Spreadshop vs Spreadshirt: Which Print-on-Demand Platform Wins for Ecommerce?

Original Source: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/spreadshop-vs-spreadshirt

If you’re trying to decide between Spreadshop and Spreadshirt, you’re not alone.

Both platforms are part of the Spread Group family, but they serve two very different types of online sellers. Whether you’re looking to test designs passively or build a brand with long-term growth, your choice here matters.

After researching and testing both platforms, I found Spreadshop is the better option for entrepreneurs looking to scale, build a brand, and control their online store.

Meanwhile, Spreadshirt is ideal if you’re just starting out or want a low-maintenance way to sell your designs without doing any marketing.

Quick Verdict: Spreadshop vs Spreadshirt

Spreadshop – Best for building a brand and running your own ecommerce store

Spreadshirt – Best for casual sellers or beginners looking to test designs

In this breakdown, I’ll cover pricing, customization, SEO, earnings potential, and overall fit based on your business goals.

Quick Comparison Table: Spreadshop vs Spreadshirt

Here’s a side-by-side summary of what each platform offers:

FeatureSpreadshopSpreadshirtBest ForEcommerce brands & creatorsCasual or beginner sellersPlatform TypeCustom storefront (white-label)MarketplaceBranding ControlFullLimitedSEO OptimizationYes (titles, meta, custom domain)NoBuilt-in TrafficNo (you bring it)Yes (they provide it)Profit MarginsHigherLowerCustomer Data AccessYesNoDomain OptionsCustom domain allowedSubdomain onlySetup Time30–45 minutes10–15 minutesIntegration ToolsGoogle Analytics, Facebook Pixel, etc.NoneIdeal Use CaseBuilding a long-term brandSelling designs passively

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Best for Pricing: Spreadshop (Better Profit Potential)

Both platforms are free to join and don’t charge monthly fees. But what you can earn per sale varies dramatically.

Spreadshop Pricing Structure

Base product prices are set by Spreadshop (e.g. a standard t-shirt might be $12.99)

You choose the retail price, meaning you set your own profit margin

No transaction fees or monthly subscription fees

You can offer discount codes and bundles

Example:

Base cost: $12.99

Retail price: $24.99

Your profit: $12.00

Spreadshirt Pricing Structure

Spreadshirt controls the base prices

You earn a design commission, usually between $2 and $5 per product

Optional affiliate bonus (up to 20%) if traffic comes through your own referral link

Example:

Base cost: $17.99 (set by Spreadshirt)

Design commission: $3.00

Affiliate bonus (if applicable): $2.00

Your profit: $3.00–$5.00 per sale

Winner: Spreadshop

Spreadshop gives you full pricing control, better margins, and more flexibility. Spreadshirt’s earnings are capped and less favorable for anyone serious about ecommerce growth.

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Best for Building a Brand: Spreadshop

If your goal is to create a branded store that you own and grow over time, Spreadshop wins without question.

What You Can Customize on Spreadshop:

Storefront theme, layout, and navigation

Store colors and branding (logo, header, favicon)

Custom domain (e.g. yourbrand.com)

Homepage banners and featured collections

Product categories and descriptions

Checkout experience (partially customizable)

Add your own tracking (Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel)

Spreadshirt Limitations:

You cannot change the layout of your store

You get a subdomain (e.g. spreadshirt.com/user/yourstore)

Your designs are listed alongside thousands of other sellers

No access to buyer email addresses or marketing tools

In practice, having your own storefront allows you to craft a seamless experience that reflects your brand identity. You can align every visual and written element — from product categories to promotional banners — with your brand’s tone and style.

That level of consistency helps build trust with customers, improves conversion rates, and makes it easier to stand out from generic POD sellers. If brand equity is important to you, Spreadshop gives you the foundation to grow it.

Winner: Spreadshop

The ability to fully customize your storefront, use a custom domain, and build a recognizable brand makes Spreadshop the better option for serious sellers.

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Best for Ease of Use: Spreadshirt

Spreadshirt is designed for beginners. It takes just minutes to set up an account and start selling.

What You Can Expect With Spreadshirt:

Upload a design

Choose the product type (t-shirt, hoodie, etc.)

Set your commission amount

Your product is listed in Spreadshirt’s marketplace

They handle the marketing, fulfillment, and customer service

Spreadshop Setup Requires a Bit More:

Build your store (layout, branding, navigation)

Add your products and write descriptions

Set pricing and profit margins

Drive your own traffic

It’s not hard, but it does take more time and effort upfront.

That said, Spreadshop still offers a user-friendly backend for anyone who’s used other ecommerce platforms. You don’t need coding experience to set up your store, and the platform provides pre-designed themes that simplify the process.

The difference is more about time and intent — Spreadshirt is plug-and-play, while Spreadshop is structured like a starter kit for entrepreneurs who are ready to invest a little more effort.

Winner: Spreadshirt

If speed and simplicity are your top priorities, Spreadshirt gets you online faster with less setup.

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Best for SEO and Marketing: Spreadshop

Spreadshirt doesn’t offer any SEO customization or direct access to your store’s analytics. That’s a major drawback if you’re planning to use content marketing, search engine optimization, or ads.

