Tag Archives: hostgator

How Much Does a Website Cost?

Posted on March 22, 2019 by Hosting

The post How Much Does a Website Cost? appeared first on HostGator Blog . How much does a website cost? Is there a general range I should expect to pay for a new website? If you’re just getting started online, then you’ve probably turned these questions over in your head. They’re very important questions to answer. Unfortunately, there isn’t a straightforward answer for either of them. It all depends on the goals of your site, the type of site you’re building, and the method you’re going to take to build out your website. As a general rule of thumb the more hands-on you’re going to be throughout the process the lower the cost will be. So, using a website builder or a CMS will be much cheaper than hiring a professional website designer. Below we’ll examine how much a website costs to build, as well as the factors that will influence the overall cost. Website Cost Considerations The price of your website will depend on a lot of different factors. Both pre-existing factors, as well as the type of site you’re going to build. Here are a few of the main considerations that will influence the overall price. 1. Your Choice of Domain and Hosting Every website needs a domain name and hosting. Your domain name is what people will type into the address bar to access your site. While your hosting is where all of your website’s files will be stored. You can purchase these together or separately. 2. The Platform That Powers Your Site You’re going to have a lot of different options when it comes to building out your site. You can use a website builder, choose a CMS like WordPress , or even hire a professional to build your site for you. With WordPress, you can rely on free themes and plugins to reduce your overall cost, while with a website builder you’ll typically pay a monthly fee. Hiring a web developer will be the most expensive option. We’ll cover this in more detail below. 3. The Type of Website You’re Building The type of website you’re building will greatly influence the overall cost. For example, if you’re building a simple personal blog, then your expenses will be very low. But, if you’re building out a complex eCommerce store, then you should expect higher website build costs. Generally, the more complex and feature-rich your website, the higher the cost will be. But, this cost can be offset by doing most of the design tasks yourself, or using the right website builder software or CMS. Essential Website Expenses: Domains and Hosting Costs The overall cost of building your site will be greatly influenced by factors above, like the type of site you’re building, and what software or platform will form the foundation for your site. But, there are two essential expenses to building a website that you won’t be able to avoid: your domain name and hosting. Here’s how the cost of these two elements breaks down. 1. Domain Name Costs Your domain name is probably one of the first things you’ll purchase. Your domain name is the URL that people will type into their website browser to actually view your site. We won’t get into choosing your domain name here. But here are a few great resources for choosing the perfect domain name: How You Can Choose the Best Domain Name for Your Blog The 7 Best Domain Name Suggestion Tools Is My Domain Name Available? Every domain isn’t created equal. Most domains will run you around $9 to $15 per year. However, the costs can run up into the hundreds or thousands, if you’re absolutely set on a certain domain. Here are a few factors that will influence the overall cost of your domain : The Top-Level Domain The top-level domain is the .com or .org that follows your domain. The top-level domain or domain name extension you choose will influence the overall cost of your domain. There are dozens of different top-level domains to choose from. But, the most common are .com, .org, .net, and .co. You’re probably best off choosing .com if it’s available. A lot of other domain name extensions are experimental, or country-specific, but sticking with common and widely recognized extensions is probably your best bet. Going for more abstract and creative domain name extensions will probably add a higher fee to your domain name purchase. The Type of Domain Purchasing a brand new domain will definitely be the cheapest option for acquiring a domain. But, there are other options available if you’re absolutely set on a domain. Here are two common methods for acquiring a domain besides purchasing it through a registrar : Reach out to the current site owner. If you do a domain search on HostGator Domains and see that the domain is already taken, then you might be able to get in touch with the owner and place a bid. This will usually be a more expensive route. You should expect to pay at least a couple hundred dollars, maybe more. Purchase your domain through a marketplace. There are sites like Sedo that list domain names that people already own. These domains are pretty pricey, but if you have the budget, this allows you to buy a domain outright, or make an offer. Once you’ve settled on your domain name it’s time to buy it. If you’re looking for the best deal, then you’ll probably want to buy your domain name right here at HostGator. Just type in your desired domain name, see if it’s available, and complete the purchase. If your domain is available, then your desired extension will influence the yearly price. You can simplify your life even further by purchasing your domain name and hosting together. 