your-website\u002Fog-en.jpg",{},{"title":3090,"description":3250},"en\u002Fblog\u002Fwho-owns-your-website","6V2lDB9deVItQPnZV1FzwEOZFwXqVKlxC10FoqvwaR8",{"id":3257,"title":3258,"body":3259,"category":3544,"date":3545,"description":3546,"extension":237,"image":3547,"meta":3548,"navigation":240,"path":3549,"readingTime":3550,"seo":3551,"stem":3552,"updated":1479,"video":238,"__hash__":3553},"blog_en\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fwhy-landing-pages-dont-convert.md","Why Isn't Your Landing Page Converting? 7 Mistakes That Keep Recurring",{"type":7,"value":3260,"toc":3532},[3261,3264,3267,3271,3277,3283,3289,3293,3298,3303,3308,3312,3317,3322,3327,3331,3336,3341,3346,3350,3355,3360,3365,3370,3374,3379,3384,3393,3397,3402,3407,3412,3416,3419,3422,3428,3434,3440,3447,3451,3458,3471,3487,3493,3499,3505,3511,3514,3517,3525],[10,3262,3263],{},"\"We have traffic, we don't have leads.\" If I got a shekel for every time I've heard that sentence, I wouldn't need to build landing pages — I'd be commissioning them.",[10,3265,3266],{},"The good news: in most cases the problem isn't the audience, isn't the product, and isn't even the campaign. It's the same seven mistakes that recur in almost every landing page that isn't converting. Here they are, along with what to do about each one.",[14,3268,3270],{"id":3269},"_1-the-page-loads-slowly-on-mobile","1. The Page Loads Slowly on Mobile",[10,3272,3273,3276],{},[24,3274,3275],{},"The mistake:"," a page built and tested on a designer's monitor, with giant images, heavy fonts, and scripts from every measurement tool ever invented.",[10,3278,3279,3282],{},[24,3280,3281],{},"Why it kills conversion:"," most of your paid traffic comes from mobile, and someone who just clicked an ad is at peak impatience. Every second of white screen is an invitation to go back to the feed.",[10,3284,3285,3288],{},[24,3286,3287],{},"The fix:"," compress images and serve them in modern formats, load only what's visible above the fold, and throw out every script whose data nobody actually looks at. Test on a real phone on a cellular network — not on the office Wi-Fi.",[14,3290,3292],{"id":3291},"_2-the-pages-message-doesnt-match-the-ad","2. The Page's Message Doesn't Match the Ad",[10,3294,3295,3297],{},[24,3296,3275],{}," the ad promises \"a free first consultation,\" and the page opens with \"Welcome to Company X, established 2009.\"",[10,3299,3300,3302],{},[24,3301,3281],{}," whoever clicked the ad clicked because of a specific promise. If the page doesn't continue that exact sentence, the visitor feels they've landed in the wrong place — and closes the tab.",[10,3304,3305,3307],{},[24,3306,3287],{}," the page's main headline should be a direct continuation of the ad, almost word for word. Multiple audiences or promises? Build a page variant for each. Yes, it's more work. Yes, it's worth it.",[14,3309,3311],{"id":3310},"_3-the-form-is-too-long","3. The Form Is Too Long",[10,3313,3314,3316],{},[24,3315,3275],{}," first name, last name, phone, email, company name, job title, estimated budget, and how you heard about us.",[10,3318,3319,3321],{},[24,3320,3281],{}," every additional field is another reason to abandon. You're not yet at the stage where you've earned the lead's life story — you're at the stage where you need a way to make contact.",[10,3323,3324,3326],{},[24,3325,3287],{}," name, phone, done. At most one extra field that genuinely changes the first conversation. Everything else you can ask on the phone — where it also sounds a lot less like an interrogation.",[14,3328,3330],{"id":3329},"_4-no-whatsapp-option","4. No WhatsApp Option",[10,3332,3333,3335],{},[24,3334,3275],{}," a page aimed at an Israeli audience that offers only a form — or worse, only \"leave your details and we'll get back to you.