Spreadshop SEO Features:

Custom meta titles and descriptions

Editable URLs

Alt text for images

Ability to connect Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel

Blog integration (hosted on your store)

Custom domain support (yourstore.com)

Spreadshirt Limitations:

No SEO customization

No analytics access

You cannot connect your own domain

Traffic is based entirely on Spreadshirt’s marketplace rankings

Spreadshop’s marketing features are also better suited for growing stores. You can promote your products through email marketing, integrate with Meta Ads or Google Shopping, and run traffic campaigns with detailed performance insights.

This level of access is key when testing messaging, optimizing product descriptions for search engines, or running seasonal promotions. Spreadshirt, in contrast, leaves your products buried in a crowded marketplace with little room to maneuver.

Winner: Spreadshop

For anyone building an ecommerce strategy around SEO, Google rankings, and analytics, Spreadshop gives you the tools you need.

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Best for Control Over Customer Data: Spreadshop

If you’re trying to build an audience or grow an email list, owning the customer journey is essential.

With Spreadshop:

You collect emails (through integrations or lead forms)

You can run retargeting ads

You build a customer base for repeat purchases

With Spreadshirt:

You never see customer emails or contact info

You can’t follow up with past customers

You can’t build a long-term marketing strategy

Having access to your customer data not only allows for repeat sales but also supports customer lifecycle marketing. With the right integrations, you can trigger email sequences based on user behavior, offer loyalty programs, and track which products generate the most engagement.

This opens the door to building true customer relationships — something that’s impossible on a marketplace where the platform owns all the data.

Winner: Spreadshop

Access to your customer data is what allows you to grow your business. Spreadshop gives you that access.

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Best for Passive Selling: Spreadshirt

Not everyone wants to build a brand from scratch. Sometimes you just want to upload designs and see what happens.

Spreadshirt is Great for:

Testing designs with zero marketing

Earning passive income from existing traffic

Selling casually with minimal commitment

Artists and creators who don’t want to handle marketing

Spreadshop is More Work:

You’re responsible for bringing visitors

You’ll need to learn basic ecommerce marketing

More time investment upfront

Spreadshirt’s model works well for artists, hobbyists, and anyone dipping their toes into ecommerce without a big commitment.

Since you don’t need to set up your own marketing or manage a website, it’s ideal for side hustlers who want low effort and low risk.

You can use it to test product ideas and validate demand before moving to a platform with more control, like Spreadshop or Shopify.

Winner: Spreadshirt

For hobbyists or casual creators, Spreadshirt is easier to manage and less demanding overall.

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Best for Long-Term Growth: Spreadshop

Once you start building traffic, content, and customer relationships, Spreadshop becomes a far more scalable platform.

Here’s why:

Better profit margins let you reinvest in ads or product expansion

SEO tools help you rank organically over time

Direct control over branding boosts trust and conversions

You can collect emails and build long-term customer relationships

Unlike a marketplace, your Spreadshop store becomes an asset that gains value over time. Whether you’re creating evergreen blog content that drives search traffic or building a customer base for seasonal campaigns, everything you do adds momentum to your business.

You’re not just selling products — you’re building equity in a brand that could grow into something much bigger.

Winner: Spreadshop

For sustainable growth and a real ecommerce business, Spreadshop has the edge.

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Final Verdict: Spreadshop vs Spreadshirt

Here’s a summary of how both platforms stack up across key categories:

CategoryWinnerWhy It WinsPricingSpreadshopHigher margins and flexible pricingBranding and CustomizationSpreadshopFull storefront control and domain useEase of UseSpreadshirtFaster setup, no traffic requiredSEO and AnalyticsSpreadshopSEO features + analytics integrationsCustomer Data OwnershipSpreadshopYou control the customer relationshipPassive Income PotentialSpreadshirtGood for testing with zero effortLong-Term GrowthSpreadshopScalable and brand-friendly

While both platforms offer value depending on your goals, Spreadshop consistently comes out ahead for anyone serious about building a business.

The ability to customize your brand, control your customer data, and scale your store gives you more freedom and long-term upside.

Spreadshirt fills a very specific need — making it easy for creators to list products without having to manage marketing or setup — but it limits your control and growth potential.

If you’re looking for a starting point, Spreadshirt is simple and quick. If you’re building something bigger, Spreadshop gives you the foundation to grow on your terms.

My Recommendation

If you’re planning to build a serious ecommerce business — even if you’re starting small — Spreadshop is the better platform.

You get more control, better margins, and all the tools you need to grow over time. The learning curve is slightly steeper, but the long-term payoff is worth it.

Spreadshirt is a decent starting point if you’re just testing the waters. But if you’re in this to build something sustainable, go with Spreadshop from day one.

Ultimately, it comes down to your goals.

The post Spreadshop vs Spreadshirt: Which Print-on-Demand Platform Wins for Ecommerce? appeared first on Ecommerce-Platforms.com.

Exciting New Tools for Designers, September 2025

Original Source: https://webdesignerdepot.com/exciting-new-tools-for-designers-september-2025/

Web design tools that use artificial intelligence are still dominating new and beta launches, while hopefully making your workflows a little bit smoother. One of the most talked about launches this month is Google (Gemini’s) Nano Banana image generator tool, which has even been the subject of the viral AI saree prompt. Have you tried […]

Dear Designers: Stop Using System Fonts Like It’s 2005

Original Source: https://webdesignerdepot.com/dear-designers-stop-using-system-fonts-like-its-2005/

System fonts once defined the web’s visual identity, but today they’re mostly fallback options, lacking the personality and control modern typography demands. In a world of variable fonts and expressive design, relying on system fonts isn’t nostalgic—it’s just lazy.

