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Do You Need Web Hosting for Your WordPress Site?

Posted on November 21, 2018 by Hosting

The post Do You Need Web Hosting for Your WordPress Site? appeared first on HostGator Blog . You’ve decided to use WordPress to launch your new website. That’s a great decision. WordPress is one of the top CMSes in the world, because it makes it very easy to create, build, and grow your website. In order to have a website online, you need to have a domain name and a web host. Without those two in place, you have no way for people to access your website, and you don’t have anywhere to store your website’s files. You might be wondering, do I need web hosting for WordPress sites ? Well…yes and no. WordPress actually has two different versions, WordPress.org and WordPress.com. With the second version, you can actually obtain a free domain and website, without the need to sign up for hosting on your own. But, this might not be the best course of action, as you’ll soon learn. Below we’ll highlight the differences between the two versions of WordPress, help you decide which one is best for your needs, and get into the variety of WordPress hosting options you have available. If you’re new to building a website, this article will show you how web hosting works and how it applies to your site . The Differences Between WordPress.org and WordPress.com Once you’ve decided upon using WordPress as your CMS of choice, your next decision is to choose which version of WordPress to use. Essentially, with WordPress.org you’ll be self-hosting your own WordPress site, while with WordPress.com your site will existing on WordPress.com and you’ll be using a sub-domain. Think of it like owning your own home, versus renting an apartment. By owning your home you have complete control over it. With renting you can only do as much as the homeowner or property manager allows.   What is WordPress.org? WordPress.org is probably what you’re most familiar with. You can download the self-hosted version of WordPress here . When you’re building a site using WordPress, this is probably the version that you’re going to use. When using this version you’ll need to install it on your own server, so you’ll need web hosting services. However, this will give you more freedom and control and you’ll be able to build any kind of site you desire.   Why is WordPress.com? WordPress.com is similar to a site like Typepad , or even Tumblr . Instead of having your site on your own domain, you’ll create a free site on a subdomain. So people will have to type in something like “yourname.wordpress.com” to access your site. With this, you don’t have to worry about a domain or hosting. Just sign up and start building your site with the selection of free themes . This might sound ideal, but it’s very difficult to grow a popular site or an online business using a subdomain. Plus, with WordPress.com you’ll have a very small selection of themes and plugins to choose from, even if you upgrade to the premium package .   Why You Should Self-Host Your WordPress Site Overall, if you’re going to be using WordPress you’ll want to be using the self-hosted version. Sure, using WordPress.com might let you build your site and get online faster, but you’ll be sacrificing a lot. Here’s a list of the benefits you can enjoy with the self-hosted version of WordPress:   1. Control Over Your Theme and Plugins When you’re building a site you want to build it exactly as you see fit. With WordPress.com your plugin and theme selection will be greatly limited and you’ll only be able to make certain customizations. By self-hosting WordPress, you open yourself up to the entire world of WordPress plugins and themes. You’ll have access to the library of free themes and plugins, as well as any premium theme or plugin you wish to purchase.   2. Improved Site Performance When you self-host WordPress you have the ability to choose the best host for your needs. That means you can find the host that’s going to help you get the most out of your WordPress site. You’ll also have control over any plugins that you install to help further optimize your loading speeds and overall site performance. Plus, self-hosted sites tend to perform better than sites that exist as a subdomain of a larger site, both in the search engine rankings and user experience overall.   3. Turn Your Site Into a Business With a self-hosted site, you can monetize however you want. There are certain advertising and monetization restrictions for WordPress that you’ll run into. For example, you can only use their integrated advertising platform, and you need a certain level of traffic to qualify. By self-hosting your site there’s no limit on how you choose to make money. You’ll have your choice of ad networks. You can install plugins to help you sell affiliate products, create your own courses, and more. You can even turn your WordPress site into a full-fledged eCommerce store. If you’re serious about growing your WordPress site, scaling your traffic, or turning your site into a full-fledged business, then you’ll want to self-host your WordPress site.   WordPress Hosting Requirements Luckily, WordPress doesn’t have that many hosting requirements. Overall, it’s very lightweight and compatible with almost every hosting company’s setup. The only two main requirements are: MySQL version 5.6 or higher PHP version 7 or higher That’s it. Most hosting companies also offer a very useful tool that’s called QuickInstall or One-Click install, depending on your hosting company. Using this tool makes installing WordPress incredibly simple. You just login to your control panel, select the app, choose WordPress, fill in some basic site details and the tool will install WordPress for you. Then, all that’s left to do is find your theme, customize it to your liking, and install plugins to add more features to your site.   