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What Is a Domain Name Registrar?

Posted on May 23, 2019 by Hosting

The post What Is a Domain Name Registrar? appeared first on HostGator Blog . Every website you visit online has a domain name, which means that every website owner went through the process of buying and registering that domain name. It’s one of the first necessary steps involved in starting a new website, along with getting web hosting and building out your site . And it’s a step that requires working with a domain registrar .   What Is a Domain Registrar? A domain registrar, sometimes called a DNS registrar (short for domain name server), is a business that sells domain names and handles the business of registering them. Domain names are the main address a website uses on the web—they’re the thing that usually starts with www and most often ends with .com. While technically, computers identify websites with a different sort of address—an IP address that’s a long string of numbers separated by periods (e.g. 111.111.111.111)—humans wouldn’t be much good at remembering and using that kind of address. So for us, websites also have an address made up of alphanumeric letters, that usually spell out a word or brand name. And there’s a specific type of process behind how people claim domain names. There are registries that manage the different top-level domain s. The registries are large, centralized databases with information about which domain names have been claimed and by who. But the registries don’t sell the names directly, they delegate that job to DNS registrars. Registrars must be accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Then, each time they sell a domain to a customer, they’re expected to register it with the appropriate registry by updating a record with your information.   Domain Registration FAQs For the most part, this process happens behind the scenes for website owners. Part of the service a good domain name registrar provides is making the process of finding, buying , and managing a domain (or multiple) simple and intuitive. You don’t have to know how the sausage is made, but if you’re curious to learn more, we’ve got the answers to the most common questions about domain name registrars. What is the role of a domain name registrar? The domain name registrar handles the process of updating the registry when a customer purchases a new domain name. As part of that, they keep track of which domain names are available and typically provide customers with an intuitive search tool to find out what options they have. They handle the financial transaction with the customer, and provide the tools needed to maintain the domain name subscription over time. You can’t buy a domain name outright, you can only rent it for up to ten years at a time. DNS registrars usually provide the option of annual renewals or multi-year subscriptions, sometimes offering a discount for registering the name for a longer period of time upfront. Domain registrars will often provide a user account where you can keep up with your domain registration status, and features like automatic renewal or email reminders. What is a domain registrant? That’s you! Well, assuming that you, the person reading this, is planning to buy a domain name or already has one. Once you take the step of selecting and purchasing a domain name from a domain registrar, you become the domain registrant. And the title will continue to apply for as long as you keep up your domain subscription. In most contexts though, people are more likely to call a “domain registrant” a domain owner , or a website owner once their site is up. What is a domain registry? A domain registry is the database that includes all the information about a specific top-level domain (TLD). The term is also sometimes used to refer to the organization that manages the database, as well as the database itself.    Domain registries have relationships with domain registrars, who submit domain name registration requests and record updates to them on behalf of customers. One of the biggest examples of a domain registry is Verisign , which manages the databases for several of the most common TLDs, including .com, .net, .gov, and .edu. What is private domain name registration? Part of the domain registration process includes providing the registrant’s information to the database of domain owners. In addition to the domain registries, the WHOIS directory tracks information on every website domain that’s registered, who owns it, and their main contact information. That’s because someone needs to be able to identify website owners who use their site for illegal purposes. But in our age of high-profile data breaches and growing concern around internet privacy issues, not every website owner wants to put their name and contact information out on the open web. And it shouldn’t be a requirement for running a website. Thanks to the private domain name registration options now offered by many DNS registrants, it’s not. Domain registrars usually charge a little more in order to shield you from having your own name and information included in the directory. They provide enough contact information to the WHOIS to keep you on the right side of the law, typically an email address associated with the registrant’s company, and keep the rest of it private. What is a domain name server? We talked earlier about how computers don’t use domain names to recognize website addresses, they use IP addresses. Domain name servers are the technology that translates between the two. The domain name system is the protocol established to ensure machines exchange the right data for the average internet viewer to see the correct webpage when they type a domain name into their browser or click on a link. Domain name servers play an important role in that system, storing all the information required to connect a specific domain name address to the correct IP address. Each time a computer queries a domain name server for a particular domain name, it finds the appropriate IP address to serve up. How do I register a new domain name? Now that we’ve covered much of the back-end technical stuff, you’re probably wondering how this all translates into what you, a would-be website owner, need to do to get the domain name that you want for your site. Luckily, the process for you is pretty easy. Start by finding a domain registrant you want to work with (more on how to do that in a bit). Most of them make it easy to search for available names, see the different top-level domain options you can consider, and go through the purchasing process. Provide your name, contact, and payment information through a secure form on the registrar’s website, and you should be set! How do I find an available domain name? This part can be trickier. With billions of websites already out there, all of them with a unique domain name, a lot of your options are already taken. Finding an available domain name that’s easy to remember and describes what your website does can take some work and creativity. Expect to spend some time using your domain registrar’s domain name search tool . Try out different variations on the names you have in mind. Consider synonyms and creative spellings. While a .com is usually the easiest option for visitors to remember, consider if you’re willing to go with another top-level domain like .website or .biz. The TLDs that aren’t as common will have more domain name options available. What is a top-level domain? A top-level domain is the last part of the domain that follows a period, such as .com or .net. ICANN controls which TLDs are available, and used to be pretty strict about opening up new ones. Early on, most specialty TLDs related to a specific industry, type of website, or geographic location. For example, .com was for commercial businesses, .gov for government websites, and .org for nonprofit websites. But as the internet has grown, the need for more available domain names has caused ICANN to lift the restrictions on how many TLDs are available, and who can use different ones. As such, when you do a domain name search on your chosen registrar’s website, you’ll see an array of TLD options at different price points. If the name you want isn’t available as a .com, you may be able to get it for cheaper at a .us or .site TLD address. How does domain name transfer work? When you choose a domain registrar to purchase your domain name with, you don’t have to make a long-term commitment to working with them. You have the option of switching over to a different registrar down the line, although you have to wait at least 60 days, due to an ICANN policy designed to reduce domain hijacking. If you’re past that sixty day point, you can transfer your domain name to a new provider by unlocking your domain name at your current registrar, disabling any other privacy protections such as WHOIS domain name privacy, and obtaining a domain authorization code from your current registrar. Once that’s done, follow the domain transfer steps provided by the new registrar you’re switching to. For HostGator, you can start the domain name transfer process here .    