Tag Archives: goals

Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads: Which Is Better for Your Small Business?

Posted on April 8, 2019 by Hosting

The post Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads: Which Is Better for Your Small Business? appeared first on HostGator Blog . Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads: Which Is Better for Small Business? Small business owners must make the best advertising decision for their bottom line. It’s a daunting task that requires patience and market research. With so many possibilities, you’ll want to consider your business goals and customers. YourStory contributor Sromona Bhattacharyya , shares her insight: “Selecting the perfect platform for advertisement requires a lot of prior research and efforts… Your customer’s attention is constantly changing from one platform to another… It’s important for any company to decide where their customers pay attention and get back to basics.” Ready to evaluate your advertising options? Here’s a guide to show you when to use Google Ads versus Facebook Ads.   When to Use Google Ads   1. You Want To Reach Local Audiences Most small businesses cater to distinct audiences within their geographical locations. You’re selling winter coats to consumers in Chicago and not folks in Miami. In addition to eCommerce, some businesses have a local storefront. Google Ads makes it easy to become a resource for your local consumer base. With local search ads, you can earn more foot traffic and get more phone inquiries from consumers. Plus, you can provide your audience with critical information, like your address and store hours. If you own multiple stores in a local area, you’ll want to build unique landing pages specific to that area. These pages should highlight the different services and include local testimonials. This strategy ensures site visitors receive information that match their needs. Another idea is to run an ad promotion. Buyers are more likely to visit your store if they know you’re offering a sale. You’ll gain local visibility with Google Ads as part of your plan. More consumers entering into your store means more chances to increase your sales.   2. You Want To Generate Leads Bringing in new customers is key for your small business. But you don’t want every consumer, you need qualified leads that resemble your target audience. Lead generation comes with its own challenges. Acquiring new leads can be expensive. Research shows it costs 7 times more to get a new customer than to retain an existing one. If you don’t want to spend your entire budget on gaining new leads, then Google Ads may be the right solution for your small business. Matt Ackerson , founder of AutoGrow, explains: “If you have a micro budget, you’re going to pinch your pennies. With a Google AdWords account, you can generate more leads without spending a ton of cash. You can then focus your efforts on creating a product or service that will maximize your AdWords ROI.” Google Ads allows you to reach customers with highly-targeted keywords. With lead generation, specificity works in your favor. It’s better to connect with an audience that’s searching for “college basketball shorts,” rather than just “basketball.”   3. You Want a Variety of Ad Types Online shoppers peruse multiple places on the web. You can find them looking for a solution via a search engine or watching endless cat videos on YouTube. It’s important for your advertising to reflect their whereabouts. Google Ads offers your small business various avenues to connect with your audience. Depending on your goals, you want to select a campaign type based on your desired actions from potential customers. For instance, you may develop a Search Network campaign to increase your leads. Then, your team may create a Video campaign to secure sales. Check out the video below to learn which ad campaign type is right for your business. After selecting your ad type, it’s time to think about the actual ad. You want it to speak to the consumers’ needs. It should be specific and build an instant connection. If your team doesn’t possess visual branding expertise, it’s recommended to outsource the task to a design professional . Hire a freelancer to create your graphics or edit your video footage. All these details help attract the right consumers.   When to Use Facebook Ads   1. You Want to Reach Niche Audiences Selling to the masses is a difficult endeavor; it’s hard persuading everyone your product fits their needs. Instead, some small businesses stick to niche audiences—a unique group of consumers in the market. Facebook Ads gives you the flexibility to serve niche audiences. Sherman Standberry , COO and cofounder of LYFE Marketing, explains: “Facebook advertising can help you expand into new markets. If you are bringing a new product or service to market, you can use Facebook advertising to increase its exposure. Facebook advertising will help you test the market, at your own pace.” To advertise to niche audiences, you should collect detailed information about your consumers. You’ll want to target a specific age range, gender, and location. Then, take it a step further by pinpointing their purchasing behaviors, mobile device usage, languages, and connections. Personalization is crucial when developing your first Facebook Ad campaign . Explore ways to develop a brand lifestyle that relates to your niche audience.   