Different Kinds of WordPress Hosting Available Since WordPress is so lightweight it can be installed on most hosting platforms. The biggest distinction you’ll find is the types of hosting available and the different feature sets they provide. Here are the three types of hosting most common to WordPress site owners and the benefits of web hosting services :   1. Shared Hosting No matter what kind of site you’re building you’ll probably start your journey with a shared host, and WordPress is no different. Shared hosting isn’t specialty WordPress hosting, but instead, you get a beginner friendly environment that can be used by a wide range of sites. The reason a shared hosting plan is so popular for beginners is its affordability. Plus, with the bundled one-click installer you can install WordPress in a few minutes. You probably don’t want to stay on a shared hosting plan forever, especially if your site is growing. But it’s a great place to start and will give you everything you need to create and grow your WordPress site.   2. Managed WordPress Hosting The next step up is WordPress managed hosting . With WordPress managed hosting only WordPress sites are allowed on the server. That allows the server to be incredibly well optimized for the WordPress platform. Plus, you literally don’t have to do anything that relates to your server. The “managed” portion of managed hosting means there’s a team of WordPress experts managing your server environment for you. Managed WordPress hosting is more expensive than shared hosting, but considering you don’t have to waste any time in technical tasks, and your site will perform at a very high level, these costs could be offset.   3. Dedicated Server Hosting Lastly, outside of shared and managed hosting you have the option of getting a dedicated server for your WordPress site. With a dedicated server, you’re renting an entire physical server for your website. You won’t share this space with any other users. Your server is completely up to you to customize. You’ll have your choice of hardware, software, operating system, and a lot more. This means it can be fully optimized to your website. However, using a dedicated server only makes sense once you’re receiving a significant amount of traffic. You’ll also want to have the ability to hire a system administrator who can maintain, upgrade, and troubleshoot your servers. Otherwise, you’re probably best off sticking with a managed hosting provider.   What to Look for in a WordPress Web Host Now that you understand the importance of hosting for your WordPress site, along with the kinds of hosting available, it’s time to dive into what you should look for when selecting a WordPress host.   1. In Your Price Range This is probably obvious, but you’ll want to choose a WordPress host that you can afford. Even if you have the budget for a more expensive host, it might not always be necessary. For example, if you have a small website with only a few pages, and a little traffic, but that traffic is worth a lot, you might not need to move away from shared hosting. Typically, people will only move their sites once they’ve reached the limits of their current hosting package.   2. Control Panel Access If you’re just getting started online, then this is a must-have. An easy to use control panel will make it incredibly easy to manage your server, and install WordPress. It will also help you do things like create a domain-specific email address, add domains to your account, and a lot more. The most commonly used control panel is cPanel, but your host of choice might be using something different. Regardless of the control panel that’s included with your hosting package, it needs to be easy to use.   3. Technical Compatibility Obviously, your host needs to be able to run WordPress. Luckily, it doesn’t take much to run WordPress; you just need PHP 7 and MySQL 5.6 compatibility. Still, you’ll want to make sure your host supports these. Since WordPress is so common the chances are high that they do, but it’s still worth double-checking before you spend money on a hosting package.   4. High Performance The performance of your host is incredibly important. Without a high-performing host behind you, your site will suffer, both in your user experience and search engine rankings. If you host your site on a managed WordPress server, or dedicated server then you will see improved levels of performance. But, for those just getting started with their WordPress sites, a shared server could work well until your traffic levels grow. You can always improve your speed and performance by utilizing a CDN. Or, installing a variety of plugins to help optimize your WordPress site for speed .   5. Solid Support Team The final thing you’ll want to look for is a great support staff. Your support team will be the liaison between your website and server and should be by your side if any issues arise. Beyond having your issues responded to quickly, you’ll also want a knowledgeable and helpful staff. After all, there’s no point in having support if they’re not going to be able to help fix your site issues. Take some time to research both the support channels and what kind of support the host offers for their hosting plans. For example, do they only offer support for issues that directly pertain to hosting? Or, are they more flexible and will help you through general site issues as well?   