What to Look for in a Domain Registrar Now that you know all the ins and outs of what a domain registrar is and how domain registration works, you’re probably ready to find a good domain registrar and get started. You have a lot of different options. Some companies only provide domain registration services. Others, like HostGator, offer domain registration along with other services like web hosting, so you can take care of multiple basic website needs all under one account. With so many options to choose from, you need to know what to look for. Here are some of the most important factors to consider. 1. Pricing Some of the cost of registering a new domain name is related to the name you choose. In particular, different top-level domains come at different prices. But you’ll also see some variety in what different companies charge. When considering the pricing of different domain registrars, there are a couple of important things to keep in mind, First, the prices advertised are generally for a one-year time period, but you should check to be sure. A domain name isn’t a one-time purchase, you have to plan on continuing to pay for as long as you keep your website. You want to make sure you’re comparing apples to apples, and not putting one company’s one-year price against the price another advertises for a longer period. Also, it’s fairly normal for companies to advertise an introductory price that you pay for year one that goes up in the second year. Don’t just consider what you’re paying right now, think about what you can afford on an ongoing basis. And as with most things, sometimes a cheaper price will mean you pay in other ways, as with weaker customer service or a worse customer experience. Don’t just jump at the first low price you see without researching the company to find out if they’re cheap for a reason. 2. Reputation While domain name management doesn’t involve that much interaction with the company, you still want to choose a domain registrar that will be easy to work with and reliable. Spend some time reading customer reviews and doing general research on the company. Are they well known as a legitimate domain registrar? Do they have a reputation for solid customer service? Do people find the registration and renewal processes intuitive? Your domain name is an important part of running your website and maintaining it over time. You can always transfer your domain later, but you’ll be better off picking the right DNS registrar from day one. 3. Extras Most domain name registrars provide services beyond just domain name registration. It’s very common for registrars to also be web hosting providers, and bundling the two services can increase your ease of use for managing each. Other good add-ons to look for are: Domain name privacy, which helps you avoid spam and any risk that comes with making your personal information more public. Auto-renewals, which allow you to put the renewal process on autopilot so you don’t have to worry about forgetting or doing any extra work to keep your domain name registration up to date. Email addresses that you can set up for yourself and people in your organization at the domain, making your communications look more official. A multi-year purchase option, so you can secure your domain name for longer without worrying about renewal. If any of these are features you know you want, find a domain registrar that provides them. Register Your Domain Today As you know by now, HostGator is a domain name registrar that provides an intuitive domain name search function and easy registration process.   We offer domain name privacy, automatic renewals, and the option to buy your domain for up to three years at a time. And on top of all that, we’re one of the most respected web hosting providers in the industry. If you want the convenience of managing your web hosting and domain name registration in one place, you can count on HostGator to be a reliable option for both. If you’re ready to move forward and buy a new domain name, get started searching . Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Most Popular Content Management Systems

Posted on March 18, 2019 by Hosting

The post Most Popular Content Management Systems appeared first on HostGator Blog . When you’re in the early stages of creating a new website, you face an important choice: should you use a web content management system (CMS)? And if you do, which one? If you’re not familiar with what a content management system is, it’s a software tool that makes managing your web content much easier. It provides an intuitive and user-friendly interface you can use to create, edit, organize, and publish your content online, without having to work directly with a page’s code. And it helps you control the level of access different people have to your website, so you can bring in professionals to help with your site, without increasing the risk of someone changing the wrong thing. For most individuals making a website for their own purposes, or SMBs creating a fairly simple website to represent their businesses, a web content management system is a useful way to put easy website updates within reach for everyone that needs to make them. The three most popular web content management systems dominate the CMS market: WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. While these aren’t the only content management systems available, they’re as popular as they are for a reason, and most people on the lookout for a CMS for their new website won’t need to look any further than these three. What You Should Know About the Most Popular Content Management Systems While the three most popular CMSs have a lot in common, each offers distinct benefits. If you’re wondering how to best choose between them, here’s a rundown of the main information you need to know. CMS #1: WordPress WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world, currently powering over a quarter of the entire internet and claiming over half of the market share for content management systems. Because there are so many benefits of WordPress as a content management system , it is by far the most popular CMS today. WordPress is widely considered one of the easiest options for managing a website. And because of its vast popularity, the resources available for WordPress users are extensive.   To help avoid potential confusion, there are two versions of WordPress to be aware of: the WordPress hosting service (WordPress.com), and the content management system (WordPress.org). The former is a free and easy option for anyone starting a simple blog, but isn’t relevant for someone looking for a true CMS. This CMS is the better option for anyone serious about starting a WordPress business website , an ecommerce store, or any website you hope to potentially monetize or build a personal brand on. The Benefits of Choosing WordPress WordPress’s huge popularity has a lot to do with the main benefits it offers. It’s free. The WordPress CMS is open source, which means it’s free for users and you have a lot of freedom in how you use it. While the CMS itself is free, it doesn’t come with free web hosting or domain registration (one of the ways it differs from the WordPress.com blogging platform), so you will still need to invest in those to get your website running. And a lot of website owners will want more functionality that the most basic version of the CMS offers, which often requires an investment in plug-ins that have a cost. But even if you end up spending money on related expenses, the amount of functionality you get for free from WordPress is still impressive. It’s easy for beginners. The biggest differentiating factor between WordPress and the other two most popular content management systems is how easy it is for even the newest website creators to figure out. The interface is intuitive. You never have to mess directly with a page’s code to make updates (although the option to do so is there, and easy for coders to take advantage of when they want to). When you want to add new features and