2. You Want Brand Awareness Without advertising, small businesses can go unnoticed by consumers. Your marketing campaigns become simply background noise for your large competitors. Facebook Ads helps level the playing field. It can draw awareness to small brands by reaching your targeted audience. The purpose of brand awareness varies based on your customer lifecycle journey. For some companies, it means introducing a brand to a new audience. Other businesses use it as a way to bring their brand to the forefront for interested consumers. With Facebook Ads  awareness campaigns , your team can set its own objectives. The platform focuses on helping you expand your reach, whether it’s a carousel of images or a video. Before launching your ad, consider how you want to tell your brand story. Each ad should build a bridge between your business and the audience. Work with a copywriter to hone your brand’s voice and tone. Learn which words will appeal to your consumers’ emotions and compel them to learn about your products. Your business deserves the attention. Facebook Ads helps you target the right consumers.   3. You Want to Capture Mobile Traffic According to analytics firm Flurry , Americans spend up to five hours per day on their mobile devices. It’s a significant indicator for companies to spend more resources on mobile ads . The experts at Matchcraft offer this perspective: “Mobile traffic is important as smartphone penetration continues to increase and 4G data networks expand. Plenty of people break up their work day by glancing at their phones for some social media time, giving you access to your mobile audience.” Facebook suggests running your ads within its family of apps and services, including Audience Network, Instagram, and Messenger. That way, your advertising spreads across various platforms, earning your business better results. You also can manage Facebook ads on the go. Your team can now pause campaigns, edit budgets, and view insights directly from the mobile app. There’s no excuses for getting key data to operate your small business. Consumers aren’t stationary; they live and shop on the go. So, integrate Facebook Ads into your mobile outreach strategy.   What Works for Your Small Business? Advertising is a huge opportunity for small businesses to attract customers. But with so many different options, it’s overwhelming to choose the best platform. For starters, examine your goals and customers’ behaviors. Google Ads offers better results for local audiences and lead generation. Facebook Ads is useful for niche audiences and brand awareness. Choose your platform. Get the results. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Creating a Website: How To Create a Beautiful Site

Posted on March 19, 2019 by Hosting

The post Creating a Website: How To Create a Beautiful Site appeared first on HostGator Blog . When creating a website, aesthetics aren’t everything – but they definitely matter. Have you ever visited a website that was cluttered, had colors that clashed, or a design that made it hard to read and navigate? Your response was probably to click away and go looking for another website to visit in its place. If you don’t know anything about web design, but you know it’s time to start that website you keep thinking about, you’re probably wondering to how to make a website that will both look good and accomplish your goals. For aspiring website owners that don’t know how to code and don’t have the budget to hire a designer (or would simply rather not spend that money), the best answer is to use an online website builder . Why Create a Website with a Website Builder? Website builders are a fast and easy way to get started with a new website or blog. And this is one case where taking the easy route doesn’t mean sacrificing quality. You can create a truly beautiful and effective website with the right website builder. Here are three benefits to using a website builder . 1. You can use website templates designed by professional designers. Any good website builder you consider will include a number of attractive templates that have been designed by skilled web designers. That means you get to take advantage of their skills without paying top dollar, like you would if you hired them on your own. In most cases, the designers that create templates for website builders will have knowledge of web design best practices and incorporate them into the templates they create. Even if you don’t have a good eye for visuals or website UX (user experience), you can trust that the people who created the template you start with do. By starting with a good template, it’s easy to build a website that looks beautiful and makes a good impression on your visitors. 2. You don’t have to learn how to code. Coding languages are complicated and intimidating to anyone that doesn’t already know them. And even some people who know how to code find it challenging. But you can skip over dealing with all that completely.   Choosing the best website builder for your business or site saves you from having to learn to code . And notably, it means you’ll also never have to deal with coding when making later updates. People that hire a designer to build their website will still have to struggle with HTML down the line when they need to make additions and changes. With a website builder, every future update will be simple.   