\"",[10,3337,3338,3340],{},[24,3339,3281],{}," in Israel, WhatsApp isn't a communication channel, it's the default. A large share of visitors simply won't fill out a form, but will happily send a message — it feels personal, immediate, and non-committal.",[10,3342,3343,3345],{},[24,3344,3287],{}," a prominent WhatsApp button with a pre-filled opening message (\"Hi, I came from the X page and I'd love to hear more\"). The form stays for those who prefer it — the two channels live perfectly well side by side.",[14,3347,3349],{"id":3348},"_5-no-trust-signals","5. No Trust Signals",[10,3351,3352,3354],{},[24,3353,3275],{}," the page asks the visitor to hand over their phone number but gives no reason to believe there's a real business behind it.",[10,3356,3357,3359],{},[24,3358,3281],{}," a visitor arriving from an ad doesn't know you. Without social proof, hesitation beats curiosity.",[10,3361,3362,3364],{},[24,3363,3287],{}," client logos, one or two genuine testimonials with a name and a face, and one clear positioning statement that says who you are and who you're right for. You don't need a wall of awards — you need one good reason to believe.",[68,3366,3367],{},[10,3368,3369],{},"A good landing page doesn't convince people to want the product. It removes every reason to hesitate on the way to something they already want.",[14,3371,3373],{"id":3372},"_6-a-weak-call-to-action-or-five-of-them","6. A Weak Call to Action — or Five of Them",[10,3375,3376,3378],{},[24,3377,3275],{}," a grayish \"Submit\" button, or the exact opposite: \"Contact us,\" \"Download the guide,\" \"Follow us,\" and \"Join the newsletter\" — all on the same page.",[10,3380,3381,3383],{},[24,3382,3281],{}," a generic button doesn't tell the visitor what happens after the click, and multiple options scatter attention. A visitor weighing five actions usually picks a sixth: leaving.",[10,3385,3386,3388,3389,3392],{},[24,3387,3287],{}," one call to action, phrased as an outcome (\"Get a quote within one business day\"), repeated down the page in the same wording. Everything else — out. A landing page is not a ",[59,3390,3391],{"href":1133},"full business website",", and it shouldn't behave like one.",[14,3394,3396],{"id":3395},"_7-no-conversion-tracking-so-no-learning","7. No Conversion Tracking — So No Learning",[10,3398,3399,3401],{},[24,3400,3275],{}," the campaign runs, money burns, and nobody knows how many leads came from which ad, because nobody set up conversion events.",[10,3403,3404,3406],{},[24,3405,3281],{}," without measurement you can't know what works, so you can't improve. The page stays exactly as it was on launch day — including every mistake in this article.",[10,3408,3409,3411],{},[24,3410,3287],{}," define a conversion event for every form submission and every WhatsApp click, connect them to your ad platform, and set a recurring review date. A landing page isn't a project that ends — it's a product you keep improving.",[14,3413,3415],{"id":3414},"and-what-if-you-do-get-leads-but-the-wrong-ones","And What If You Do Get Leads — but the Wrong Ones?",[10,3417,3418],{},"That's the inverse problem, and it's almost as common: the form fills up, the phone rings, and most enquiries are looking for something else entirely. That's a conversion problem too — it's just disguised as success.",[10,3420,3421],{},"Usually one of three things is to blame:",[10,3423,3424,3427],{},[24,3425,3426],{},"The page never says who it isn't for."," One honest sentence — \"suited to businesses already running an active campaign\", \"not suited to first-budget projects\" — filters better than any form field. People appreciate the directness, and it saves them a pointless call too.",[10,3429,3430,3433],{},[24,3431,3432],{},"The headline promises too broadly."," \"Digital solutions for business\" will bring you enquiries about everything that exists. The more specific the promise, the more focused the enquiries — and the fewer, which is fine.",[10,3435,3436,3439],{},[24,3437,3438],{},"The single qualifying question is missing."," Not a long form — one select field with three options that separates the types of enquiry. It deters nobody serious, and it saves you the call where it emerges after ten minutes that there's no fit.",[10,3441,3442,3443,3446],{},"A simple metric worth using: don't count leads, count ",[24,3444,3445],{},"conversations that led to a quote",". A page producing ten leads of which two are relevant beats a page producing forty of which one is.",[14,3448,3450],{"id":3449},"its-not-just-form-length-its-how-the-fields-behave-on-mobile","It's Not Just Form Length — It's How the Fields Behave on Mobile",[10,3452,3453,3454,3457],{},"Mistake 3 above is about ",[24,3455,3456],{},"how many"," fields there are. But a four-field form can feel like