Closing Thoughts Hopefully, by now, you have a better understanding of why you’ll want to use the self-hosted version of WordPress, as well as the variety of hosting options that are available to you. Web hosting is important for your WordPress site to operate at its best. Your host provides the foundation for the success of your site, and you don’t want to leave this up to chance. If you’re looking to learn how to build out a website and don’t have any existing traffic channels, then a shared host would probably work for you. However, if you’re already established, or your site is getting a decent volume of traffic, then WordPress managed hosting is a solid fit. You will spend more, but you’ll have a team of WordPress experts behind you at all times. Finally, there’s dedicated hosting plans, which is probably only well-suited for a fraction of websites. You’ll not only need the revenue to justify a dedicated server, but you’ll need the technical staff as well.   Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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How to Secure a Website from Hackers

Posted on October 16, 2018 by Hosting

The post How to Secure a Website from Hackers appeared first on HostGator Blog . As a website owner, is there anything more terrifying than the thought of seeing all of your work altered or entirely wiped out by a nefarious hacker? You’ve worked hard on your website (and your brand) – so it’s important to take the time to protect it with these basic hacker protection tips! This article will also teach you how to check if a website is safe and what you can do to ensure your website is completely from hackers. In addition to regularly backing up your files (which you should already be doing, for various reasons), taking the following these seven easy steps will help protect your website from hackers:   Step #1: Install security plugins, when possible Once you’ve updated everything, further enhance your website security with plugins that actively prevent website hacking attempts. Again, using WordPress as an example, you’ll want to look into free security plugins like iThemes Security and Bulletproof Security (or similar tools that are available for websites built on other content management systems). These products address the security vulnerabilities that are inherent in each platform, foiling additional types of hacking attempts that could threaten your website. Alternatively – whether you’re running a CMS-managed site or HTML pages – take a look at SiteLock .  SiteLock goes above and beyond simply closing site security loopholes by providing daily monitoring for everything from malware detection to vulnerability identification to active virus scanning and more.  If your business relies on its website, SiteLock is definitely an investment worth considering. Note: Our  Managed WordPress hosting plan has SiteLock built in, along with other features to help secure your site. Step #2: Use HTTPS As a consumer, you may already know to always look for the green https in your browser bar any time you’ll be providing sensitive information to a website. Most consumers know to recognize those five little letters as an important shorthand for hacker security: they signal that it’s safe to provide financial information on that particular webpage. In July 2018, Google Chrome released an security update that alerts website visitors if your website doesn’t have an SSL certificate installed. An SSL certificate is important because it secures the transfer of information – such as credit cards, personal data, and contact information – between your website and the server. Search engines are taking website security more seriously than ever because they want users to have a positive and safe experience browsing the web. Taking the commitment to security further, a search engine may rank your website lower in search results if you don’t have an SSL certificate. What does that mean for you? If you have an online store, or if any part of your website will require visitors to hand over sensitive information like a credit card number, you need to invest in an SSL certificate . The cost of an SSL certificate is minimal, but the extra level of encryption it offers to your customers goes a long way to making your website more secure and trustworthy. At HostGator, we also take website security seriously, but most importantly, we want to make it easy for you to be secure. All HostGator web hosting packages come with a free SSL certificate. The SSL certificate will be automatically applied to your account, but do need to take a few steps to install the free SSL certificate on your website.  Step #3: Keep your website platform and software up-to-date One of the best things you can do to protect your website from being hacked is to make sure your content management system, plugins and apps, or scripts you’ve installed are up-to-date. Because many of these tools are created as open-source software programs, their code is easily accessible – to both good-intentioned developers as well as malicious hackers.  Hackers can pore over this code, looking for security vulnerabilities that allow them to take control of your website by exploiting any platform or script weaknesses. As an example, if you’re running a website built on WordPress, both your base WordPress installation and any third-party plugins you’ve installed are potentially vulnerable to these types of cyber attacks.  Making sure you always have the newest versions of your platform and scripts installed minimizes the risk that you’ll be hacked in this way and usually takes very little time to do. WordPress users can check this quickly when they log in to their WordPress dashboard. Look for the update icon in the top left corner next to your site name. Click the number to access your WordPress Updates.   