3. You can make the website your own. The templates are a good starting point, but you don’t want your website to look just like all the other websites created from the template you chose. Don’t worry. You still have room to add your own style and make sure the end results look beautiful to you, while still being intuitive for your visitors. You can change out colors, add and remove different elements of the page, and move things around with simple drag-and-drop website builder functionality. Starting with a template provides a good shortcut, but from there it’s entirely up to you what you choose to do with it. How to Create a Website with a Website Builder If you’re sold on the idea of using a website builder, then it’s time to get started. These are the steps to building a beautiful website using a website builder. 1. Choose your website builder. First things first, you need to choose which website builder to go with. You have a number of options to choose from, and making the right choice now matters. Many website builders make it hard to keep your website if you move to a new product down the line. When looking for the best website builder for you, consider: Ease of use – You don’t want to spend hours learning how to use your new website builder, and you shouldn’t have to. Many website builders provide intuitive editing tools and resources to help you get familiar with the product right away. In particular, look for drag-and-drop functionality which makes editing easy for anyone, no matter the level of skill. Cost – Some drag-and-drop website builder options are free, but most that offer the kind of functionality you’ll need will cost somewhere in the range of $5 to $40 a month—and that’s an ongoing cost, you’ll be paying for as long as you keep your website up. Make sure you choose an affordable website builder you can pay for now and in the months and years to come. Mobile compatibility – Many of your visitors will be coming from mobile devices, so your website needs to look as good on a small screen as it does on a computer. Make sure your website builder provides easy options for making your website mobile friendly, such as responsive templates. Number of templates –  When you start from a template that comes pretty close to what you want your website to look like, the job of customizing it will be easier. The more options you have, the easier picking the right template will be. Media features – If you ever hope to include video or audio on your website, consider what options a website builder offers for adding them. SEO features – Search engine optimization (SEO) is an important tactic for making sure people are able to find your site. While there’s a lot to doing SEO effectively, a good starting point is having a website builder that offers SEO features that make on-site optimization easier. Image library – Finding good images is a big part of creating a website that looks great. A website builder that provides an image library can make the process much faster and easier whether that be for your small business or personal blog. Analytics – Easy access to website analytics will help you track the success of your website over time. Consider what analytics options your website builder offers. Figure out what your main priorities are in a website builder and find one that provides everything you need. 2. Select your favorite template. Creating a website with a website builder starts with a template. Look through the different options available to find one that’s a close match to what you have in mind for your site. Don’t just think about the one you like the look of the best—you can easily change a lot of the visual elements of the template you choose. Think about which one has the closest structure  and layout to the website you want to create. That will make bringing it in line with your unique vision easier. 3. Choose your color scheme. So much of creating a beautiful website as a business owner or blogger will depend on the colors you choose. You want to be consistent with the colors you use across the website—if someone clicks from a page that’s green and blue to one that’s red and black, it creates a confusing experience. And you want to make sure you stick with colors that look good together. Creating a color scheme as one of your first steps will help you achieve both those goals. You’ll know which colors to stick with for your backgrounds, fonts, images, and various page elements. If you don’t really know how to select colors that look good together, you can find a number of free resources online to help. Browse sites like Design Seeds and Color Hunt for inspiration. And the tool Coolers lets you pick a color you like, and see a wide variety of automatically generated color schemes that include it until you find one you like. All of these resources helpfully provide the color codes for each number, so you can easily find them in the editing tools of your website builder as you work. 4. Create a style guide for your site. As with your color scheme, creating a style guide for your website early on will help you make sure your style is consistent across the site and everything looks the way you want it to. This doesn’t have to be anything too long or complicated. It can be a basic list of notes on the stylistic choices you want to use on your site. Consider things like whether you want your elements and buttons to have rounded corners or sharp ones. Do you want all the pages on your website to maintain the same basic layout? What coloring do you want to use for backgrounds, text, links, and buttons? What font do you want to use, and if you want to use more than one, what contexts should you use each in? You can get some inspiration by looking at examples of other style guides , but yours can be much simpler than anything the big brands put together. It should simply serve as a guide you can revisit anytime