functionality to your website, WordPress plugins are easy to find and add, and most are designed to be similarly easy for beginners to use. And unlike the other two popular CMSs, with WordPress you can copy and paste content from Word while keeping it intact, which adds to day-to-day ease of use. You can find lots of resources and support. This is probably the biggest benefit of going with the CMS that has the most users. That huge community of users comes with a massive trove of resources to help you learn how to get the most out of WordPress. WordPress provides a library of educational materials to help you learn the basics, but the WordPress community goes much further than that in supplying supplementary resources. That includes a massive support forum where you can search all the past questions people have had about using WordPress. If the answer to a question you have isn’t there already, you can share it and get answers from one (or more) of the hundreds of experts in the community. In addition, there are many WordPress blogs thatare focused specifically on this specific CMS  when it comes to publishing tips, recommended themes and plugins, and suggested resources daily. You can choose from thousands of themes. When you’re building a website, the process is much easier if you can start from a design that gets the basic look and structure of your website into place. Anyone using WordPress can take advantage of that kind of design shortcut by using one of the thousands of available themes when getting starting. There are nearly 4,000 free WordPress themes , and that’s just the beginning. Third-party designers have created tens of thousands of additional themes you can buy, many of them for affordable prices. And many of the available themes are responsive, so you can easily build a website that works well on mobile devices, a necessity in 2019. Find a huge number of plugins and add-ons. Because of how popular the WordPress blogging platform is, a number of companies put resources toward developing plugins and other add-ons you can use to extend the functionality of the CMS and get your website working just how you want it to. The WordPress plugin library includes over 45,000 plugins that offer features such as enhanced security, spam blocking, SEO (search engine optimization) functionality, and much more.  Many popular WordPress plugins are free, and many of those that charge are low cost. Most website software and services are compatible with WordPress. When choosing your CMS, you want to make sure it will work seamlessly with any other tools you’ll be using for your website, such as your analytics, sales, or customer service software products. WordPress’s popularity ensures that every website service you can think of has good reason to make sure they’ll work well with the CMS giant, so the vast majority of products and services are compatible with WordPress. You can even find web hosting plans that are specifically optimized for WordPress websites, to make integration of your hosting and CMS easier. You can optimize for SEO. SEO is one of the most important components in making sure people can find your website. WordPress makes some basic aspects of optimizing your site for SEO easy, such as customizing your URLs. But you can also easily tap into more comprehensive SEO features with free SEO plugins such as Yoast and the All in One SEO Pack . Create an online store with WordPress and WooCommerce. On its own, WordPress doesn’t provide the main features you need to run an ecommerce store, but this is another need that’s easy to satisfy with plugins. In particular,   WooCommerce for an online store provides all the basic functionality you need in its free version, and offers advanced features like memberships and recurring subscriptions as paid add ons. Ready to get started with the WordPress CMS? Discover HostGator’s WordPress hosting options. Potential Downsides of Choosing WordPress No good service is entirely perfect, so WordPress does have some weaknesses to consider. It makes updates easy, but not initial design. With WordPress, adding new content and making updates to the pages you already have are easy for even the newest of beginners. But the initial design of a WordPress site still takes work. Finding the right template can help, but there’s still a good chance that you’ll need to hire a professional designer or invest in a website builder if you want to get your website looking just right without learning to code. WordPress has some limits on flexibility in comparison to other solutions. The tradeoff for ease of use is that WordPress isn’t quite as flexible or customizable as Joomla or Drupal . While the extensive selection of plugins gives you a lot of control over how your website looks and functions, you still don’t have quite as much freedom to do everything you want as you would with one of the other platforms. For the most part, individuals and SMBs aren’t likely to have any needs that hit up against these limitations. But big businesses and media companies that need more complex websites might. Some features require time to learn. As much as we emphasized ease of use, it’s worth noting that the more you want your website to do, the more complicated using WordPress can become. Doing all the basic tasks it’s designed for—creating, editing, scheduling, and publishing content—is pretty easy. But as you add more plugins and features to the website, you’ll face a larger learning curve in getting it all working and keeping it maintained. It’s vulnerable to hackers. While WordPress works hard to keep the CMS secure, its popularity makes it a target for hackers. WordPress itself, and many of the plug-ins designed to work with WordPress, often have vulnerabilities hackers can use to access users’ websites. That puts you at risk of someone taking over your website, or slipping malicious code into it that affects your visitors. You can reduce that risk by taking basic precautions, like keeping your plugins and WordPress version up to date, and investing in some additional security software, like our SiteLock website security scan . Frequent updates cause compatibility issues. WordPress releases frequent updates, which is mostly a good thing. New versions come with new features and patches to security vulnerabilities. But those updates sometimes cause compatibility issues with various plugins. That means your website could temporarily lose important functionality, or worse, it could bring your website down until you get it fixed. It’s often slower. WordPress websites tend to have some extraneous code that slows the site down in comparison to other CMSs. This is an issue with some themes more than others. And you can take a number of steps to improve your site’s speed and performance if it’s affected. CMS #2: Joomla Joomla is the second most popular content management system. It falls in the middle between WordPress and Drupal in terms of ease of use and how flexible and customizable it is. Like WordPress, it’s open source, so it’s free to use and allows you a lot of freedom in how you use the CMS to build your website. While its market share is smaller than WordPress’s, it still boasts over 2 million websites and has a sizeable community of volunteers who help keep the CMS working and improving. The Benefits of Choosing Joomla Joomla shares some of the benefits it offers with WordPress, but has a few unique ones as well. It’s free. Being open source, Joomla is completely free for anyone to download and set up. But also like WordPress, some of the templates and extensions you can choose to add new features to your website do come at a fee. And you will still need to invest in web hosting and a domain. It’s relatively easy to use. While Joomla is not as intuitive as WordPress is, it’s still easy enough for most beginners to figure out. But it requires more of a learning curve and you can expect to spend more time working on your website to get it where you want. That may be worth it, especially if you want more control over your website and consider that a higher priority than having a CMS that makes updates fast and easy. It provides a lot of flexibility. Joomla has a large library of extensions you can use to add functionality to your website. While the plugins you can use for WordPress similarly extend its functionality, Joomla is largely regarded as providing more flexibility and control to users that are willing to do a little more work to achieve what they want. It offers a lot of educational resources. While you may have to work harder to learn how to use Joomla, the CMS makes it easy with a large library of useful resources on getting started. They have a community blog, free video training classes, a community support forum, and even user groups that meet up in person in communities around the world. You have lots of Joomla templates to choose from. You won’t have as many options as with WordPress but even so, you can find thousands of themes for Joomla designed by professionals.  