Step #4: Make sure your passwords are secure This one seems simple, but it’s so important. It’s tempting to go with a password you know will always be easy for you to remember. That’s why the #1 most common password is still 123456. You have to do better than that – a lot better than that to prevent login attempts from hackers and other outsiders. Make the effort to figure out a truly secure password (or use HostGator’s password generator).   Make it long. Use a mix of special characters, numbers, and letters. And steer clear of potentially easy-to-guess keywords like your birthday or kid’s name. If a hacker somehow gains access to other information about you, they’ll know to guess those first. You also want to make sure everyone who has access to your website has similarly strong passwords. Institute requirements in terms of length and the type of characters that people are required to use so they have to get more creative than going with the standard, easy passwords they turn to for less secure accounts. Creating strong passwords can prevent a hacker from being able to gain access to your accounts. One weak password within your team can make your website susceptible to a data breach , so set expectations with everyone who has access and hold yourself to the same high standard.   Step #5: Use parameterized queries One of the most common website hacks many sites fall victim to are SQL injections. SQL injections can come into play if you have a web form or URL parameter that allows outside users to supply information. If you leave the parameters of the field too open, someone could insert code into them that allows access your database. It’s important to protect your site from this because of the amount of sensitive customer information that can be held in your database. There are a number of steps  you can take to protect your website from SQL injection hacks; one of the most important and easiest to implement is the use of parameterized queries. Using parameterized queries ensures your code has specific enough parameters so that there’s no room for a hacker to mess with them.   Step #6: Use CSP Similar to SQL injections, cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks are another common threat site owners have to be on the lookout for. They occur when hackers find a way to slip malicious JavaScript code onto your pages which can then infect the pages of any visitors to your website that are exposed to the code. Part of the fight to protect your site from XSS attacks is similar to the parameterized queries you use for SQL injections. You should make sure any code you use on your website for functions or fields that allow input are as explicit as possible in what’s allowed, so you’re not leaving room for anything to slip in. Another handy tool that can help protect your site from XSS is Content Security Policy (CSP). CSP allows you to specify the domains a browser should consider valid sources of executable scripts when on your page, so the browser knows not to pay attention to any malicious script or malware that might infect your site visitor’s computer. Using CSP is simply a matter of adding the proper HTTP header to your webpage that provides a string of directives that tells the browser which domains are ok and any exceptions to the rule.  You can find details on how to craft CSP headers for your website provided by Mozilla here .     Step #7: Lock down your directory and file permissions Now, for this final technique, we’re going to get a little technical – but stick with us. All websites can be boiled down to a series of files and folders that are stored on your web hosting account.  Besides containing all of the scripts and data needed to make your website work, each of these files and folders is assigned a set of permissions that controls who can read, write, and execute any given file or folder, relative to the user they are or the group to which they belong. On the Linux operating system, permissions are viewable as a three-digit code where each digit is an integer between 0-7.  The first digit represents permissions for the owner of the file, the second digit represents permissions for anyone assigned to the group that owns the file, and the third digit represents permissions for everyone else.  The assignations work as follows: 4 equals Read 2 equals Write 1 equals Execute 0 equals no permissions for that user As an example, take the permission code “644.”  In this case, a “6” (or “4+2”) in the first position gives the file’s owner the ability to read and write the file.  The “4” in the second and third positions means that both group users and internet users at large can read the file only – protecting the file from unexpected manipulations. So, a file with “777” (or 4+2+1 / 4+2+1 / 4+2+1) permissions would then readable, write-able, and executable by the user, the group and everyone else in the world. As you might expect, a file that is assigned a permission code that gives anyone on the web the ability to write and execute it is much less secure than one which has been locked down in order to reserve all rights for the owner alone.  Of course, there are valid reasons to open up access to other groups of users (anonymous FTP upload, as one example), but these instances must be carefully considered in order to avoid creating a website security risk. For this reason, a good rule of thumb is to set your permissions as follows: Folders and directories = 755 Individual files = 644 To set your file permissions, log in to your cPanel’s File Manager or connect to your server via FTP.  