ten, simply because nobody tested it on an actual phone. These are the ones most worth checking:",[10,3459,3460,3463,3464,3005,3467,3470],{},[24,3461,3462],{},"The field type isn't set."," A phone field that opens a letter keyboard, an email field with no @ within reach. That's one line of code (",[1567,3465,3466],{},"type=\"tel\"",[1567,3468,3469],{},"type=\"email\"","), and the difference in feel is enormous — suddenly the keyboard that opens is the right one.",[10,3472,3473,3476,3477,3005,3480,3005,3483,3486],{},[24,3474,3475],{},"No autocomplete."," The browser can fill name, phone and email in one tap — but only if the fields are marked correctly (",[1567,3478,3479],{},"autocomplete=\"name\"",[1567,3481,3482],{},"\"tel\"",[1567,3484,3485],{},"\"email\"","). Without it you've forced the visitor to type by hand what could have filled itself in a second.",[10,3488,3489,3492],{},[24,3490,3491],{},"Labels that vanish."," A placeholder used as a label disappears the moment typing starts, and then you can't verify what you entered before sending. A conversion problem and an accessibility problem in the same line.",[10,3494,3495,3498],{},[24,3496,3497],{},"Errors that only appear after submitting."," You filled seven fields, hit send, and scrolled back up hunting for what's wrong. Validate as they go, and say what to fix — not \"invalid form\".",[10,3500,3501,3504],{},[24,3502,3503],{},"A button that's too small, or too close to the field."," A finger isn't a mouse. Generous tap target, and enough spacing to prevent mis-taps.",[10,3506,3507,3510],{},[24,3508,3509],{},"Zoom jumping on focus."," If the text size in the field is under 16 pixels, iOS zooms in when it's tapped and the page lurches. A correct size solves it.",[10,3512,3513],{},"The simple test: fill in the form from a phone, on mobile data, one-handed, while walking. Anything that annoys you there annoys a visitor too — except they aren't the business owner, so they just close it.",[14,3515,3516],{"id":209},"Bottom Line",[10,3518,3519,3520,3524],{},"None of these mistakes requires a miracle, a huge budget, or a ground-up redesign. They require someone who reads the page through the visitor's eyes, not the business owner's. That's how I approach every project on my ",[59,3521,3523],{"href":3522},"\u002Fen\u002Fservices\u002Flanding-pages","landing pages service"," — conversion first, decoration second.",[10,3526,3527,3528,3531],{},"Got a page that gets traffic but doesn't produce leads? ",[59,3529,3530],{"href":219},"Send it to me"," — and I'll tell you which of the seven are running on it right now.",{"title":223,"searchDepth":224,"depth":224,"links":3533},[3534,3535,3536,3537,3538,3539,3540,3541,3542,3543],{"id":3269,"depth":224,"text":3270},{"id":3291,"depth":224,"text":3292},{"id":3310,"depth":224,"text":3311},{"id":3329,"depth":224,"text":3330},{"id":3348,"depth":224,"text":3349},{"id":3372,"depth":224,"text":3373},{"id":3395,"depth":224,"text":3396},{"id":3414,"depth":224,"text":3415},{"id":3449,"depth":224,"text":3450},{"id":209,"depth":224,"text":3516},"Conversion","2026-07-15","Traffic but no leads? The 7 landing page mistakes that keep recurring: slow mobile load, long forms, no WhatsApp, mismatched messaging — and the fixes.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fwhy-landing-pages-dont-convert\u002Fog-en.jpg",{},"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fwhy-landing-pages-dont-convert",5,{"title":3258,"description":3546},"en\u002Fblog\u002Fwhy-landing-pages-dont-convert","p44b8XT4YSU5hVTArp4_XCz9wVvDJwzMM9epeMNpmac",{"id":3555,"title":3556,"body":3557,"category":3249,"date":513,"description":3804,"extension":237,"image":3805,"meta":3806,"navigation":240,"path":95,"readingTime":510,"seo":3807,"stem":3808,"updated":716,"video":238,"__hash__":3809},"blog_en\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fwordpress-site-hacked-what-to-do.md","WordPress Site Hacked? The Order of Operations for the First Hour",{"type":7,"value":3558,"toc":3788},[3559,3562,3565,3569,3575,3581,3587,3591,3595,3598,3602,3605,3609,3613,3616,3620,3631,3635,3638,3642,3645,3649,3658,3663,3667,3670,3696,3699,3703,3724,3731,3735,3738,3773,3776,3778,3781],[10,3560,3561],{},"It usually surfaces in the evening, and the symptom sounds roughly like this: \"our site is redirecting to some gambling site in Japanese.