you’re working on a new page and need a reminder of how to keep it stylistically in line with the rest of the site. 5. Define your website’s goals. While this part doesn’t have to do with making your website beautiful, it’s an important step in creating a website that’s effective. Everyone that creates a website has something they want to accomplish. In order to do so, you need to be strategic in creating a website designed to meet your goals. Spend some time clearly defining what those goals are. You’ll definitely have one overarching goal—for a business owner, that will be making new sales, for a personal website it could be connecting with people through blog posts ho care about the same things you do. In addition to that, you’ll likely have a number of smaller goals that contribute to your primary one: getting noticed by the right people, gaining traffic, and building an email list are a few possible examples. When you approach your website design with clear goals in mind, you’ll do a better job of making a website that’s in line with what you want it to be and do. And you’ll know how to track its success after it goes live. 6. Clarify your messaging. We’ve talked a lot about visual design so far, but the wording you choose will be just as important to accomplishing your goals as the visual aesthetic. The written content you include on your website (called copy in marketing parlance) has to do the heavy lifting of telling your visitors what the website is about and why they should care. You may find this easier if you take a little time to look at similar websites and see how they describe themselves. They can serve as inspiration to help you clarify your own messaging, while also making clear what’s already being done. Ideally, you want to differentiate yourself from other websites and communicate to visitors what makes yours unique. Write out your unique value proposition (UVP), a line or two that describes what your website has to offer and how it’s different from any other site. You can put the UVP directly on your website’s homepage, and it will also help guide you in the copy you create for the rest of the site. 7. Decide on your website’s pages and organization. Another important factor in keeping your website effective is making sure it’s intuitive. You don’t want to overload your visitors with too much information on one page—that’s both confusing and bad for SEO. So figure out how to divide everything you want to share into a number of pages that are each devoted to a manageable amount of information. When you have an idea of the different pages you’ll create, think about how to best organize them in a way that will make it easy for your visitors to find what they’re interested in. Figure out a few main categories your different pages fit into. These will probably be your main menu items. If your website will be fairly simple and only have a few pages, this step shouldn’t be too complicated. If you expect your website to grow into something much larger that has dozens or hundreds of pages, then it’s even more important to define a clear website architecture now that you’ll stick with moving forward.   8. Get to work creating your site. Now that you’ve done all the advance prep to figure out what you want your website to look like and say, pull up your template and start making the necessary changes. Make sure you stick with your style guide, color scheme, messaging, and organization plan as you work. It can be easy to get carried away with making changes that look good in isolation, especially when a personal or business website builder makes each little tweak so easy. But you did all the work in those steps for a reason and your website will be more user friendly, beautiful, and effective if you follow the guidelines you created for yourself. 9. Run it by someone else to get a second opinion. When you spend time working on a website, you get too close to it to see it the way someone else will. Before you push it out into the larger world, find a friend you trust to be a set of fresh eyes for you. They may be able to spot minor errors or let you know if the navigation is a little confusing. Listen to their feedback and make any changes they recommend that you trust will make the website better. Unleash Your Beautiful Website After all that work, your website is ready for a larger audience. Secure website hosting (if you haven’t already) and publish it to the web. Creating a website is exciting. Seeing something beautiful you created yourself (even if with the help of a solid template to start) is certain to instill pride and give you a sense of accomplishment. Now you can start reaching people with your message and working toward your goals. If you’re ready to sign up for a hosting service and create your own website, please contact HostGator today. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Why Your Online Store Needs Omnichannel Marketing

Posted on January 31, 2019 by Hosting