Once inside, you’ll see a list of your existing file permissions (as in the following example generated using the Filezilla FTP program): The final column in this example displays the folder and file permissions currently assigned to the website’s content.  To change these permissions in Filezilla, simply right click the folder or file in question and select the “File permissions” option.  Doing so will launch a screen that allows you to assign different permissions using a series of checkboxes: Although your web host’s or FTP program’s backend might look slightly different, the basic process for changing permissions remains the same.  Our support portal has solutions for how to modify your folder and file permissions . In conclusion… Don’t put off taking this important step. Securing your site and learning how to protect against hackers is a big part of keeping your site healthy and safe in the long run! At HostGator, we have created a set of custom mod security rules to aid in the protection of your website. If you’re looking for a new hosting provider, you can click here to sign up for a great deal. For new accounts, we’ll even transfer you for free! After you’ve created an account, you just need to fill out the form here . Don’t worry about getting tripped up in the process. HostGator has world-class support available around the clock! Our customer support specialists are available 34/7/365 via email ticket, chat, or phone. We can help you get secure!   Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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5 Ways to Turn Your Blog Into an Online Brand in 2018

Posted on August 13, 2018 by Hosting

The post 5 Ways to Turn Your Blog Into an Online Brand in 2018 appeared first on HostGator Blog . 5 Ways to Go from Blog to Online Brand in 2018 When I look back at the past two decades, a lot of websites, blogs, and social media platforms play through my mind — especially those that I personally created and worked with. From the most simple days of basic HTML and static websites, to the now advanced days of mobile usage and social media, it’s all above adapting with the times and providing value to an audience. In  my past 22 years of making money online , one of the most pivotal moments  would have to be when I launched my blog at ZacJohnson.com back in 2007. Not only was this a huge business and brand shift for myself, but it was also the first time I started using WordPress and didn’t need to rely on design software and HTML to create my sites. WordPress has changed everything and made the process of creating an online content-focused business or brand a whole lot easier. Since there are no technical skills required, and being that the software is free, everyone may soon have a blog. However, just because it’s easy, it doesn’t mean you are going to find success. Every day I get emails from readers of my sites, asking me why they aren’t making money with their blogs. To answer all of these questions and more, today I wanted to cover some of the most effective and important ways to actually turn a blog into a real brand and business. 1. Building Your Blog, Brand and Business from the Ground Up Before you even get started with a website or blog of your own, you need to know why you are doing this in the first place. For the sake of example, throughout this guide, we are going to focus on creating a blog to make money . In most cases, a blog should be very niche specific, provide a need or information to an audience, and also have some form of monetization as well. Getting a ton of traffic to your site is great, but without a clear focus or calls to action (for monetization) in place… it’s just another blog taking up space on the already saturated internet. While there are many ways to make money with a website or blog, many of them are by sending visitors away from a site or making a quick commission or sale for someone else . This is fine, but turning your blog into a brand and respectable source for information is even better. To invest in your online business and brand, you should have a professional logo design and a way to resonate with your audience even after they leave your site. This doesn’t mean you are going to need to spend a lot of time and money. Thanks to online design tools like Tailor Brands , it’s easy for anyone to create a professional looking logo, without the need to hire an expensive design agency or go through hundreds of freelancers to find the best design work. Below you can see a quick example of a few brand designs created in just a few seconds. Once you have a brand identity and image in place, you can build a great first impression and brand following online. This means posting the image not just on your site and blog, but also within all your social media profiles and email signatures if possible. Keep in mind that these same best practices can be used by freelancers and sole entrepreneurs as well. The long term value in your logo branding and online following can greatly influence the amount your site can charge for reviews, content contributions, display traffic, and affiliate marketing campaigns, and as well as how much you might be able to charge for consulting or related services. If you don’t think a professional logo identity and brand makes a big difference, go see how much it costs to buy banner ad places on a site like ESPN, versus that of another high-traffic sports blog that no one has really heard of. This is also why someone might pay more for a pair of Nike shoes or a Starbucks cup of coffee — it’s all about the brand association!   