\" Or \"Google says our site is dangerous.\" Or, the quieter and more dangerous version: \"the site looks fine, but something odd is showing in the search results.\"",[10,3563,3564],{},"So before anything else: this happens to a lot of sites, it's almost never personal, and in most cases it's fixable. But the order of operations matters, because some of the instinctive reactions actively make the cleanup harder.",[14,3566,3568],{"id":3567},"three-things-not-to-do","Three Things Not to Do",[10,3570,3571,3574],{},[24,3572,3573],{},"Don't delete the site."," The temptation is understandable — wipe it and start clean. But you've also deleted the evidence: which file changed and when, and how exactly they got in. Without that you'll close the current hole and keep the same hole for next time.",[10,3576,3577,3580],{},[24,3578,3579],{},"Don't restore a backup and go back to business."," A restore returns you to the point where the weakness still exists. If you haven't updated and haven't closed the way in, you'll be breached again — sometimes within days.",[10,3582,3583,3586],{},[24,3584,3585],{},"Don't assume it's only cosmetic."," A hack you can see is the less dangerous kind. The version worth worrying about is the one you can't: code that injects links only for visitors arriving from Google, or a new admin user sitting quietly.",[14,3588,3590],{"id":3589},"the-order-of-operations","The Order of Operations",[296,3592,3594],{"id":3593},"_1-put-the-site-in-maintenance-mode-dont-take-it-down","1. Put the Site in Maintenance Mode, Don't Take It Down",[10,3596,3597],{},"Maintenance mode stops the damage to visitors while leaving you access to work. Taking it fully offline hurts your traffic, your standing with Google, and your own ability to inspect what's happening.",[296,3599,3601],{"id":3600},"_2-change-passwords-all-of-them-not-just-the-sites","2. Change Passwords — All of Them, Not Just the Site's",[10,3603,3604],{},"WordPress admins, the database user, the hosting account, FTP\u002FSSH, and the email address the password reset is wired to. Plenty of breaches actually start at the email account or an infected local machine, not at the site.",[296,3606,3608],{"id":3607},"_3-check-who-the-users-are","3. Check Who the Users Are",[360,3610],{"alt":3611,"caption":1278,"height":1279,"src":3612,"width":1281},"The users list — the most common tell","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fwordpress-site-hacked-what-to-do\u002Funknown-admin-en.webp",[10,3614,3615],{},"In the WordPress users list — is there an administrator you don't recognise? Created on an odd date? That's the most common tell. Delete them, then also check users who look familiar but changed role.",[296,3617,3619],{"id":3618},"_4-identify-whats-infected","4. Identify What's Infected",[10,3621,3622,3623,3626,3627,3630],{},"Fastest route: compare against a clean source. WordPress core and plugins from the official repository can be downloaded again — any core file that differs is immediately suspect. What needs a human eye is ",[1567,3624,3625],{},"wp-config.php",", the ",[1567,3628,3629],{},"uploads"," folder (which should contain no PHP files at all), and the theme files.",[296,3632,3634],{"id":3633},"_5-clean-or-replace","5. Clean — or Replace",[10,3636,3637],{},"For core and plugin code: delete and reinstall from an official release. That's faster and safer than cleaning by hand. The theme and the content need judging on their merits. And any plugin no longer in use, or pulled from the repository, gets deleted entirely rather than just deactivated. A deactivated plugin still sits on the server.",[296,3639,3641],{"id":3640},"_6-update-everything-then-close-the-door","6. Update Everything, Then Close the Door",[10,3643,3644],{},"Core, theme and plugins to their latest versions. Then: two-factor authentication for admins, login attempt limits, and correct file permissions.",[296,3646,3648],{"id":3647},"_7-check-what-google-thinks","7. Check What Google Thinks",[10,3650,3651,3652,3654,3655,63],{},"Search Console has a \"Security issues\" report. If the site was flagged, submit a review request after cleaning. It's also worth running a ",[1567,3653,2742],{}," search to see whether pages you never created have appeared — that's the quickest way to spot injected spam. I explained how to read that in ",[59,3656,3657],{"href":674},"the Google indexing guide",[68,3659,3660],{},[10,3661,3662],{},"A clean site that isn't updated isn't a secure site — it's a site that hasn't been breached again yet.",[14,3664,3666],{"id":3665},"why-it-happened","Why It Happened",[10,3668,3669],{},"Almost always one of four:",[78,3671,3672,3678,3684,3690],{},[81,3673,3674,3677],{},[24,3675,3676],{},"A plugin or theme that wasn't updated."," The overwhelming majority. A vulnerability gets published, and automated scans find sites that didn't update — not because anyone picked you, but because they scanned everyone.",[81,3679,3680,3683],{},[24,3681,3682],{},"An abandoned plugin"," that no longer receives security updates at all.",[81,3685,3686,3689],{},[24,3687,3688],{},"A weak or reused password"," that also exists somewhere else.",[81,3691,3692,3695],{},[24,3693,3694],{},"Poorly isolated shared hosting",", where one infected site infects its neighbours.",[10,3697,3698],{},"Note what isn't on that list: \"WordPress isn't secure.\" WordPress runs a substantial share of the internet and receives security updates at a good pace. What gets breached is almost always what surrounds it, and what wasn't updated.",[14,3700,3702],{"id":3701},"keeping-it-from-recurring","Keeping It From Recurring",[311,3704,3705,3708,3715,3718,3721],{},[81,3706,3707],{},"Regular updates, on a fixed rhythm. Not \"when someone remembers\".",[81,3709,3710,3711,3714],{},"Automatic backups stored ",[24,3712,3713],{},"off"," the server — a backup on the same server gets infected along with it.",[81,3716,3717],{},"Fewer plugins. Every plugin is another door.",[81,3719,3720],{},"Two-factor authentication for anyone with admin rights.",[81,3722,3723],{},"Simple monitoring that alerts when a core file changes.",[10,3725,3726,3727,3730],{},"That's exactly what goes into ",[59,3728,3729],{"href":1125},"fixes and ongoing maintenance",", and it's the difference between a site that falls over once a year and one that doesn't.",[14,3732,3734],{"id":3733},"the-fifteen-monthly-minutes-that-save-this-whole-article","The Fifteen Monthly Minutes That Save This Whole Article",[10,3736,3737],{},"If you maintain the site yourself — here's the minimal monthly routine. Set a reminder; it genuinely takes a quarter of an hour:",[78,3739,3740,3746,3752,3758,3767],{},[81,3741,3742,3745],{},[24,3743,3744],{},"Updates"," (5 min): core, theme, plugins. Backup first, then update.",[81,3747,3748,3751],{},[24,3749,3750],{},"Backup check"," (3 min): not just that the backup ran — that it opens. An untested backup is hope, not a backup.",[81,3753,3754,3757],{},[24,3755,3756],{},"User list"," (2 min): any administrator you don't recognise? A role that changed?",[81,3759,3760,3763,3764,3766],{},[24,3761,3762],{},"Quick scan"," (3 min): a ",[1567,3765,2742],{}," search on Google for pages you never created, and a glance at the Security report in Search Console.",[81,3768,3769,3772],{},[24,3770,3771],{},"Delete what's unused"," (2 min): a plugin that's been deactivated for two months isn't coming back — delete it. Every plugin is a door.",[10,3774,3775],{},"This doesn't replace professional maintenance for a business site that earns money — but it's the difference between a site somebody watches and a site quietly waiting for the next automated scan.",[14,3777,470],{"id":469},[10,3779,3780],{},"A breach isn't the end of the world, but it is a wake-up call: it says something in the maintenance routine wasn't working. The cleanup is the short part. What decides whether it happens again is what you do in the week after.",[10,3782,3783,3784,3787],{},"Site hacked right now, or you're not sure? ",[59,3785,3786],{"href":219},"Send me a message"," — I'll go through it, tell you what's infected and what's clean, and clean and harden it end to end if needed.",{"title":223,"searchDepth":224,"depth":224,"links":3789},[3790,3791,3800,3801,3802,3803],{"id":3567,"depth":224,"text":3568},{"id":3589,"depth":224,"text":3590,"children":3792},[3793,3794,3795,3796,3797,3798,3799],{"id":3593,"depth":495,"text":3594},{"id":3600,"depth":495,"text":3601},{"id":3607,"depth":495,"text":3608},{"id":3618,"depth":495,"text":3619},{"id":3633,"depth":495,"text":3634},{"id":3640,"depth":495,"text":3641},{"id":3647,"depth":495,"text":3648},{"id":3665,"depth":224,"text":3666},{"id":3701,"depth":224,"text":3702},{"id":3733,"depth":224,"text":3734},{"id":469,"depth":224,"text":470},"A hacked WordPress site: what to do in the first hour, how to clean it without deleting the site, what to check in Google, and why it happened.