2. Website Hosting Costs Choosing the right web host for your website is a decision you’ll want to take seriously. The right web host will make it easy for you to build your website, as well as improve site performance, keep your site secure, and a lot more. When it comes to web hosting, you’re going to have a lot of different hosting options to choose from. For example, you’ve got shared hosting, WordPress hosting, cloud hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting. On top of that, you have different hosting plans within each type of hosting. The hosting package you choose will greatly influence how much your site costs to build. Generally, hosting packages will range from $10/month to $150+/mo. That’s just a very basic estimation. Shared hosting will typically be the cheapest plan, but as your website requires more server resources to function, then you’ll need to upgrade to a more expensive plan. However, as your website grows, both in size and traffic levels, you’ll hopefully be making more money to cover the additional hosting costs. If this is your first website, then a basic shared hosting package will probably be the best type of hosting for your needs. Shared hosting is beginner-friendly, easy to set up, is very cheap, and gives you enough server resources to get you through the initial stages of growing your site. Did we mention it’s cheap? Yes. Here at HostGator, you can pick up the cheapest shared hosting plan for less than $3 a month! Website Design Costs: DIY vs. Professional Services With your domain name and hosting secured it’s time to look at the other big factor that’ll influence the cost of building your website. This section is highly variable, as you’ll soon learn. But, as a general rule of thumb, the more work you’ll willing to do yourself, the cheaper designing your website will be. Here’s a look at the two different routes to building your website: 1. DIY Website Building Costs When building your website yourself you’re going to have a few different options to explore. Unless you know how to code ( or want to learn ), you’ll primarily be relying on a website builder or a CMS like WordPress to build out your site. Here’s a cost breakdown of each of these two routes to site creation. Cost of Using a Website Builder Website builders make it incredibly easy to build out your site. These tools are created for complete beginners meaning it won’t take any coding knowledge to build out your site. The general process will be as follows: you select a template, make changes via a drag and drop interface, add your content, then publish your site. There are dozens of different website builders that exist online today, including one here at HostGator. By using a builder like the Gator Website Builder you’ll help to keep costs low while building out a beautiful and functional website. Cost of Using WordPress to Build Out Your Site Another common option is using WordPress to build out your site. WordPress is a free CMS, so there won’t be any upfront costs required to build your site. All you need to do is install WordPress on your site, which you can do from within cPanel . Then, you’ll customize your site by choosing a theme, and add more features to your site via the vast plugin library. The costs for using WordPress to build your site are highly variable. For example, you can get away with building a WordPress site entirely for free by relying on free themes and plugins. Or, you can spend $100+ on a premium theme, along with premium plugins that range from $10-50+ per month. It all depends on your theme and plugin selection. 2. Professional Website Design Costs Getting your website built by a professional will be the most expensive option by far. The price for a professional website build will vary greatly. The overall cost depends on the type of site you want to be built and who you’re using to build out your website. Here’s a general average cost breakdown for professional web design services: Basic small business site – $1000 – $7500+ Larger business site – $10,000 – $25k+ eCommerce site – $5000 – $20k+ Freelance hire – $500 – $5000+ These are very rough estimates. Generally, if you’re going to hire a developer via a site like Upwork then your costs will be cheaper than if you’re hiring a web design agency to build out your site. It’ll also be cheaper to have a developer customize an existing theme than create a brand new WordPress theme from scratch. On the other hand, if you hire a web design agency , they’ll be able to bring their expertise from creating hundreds of sites and apply that knowledge to your site. They may also bring additional expertise a freelance developer may not have, like UX, SEO, and PPC. How Much Does a Website Cost? The Verdict Hopefully, you have a better idea of the answer to the question: how much does a website cost? As you can see there are ways you can build a website for basically nothing, while other website builds will run up into the thousands of dollars. If you’re looking for the cheapest way to get a website online, then consider using some of the resources here at HostGator . For a domain name and the cheapest shared hosting plan, you’re looking at roughly a $15 upfront investment. Then, you can use WordPress or the bundled website builder. If you’re going to be hiring a professional to build out your website then expect to pay a lot more. The overall cost will depend on the designer or design firm you’re using, along with what you’re asking them to do. For example, doing WordPress theme customizations will be cheaper than building out a 100-page eCommerce site. There is no clear cut cost for the price you’ll pay to build out your website. But, this is kind of a good thing. It means that you can build a website, no matter your budget or existing technical skills. You can create your new website yourself, or you can hire a professional to take care of everything for you. Overall, it’s up to you how much your website costs to build. Whether you have a low or high budget, you’ll be able to find the right combination of tools to help launch your dream website. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