Get a free M-Pencil Pro with the new Huawei MatePad 12 X

Original Source: https://www.creativebloq.com/tech/get-a-free-m-pencil-pro-with-the-new-huawei-matepad-12-x

Save £129.99 with this massive launch deal on a tablet for digital drawing and note taking.

SERP Gap Analyzer Review: How I Used It to Spot AI Search Opportunities

Original Source: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/advertising/serp-gap-analyzer-review

I’ve been working in ecommerce and marketing for over ten years. That’s long enough to watch the ground shift under my feet multiple times. I remember when SEO was basically about stuffing keywords into blog posts and hoping Google would take the bait.

Then came the push for quality content, the rise of EEAT, and the slow march toward mobile-first everything. Every time we adjusted, Google adjusted again.

Now the biggest shift isn’t even happening on Google anymore. It’s happening in AI search.

More and more, customers are turning to ChatGPT, Gemini, or a host of other AI tools for guidance. Those AI models are pulling answers from somewhere. If your brand doesn’t show up, you’re invisible, no matter how much effort you’ve poured into SEO.

That’s exactly why the SERP Gap Analyzer caught my eye. It was designed to help users make the most of their traditional SEO strategy and boost their AI search visibility.

So is it worthwhile? Here’s what I found out.

What is SERP Gap Analyzer?

The SERP Gap Analyzer is an app in Semrush’s App Center built to help marketers spot SERP opportunities. You enter a seed topic and your domain, and it spits out data.

But what sets it apart is how it connects two worlds that usually feel separate: old-school Google SEO and this new wave of AI-driven search engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek.

When you run a report, the tool doesn’t just show you the top ten results for your keyword. It digs into why those pages are ranking, and more importantly, where they’re weak.

Then there’s the AI side. SERP Gap Analyzer checks if your brand shows up when people ask AI models questions in your niche. It even rolls all that visibility into a single AI Search Score (0 to 100), weighted by which models actually matter.

Is it perfect? No. Reports take a few minutes to generate, and if you’re just dabbling in SEO, the $99/month entry point is steep. But if you’ve been around the block in marketing, you’ll see the time savings and the future-proofing angle right away.

Pros

Surfaces competitor weaknesses you’d miss manually

Tracks your visibility across AI search engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc.)

AI Search Score gives you a clear benchmark for brand presence in AI answers

Actionable: flags outdated content, slow pages, weak titles, poor readability

Built-in GPT-4 writing tools for quick optimizations

Cons

Reports take a few minutes to run – not instant

Free trial is limited; real use requires $99/month minimum

Can feel like overkill for beginners or very small sites

Pricing: How Much Does It Cost and Is It Worth It?

Most of the apps you’ll find in Semrush’s App Center will cost you something, and SERP Gap Analyzer is no exception. You do get a 7-day free trial where you can test things out. After that, there’s just one paid plan (which keeps things nice and simple). It costs $99 a month and gives you:

Analytics for up to 3 domains

6 suggested keywords per report

20 exports (to XLS, or PDF)

10 analysis reports each month

You can also splash out on extras in the app. For instance, for another $50 per month, you can upgrade to unlimited domains, 12 suggested keywords for each report, and 30 analysis reports, plus endless exports.

It isn’t cheap, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. If you think about the hours you spend manually searching for competitor data, checking keyword volumes, and cross-referencing weaknesses, you’ll see how it adds up.

For me, one or two well-placed content wins in a month would cover the cost.

Plus, you need to think about ROI beyond Google. That AI Search Score alone feels like the kind of metric that agencies will be charging clients to monitor in six months. In that sense, the tool could be actually future-proofing your visibility.

Diving into the Features of the SERP Gap Analyzer

The SERP Gap Analyzer doesn’t overwhelm you with features. What you get is a tool that helps you track visibility across AI search, and discover fast-ranking opportunities in the Google SERPs.

But there are some bonuses too. You get actionable tips you can use to fight content decay, tools you can use to analyze competitor weaknesses, and even AI content generation in some places.

Here’s a closer look at the tools I used most often, and what they’re great for.

Competitor Analysis: Finding Weaknesses

The first thing I do when I’m creating any kind of content plan is check out what a company’s competitors are doing. That can be a tedious process when it’s done manually.

You need to open a dozen tabs, check site speed, run audits, all that stuff.

The SERP Gap Analyzer makes this whole thing a lot easier. You drop in your seed topic and domain, wait a few minutes, and suddenly you’ve got a table filled with data. You’ll see:

Pages that haven’t been updated in half a year or more.

Titles missing important keywords.

Load times dragging past the three-second mark.

Thin word counts – anything under about a thousand words gets flagged.

Readability that’s either too dense or too simplistic.

When I ran my first report, I spotted a top-ranking competitor with a page that hadn’t been touched in almost a year. Authority score was decent, but the content was thin and the readability was awful.

That’s the kind of weakness you can step right into if you’re willing to publish something fresher and more thorough.

What I liked most here was the clarity. Instead of me juggling six different tools, the Analyzer basically circled the spots on the map and said, “attack here.” It shaved hours off my usual research routine.