Some are free, and many others are affordable. It’s multilingual. One big selling point for websites with an international audience is that Joomla makes it easy to build out multilingual websites. They offer over 75 translation packs for languages from all over the world. If English isn’t your first language, or if part of your audience speaks a different language than you do, this is a valuable feature. It’s good for SEO. Like WordPress, Joomla offers a number of extensions that help users optimize websites for SEO.  Different extensions can help you update all the relevant meta tags, clean up your canonical links, and generate meta descriptions for your pages. It’s good for eCommerce. Joomla also has ecommerce extensions that provide the features you need to sell products through your website. Some of these are paid, but there are also free options like J2Store and Sellacious . It’s secure. Joomla is targeted by hackers less frequently than WordPress, but also has a smaller security team. On the whole, they’re probably a more secure option. And you can bolster your Joomla security with additional security extensions and by taking basic steps to protect yourself.   Ready to get started with the Joomla CMS? Discover HostGator’s Joomla hosting options. Potential Downsides of Choosing Joomla If you’re considering Joomla, you should be aware of some of the drawbacks. It’s harder to learn than WordPress. As already discussed, Joomla isn’t as intuitive for beginners as WordPress. Expect to spend more time learning the basics when getting started, as well as learning how to implement the different extensions and features you want to use. It’s still within reach for amateurs—you won’t have to hire or become a professional developer to figure it out. But it will take more time. It has fewer available add ons. While Joomla does have a large library of extensions, on the whole it has fewer modules and add ons than WordPress and Drupal. If you have specific features you want to implement that aren’t covered in their library and you don’t know how to build them out yourselves, you’ll end up with fewer options for extending the functionality of your website. They have a smaller community than WordPress, so fewer resources. The resources they have are definitely useful, but there’s less to work with than with WordPress because there are fewer people using Joomla and providing information on how to do so. As your needs get more specific, you may have more trouble finding the answers you seek. You may face compatibility issues. Just like WordPress, Joomla releases new versions periodically to add features and improve security vulnerabilities, and those updates can bring compatibility issues with the templates or extensions you use. In addition, sometimes different Joomla plugins will have compatibility issues with each other, so adding something new to your website can affect how another feature works. CMS #3: Drupal The third most popular content management system, Drupal , is distinct from the others in being more for professional developers than it is for beginners. And even for developers, learning how to use Drupal specifically can take time. But the extra work that goes into learning Drupal can pay off in the ability to make more complex websites that are better for enterprise businesses or companies wanting to include advanced features on their websites. That barrier to wide accessibility likely explains why it has a smaller share of the market, with a little less than 5% market share . But it’s still popular enough to make this list because it brings more power and flexibility to the table, making it a strong choice for certain types of websites. The Benefits of Choosing Drupal Drupal has a few distinct benefits that cause it to edge out the other options for some website owners. It offers more flexibility and customization options. Drupal’s broad API and extensive library of modules makes it more versatile than the other two CMSs. If you know what you’re doing, or hire someone that does, you can do just about anything you could want to with Drupal. While both WordPress and Joomla allow a lot of options for customizing your website, they still present some limitations that aren’t a problem with Drupal. It’s the most secure of the three. Drupal is the top choice for enterprise businesses and government entities in part because it has the best security record of the three. The content management system’s security team keeps a close watch on the CMS and provides frequent security updates to patch up any vulnerabilities found. While you have ways to make the other two platforms more secure, if security is a top priority for your website, Drupal delivers the best. It has a good community. While the Drupal community isn’t as large as that of the other two CMSs, it’s full of skilled developers committed to the platform. And that community includes large companies that are willing to spend money improving the platform their websites depend on. The Drupal community is therefore skilled, devoted, and supportive. It’s good for SEO. Like the other CMSs, Drupal has modules you can add that provide all the most important features you need to optimize your pages for the search engines. Add ons like SEO Checklist and Pathauto help users customize pages in all the right places for on-site optimization. It makes mobile-friendly websites easy. Drupal’s well designed for enabling mobile-friendly websites . All Drupal themes in the current version are responsive. And Drupal automatically resizes images according to the device visitors view them on. It’s more scalable. Drupal makes it easier to build out your website over time with more functionality, and has the power to handle more pages and a higher number of visitors. For companies that expect large growth in the coming years, it’s a smart CMS to start with so your website can grow with you. It’s a good platform for advanced features. Websites that will have advanced features like community platforms or forums can benefit from Drupal, which is well suited for more complex websites. For simple sites, it may be overkill. But for larger and more complicated website plans, the CMS delivers what’s needed. Ready to get started with the Drupal CMS? Discover HostGator’s Drupal hosting options. Potential Downsides of Choosing Drupal For certain websites, Drupal is a smart choice. But it’s not for everyone due to some significant drawbacks. It’s harder to use than WordPress and Joomla. This is the biggest reason not to use Drupal. If ease of use is more important than flexibility, as it is for thousands of website owners, then Drupal won’t be a good fit for you. Using Drupal often requires hiring professional help, which means that even though the CMS itself is free, using it can have a potentially high price tag. And developers skilled with Drupal aren’t as common as those that know WordPress or Joomla, so you could face a more difficult search when you need one. Updates cause compatibility issues. By now, this is a familiar problem. As with the other CMSs, a Drupal update can mean your website’s modules stop working correctly. You may be stuck waiting a while for the developers to update modules you depend on to get your website working right again. Using lots of modules can lead to compatibility issues. Modules are how you get the most out of Drupal, but the more you use, the more you risk them having issues with each other. Implementing the flexibility you desire can be harder if you have to figure out how to bring all your different modules in line with each other. Choosing a CMS for Your Website Each of the most popular content management systems have something to offer. Figuring out which one is the right choice for your website will depend on what you need, but you’re lucky to have a number of strong options that are free to use and come with a wealth of helpful resources to get started.Whichever CMS you choose, HostGator can support them all. Learn more about your web hosting options and get started building your site. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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What is a Content Management System?