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fwordpress-site-hacked-what-to-do\u002Fog-en.jpg",{},{"title":3556,"description":3804},"en\u002Fblog\u002Fwordpress-site-hacked-what-to-do","8C-YPfMhc09ZkW995gx4Oaji9i7Lzw7QBd1Dnx8ixCs",{"id":3811,"title":3812,"body":3813,"category":1767,"date":4145,"description":4146,"extension":237,"image":4147,"meta":4148,"navigation":240,"path":1747,"readingTime":242,"seo":4149,"stem":4150,"updated":513,"video":238,"__hash__":4151},"blog_en\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Fwordpress-vs-custom-website.md","WordPress or a Custom Website? An Honest Guide from Someone Who Builds Both",{"type":7,"value":3814,"toc":4134},[3815,3818,3821,3825,3828,3835,3839,3842,3868,3875,3879,3882,3908,3914,3918,3930,3940,3944,4024,4029,4033,4036,4042,4048,4051,4057,4067,4074,4078,4084,4090,4094,4097,4101,4104,4124,4127],[10,3816,3817],{},"Two sentences keep coming up: \"I was told WordPress isn't serious\", or \"I was told a coded site will cost me a fortune.\" Whoever told you that most likely builds only one of the two — and is selling you the thing they know how to build.",[10,3819,3820],{},"I build both WordPress sites and custom websites in Vue and Nuxt, and I've been doing it for over five years. I have no horse in this race. So here's the guide I wish someone handed you before you sign a quote.",[14,3822,3824],{"id":3823},"the-wrong-question","The Wrong Question",[10,3826,3827],{},"\"Which is better, WordPress or custom code?\" is like asking \"which is better, a truck or a motorcycle?\" Depends what you're hauling, where to, and how many times a day.",[10,3829,3830,3831,3834],{},"The right question is: ",[24,3832,3833],{},"what does this website need to do, and who is going to run it day to day?"," Answer that honestly, and the decision almost makes itself.",[14,3836,3838],{"id":3837},"when-wordpress-is-the-right-choice","When WordPress Is the Right Choice",[10,3840,3841],{},"WordPress was built to manage content, and it still excels at exactly that. If you recognize yourselves in any of these, that's probably your direction:",[311,3843,3844,3850,3856,3862],{},[81,3845,3846,3849],{},[24,3847,3848],{},"You publish content regularly."," A blog, articles, guides, updates — a site that lives on content needs a mature content management system.",[81,3851,3852,3855],{},[24,3853,3854],{},"You want to edit things yourselves, without waiting for anyone."," Swap an image, update a price, add a page — no email to a developer, no invoice.",[81,3857,3858,3861],{},[24,3859,3860],{},"Your needs are standard."," Service pages, about, contact, gallery. WordPress solves these fast, well, and at a sane cost.",[81,3863,3864,3867],{},[24,3865,3866],{},"You want any developer to be able to pick up where the last one left off."," The ecosystem is enormous, and you're not locked in to a single vendor.",[10,3869,3870,3871,63],{},"A WordPress site built properly — a lean theme, no pile of unnecessary plugins, solid hosting — is an excellent working tool. I go deeper into how I build them on my ",[59,3872,3874],{"href":3873},"\u002Fen\u002Fservices\u002Fwordpress","WordPress services page",[14,3876,3878],{"id":3877},"when-a-custom-website-pays-off","When a Custom Website Pays Off",[10,3880,3881],{},"Custom code enters the picture when the site isn't just \"a business card with pages\" but a product in its own right:",[311,3883,3884,3890,3896,3902],{},[81,3885,3886,3889],{},[24,3887,3888],{},"You have a unique product or system."," A custom calculator, a members' area, an integration with an internal system, business logic no off-the-shelf plugin covers. Bending WordPress into that shape is building a house on a tent's foundations.",[81,3891,3892,3895],{},[24,3893,3894],{},"Speed is business-critical."," When every tenth of a second of load time is worth money, a static or Nuxt-based site delivers performance that's very hard to match with a heavy, generic