The post Why Your Online Store Needs Omnichannel Marketing appeared first on HostGator Blog . Your online store is up and running. You’ve got a blog, an email list, and social media accounts on the platforms where your ideal customers spend the most time. You’re marketing your store through lots of channels, but are you coordinating those efforts or missing opportunities? Omnichannel marketing can help you connect all your marketing pathways for better results. Here’s a primer on what omnichannel marketing is, how it can help you grow your business, and how to begin. What Is Omnichannel Marketing? Despite the “omni” in the name, omnichannel doesn’t (and shouldn’t) mean marketing in every channel in existence. And it’s not the same thing as multichannel marketing, which is—you guessed it—marketing in multiple channels. Instead, omnichannel marketing creates a single, holistic view of customer behavior by collecting and analyzing data across channels to create customized offers and consistent customer experiences in every channel where they encounter your business. For businesses, the benefits are more and better data for more effective promotions, more conversions, and a greater likelihood of attracting the kinds of shoppers who make more purchases. SAS found that consumers who shop in more than one channel spend “ three to four times more than single-channel customers do .”     Imagining Omnichannel Marketing Here’s a simple way to think of the omnichannel approach to building customer relationships. Let’s say the owner of your favorite restaurant knows your name, your favorite table, and your partner’s favorite dessert order. When you see her in your neighborhood, she always says hi and asks how you’re doing. That’s roughly analogous to an omnichannel customer experience—the restaurant owner always recognizes you and keeps up with how you’re doing and what you like, even when she’s not actively trying to sell you dinner. You’re probably going to dine at her place often and enjoy it. But what if she only sometimes gave you a warm welcome at the restaurant and didn’t recognize you at other times, or made it weird at the grocery store by telling you about her restaurant like you’d never been there? How likely would you be to dine at her restaurant again? That’s the kind of awkwardness and lost business that omnichannel marketing can help avoid. Think about how your marketing channels work together and where you can improve.   How Can You Make Your Marketing Omnichannel? The first step is to gather all your data in one place, or as few places as possible, so you can get a good view of how people find your store and shop there. Using the same payment service provider across all your sales channels—web, social media, in-store—can go a long way toward setting up your omnichannel marketing situation. That’s because payment providers (like Square) collect data you can use in your marketing efforts. This omnichannel sales data can help you get started by providing the same types of data in the same format so you can easily track customers’ purchase behaviors in each channel. It can also streamline your loyalty program so customers can earn and use points online and in-store if you have brick-and-mortar or pop-up locations. Once you’ve got your sales data centralized, check in on your web and social media analytics. Google Analytics is the best-known tool for website traffic analysis , and you can use it to analyze your email and social media data, too. To keep things simple, you can use a WordPress plugin like MonsterInsights to bring your Google Analytics data into your WP dashboard . You can also use the Google Analytics tracking code for your site in your marketing emails. For example, Constant Contact walks its users through the process of adding the code , checking links for known issues, and gathering data from email campaigns to see who’s opening your emails, what they click, and what they buy. Google Analytics can track your social media traffic, too. Neil Patel’s walkthrough of Google Analytics’ social media reports is filled with details you can apply to your omnichannel marketing program. Maybe the most important thing is that Google Analytics can report on conversions sorted by your goals. And it breaks down conversions into last-interaction and assisted categories, so you can see whether a particular visitor from social media to your site bought during that visit or later on. With all of this traffic data and your sales data, you’ll have a better map of how all your channels work together (or don’t yet) to bring customers to your social media channels, your email list, and your store, and what those customers do along the way. Then it’s time to start refining and testing your efforts so that the journey from potential customer to loyal customer is as easy as possible. For example, you can use your data to improve your customer segmentation for more highly targeted and specific email and social media campaigns. You can also use this data to create more effective retargeting ads —another way to ensure that your customers and site visitors see the things that interest them and make them want to return to your store.   The Omnichannel Marketing Takeaway Discussions about digital marketing and data analytics can get very detailed and technical. If you’re interested in going down that path, there’s a world of information online for you. If you’d rather keep things simple, here’s the takeaway: Omnichannel marketing uses data from all your channels to show you where your customers go and what they do so you can get to know them and keep up with them. Omnichannel marketing uses data from all your channels to make your customers feel recognized and welcome through personalized and targeted email, social media, and other campaigns. Omnichannel marketing tools that collect and analyze your data are inexpensive or free. With good data and and a carefully thought-out omnichannel approach, you can give your customers what they want, earn their loyalty, and grow your business. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Do You Need a Website Builder for Your Portfolio?