Posted on February 5, 2019 by Hosting

The post What is a Content Management System? appeared first on HostGator Blog . To be a successful business owner, one of the important skills you need is the ability to identify the right tools that enable you to run your business effectively. For many businesses, that will include using a content management system (CMS).   What is a Content Management System? A web content management system is software expressly designed to help you create, edit, organize, and publish your content online. It provides an intuitive interface for editing your web pages that saves you from having to deal with coding directly, or call your developer each time you need to make an update. And it makes it easy to provide the right level of access to every person in your company that contributes or makes changes to the website. Within a CMS, you can store all the content you’ve already created and any media you want to include on your website. You can easily keep track of which content is published, which is scheduled, and which is in draft form. And many CMSs allow you to track changes to pieces of content, so you can see how versions differ and revert to an earlier one if needed. Does My Business Need a Content Management System? For small businesses, “need” might be too strong a word here, but most businesses will benefit from having a CMS. A CMS will particularly be useful for any business where: Anyone in charge of making updates to the website lacks coding skills . Whether you have a one-person business or over 100 employees, if anyone in a position to add content to the website or make tweaks to the pages already there isn’t skilled at coding, they’ll struggle to do their job without a CMS. And since small coding errors can sometimes bring down a whole site, you don’t want to take that risk. Multiple people have access to the site, each of them for different tasks. A CMS lets you set up accounts for the different people in your company that need some level of access to the website, but you can define what level of access they have with WordPress user roles to improve security . If you hire a blogger to write and publish blog posts, you don’t have to give them the ability to make changes to your home page. A CMS gives you control over who can change what, and helps you protect your website from accidental errors and malicious changes alike. You already have or plan to create a lot of content. If your business is doing a content marketing strategy , a CMS provides a centralized location for you to store and manage all the different pieces of content you have. Everyone involved in content creation, editing, and scheduling can easily access everything they need and keep track of its status. A good web content management system will make managing your website a lot easier—both for you and anyone else you employ to help out. And it will help you keep your content and web pages organized and looking the way you want them to.   How Much Do Content Management Systems Cost? As a business owner, it sometimes feels like you can’t go a whole day without hearing about some new product or service you need. You only have so much money to spend, so even if the argument is persuasive, learning that there’s one more product you should invest in is often dispiriting. So here’s the good news: almost all of the most popular content management systems are free. They have add-ons and plug-ins that cost more, if you want additional features. And in some cases, hiring a web developer or someone to help you get your CMS set up or get more out of it is worth it. But a good CMS in and of itself doesn’t have to cost you anything. Even with a CMS though, you will still need to invest in web hosting and register a domain name , if you haven’t already. And a CMS isn’t usually the best tool for doing web design—you’ll want a professional web designer or a good website builder for that part. But once you have those basics covered, a CMS enables you to maintain and update your website over time without any added cost.   What to Look for in a Content Management System Every business is different, so what your business will value most in a CMS depends on your particular goals and needs. Even so, there are a few main features most businesses will want to consider when deciding which CMS to go with. Look for a CMS that: Is within your budget. This may seem strange to mention when we just told you that most content management systems are free, but there are potential costs involved you need to consider. To start, a couple of CMS options that provide specialized features or functionality do have a price, so there’s a small chance your best option won’t be free. Secondly, even with free CMS tools, you’ll likely want to use some plugins or extensions to get the full functionality you need. So before you make a decision, research the cost of the additional tools you expect to invest in, so you get a more accurate picture of the full cost of your choice.   Is intuitive. Some content management systems are more user friendly for beginners than others. Sometimes that means a tradeoff: a CMS that’s harder to learn and work with could provide more options for customization, if you know what you’re doing. If you value ease of use over being able to realize a very specific vision, then you want to look for a CMS that you’ll be able to start using without having to spend a lot of time learning the ropes. Lets you define permissions and roles. If more than one person will be involved with updating the website, you want the power to control who has access and what kind of access they have. A CMS that makes it easy to set up other users and define their level of permissions reduces the risk of letting people into the backend of your website by making sure each one can only make the kinds of changes you’ve assigned. Makes it easy to apply proper formatting. Strong copywriting can improve your website tremendously. Generally speaking, good writing for the web includes using headings and formatting to organize your content for readability. Applying that formatting with HTML can be confusing, so a good CMS should provide easy options for doing so within its interface. Adding headings, italics, bolding, and list options should be a simple as clicking on a button. Helps you organize your content and media. The more web content you create, the more important it will be to have a good method for keeping it all organized. Consider if your CMS provides options for categorizing the content, blog posts,and media you upload, and easily finding the specific piece you need at the moment you need it. Provides support. Technology is complicated and you’ll inevitably hit up against questions or challenges when using your CMS. Choose an option that has plenty of online resources for helping you find the answers you need and/or customer support staff you can reach out to. Because the most popular content management systems have huge communities of users, you can usually find good support resources in spite of not paying for the software. Is compatible with your other software. If you already have software you use for things like e-commerce, website analytics, or customer relationship management (CRM), then you want to make sure your CMS will play nice with the tools you have. Provides on-site optimization features. You want people to find your website, so SEO should be a top priority. A CMS can simplify optimizing your web pages for SEO with features that allow you to customize page URLs, title tags, headings, and alt tags—all without having to touch the page’s code. Has an extensive library of plugins. The CMS will provide the basic functionality you need, but most businesses will want access to an array of different features that don’t come with the CMS itself. For that, you’ll need plugins or extensions. The most popular content management systems have huge libraries of plugins made by hundreds of developers that you can use to add functionality to your website. Offers security options. The flip side of choosing a CMS that’s popular is that it could become the target of hackers. But you can protect yourself from that risk by making sure the CMS provides basic security options such as two-factor authentication, security software and plugins, and regular updates to fix any security vulnerabilities they find. You may not need every one of these features, but consider which ones you’d like your CMS to have and how much of a priority each one is. Once you get set up with a CMS, it’s easier to stick with it than to switch to a new new one, so making the right decision to start will make your life a lot easier.   