Analyzing Content: How to Run an Analysis

Running your first analysis with the SERP Gap Analyzer is pretty straightforward, though I’ll admit the waiting period caught me off guard the first time.

You pick whether you want to create new content or optimize what you already have. I started with the “create” option, just to see what kind of gaps I could find in my niche.

You enter your root domain, add a seed topic (in my case, “sustainable packaging”), pick your language and country, then hit the magnifying glass.

Then you wait up to 15 minutes. I flipped over to email and forgot about it until the notification popped up saying the report was ready.

When the results come in, you get a table that looks deceptively simple:

Website address

Seed topic

Language

Date of analysis

Status

Click “View Report” and the real magic starts. Now you’re staring at an overview that shows your domain, authority score, and the seed topic you tested.

Underneath, you get suggested keywords tied to that topic, plus search volumes and competitor weaknesses laid out in a way that’s actually digestible.

The part I liked most was that you don’t just see “Keyword Difficulty: Medium.” You see why – which sites are ranking, how strong they are, and where they’re falling short. I

Diving Into the Data: Accessing Your Detailed Report

Clicking into a detailed report really shows you what this tool is all about.

At the top, you get a neat little overview with the domain, authority score, seed topic, language, and country. All the basics lined up so you know exactly what you’re looking at. Further down, the tables open up and you can start poking around in the details.

Here’s what I found most useful:

Suggested keywords: Each comes with global search volume, how tough it’ll be to rank, and what kind of authority you’d need to realistically compete.

Competitor weaknesses: Those little icons again – missing keywords in the title, slow load times, thin content, outdated pages, bad readability.

Side-by-side comparisons: You’re not just seeing your domain in isolation. You’re stacked right next to the competition, line by line.

AI writing assistance: This included AI feature whips up content briefs and full outlines in seconds with help from GPT-4. It can also give you a head start on creating effective titles, meta descriptions, and even rank-ready blog posts.

If you’re interested in a keyword, you can also click on that and see who else might be ranking for it. Plus, you’ll get actionable tips on where you can improve that content to make your version rank higher.

If something’s off, the Analyzer doesn’t bury it in jargon. It highlights the issue in red. Hover over the red text and it tells you straight up what’s wrong. Too few words. Outdated by six months. Slow on mobile. It’s blunt, but honestly that’s refreshing.

When I ran my first report, one competitor’s page looked fine at a glance. But the Analyzer flagged it for a low readability score and a word count under 700.

Those aren’t fatal flaws on their own, but together they make for an easy target. I would’ve scrolled past that page in a manual check, here, it was handed to me with a red warning.

AI Writing Tools

I’ll start by briefly talking about the AI writing tools built into this app.

Honestly, I’m usually pretty skeptical of AI writing tools. I’ve tried a lot, and many of them seem to produce the same generic text, with all the standard obvious AI flags you might be aware of (like endless emdashes).

SERP Gap Analyzer, though, is surprisingly useful for writing tasks, because it focuses on helping you use AI as a launching pad.

You can generate post titles from a single keyword or topic, which is great if you’re struggling for inspiration, and create SEO-friendly meta descriptions in seconds.

I also love the fact that you can create content briefs for actual human writers to follow. I tested that feature, and found the brief was remarkably useful.

It outlines all the key sections and topics to cover, gives inspiration every step of the way, and provides resources so a creative mind can dive into creating something worth reading without hours of prep.

If you need even more guidance, the Article Genie can throw together an impressively well-written first draft of your article or guide in just a couple of minutes.

I wouldn’t recommend publishing those articles “as-is” – they still need tweaking. But they do give you a skeleton to flesh out, build on, humanize, and infuse with your brand voice.

When I’m limited in creative juices, this tool makes sure I can start writing quickly without running into a brick wall.

Content Optimization: Fighting Decay

If there’s one battle every ecommerce brand eventually fights, it’s content decay. You put hours (sometimes days) into an article, it climbs up the rankings, traffic rolls in.

Then, six months later, it’s quietly sliding down the page. The clicks dry up, impressions look fine, but conversions tank.

This is where the SERP Gap Analyzer’s Optimize Content feature helps. Unlike the competitor analysis side (which is outward-looking), this part points the spotlight back at your own house.

Here’s how it works:

You head to the “Optimize Content” tab.

Connect your Google Search Console (yes, you’ll need to authenticate).

The Analyzer pulls in your data, usually under a minute.

Then it starts flagging pages that need help.

The criteria are smart, not random. It highlights pages that:

Rank in the top 20 positions but are losing ground.

Get high impressions but shockingly low click-through rates.

Haven’t been updated in too long.

Show the classic signs of slipping relevance.

When I ran this, one of my blog posts stood out like a sore thumb. It was ranking decently (position 14 on average) and had a ton of impressions, but almost nobody was clicking. The Analyzer flagged the meta title and description as weak.

A few tweaks later and the click-through started climbing. Same content, same rankings, but more traffic. That’s the kind of low-effort, high-reward win that makes this feature addictive.

The reports use color coding, too, which keeps things simple. Green means you’re fine. Red means fix it. If you see a hammer icon, that’s a bigger issue (like thin content or a seriously outdated page).

I’ve used plenty of optimization tools before, but what I liked here was the focus. Instead of drowning you in “optimize everything,” it zeroes in on pages that actually have upside.