system.",[81,3897,3898,3901],{},[24,3899,3900],{},"You want a user experience nobody else has."," Animations, interactions, a design that doesn't compromise around a template's limits.",[81,3903,3904,3907],{},[24,3905,3906],{},"The site needs to grow with the product."," When the website is part of the system rather than a digital brochure, clean, well-structured code is an asset that appreciates over time.",[10,3909,3910,3911,63],{},"The honest downside: day-to-day editing requires me (or another developer), unless you add a headless CMS — which is a project with a budget to match. More on my approach on the ",[59,3912,3913],{"href":1133},"custom website development page",[14,3915,3917],{"id":3916},"what-about-an-online-store","What About an Online Store?",[10,3919,3920,3921,3923,3924,3926,3927,63],{},"A store is its own discussion, because there the platform dictates your daily operational routine. In short: ",[24,3922,2341],{}," (on WordPress) gives you full control and ownership of everything, and shines with complex catalogs or special requirements — but maintenance is on you. ",[24,3925,2337],{}," takes the operational headache off your plate in exchange for subscription fees and commissions, and shines for people who want to sell, not maintain. The decision hinges on your catalog, your business model, and who runs the store — I've laid out the considerations on the ",[59,3928,3929],{"href":2690},"e-commerce page",[10,3931,3932,3933,3936,3937,63],{},"And in Israel there's a further layer that decides more than any feature list: the payment provider, the invoicing system, the courier, and a theme that genuinely works in right-to-left Hebrew. The rule I work by: ",[24,3934,3935],{},"pick the payment provider first, confirm explicitly what it supports, and only then choose a platform."," I took that whole decision apart in ",[59,3938,3939],{"href":566},"the Shopify vs WooCommerce guide for Israeli stores",[14,3941,3943],{"id":3942},"the-honest-comparison-table","The Honest Comparison Table",[2484,3945,3946,3958],{},[2487,3947,3948],{},[2490,3949,3950,3953,3955],{},[2493,3951,3952],{},"Criterion",[2493,3954,1767],{},[2493,3956,3957],{},"Custom",[2506,3959,3960,3971,3982,3993,4003,4014],{},[2490,3961,3962,3965,3968],{},[2511,3963,3964],{},"Setup cost",[2511,3966,3967],{},"Low to medium",[2511,3969,3970],{},"Medium to high",[2490,3972,3973,3976,3979],{},[2511,3974,3975],{},"Ongoing cost",[2511,3977,3978],{},"Hosting, licenses, regular maintenance",[2511,3980,3981],{},"Relatively low, mostly hosting",[2490,3983,3984,3987,3990],{},[2511,3985,3986],{},"Editing independence",[2511,3988,3989],{},"Full — that's the whole point",[2511,3991,3992],{},"Limited, unless a CMS is integrated",[2490,3994,3995,3997,4000],{},[2511,3996,1687],{},[2511,3998,3999],{},"Good when built right, takes effort",[2511,4001,4002],{},"Excellent by default",[2490,4004,4005,4008,4011],{},[2511,4006,4007],{},"Flexibility",[2511,4009,4010],{},"High, within the ecosystem's limits",[2511,4012,4013],{},"Practically unlimited",[2490,4015,4016,4018,4021],{},[2511,4017,3249],{},[2511,4019,4020],{},"Ongoing updates, non-negotiable",[2511,4022,4023],{},"Minimal after launch",[68,4025,4026],{},[10,4027,4028],{},"The right platform isn't the one that sounds most impressive in a meeting — it's the one that won't get in your way a year from now.",[14,4030,4032],{"id":4031},"hold-on-what-about-wix-and-squarespace","Hold On — What About Wix and Squarespace?",[10,4034,4035],{},"This comes up in almost every conversation, and fairly so: these are real tools you can get a site live with over a weekend. So, honestly, when are they the right call and when aren't they.",[10,4037,4038,4041],{},[24,4039,4040],{},"They suit a site that's a business card."," A small business needing a presence, a few pages, a form and a phone number — with nobody to maintain it. That's an entirely legitimate use, and I say so to my own clients when it's true.",[10,4043,4044,4047],{},[24,4045,4046],{},"They suit less well when the site has to work."," The moment you need a connection to an existing system, a repeating content structure with many items, full control over speed, or deep Hebrew and RTL adjustments — that's where you start hitting walls you can't move.",[10,4049,4050],{},"Two things