5 Most Popular Content Management Systems When starting your search for the right CMS for your business, there’s a good chance one of the most popular content management systems out there will satisfy your needs. Here are the main ones to check out.   1. WordPress Easily the most popular CMS, with well over half of the market share, WordPress is a great choice for many websites. There are endless benefits of WordPress as a content management system . Because of its popularity, there are loads of experts and developers working to provide a vast library of resources for the CMS. That includes over 50,000 popular WordPress plugins , thousands of themes to choose from, dozens of thorough WordPress blogs , and a huge community of users who can help with any questions you have. WordPress itself is free. Many of the plugins and themes will cost you, although often the cost is reasonable. And you can even find WordPress web hosting plans specifically designed to work well with this content management system. For lots of small businesses, WordPress will provide just what you need.   2. Joomla Joomla is one of the other most popular content management systems out there. While its community isn’t nearly as large as that of WordPress, it still boasts over 2 million sites and 1,400 volunteers who help keep the CMS running smoothly and improving over time. Joomla has a reputation for being a little harder to learn than WordPress, but it’s still pretty easy for beginners and advanced users alike. And they provide a comprehensive library of resources to help users learn how to get started with Joomla and get the most out of it. Like WordPress, Joomla is free, but you can invest in extensions that add functionality at a cost.   3. Drupal Drupal is the third most popular CMS option, with over 1 million websites using it. They have a reputation for being better suited for developers with some skill than for beginners, and for providing more options for customizing your site and powering more complex solutions. Like the others, Drupal itself is free, and there are many integrated modules you can use to customize your website that are also free. But since taking advantage of the CMS’s flexibility to do more with your website requires skill, you may need to spend money on a developer to get your site where you want it to be.   4. Magento Magento is a CMS that’s specifically designed for ecommerce websites. Magento has both a free open source version and paid versions that pack greater functionality. The free version includes ecommerce features like mobile shopping and integrated checkout, payment, and shipping functionality. The paid version includes additional analytics and marketing features. For ecommerce businesses, it’s worth looking into.   5. Blogger Blogger is a simple and straightforward CMS for anyone primarily interested in learning how to start a blog . It’s free and easy to use, but somewhat limited in its functionality in comparison to the other content management systems on this list. It’s not an open source CMS, which means there’s less flexibility and fewer plugins or other add-ons you can use to customize your website or add functionality. For simple websites, it can be a good enough choice. For many businesses, it won’t offer enough features for your needs.   Choosing a Content Management System for Your Website The easier it is to update your website, the more power you have to improve how well it works over time. The right CMS will put control of your website into your hands, without having to learn complicated programming languages. Determine which of these solutions makes the most sense for your business and get started. HostGator supports all of the most popular content management systems with our web hosting plans, including WordPress, Magento, Drupal, and Joomla. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Web Hosting for Blogs: Everything You Need to Know

Posted on November 16, 2018 by Hosting

The post Web Hosting for Blogs: Everything You Need to Know appeared first on HostGator Blog . Before the internet, sharing your ideas with the world beyond your immediate friends, family, and colleagues was out of reach for most people. With the rise of blogging, everyone who has ideas or artistic creations they want to bring to a wider audience now has a way to do so. But before you can start pushing your thoughts and works out into the larger world, you have to get your blog up and running. One of the first and most basic things you need to accomplish that is web hosting. Website hosting for a blog is one of the most essential services required if you want to reach other people online. It’s one of the main building blocks of a new blog. Why Your Blog Needs Web Hosting Do you know why web hosting is important? Let’s take a look at what web hosting actually does and how it influences your overall site. We don’t often think about it when browsing the web, but every website we visit is taking up space. All the different files and elements that make up that website have to live somewhere physical. As much as the internet feels untethered by the physical world, in fact, every word and image you see takes up a tiny amount of space in a room filled with servers somewhere. Web hosting companies own and maintain those servers. Every blogger on the web has essentially rented space from one of these  web hosting companies of their choice on one of the servers the provider owns (except in rare cases where a particularly tech savvy blogger may own their own server). Now you understand the web hosting basics . Web hosting services are  basically the online version of renting real estate for your home or business but —as you’ll be glad to learn— much cheaper.   Typical Cost of Blog Web Hosting Web hosting plans start as low as $5 a month for the most basic shared web hosting plans. Shared hosting will be the best choice for most new bloggers. But as your blog gets more popular, you may end up upgrading over time to either a cloud hosting plan or a VPS hosting solution. A cloud hosting plan generally costs in the range of $5-$50, whereas a VPS , costs $20-$100 per month. In some cases, these starting rates won’t include additional features you may want or need, such as a domain name registration , SSL certificate (for security), domain-branded email addresses , or a website builder . Make sure when choosing the best web hosting services for your blog that you review the available features for different options and factor in the costs of anything that’s not included that you’ll need to pay extra for.   Web Hosting for Blogs : Top 10 Features While every blog will be different, the best web hosting for a blog will typically accomplish at least ten things. 1. Uptime Have you ever tried to visit a site only to get a message that it’s not available and to come back later? That usually means either that: The website has more traffic at the moment than its web hosting plan can handle, or The website’s hosting platform server is undergoing maintenance or facing another issue that’s taking it temporarily offline. In either case, you don’t want that happening with your blog. You want people to be able to find your posts at the moment they’re ready to read them. Otherwise, they may leave your website and never come back. We’ll discuss the answer to the first issue in a section below on types of web hosting, but for the latter issue, the answer is to find a web hosting company that consistently delivers on uptime. Look for a web hosting provider that promises at least 99% uptime, and check their claims against what third-party sources say. All of HostGator’s web hosting plans promise a 99.9% uptime, a claim that has been tested and confirmed by independent reviewers as well. 2. Speed Website speed is an extremely important part of user experience. Many visitors won’t stick around if your blog takes longer than a couple of seconds to load— especially on mobile devices, which are making up a bigger portion of internet use every day. While there are a few different steps that bloggers can take to keep your blog loading as fast as possible for your users, one of the biggest factors in website speed is your web hosting. You need both the right web hosting company and the right plan to make sure your website consistently performs at the kind of speeds your visitors expect. Make sure you choose a web hosting platform that can promise speedy loading times, and continue to test your blog out over time so you’ll know sooner rather than later when your traffic levels are slowing things down so you can upgrade to a plan that delivers the speed you need. 3. Security Hackers are always looking for opportunities to steal data or otherwise use a website for their own purposes. Bloggers that don’t plan to monetize their blog may think they don’t need to worry as much (and certainly, any bloggers that do set up the site to accept payments need to give security extra priority), but there are a number of different ways that hackers can cause problems for you—all of them troubling: They can take over your website and turn it into something to promote their own scams—or worse, use it to try to blackmail you into sending them money. They can slip spammy links into your website that hurt your authority and potentially lead your visitors to dangerous other websites. They can hijack your website’s traffic and redirect it to other spammy sites. They can load malware to your website so that it infects the devices of your visitors. They can steal visitor information that’s been submitted through forms on your website (e.g. names and email addresses) Most serious of all: if you do accept credit card payments for donations, information products, or blog subscriptions, they can steal your customers’ financial information. Look for a web hosting provider that has a good reputation for security, offers SSL certification as part of their web hosting plans, and works with reputable security software like Sitelock . 4. Ease of use Most new bloggers don’t have a ton of technical skill, but that shouldn’t be a problem if you choose the right web hosting platform. You will probably need to learn some web hosting 101 stuff about how to use your web hosting company’s cPanel ,  loading your files with FTP , and using the main features your web hosting plan provides. A good web hosting plan for a blog will make most of that pretty intuitive and provide a number of resources to help you learn the ropes when you get started. Take some time to peruse a web hosting provider’s support resources and customer reviews to get a feel for how they fare when it comes to ease of use. Selecting a web hosting platform that’s easy to use will save you time and trouble in getting your blog up and running. 