Posted on December 31, 2018 by Hosting

The post Do You Need a Website Builder for Your Portfolio? appeared first on HostGator Blog . When you’re working as a creative, or you’d like to start your career as a creative, then showcasing your portfolio in the best light possible is incredibly important. Your portfolio is an extension of you and what you can do as a designer or an artist. For this reason, you’ll want to use the tools you have available to create the best portfolio site possible. The last thing you want to do is to throw up a few images of your work on a basic website. Your professional portfolio website also needs to be easy to use, give an introduction to you as a creative, highlight your creative work, and give people a way to get in touch, or actually hire you. If all that sounds like a lot, don’t worry. Below we’ll dive into what a website builder actually is, why you’ll want to use a website builder for your portfolio , the various website builders you’ll have available to you, and finally, you’ll learn how to use one without any coding skills required. What Is a Website Builder? In the old days of the web, if you wanted to build a website and have it live on the internet, you’d need to know how to code. But, since the proliferation of website building tools and portfolio templates, even complete beginners can have a site online in a single afternoon. What are website builders ? To review, they are pieces of software that are created to simplify the website building process. Most website builders are built for complete beginners, so you won’t have to touch a line of code in order to build your very first website. Website builders are also engineered with web best practices in mind. So, you’ll get a site that’s going to be in alignment with user expectations, have a professional design, and have all of the features you require to highlight your projects. Most website builders you use to build a website rely upon themes or templates that offer you a basic foundation to work from. Then you’ll add and drag and drop different site elements until your site is complete. There are all kinds of themes you’ll be able to choose from, including specialty graphic designer themes or artist portfolios.   Benefits of Using an Artist Portfolio Website Builder Website builders have been used to create millions of websites. Probably at least a handful that you’ve visited before. For a lot of people, yearning to build a website, using a website builder is a no-brainer. Here are a few of the biggest reasons website builders have become so popular.   1. No Technical Skills Required You can literally fire up a website builder right now and have a fully built website in a couple of hours. If the thought of digging into your own website’s code scares you, then don’t worry. With a website builder, you’ll never have to have any coding skills.. When you’re using a website builder you’ll mostly be using drag and drop features to literally build your website by clicking around with your mouse. Then, the website builder will automatically create the necessary code required for your website to be rendered by a browser. Making changes to your website is easy too. You just use the same process of building your site the first time to change pages, add to new content, or give your site a facelift.   2. Libraries of Themes and Templates to Choose From Want to change up how your site looks, just select a new theme or template. Most website builders are equipped with massive theme libraries that have been designed by professional designers. This means you can get a professionally designed website without the cost of paying an expensive web developer. Plus, all of these themes will be up to the latest design and usability standards. So, you don’t have to worry about getting an outdated website if you rely upon a website builder. If you’re looking for the perfect theme for your graphic design or artist portfolio, you’ll have a few different themes to choose from. Plus, with all the customization options offered you don’t have to worry about your website looking like every other site out there.   3. Speedy Website Creation Want to get your website online yesterday? Website builders offer you the ability to create your website super quickly. Just choose the builder you want to use, select your theme, make a few customizations, add your content, and publish. If you aren’t satisfied with your design you can always tweak and update your site after you publish too. Without a website builder to create a website, you’re going to have a lot of trouble creating the perfect online portfolio website. Of course, you can teach yourself how to program and then build your site. But, that’s going to take a ton of time, and you still might not end up with a website that you like. Save yourself the time and the headache and invest in a quality website builder.   How to Choose the Right Website Builder Since website builders are so popular you’ll find a lot of different companies that offer top-notch website builders. But, not all of them are going to be suited for your portfolio website. When comparing different providers keep the following in mind. Whether you need an artist portfolio or a graphic design website builder , the following will apply.   1. How Easy Is It to Use? There’s no point in using a website builder if you can’t figure out how to make it work. Most website builders are created so there’s virtually no learning curve, but some might be better suited to your particular technical abilities. Before you decide to use a website builder spend some time playing around with the tool. Most builders will allow you to create a free account in order to test the tool.   2. How Large Is the Template or Theme Selection? The template or theme selection that’s included with your builder should match the goals of your site. Most website builders will allow you to view the entire, or at least a sample, of the theme library before you sign up. This will give you a chance to take stock of the current theme selection to see if there’s any that you like. Most builders will have their themes broken down by different categories, so look for sections that say “portfolio”, or are otherwise related to your niche.   