That prioritization makes all the difference when you’re managing a busy ecommerce site with a hundred other things competing for your time.

Generating Seed Topic Ideas

I’ll admit that half the battle in content marketing isn’t writing, it’s figuring out what to write about. You can spend hours in keyword tools, second-guessing yourself, only to realize later you picked a topic that was way too competitive or just not aligned with your site.

That’s why I was curious about the Seed Topic Suggestions feature in the SERP Gap Analyzer.

Instead of you pulling random ideas out of a hat, the tool crawls your site using NLP (natural language processing) and basically says: “Here’s what you actually talk about the most – and here’s where you could go deeper.”

When I ran it on one of my ecommerce sites, it surfaced a handful of topic clusters that made me stop and think, “Why haven’t I written about that yet?”

These weren’t vague ideas either, they were tightly connected to my existing content, which made them feel natural to expand on.

The process is simple:

Enter your domain.

Wait about 10–15 minutes for the crawl.

Get back a list of suggested seed topics.

Click one, and boom, a new analysis starts.

What I liked most was how it took guesswork off my plate. Instead of me asking, “What if people care about X?”, I had data pointing to actual themes already tied to my site.

Other Features Worth Mentioning

The big three: competitor analysis, content optimization, and seed topic ideas, are the headline acts. But once you spend time in the SERP Gap Analyzer, you notice there are several “bonus” features tucked inside that round out the toolkit. Some I expected, some genuinely surprised me.

AI Search Score

I mentioned this earlier, but it deserves its own spotlight. The AI Search Score boils down how visible your brand is across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek, Llama, Mistral, and others.

One number. Zero to a hundred. For me, this was the moment the tool stopped being “just another SEO toy.” AI visibility is the future, and being able to track it now feels like a head start.

Prompt-Testing Engine

Here, you can enter your brand or product, and the Analyzer automatically runs prompts across AI platforms to see if (and how) you show up in the answers.

I tested it with one of my ecommerce brands and found ChatGPT barely mentioned us. Gemini? Not at all. My competitor, though? Front and center. That turned into an action plan – I now had a clear sense of which models were ignoring me and where to focus.

Actionable AI Insights

The tool doesn’t just tell you you’re invisible. It gives you hints on how to fix it. Things like:

“Your content overlaps too much with the Google Knowledge Graph.”

“Add original insights.”

“Refresh outdated content.”

It sounds obvious, but seeing it tied to my actual brand presence in AI search made it actionable in a way that generic SEO advice never does.

Exporting and Sharing

Nothing fancy here, but important. Reports export cleanly to PDF or XLS. You can archive old ones so your dashboard doesn’t get cluttered. And filters make it easy to slice by date or status.

For agencies, I can see this being really helpful. A client-friendly PDF that says, “Here’s where you rank in Google, and here’s where you’re showing up in AI” – that’s the kind of deliverable that justifies a retainer.

Final Verdict: Who I’d Recommend This To

So, would I recommend the SERP Gap Analyzer? Yes, but with caveats.

If you’re an agency managing multiple domains, this is an easy investment. The Premium plan pays for itself in one or two client wins, and the ability to export slick reports with both Google and AI visibility metrics is exactly the kind of thing clients love to see.

If you’re running an ecommerce brand that’s been publishing content for a while, it’s worth it too.

The content decay checks alone will save you from losing traffic you already earned, and the competitor analysis can highlight weak spots your rivals probably don’t even know they have.

Where I see it being less useful is for:

Beginners just dipping their toes into SEO. Honestly, the tool would overwhelm you before it helped you.

Small local businesses that don’t rely heavily on content or AI search visibility. If most of your leads come from word of mouth or paid ads, this might not be your tool.

For me personally, the Analyzer earned a spot in my workflow. Not because it does something I couldn’t technically do myself, but because it does it faster, cleaner, and with fewer blind spots.

The post SERP Gap Analyzer Review: How I Used It to Spot AI Search Opportunities appeared first on Ecommerce-Platforms.com.

How to Style React Aria Components with TailwindCSS

Original Source: https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/react-aria-tailwindcss-styling/

React Aria Components (RAC) is a library from Adobe that gives you fully accessible, production-ready React components—but without any default styling. This makes RAC perfect for pairing with a styling framework like TailwindCSS, since you can design everything exactly the way you want without fighting against preset styles.

React Aria TailwindCSS styling guide

I’ve been using RAC in various projects, and one thing that I like about RAC is how it handles the component states. Instead of just using CSS pseudo-classes like :hover or :active which don’t always behave consistently on touch devices or with keyboards, it uses data- attributes like data-hovered, data-pressed, and data-selected.

Using with TailwindCSS

TailwindCSS is one of my favourite ways to style components. While React Aria Components work just well with TailwindCSS, there’s a catch when it comes to styling component states. Because RAC uses data attributes, you can’t just use Tailwind’s usual hover: or focus: variants. Instead, you need to write out the full attribute using Tailwind’s arbitrary variant syntax, for example:

<Button className=”data-[focused-visible]:bg-blue-400 data-[disabled]:bg-gray-100″ />

This works fine but it can be redundant. The class names can quickly get long and messy, which makes our code harder to read and scan. We also lose out on Tailwind’s handy editor autocompletion, so typos become more likely.