5. Customer service Even if you find your web hosting provider’s setup easy to figure out, you may need to get in touch at some point to get their help. As in any industry, your experience with a web hosting company can change completely based on the quality of their customer service. If you have a hard time getting ahold of someone when you need their help, or if they don’t provide the help you need once you do, you’ll end up frustrated and dissatisfied. Look for a web hosting provider that offers 24/7 customer support . And do some research into the company’s general reputation for customer service. If other customers have had issues getting the answers they need, then you may well experience the same. 6. Backup features The more work you put into your blog, the worse it would feel to lose it all in one fell swoop. Just like your computer or mobile devices, your website needs to be backed up  regularly to save you the trauma of losing all your work. Many web hosting providers offer automated backups as an affordable add-on to your web hosting service, so you can focus on your blogging, confident that all your work is saved and easily accessible if something happens.   7. SEO tools If you want readers to find your blog, then doing what you can to show up in search engines for relevant keywords should be an important part of your blogging strategy.  Taking a few basic SEO steps can make a difference in how discoverable your website is, and the right web hosting platform can offer tools or features that make those steps a little easier. Namely, you want an easy way to customize your URLs, fill in meta descriptions, and submit your website to search engines. Even better is a web hosting plan that offers SEO analytics and reporting features to help you track your SEO progress over time.   8. Monetization features Many bloggers hope to reach a point with their blogging efforts when they have enough devoted followers to start making money from their blog . If that’s your goal, or something you want to at least keep your options open for, then you need a web hosting provider that offers the proper features for accepting payments down the line. That means proper security features (although, as previously discussed, you should want those anyway), ecommerce features if you’ll be selling products, and compatibility with common payment processing options such as Paypal or Stripe. 9. Website builder You’re ready for your blog to be up! You don’t want to spend weeks building it before you can publish your first post. The easiest way to get your blog ready to go without having to hire a professional or spend a lot of time learning how to code is with an easy-to-use website builder. While there are many website builders you can subscribe to separately from your web hosting, you can cover two needs at once by going with a web hosting provider that also sells a website builder. A good website builder for blogging will include a number of responsive blog templates for you to choose from, easy drag-and-drop functionality, and handy multimedia and SEO features. It will help you get your blog looking just how you want it without a big time commitment, so you can get straight into sharing your thoughts with the world. 10.  Affordability While some blogs will reach a point where they start to make money, for most bloggers, making a profit is unlikely. That means you probably want to spend as little as possible to get your blog going and keep it maintained. Web hosting services bill on a subscription basis, so you can expect to pay either monthly or yearly for the length of time you have your blog. Consider both the upfront costs of a web hosting plan and the ongoing costs. If you start with basic shared hosting, also take a minute to research the cost of upgrading with your web hosting provider down the line. Sticking with the same provider will make your life easier, so you want to know that if your blog takes off you can afford to switch to their cloud or VPS plans.   The Different Types of Web Hosting for Blogs We’ve touched on the different types of hosting briefly in the previous sections, but new bloggers can benefit from having a better understanding of what the main types of web hosting for a blog are.   Shared hosting Shared hosting is the most affordable web hosting plan and usually the one that makes the most sense for someone just starting out. As the name suggests, under this type of plan you’ll be sharing a server with a number of other small websites. Since none of the sites sharing the server have just a huge amount of traffic, the server should be able to easily host all of them. If your website starts to see a significant increase in traffic down the line though, you’ll want to upgrade to a hosting option that’s better equipped to handle it.   WordPress hosting WordPress is the most popular blogging platform out there. It’s easy to use and perfectly designed for blogging. A WordPress hosting plan is designed with features that will make it especially useful for any bloggers using WordPress, such as a WordPress cloud interface that’s more intuitive for WP users than a typical cPanel might be, one-click scalability for when you experience traffic spikes, and faster load times. If you’re building your blog with WordPress, consider a hosting option that’s specifically designed with your needs in mind. In order to have a successful website down the road, you need to find web hosting for WordPress sites that works with you and can adapt to your goals.   Cloud hosting Cloud hosting moves your web hosting into the cloud, which makes your website instantly more scalable and faster. If you expect (or at least hope) that your website traffic will grow quickly and want the flexibility to grow with it in real time, cloud hosting is a good option. It typically costs a bit more than shared hosting, but can manage higher traffic without slowdowns or interruptions.   VPS hosting A virtual private server, or VPS , is the next step up from cloud hosting. When you invest in a VPS, your website will no longer be sharing a server with as many other sites. You’ll have a much bigger share of the available bandwidth. That both means your site can handle more traffic, but also that you have more storage to work with. It’s worth noting that there is one more option beyond a VPS, a dedicated server , but most bloggers are unlikely to need that level of web hosting when just starting out. Usually dedicated servers come into play for enterprise businesses or especially popular media sites. That said, if your blog does become an internet sensation, it’s an option you may want to consider down the line.   Get Web Hosting for Your Blog No matter what, to have a blog you need web hosting. Web hosting is an important element of any website. Which provider and plan you choose will depend on your particular needs and preferences, but making the right choice now will make building your blog and keeping it running for years to come easier. If you have any questions about how to choose the best web hosting for a blog , HostGator has skilled support staff available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Get in touch and we’ll do our best to guide you toward the right decision for your blog. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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How to Create a Forum for Your Website

Posted on October 29, 2018 by Hosting

The post How to Create a Forum for Your Website appeared first on HostGator Blog . Whether you run a business website or a personal blog, one of the main reasons to build a website is to reach other people. If you want your website to become a place people regularly want to visit, then your goal should be to build a community around it. That’s a big goal, and you can help achieve it and even go a step further by creating a forum for your website. By enabling communication that goes more than two ways, a forum can create an active online community that not only engages with your content – but also allows users to interact with each other. In essence, a forum can become a valuable part of achieving your website goals. 5 Benefits of Creating a Forum For Your Website A forum does require extra work, so you want to be confident it’s a good choice for your particular type of website before diving in. If done well, creating a forum for your website can yield some significant benefits.   1. It provides a place for a community to grow. Having a website that gets visitors is nice, but if most of what you learn about your visitors is what you see in Google Analytics , then there’s a lot you still don’t know. Getting visitors isn’t the same thing as having a community. A community is active and engages with your website on a regular basis. The members of a community feel like they’re a part of something when they come to your website. They have a higher level of investment than someone just passing through. That makes them valuable partners in the overall success of your site.   2. It gives readers a reason to keep coming back. Many websites struggle with turning one-time visitors into regular traffic . Anyone who participates in your website’s forum cares about what others in the community have to say. They’ll want to see responses to the posts they make and follow conversations on topics they’re interested in. To stay a part of the conversation, they’ll keep coming back.   3. Your readers can learn from each other, as well as from you. You work hard to provide valuable content to your visitors. As your community grows, you’ll have a difficult time answering every single question they have. And sometimes, other people in the community will have better answers anyway. Giving community members direct access to each other can be especially useful for any business that sells complicated products. Your customers can help each other do general troubleshooting, offloading some of your customer service burden while still resulting in satisfied customers. We see this at work in the HostGator forums . When one web hosting customer asks a question, another often chimes in with the answer. Newer members get the help of more experienced members, and long-term participants are able to distinguish themselves as helpful and knowledgeable in the community.   