3. Is There a Large Feature Set? In time you might want to add more features to your site. You might start with what amounts to a digital business card, but in time you might want to expand this. For example, is it easy to integrate social media into your site? Can you add a blog if need be? What about other forms of media, like video? Do you have the ability to sell things like prints directly from your site? Think about the eventual direction you might want to take your site in the future and see if the existing feature set can help you achieve those goals.   4. What Pricing Options Are Available? Finally, you’ll want a website builder that’s actually in your price range. You’ll usually find that there are different price ranges depending on how large your site is, what kind of features you need, and the levels of traffic you’re getting. Many website builders have monthly subscriptions that you’ll have to pay for the lifetime of your site. Finally, when examining different website builders look for scalability. For example, if your site all of a sudden starts getting tens of thousands of visitors per month will you be able to upgrade your plan, or will you have to switch to a different provider entirely?   Elements Your Portfolio Website Needs to Have An Online portfolio website is a little bit different than other sites. Instead of selling products, you’re selling yourself and your work. Although your portfolio will take the main focus, there are still some other pages you’ll want to include.   1. Your Home Page and USP Your home page should hook your visitors’ attention and communicate what makes your creative work unique, or at the very least it clearly states what you do. For example, maybe you’re a graphic designer who specializes in app design? Make sure you communicate this clearly on your home page. It can also be helpful to include snippets of your work, but most people don’t opt for the portfolio page straight away. Try to hook your user’s interest first with your best work, then invite them to dive deeper into the rest of your portfolio.   2. Your Portfolio Here’s the section you came here for—your portfolio. Beyond showcasing visual examples of your work, you might want to also want to highlight more details about each project. Ask yourself the following questions about each project you want to highlight: What were the overarching goals of the project? What solution did you come up with? How long did the project take? Why are you proud of this project? Who was the client? Do you have a testimonial from them? The more relevant information you can include about each project the better. Think about questions that your potential clients might want answered and include them in your copy. Your portfolio isn’t just a way to showcase your work, but also how you apply creative problem solving to problems your clients might have.   3. Your Hire Me/Contact The other very important page is your hire me or contact page. Once you’ve impressed people with your portfolio you want to give them a way to reach out to you! Make sure that your contact page, or hire me page, has a link in your main menu and is easy to find. This page doesn’t need to be overly complex, but it should include multiple methods of reaching out to you. The most common approach is a little intro, followed by a contact form. But, on the off chance, you’re having a technical error and the contact form isn’t working, then you’ll also want to list your email and maybe even your phone number. Some creatives also like to create regular blogs where they’ll talk about past projects, trends in their field, their perspectives about working as a creative and a lot more. Blogging can play a role in driving traffic back to your site, but it’s not an absolute requirement. Especially, if your main goal is to use your blog as a digital showcase for you and your work.   The Best Website Builder for Your Portfolio Now, you’re probably thinking what’s the best website builder for your portfolio? There are literally dozens of different options for artists and designers to choose from when creating their online platform. You can either spend time researching all of your options online, or you can take a spin with the HostGator website builder. Here at HostGator, you’ll find a very easy to use and beginner friendly website builder. There are over 100 different website templates to choose from, and it relies upon drag and drop technology to build your professional portfolio website. It’s incredibly cheap and hosting is included in the price. You have the ability to use one of the pre-built website templates, or you can create your site entirely from scratch. Plus, with the ability to integrate PayPal you can even sell your work directly from your site. You’ll also have the ability to upgrade to a higher package to unlock additional features and be able to create a much larger site.     Build Your Online Portfolio Website So, are website builders worth it for portfolios? We say yes. Hopefully, you have a better idea of how using a website builder can help you build the perfect portfolio website . Why create a website  from scratch using custom coding when you can rely on a professional website building tool to help you build a stunning creative portfolio online? Spend some time researching the best website builder for your needs, and keep in mind that you can always change your site down the road too. By using a website builder for your portfolio you’ll have a beautiful portfolio online in no time. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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7 Marketing Goals for Your E-commerce Website in 2019

Posted on November 18, 2018 by Hosting