This is exactly the problem that the tailwindcss-react-aria-components plugin is built to solve. Let’s see how it works.

Installation

Installing the plugin is simple. We can add it with NPM with this command below:

npm install tailwindcss-react-aria-components

Configuring the plugin will depend on the Tailwind version you’re using on the project.

On Tailwind v3, add it to your tailwind.config.js:

/** @type {import(‘tailwindcss’).Config} */
module.exports = {
//…
plugins: [
require(‘tailwindcss-react-aria-components’)
],
}

On Tailwind v4, use the new @plugin directive in your main CSS file:

@import “tailwindcss”;
@plugin “tailwindcss-react-aria-components”;

Once installed, styling the component is more simplified. Verbose data attributes like data-[pressed]: turn into clean variants such as pressed:, and data-[selected]: becomes selected:. Even non-boolean states are shorter, for example data-orientation=”vertical” now becomes orientation-vertical:.

Here’s a quick comparison of the two approaches for some of the states in RAC:

RAC State
Tailwind Attribute Selector
Simplified Class Selector

isHovered

data-[hovered]

hovered:

isPressed

data-[pressed]

pressed:

isSelected

data-[selected]

selected:

isDisabled

data-[disabled]

disabled:

isFocusVisible

data-[focus-visible]

focus-visible:

isPending

data-[pending]

pending:

Prefixing

By default, the plugin’s modifiers are unprefixed, so you can use variants like disabled: right away, for example:

import { Button } from ‘react-aria-components’;

function App() {
return (
<Button className=”disabled:opacity-50″ isDisabled>
Submit
</Button>
);
}

But if you prefer a clearer naming convention, you can set a prefix in the config. This can be especially handy in larger projects where you want to avoid clashes with other plugins or custom utilities.

Again, the setup will depend on the Tailwind version you’re using.

On Tailwind v3, you can add the prefix option when requiring the plugin in tailwind.config.js:

// tailwind.config.js
/** @type {import(‘tailwindcss’).Config} */
module.exports = {
//…
plugins: [
require(‘tailwindcss-react-aria-components’)({ prefix: ‘rac’ })
],
}

On Tailwind v4, you can pass the prefix option in the @plugin directive in your main CSS file, like below:

@import “tailwindcss”;
@plugin “tailwindcss-react-aria-components” { prefix: hk };

Now, all the variants will be prefixed with rac-, so disabled: becomes rac-disabled:, and selected: becomes rac-selected:.

Here’s the same example as before, but with the prefix applied:

import { Button } from ‘react-aria-components’;

function App() {
return (
<Button className=”hk-disabled:opacity-50″ isDisabled>
Submit
</Button>
);
}

Here is a quick demo of the plugin in action.

Wrapping Up

Styling React Aria Components with TailwindCSS doesn’t have to be complicated. With the tailwindcss-react-aria-components plugin, you can skip the verbose syntax and work with clean, intuitive variants that feel just like native Tailwind utilities. This makes it much easier to keep your code readable, your workflow smooth, and your components accessible by default.

In this article, we focused on styling. But that’s just the beginning. In the next one, we’ll take things a step further and explore how to animate React Aria Components with TailwindCSS, adding smooth motion to make your UI feel even more polished and engaging.

Stay tuned!

The post How to Style React Aria Components with TailwindCSS appeared first on Hongkiat.

Yuni Grotesque Font: A Playful Powerhouse of Compressed Sans Design

Original Source: https://abduzeedo.com/yuni-grotesque-font-playful-powerhouse-compressed-sans-design

Yuni Grotesque Font: A Playful Powerhouse of Compressed Sans Design

Yuni Grotesque: A Playful Powerhouse of Compressed Sans Design

ibby
10/10 — 2025

Discover Yuni Grotesque Font by Philipp Neumeyer and TypeMates — a compressed sans with playful curves, 12 styles, 900+ glyphs, and support for 270+ languages. Oh my!

It’s Friday, and we’ve got some fresh font news to kick off the weekend: Yuni Grotesque has arrived. When type design becomes storytelling, it’s worth paying attention. Enter Yuni Grotesque, the newest chapter in the much-anticipated Yuni Collection. Designed by Philipp Neumeyer and released through TypeMates, Grotesque strikes out on its own with curves that are equal parts functional and mischievous.

A Distinct Voice

At first glance, Yuni Grotesque might read as a compressed sans, but it’s much more. Its counters shift toward near-perfect circles as weight increases, while outer curves flatten out in unexpected ways. The result is a kind of high-functioning foolishness, a characterful sans that’s self-aware yet confident in any setting.

Six Weights, Twelve Styles

Grotesque arrives in a finely curated range: from a whisper-thin Hair to a bold, commanding Black. Add in Italics slanted at an expressive 18° and you get a versatile set of 12 styles ready for everything from oversized movie titles to branding systems that demand impact. This is typography meant to be seen and remembered.

Typographic Depth

Behind the playful curves lies serious depth. Each style contains more than 900 glyphs, covering over 270 languages with Latin and Cyrillic support. Designers will appreciate the thoughtful extras: multiple figure sets (yes, circled ones too), arrows, case-sensitive punctuation, contextual alternates, and even stylistic highlights that keep dynamic typesetting fresh.