2. SEO is Dying, but the Long Tail Value is Here to Stay As much as I hate to say it, SEO is kind of making its way out the window. This is always going to be an argued debate, but we can clearly see that more people are moving away desktop usage and focusing more on mobile usage, social media, and online video to get their information. There will likely always be a place for searching websites and content online, but it likely won’t be through the traditional Google search and SEO methods that we are familiar with today. However, even with this in mind, the value in long-tail keywords is still extremely effective and profitable. When someone searches for something very specific on Google, they are likely ready to take action and buy something. The deciding factor in what site is going to get the sale is who is ranking at the top of Google for these terms. So what does this mean? In short, stop focusing on creating a lot of content, and instead focus on bigger, better, and longer content. At the same time, keep an eye on the latest case studies and trends from other top SEO blogs , as these are the sites that are often already ranking well and know what it takes to move up on Google with all of these latest algorithm and user changes in motion. Not only will this allow you to get more focused with your content and who your target audience is, but it will also help with the content promotion and your link building process as well. Keep a close eye on your competition and research not only what keywords and search phrases they are ranking for, but also the different types of content and length they are publishing as well.   3. Target Your Best Audience through Social Media Everyone talks about social media and the massive two-billion plus users across the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others. However, not many are actually mastering the art of social media and converting these followers into customers and visits on their site. At the same time, every social platform is different in the way not just content needs to be created, but also how you can reach and promote to such audiences as well. For example, simply by continually using any of the top hashtags on Instagram , you can instantly improve your impressions and exposure to millions of new users. The tricky thing about Instagram is that you aren’t going to be allowed to link back to your site, but it’s amazing for visual content creation, branding, and building a following. If you ever needed an example to follow, Kylie Jenner is the one to keep an eye on right now. With a net worth of over $900 billion, Kylie has built her massive make up empire through the use of social media and getting new attention, followers, and sales at all times. More often than not, if you take the time to examine your competition and see where most of their traffic is coming from, it’s usually from one social platform over a wide spread across all of them. With this in mind, it’s important to know not only which social network is best for attracting your target audience, but also which methods (visual, text content, paid ads) will work best as well.   4. Manual Outreach is Still King in the World of Blogging Like it or not, but in some cases, throwing money at your website or blog will only get it so far. It’s the time-consuming and annoying manual research and outreach that really helps content sites move ahead of the competition. There are many ways to get manual outreach working for your blog and brand. Instead of listing all of them within this article, I recommend you take a look at this detailed outreach resource guide . Whether your outreach is for an infographic, broken link building, or guest blogging… it’s all about the tone and conversation you start with. Here are some of the most notable and effective ways to start using manual outreach and promotion to grow your blog, brand or online business: Sending out emails to other websites and seeing if they would like to cross-promote your content on social media, through mailings, or even mentions in articles. These emails should be more personable and not an obvious template. Guest blogging still works extremely well, but it should only be focused on legitimate websites that have traffic and are relevant to your niche. Contributing to other websites and blogs is great for link building, but also for reaching new audiences and growing your brand. Broken link building is a huge opportunity, but again… this can be very time consuming (and rewarding). Analyze other sites within your niche, find where their broken links are, and then reach out through email and see if they will replace their broken link with a working one to your site. Depending on how you approach each of these methods, your personal outreach and research methods might vary. The good news is that many of these processes can be outsourced to freelancers who will do all of the manual work for you, or if you want to work on this yourself, be sure to consider your options with SEO analysis tools and software automation . No matter what route you go, the more ‘realistic’ your outreach and content emails look, the better they are going to work. At the same time, don’t just ask for backlinks, promotions, and favors — try to offer something in return.   