The post 7 Marketing Goals for Your E-commerce Website in 2019 appeared first on HostGator Blog . The online world moves fast. Each year, it’s a good idea to consider the goals you have for your website to see if they need some updating. For an e-commerce website, some goals will always stay consistent, but others will evolve or change completely year by year. This year, here are a few good goals to consider setting for your website in 2019. 1. Increase relevant traffic. Increasing traffic is probably a familiar goal for you. For pretty much every website, accomplishing whatever it’s meant to do requires people visiting the site.  But not all traffic is created equal . If your marketing is bringing in traffic, but it’s mostly made up of people who will never have a need for your products or services, then it’s not doing you much good. For instance, a B2B software company probably wouldn’t benefit from a huge amount of traffic if most of it was coming from teenagers In addition to continuing your marketing efforts for raising traffic, this year take some time to analyze if the traffic you’re getting seems to match up with the target audience you’re trying to reach. In the Audience section of Google Analytics , you can find a lot of information about the kinds of people visiting your website, including:      Demographic information like age and gender      Interests they have, based on their other browsing information      Geographic information      Tech information like the device and browser they use That can go a long way to helping you figure out if you’re reaching the people you’re trying to.  If you find that you’re not, then it’s time to rethink and refine your marketing efforts to make sure they’re more targeted moving forward. Once you increase your site traffic, it’s time to upgrade your hosting to meet demand. Learn more about your web hosting options to choose the best fit for your website needs.   2. Grow your email list. Getting people to your website is a big part of being successful, but getting them to come back so you can form an ongoing relationship is even more important. One of the best tools you have to do that is your email list. When someone opts into your email list, they’re opening the door to ongoing communication with your brand – which is a big deal! It’s no surprise that email marketing has one of the highest conversion rates of the main online marketing activities. That means that one of the best ways to improve your website’s success in the coming year is to put more of an emphasis on growing your email list. You can do that by offering deals to your customers for signing up, promoting it on social media , and including CTAs throughout your website urging people to subscribe. And make sure you keep the emails you send relevant and useful so you keep those subscribers once you get them. They’re too valuable to lose lightly. If you haven’t set up email marketing for your website yet, get started today with Constant Contact .    3. Provide visitors a personalized experience. Each of your visitors is a unique person who interacts with your website in their own way. Technology now makes it possible for you to track how people interact with your website and customize their experience on the site as they go. You can suggest items that are similar or complementary to what they’re looking at, or deliver up content on topics that are related to the piece they clicked on. One study found that providing a personalized web experience for visitors can cause an 18% uptick in sales. When you make it easier for people to see the parts of your website that are most relevant to them, it increases their chances of having a good experience and continuing their relationship with your brand.   4. Make your website responsive. By this point, the reasons to make your website mobile friendly are well known and if you’re reading this, you’ve probably already taken that step (you have, right?). In the coming year, Google’s planning to roll out mobile-first indexing , meaning that their algorithm will give greater priority to your mobile website in determining rankings. That means you want your mobile website to have the same content and information on it as your desktop website, just visually optimized for a mobile screen. Making your website responsive is one of the best and easiest ways to do that. And in general, make it a goal to make an effort to pay attention to your mobile experience and make sure your website is easy and intuitive for people on mobile to use. Mobile’s not going away and is likely to continue to become more important with every passing year, so you have to treat it like the priority it is.   5. Go beyond blogging. By now, a lot of businesses have blogs – and that’s usually a good choice. A blog is a powerful marketing tool. But because there are so many blogs out there already, making your content stand out is increasingly hard. One way you can shake things up a little this year is to consider other types of content to explore. Branching into podcasts, videos , or interactive content can help you supplement the blog content you have now and may enable you to reach a new audience. Taking a broader approach to your content strategy by bringing in new format types also allows you to get a better idea of what your customers respond to. Some of the content may fall flat, but some of it may perform even better than your written content did. By experimenting with new forms, you can come to understand your audience even better and continue to refine your efforts based on what works for them.   6. Partner with influencers. With so many blogs and social media channels for people to move between on the web, getting your content in front of people is one of the biggest marketing challenges businesses consistently face. One good tactic for reaching more people is developing relationships with people and platforms that already have a large audience. That could be by creating affiliate marketing relationships with influencers, by guest posting on their blogs, or by collaborating with them on projects. Whatever form it takes for your business, working with influencers can help you catch the attention of new people in your target audience and get them back to your website where you can work on building a relationship with them.   7. Increase sales. For e-commerce businesses, this goal will remain consistent in all years. For your website and business to thrive, you have to be making sales. Everything else on this list is designed to help make that happen, but you should also look to your own analytics from past years. Figure out what tactics have worked the best for getting you sales – not just traffic or email signups (which matter too), but marketing activities specifically led to sales. While there are general trends each year that should guide what you try, the most important thing you should look to is what’s working best for your particular business. At the end of the day, your business is unique. Only you can work out what makes the most sense for you and your audience. Analyze your metrics and design your marketing plan to optimize doing more of whatever is getting you sales now. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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