A Collection in Motion

Yuni Grotesque isn’t the end of the story, but a milestone in the evolving Yuni Collection. Its confident stance signals where the collection is headed toward a full family of expressive typefaces designed for today’s global, multi-platform design work. For those of us always on the hunt for fonts that balance functionality and personality, Yuni Grotesque offers both in spades. 

Explore Yuni Grotesque →

Smashing Animations Part 5: Building Adaptive SVGs With `<symbol>`, `<use>`, And CSS Media Queries

Original Source: https://smashingmagazine.com/2025/10/smashing-animations-part-5-building-adaptive-svgs/

I’ve written quite a lot recently about how I prepare and optimise SVG code to use as static graphics or in animations. I love working with SVG, but there’s always been something about them that bugs me.

To illustrate how I build adaptive SVGs, I’ve selected an episode of The Quick Draw McGraw Show called “Bow Wow Bandit,” first broadcast in 1959.

In it, Quick Draw McGraw enlists his bloodhound Snuffles to rescue his sidekick Baba Looey. Like most Hanna-Barbera title cards of the period, the artwork was made by Lawrence (Art) Goble.

Let’s say I’ve designed an SVG scene like that one that’s based on Bow Wow Bandit, which has a 16:9 aspect ratio with a viewBox size of 1920×1080. This SVG scales up and down (the clue’s in the name), so it looks sharp when it’s gigantic and when it’s minute.

But on small screens, the 16:9 aspect ratio (live demo) might not be the best format, and the image loses its impact. Sometimes, a portrait orientation, like 3:4, would suit the screen size better.

But, herein lies the problem, as it’s not easy to reposition internal elements for different screen sizes using just viewBox. That’s because in SVG, internal element positions are locked to the coordinate system from the original viewBox, so you can’t easily change their layout between, say, desktop and mobile. This is a problem because animations and interactivity often rely on element positions, which break when the viewBox changes.

My challenge was to serve a 1080×1440 version of Bow Wow Bandit to smaller screens and a different one to larger ones. I wanted the position and size of internal elements — like Quick Draw McGraw and his dawg Snuffles — to change to best fit these two layouts. To solve this, I experimented with several alternatives.

Note: Why are we not just using the <picture> with external SVGs? The <picture> element is brilliant for responsive images, but it only works with raster formats (like JPEG or WebP) and external SVG files treated as images. That means that you can’t animate or style internal elements using CSS.

Showing And Hiding SVG

The most obvious choice was to include two different SVGs in my markup, one for small screens, the other for larger ones, then show or hide them using CSS and Media Queries:

<svg id=”svg-small” viewBox=”0 0 1080 1440″>
<!– … –>
</svg>

<svg id=”svg-large” viewBox=”0 0 1920 1080″>
<!–… –>
</svg>

#svg-small { display: block; }
#svg-large { display: none; }

@media (min-width: 64rem) {
#svg-small { display: none; }
#svg-mobile { display: block; }
}

But using this method, both SVG versions are loaded, which, when the graphics are complex, means downloading lots and lots and lots of unnecessary code.

Replacing SVGs Using JavaScript

I thought about using JavaScript to swap in the larger SVG at a specified breakpoint:

if (window.matchMedia(‘(min-width: 64rem)’).matches) {
svgContainer.innerHTML = desktopSVG;
} else {
svgContainer.innerHTML = mobileSVG;
}

Leaving aside the fact that JavaScript would now be critical to how the design is displayed, both SVGs would usually be loaded anyway, which adds DOM complexity and unnecessary weight. Plus, maintenance becomes a problem as there are now two versions of the artwork to maintain, doubling the time it would take to update something as small as the shape of Quick Draw’s tail.

The Solution: One SVG Symbol Library And Multiple Uses

Remember, my goal is to:

Serve one version of Bow Wow Bandit to smaller screens,
Serve a different version to larger screens,
Define my artwork just once (DRY), and
Be able to resize and reposition elements.

I don’t read about it enough, but the <symbol> element lets you define reusable SVG elements that can be hidden and reused to improve maintainability and reduce code bloat. They’re like components for SVG: create once and use wherever you need them:

<svg xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/2000/svg” style=”display: none;”>
<symbol id=”quick-draw-body” viewBox=”0 0 620 700″>
<g class=”quick-draw-body”>[…]</g>
</symbol>
<!– … –>
</svg>

<use href=”#quick-draw-body” />

A <symbol> is like storing a character in a library. I can reference it as many times as I need, to keep my code consistent and lightweight. Using <use> elements, I can insert the same symbol multiple times, at different positions or sizes, and even in different SVGs.

Each <symbol> must have its own viewBox, which defines its internal coordinate system. That means paying special attention to how SVG elements are exported from apps like Sketch.

Exporting For Individual Viewboxes

I wrote before about how I export elements in layers to make working with them easier. That process is a little different when creating symbols.

Ordinarily, I would export all my elements using the same viewBoxsize. But when I’m creating a symbol, I need it to have its own specific viewBox.

So I export each element as an individually sized SVG, which gives me the dimensions I need to convert its content into a symbol. Let’s take the SVG of Quick Draw McGraw’s hat, which has a viewBox size of 294×182:

<svg xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/2000/svg” viewBox=”0 0 294 182″>
<!– … –>
</svg>

I swap the SVG tags for <symbol> and add its artwork to my SVG library:

<svg xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/2000/svg” style=”display: none;”>
<symbol id=”quick-draw-hat” viewBox=”0 0 294 182″>
<g class=”quick-draw-hat”>[…]</g>
</symbol>
</svg>

Then, I repeat the process for all the remaining elements in my artwork. Now, if I ever need to update any of my symbols, the changes will be automatically applied to every instance it’s used.