4. You can see what your followers are talking about. If you do content marketing , then you know that coming up with relevant topics your audience cares about is an ongoing challenge. But even if you don’t, any glimpse into the questions and issues your audience has can translate into useful feedback on your website and products. Businesses frequently spend money and time on market research to try and figure out what their audience is thinking. When you have an active forum, all you have to do is follow the conversations your members have there to gain the same information. The forum in Carol Tice’s subscription community for professional writers helps fuel her blog posts. She can reference forum conversations and answer common questions she sees members ask. Because of the discussions in the forum, she knows the topics her audience cares about and can make sure her website provides the answers they’re looking for.   5. An open forum can improve SEO. Private forums can make sense for businesses that want to create a subscription community or membership website, but if you go that route you do lose out on this benefit. If you create a forum for your website that’s accessible on the open web, then every new conversation your community members have creates a new page to be indexed by search engines. Not only is regular fresh content good for SEO, but as your forum begins to cover more and more topics (using the language of your audience, no less), those forum pages and user-generated content could begin to show up for search terms you haven’t covered yet on your main website.   How to Create a Forum on Your Website Ready to set up your website forum? Here are three steps to get started.   1. Choose the right web hosting plan. If you’re ready to get started and create a forum on your website, then one of your first steps is to evaluate if your web hosting provider is up for the job. If your forum accomplishes the goal of bringing a community of regular visitors to your website, then you can expect an uptick in traffic. Make sure the web hosting plan you have now can support the forum software you choose to use and the increase in traffic likely to occur. If your current plan isn’t going to cut it, take time to figure out a better option before you start building your forum.   2. Choose the right web forum software. Next, you’ll need software to create your forum with. Many of the most popular options are free and offer open-source software. A few of the top solutions to look into are:      phpBB      MyBB      Flarum      Simple Machines      bbPress Spend some time researching the different software options to get a feel for which will work best for you.   3. Create your forum. The right forum software should make this part relatively easy. The software you choose should offer resources to help you get started. Use them to get up to speed and start getting the basic structure of your forum in place.   How to Make Your Forum Successful For your forum to achieve your goals, you need to approach it with a strategy. These seven steps can help your forum go from a promising idea to a successful community-building tool.   1. Clarify your forum’s themes. What is your forum going to be about? People need to know what they’ll be joining before they can decide if it’s right for them or not. Before you launch your forum, clarify the primary themes and topics that people will be discussing there. When you launched your website, you (hopefully) took some time to figure out your unique positioning statement – what makes your website different from similar ones and why your visitors should care. Now you’ll need to do the same thing for your forum. Think about why it’s valuable from your audience’s point of view. What topics and issues will they want to discuss? Why should they do it on your website’s forum? Obviously, your forum’s themes should relate to what you cover on your website. Beyond that, get more specific in working out what the forum’s purpose and focus will be.   2. Create a structure. Now turn the themes you settled on into a clear structure. Decide on the main categories and subcategories to divide your forum into. Your URL structure should be intuitive. Organizing discussions into a few main topics will make it easier for your members to find the information they need. So again here, have your target audience top of mind. What categories will make the most sense to them in helping them find what they’re looking for? The structure you create in the beginning doesn’t have to be set in stone. As you see how people interact in the forum over time, you may find that adding new categories or re-arranging how they’re organized works better. Know that your forum structure can evolve as needed, but do your best to make it intuitive and clear to begin with.   3. Develop clear rules. You may hope your target audience consists of nothing but the most pleasant and respectful people on the internet – but it is still the internet we’re talking about. When people can interact with others anonymously behind their screens, some inevitably show their worst sides. You can’t just launch your forum and hope for the best. You need to start out planning for the worst. Think about what you want your forum conversations to look like, and explicitly what you don’t want them to include. For that latter question, a look at active comment sections around the web will show examples of what you want your members to avoid. Spend some time reviewing the rules of other forums around the web as well. Their rules can serve as a jumping off point for you to develop yours. As an example, some rules you may want to include could be:     Be respectful to other community members, even when there’s a disagreement     No slurs or other discriminatory behavior     No name calling     No links to or recommendations of illegal items or activities in the forum     No NSFW (not safe for work) material     No spamming Make sure you post the rules at the top of the forum where everyone will see them. Add a note that everyone who participates in the forum is agreeing to abide by the rules. And develop a process for what you’ll do when someone breaks the rules. How many warnings will you provide before banning a user? Are there steps a banned user can take to be reinstated? Your rules won’t be worth much if you don’t have a system in place to enact consequences when people break them. Write out what that system will be and make it accessible to your users in advance to avoid issues later.   4. Promote your forum . For discussions to happen, people have to show up. Create a strategy for letting people in your audience know about your forum. Many of the same online marketing tactics you use for your website will be valuable for promoting your forum as well. Announce the new forum to your email list. Create content promoting it on your website and other sites around the web. Promote it on your social media accounts. Consider investing in PPC or social media advertising to get the word out. Once you have a decent number of members, this step will become less important. But it should make up the brunt of your efforts in the first days and weeks your forum is available.     5. Create some good discussion topics to get the conversation started. You know when you’re at a party and everyone’s hesitant to get out on the dance floor until the first brave few souls start dancing? New members of your forum who are still getting a feel for the place are unlikely to jump right into starting discussions. It will be your job to get the ball rolling on the first few conversations while people get comfortable. Have a few discussion topics in mind and start posting them with encouragement for others to chime in. Some forums also have consistent weekly discussion threads that can bring people together at an expected time to get talking. Consider basing a weekly thread around industry news, new member introductions, or other topics you know your audience cares about.   6. Moderate the discussions. Moderation is a big part of the job of running a forum. Without moderation, your forum can fall prey to spammers and trolls. If the forum messages are dominated by people trying to promote scams or a toxic culture of insults – no one’s going to stick around. In the early days of your forum, you may be able to do all the moderating yourself. Keep an eye on all the active threads and react quickly to any that break the rules. Don’t be afraid to delete inappropriate comments and issue warnings and bans to users when needed. Over time, if the job becomes too big, you may need to hire someone or recruit active members of the forum to help with moderation. Be warned that moderation can be tricky. If people feel like they’re being deleted or banned unfairly, you may face dissension within the community. That’s what makes having clear rules so important. As needed, you can point back to the guidelines everyone in the community agreed to by choosing to participate.   7. Solicit feedback and improve as you go. Running a forum can get complicated and you’re not going to be able to plan for everything in advance. You can’t predict what your members will do or want, or what issues will arise as the community grows. So be willing to actively ask your community for their input and listen when they give it. Conduct surveys or start threads in the forum soliciting people’s suggestions and complaints. Even if your forum starts off strong, there will always be ways to improve it. Do your best to find out how you can make it better and improve the forum experience over time. Ready to start building your forum? Choose your forum hosting plan today and start creating a forum for your website . Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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