5. Treat Your Blog Like a Business, Not a Content Distribution Center Last but not least, it’s time to talk about blogging as a whole and why there are now more than 300 million blogs in the world today… yet only a very few only get traffic and make money with their sites. We’ve all heard the saying ‘content is king’. While this may be true in theory, it’s actually misleading many would-be bloggers and entrepreneurs in their journey to online profitable. Gary Vaynerchuk also makes a good point, in saying “ Content is King, but Context is God! ” Content is great, but there is simply way too much of it. With more than a billion active sites on the internet today, I think we have a pretty good amount of content already out there. However, anything that can be improved, and anything we can use more of, is great content! If you want to rank at the top of Google, be a trusted resource for information online – and also get free quality backlinks, mentions, and references everyday – you need to be creating better content than what is already out there. As mentioned earlier, people are less interested in text content, and now they want visuals and online video more than anything. To make all of this work for you and your brand, keep the following in mind. Create less content, but better and more resourceful content. Longer content performs better in Google. Stay above 2,000-words in each post. Go after the longtail keyword and cover every topic in full detail. Have an exact form of monetization in place, and calls to action in each article. With all of these elements and factors in play, your blog is no longer just a blog. It’s a traffic generating revenue lead magnet that is also providing value to an audience in the process. This isn’t rocket science. Take a look at any of these blogging success stories , and you will find that each of them has their own unique target audience, topic they specialize in, and awareness of exactly why and how they are monetizing their traffic and turning new readers into revenue daily.   Your Blog Is Your Business “Blogging” has a lot of different meanings depending on who you ask. I’ve already looked at blogging as a way to create content and build your own online platform. Others look at it as a way to get started with a website and having their own voice online. In short, blogging can be anything you want. However, if you want blogging to be a business — you need to have a business model! Run through each of the ideas above and make sure you have all of these methods implemented into your blog. It’s time to  turn your blog into a blog business and potentially change your life and brand for the better. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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What’s the Best URL Structure for SEO?

Posted on July 17, 2018 by Hosting

The post What’s the Best URL Structure for SEO? appeared first on HostGator Blog . SEO 101: What’s the Best URL Structure for SEO? Many of your visitors will come to your website by clicking on a link, so you may wonder if it really matters what’s in the actual URL of a specific page. It may surprise you to know that when it comes to on-site SEO, what your URLs look like is actually really important. What is URL Structure? Your website URL works as your address on the web. It’s the most direct way for someone to visit a page on your website. If you’re not familiar with the term, the URL is the thing that starts with either www or http. In the early stages of starting a website, you want to sit down and figure out a standard structure for your website URLs. (If your website is already established and growing, it’s not too late to do this now, it just might require more work.) Your URLs always start with the root domain for your website (e.g. www.yourwebsitename.com ), so what you want to define is what follows for individual pages. Your URL structure will directly relate to your larger site architecture. You want your URLs to both reference what’s on the specific page, as well as help situate the website visitor to where this page belongs on the larger website.  For example, the URL for a post on your blog should look something like this: www.yourwebsitename.com/blog/nameofyourblogpost   At a glance to the URL, any visitor who reached the post through an outside link would quickly be able to see that they’re on a blog, as well some basic information about the specific blog post on the page.   Why Does URL Structure Matter? Your URL structure matters for a few key reasons. First, for Google to consistently deliver relevant results to searchers, it has to know what each page in its index is about. The URL is one of the most important parts of the page Google looks at to determine what a page is about. Next, an intuitive URL structure makes your site easier to navigate for users . If someone browsing a retail website for clothes finds themselves on the page www.clothesretailer.com/womens/dresses/nameofspecificdress , they know the page belongs in the two categories that precede the final part of the html: women’s clothes and dresses. Savvy web users also know they can delete the last couple of parts of the URL (dresses/nameofspecificdress) to get back to the larger selection of women’s clothes. And lastly, the same thing that makes a good URL structure intuitive for users is good for search engines too. The search engine crawler can more easily make the relevant connections between different pages on your website  – it can see that a particular item belongs in the same category as other dresses (even if “dress” isn’t in the product name), which belong in the larger category of women’s clothes on the site – information that helps the crawler better understand what different sections of the website are about and how they relate to each other. As an added benefit, having those extra categories precede the specific keyword or product name in your URL adds in some extra relevant keywords without creating a URL that’s spammy.  