Using A <symbol> In Multiple SVGs

I wanted my elements to appear in both versions of Bow Wow Bandit, one arrangement for smaller screens and an alternative arrangement for larger ones. So, I create both SVGs:

<svg class=”svg-small” viewBox=”0 0 1080 1440″>
<!– … –>
</svg>

<svg class=”svg-large” viewBox=”0 0 1920 1080″>
<!– … –>
</svg>

…and insert links to my symbols in both:

<svg class=”svg-small” viewBox=”0 0 1080 1440″>
<use href=”#quick-draw-hat” />
</svg>

<svg class=”svg-large” viewBox=”0 0 1920 1080″>
<use href=”#quick-draw-hat” />
</svg>

Positioning Symbols

Once I’ve placed symbols into my layout using <use>, my next step is to position them, which is especially important if I want alternative layouts for different screen sizes. Symbols behave like <g> groups, so I can scale and move them using attributes like width, height, and transform:

<svg class=”svg-small” viewBox=”0 0 1080 1440″>
<use href=”#quick-draw-hat” width=”294″ height=”182″ transform=”translate(-30,610)”/>
</svg>

<svg class=”svg-large” viewBox=”0 0 1920 1080″>
<use href=”#quick-draw-hat” width=”294″ height=”182″ transform=”translate(350,270)”/>
</svg>

I can place each <use> element independently using transform. This is powerful because rather than repositioning elements inside my SVGs, I move the <use> references. My internal layout stays clean, and the file size remains small because I’m not duplicating artwork. A browser only loads it once, which reduces bandwidth and speeds up page rendering. And because I’m always referencing the same symbol, their appearance stays consistent, whatever the screen size.

Animating <use> Elements

Here’s where things got tricky. I wanted to animate parts of my characters — like Quick Draw’s hat tilting and his legs kicking. But when I added CSS animations targeting internal elements inside a <symbol>, nothing happened.

Tip: You can animate the <use> element itself, but not elements inside the <symbol>. If you want individual parts to move, make them their own symbols and animate each <use>.

Turns out, you can’t style or animate a <symbol>, because <use> creates shadow DOM clones that aren’t easily targetable. So, I had to get sneaky. Inside each <symbol> in my library SVG, I added a <g> element around the part I wanted to animate:

<symbol id=”quick-draw-hat” viewBox=”0 0 294 182″>
<g class=”quick-draw-hat”>
<!– … –>
</g>
</symbol>

…and animated it using an attribute substring selector, targeting the href attribute of the use element:

use[href=”#quick-draw-hat”] {
animation-delay: 0.5s;
animation-direction: alternate;
animation-duration: 1s;
animation-iteration-count: infinite;
animation-name: hat-rock;
animation-timing-function: ease-in-out;
transform-origin: center bottom;
}

@keyframes hat-rock {
from { transform: rotate(-2deg); }
to { transform: rotate(2deg); } }

Media Queries For Display Control

Once I’ve created my two visible SVGs — one for small screens and one for larger ones — the final step is deciding which version to show at which screen size. I use CSS Media Queries to hide one SVG and show the other. I start by showing the small-screen SVG by default:

.svg-small { display: block; }
.svg-large { display: none; }

Then I use a min-width media query to switch to the large-screen SVG at 64rem and above:

@media (min-width: 64rem) {
.svg-small { display: none; }
.svg-large { display: block; }
}

This ensures there’s only ever one SVG visible at a time, keeping my layout simple and the DOM free from unnecessary clutter. And because both visible SVGs reference the same hidden <symbol> library, the browser only downloads the artwork once, regardless of how many <use> elements appear across the two layouts.

Wrapping Up

By combining <symbol>, <use>, CSS Media Queries, and specific transforms, I can build adaptive SVGs that reposition their elements without duplicating content, loading extra assets, or relying on JavaScript. I need to define each graphic only once in a hidden symbol library. Then I can reuse those graphics, as needed, inside several visible SVGs. With CSS doing the layout switching, the result is fast and flexible.

It’s a reminder that some of the most powerful techniques on the web don’t need big frameworks or complex tooling — just a bit of SVG know-how and a clever use of the basics.

The Death of the Double Click: How UX Finally Buried a Relic of the Desktop Era

Original Source: https://webdesignerdepot.com/the-death-of-the-double-click-how-ux-finally-buried-a-relic-of-the-desktop-era/

Double-clicking is a clunky gesture from the floppy disk era that has no place in modern UX. As interfaces evolve toward AI, touch, and simplicity, it’s time to finally bury the double-click for good. If you’re still designing for it, you’re designing backwards.

Are Closed Ecosystems Like Apple’s a Necessary Evil?

Original Source: https://webdesignerdepot.com/are-closed-ecosystems-like-apples-a-necessary-evil/

Closed ecosystems like Apple’s are sleek, secure, and utterly addictive—but once you’re in, escaping feels impossible. They promise a seamless experience while quietly locking you into a world where Apple decides what you can use, buy, and access, leaving innovation and competition struggling to break through.