worth knowing up front, because they surprise people later:",[10,4052,4053,4056],{},[24,4054,4055],{},"Portability."," A WordPress site can be packed up and moved to another host. A site on a closed builder can't, really. You can export content, but not the site; moving out is a rebuild. That's not disqualifying, it's simply a decision worth making on day one rather than in year three.",[10,4058,4059,4062,4063,4066],{},[24,4060,4061],{},"Accessibility."," Builders are improving here, but their templates weren't built for the Israeli standard, and your control over the code is limited — which means your ability to fix what breaks is limited too. If you ",[59,4064,4065],{"href":282},"have to meet IS 5568",", check this before choosing a platform, not after.",[10,4068,4069,4070,4073],{},"My rule is simple: ",[24,4071,4072],{},"a builder is a good choice when the site doesn't need to grow."," If there's a fair chance it does, better to start with something you can take with you.",[14,4075,4077],{"id":4076},"two-myths-that-deserve-a-burial","Two Myths That Deserve a Burial",[10,4079,4080,4083],{},[24,4081,4082],{},"\"WordPress isn't professional.\""," Nonsense. WordPress runs a sizable chunk of the internet, including news sites, universities, and major brands. What's unprofessional is a WordPress site with forty plugins, a generic theme nobody hardened, and zero maintenance. That's not a platform problem — that's a builder problem.",[10,4085,4086,4089],{},[24,4087,4088],{},"\"Custom code is always too expensive.\""," Also nonsense, just in the other direction. A landing page or brochure site in modern code can be a compact, fast project — and after launch there are almost no running costs and no security-update treadmill. Sometimes it's the WordPress site, with its plugin licenses and monthly maintenance, that ends up costing more over time. \"Expensive\" is measured over five years, not on the first invoice.",[14,4091,4093],{"id":4092},"and-you-can-combine-them","And You Can Combine Them",[10,4095,4096],{},"A little secret that someone selling only one platform won't tell you: it doesn't have to be either-or. One of my favorite combinations is WordPress as the content management system behind the scenes, with a custom Nuxt frontend out front. You get WordPress's editing freedom and the speed and design of custom code — in the same project. It doesn't fit every budget or every need, but when it fits, it's the best of both worlds rather than the compromise between them.",[14,4098,4100],{"id":4099},"so-how-do-you-decide","So How Do You Decide?",[10,4102,4103],{},"Ask yourselves three questions:",[78,4105,4106,4112,4118],{},[81,4107,4108,4111],{},[24,4109,4110],{},"How many times a month will we edit content ourselves?"," Often — big point for WordPress.",[81,4113,4114,4117],{},[24,4115,4116],{},"Is there a requirement with no off-the-shelf solution?"," Yes — the point goes to custom.",[81,4119,4120,4123],{},[24,4121,4122],{},"How much is each second of speed worth to us?"," If the answer is measured in leads and revenue — another point for custom.",[10,4125,4126],{},"And if the answers contradict each other? That's fine — they do in most real businesses. That's what a discovery call is for.",[10,4128,4129,4130,4133],{},"Not sure which side your website belongs on? ",[59,4131,4132],{"href":219},"Tell me what you need"," — and I'll tell you honestly what I would build, even if the answer is \"not with me.\"",{"title":223,"searchDepth":224,"depth":224,"links":4135},[4136,4137,4138,4139,4140,4141,4142,4143,4144],{"id":3823,"depth":224,"text":3824},{"id":3837,"depth":224,"text":3838},{"id":3877,"depth":224,"text":3878},{"id":3916,"depth":224,"text":3917},{"id":3942,"depth":224,"text":3943},{"id":4031,"depth":224,"text":4032},{"id":4076,"depth":224,"text":4077},{"id":4092,"depth":224,"text":4093},{"id":4099,"depth":224,"text":4100},"2026-07-05","WordPress or custom code? An honest decision framework from a developer who builds both: when WordPress wins, when custom pays off, plus a comparison table.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fwordpress-vs-custom-website\u002Fog-en.jpg",{},{"title":3812,"description":4146},"en\u002Fblog\u002Fwordpress-vs-custom-website","286ueQZWeCEdssQd-01_flkr8-1ewta6FnCnaqePU7A",1788691109318]