That gives Google just a little bit more information to make sure it understands what’s on the page and knows what keywords the page should show up in search for.   7 Tips for Creating a Good URL Structure The URL is a pretty basic part of on-site optimization, but one that it’s important to get right.  Here are a few good ways to make sure you use your URLs wisely.   1. Always edit a page’s URL to be relevant. A surprising number of websites will still use automatically generated URLs that look like a string of gibberish. That’s skipping a big SEO opportunity, while also creating a more confusing experience for your visitors. The first and most important thing you need to do for your website’s URLs is to simply commit to customizing each one based on what’s on the web page .   2. Follow a standard URL structure. As discussed above, this will relate to your website’s overall organization and is an important rule to follow. Determine what categories and subcategories you’ll be using and how you’ll portray them in the URLs of web pages that belong in each category. Be careful not to let things get too complicated here – too many categories will bog down your URLs and make them confusing rather than helpful: www.clothesretailer.com/womens/dresses/nameofspecificdress is an intuitive URL structure,  while  www.clothesretailer.com/womens/dresses/short-sleeves/purple/floral/knee-length/nameofspecificdress is taking things too far. Stick to the main categories that are important for making your website more intuitive in its organization, and be as consistent as possible in the URL structure you use across the site.   3. Keep it short and simple. Good URLs are short and to the point. Make sure you aren’t filling yours with any unnecessary words or characters, and avoid keyword stuffing . Having the same keyword in your URL more than once won’t do you any good. While most of your visitors will use links or bookmarks to access specific pages of your website rather than going to the URL directly, you want it to at least be plausible that someone could remember a specific URL if they wanted to.   4. Use your primary keyword. For every page on your website, you should have a primary target keyword in mind that you want it to rank for in the search engines. Obviously this should be something that specifically describes what’s on the web page, while also being a common term used by people looking for what’s on the page. Make sure your primary keyword is part of the page’s URL. It may work to simply use the keyword as the part of the URL specific to your page (e.g. www.yourwebsitename.com/relevant-category/primary-keyword ). If the web page is for an article or blog post, the main words in the article’s headline can usually be pulled out to make a strong headline that includes the primary keyword and clearly describes what’s on the page. For example, a post called 10 Tips to Find the Perfect Summer Dress that has the target keyword “summer dress”, could become the URL   www.clothesretailer.com/blog/find-perfect-summer-dress   5. Use hyphens to separate words. You can’t include spaces in a URL, so SEO best practice is to use hyphens to separate words. This will signal to Google where the breaks between words are, and make it easier for your visitors to understand URLs than if the words all ran together.   6. Remove stop words. You want URLs to be short and simple, which means you never need things like pronouns and articles. So when translating a page title into a URL structure, drop any common stop words in the title, such as: a, the, and, or, but, an, of, etc .   7. Use canonical tags where needed. This part’s a little more technical, but still important. You don’t want Google registering different versions of the same page on your website as distinct pages. So if you have the same web page that’s tied to more than one URL for any reason, you’re diluting its SEO value. The most common version of this is when you have web pages for both http://yourwebsite.com and www.yourwebsite.com , or if you have a secure version of a page at https://yourwebsite.com along with the two versions mentioned above. Whatever the reason, you want each URL for the same page to be consolidated in the eyes of Google so that a link back to one of them counts for all versions. You can communicate that to Google by using the canonical tag on every variation of the page that clarifies which URL should be considered the main URL to represent all versions.   Setting Your URL Structure Getting a standard URL structure into place can take some time and planning, but once you have your main structure defined, picking the right URL for each web page on your site can be one of the easiest parts of on-site SEO. Make sure you customize your URLs for best results every time. It’s an easy way to improve your SEO and create a better visitor experience in a small way. Don’t miss the rest of our SEO 101 series! How Do Search Engines Work? How to Write Compelling Title Tags How to Write the Best Meta Descriptions Best Practices for Website Architecture Give your site a boost with HostGator’s expert SEO services. Learn more here. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Anyone going to The cPanel Conference in October?

Posted on May 9, 2018 by Hosting

The following post just popped into my RSS Feed today from the cPanel blog. Hopefully they dont mind if I post the article in full below. Th… | Read the rest of http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1710505&goto=newpost Continue reading →

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