Posted in HostGator, Hosting, VodaHost, vps | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How Much Does a Website Cost?

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 →

Posted in HostGator, Hosting, VodaHost | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Creating a Website: How To Create a Beautiful Site

Most Popular Content Management Systems

Posted on March 18, 2019 by Hosting

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

Posted in HostGator, Hosting, VodaHost | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Most Popular Content Management Systems

How to Choose Your Web Design Template: 5 Key Factors to Consider

Posted on March 11, 2019 by Hosting

The post How to Choose Your Web Design Template: 5 Key Factors to Consider appeared first on HostGator Blog . The look and feel of your website matters. It can either attract new customers or repel them in the opposite direction. Website builders make it easier to design with drag-and-drop templates. But all templates aren’t created equal. You need a specific design that fits your brand personality, welcomes visitors, and offers good functionality. 5 Key Factors to Consider When Choosing a Web Design Template It’s your turn to create a jaw-dropping website. Below are 5 factors to consider when choosing a web design template that follows design best practices .   1. Header Design The header is the first part of the website your visitors see. Your primary goal is to welcome your audience with open arms and spark their curiosity to browse around. Most header designs include the brand’s logo coupled with an engaging image. The text usually offers context and adds a simple call to action. Your site’s header will rely on how complex or easy it is to explain your brand. Brenda Barron , an instructor for Tuts+, offers more insight: “Using a captivating image to create an amazing visual experience works well for businesses such as hotels, restaurants, or spas. If on the other hand, your type of business might be hard to explain with image only, you should choose a header design that incorporates an image with a text overlay.” ClassPass , a health club aggregator, uses a header image to display its business model. The straightforward copy gives the company’s description with two call-to-action buttons . First impressions hold significance online. Choose a web design template that showcases your brand in a positive light.   2. Navigation Design When you enter a brick-and-mortar store, it’s fairly easy to locate items. They have signs labeling specific aisles, a designated area for customer service, and even a floating store clerk to assist you. Similarly, it’s important to recreate that shopping experience online. The menu bar acts as a roadmap, guiding your visitors to certain pages on your site. It should be readable with a plain background color and simple fonts. The key is not to overwhelm your consumers. An overcrowded menu isn’t visually pleasing, and it can complicate the visitor’s experience. You’ll also want to create a hierarchy, or architecture , for your pages. For the layout, place the most important pages on the left. You can use a different color or add a familiar symbol to underline critical details. In the example below, Havertys provides an easy-to-access menu for customers to learn about its products. The brand also gives visitors options to receive free design help. Navigation design gives your visitors a clear direction on what to do next. Be their personal guide through the online experience.   3. Functionality It’s not enough to have cool pictures and funky colors on your site. You need to give your site purpose by adding functionality. Start by deciding what you want visitors to achieve with your site. Do you want customers to purchase products? Do you want them to contact you at specific times? Your website’s goal will help you select the right template. If you want visitors to connect with you directly, you may need a live chat feature. If you want customers to shop, you will need an eCommerce store. Perry Lara , creative director at Viral Element, says: “Given that your website is your best salesperson, you should take the necessary steps to ensure your website functions properly before and after it’s launched. A poor functioning website can mean the difference between generating new leads and completely missing out on lead-generating opportunities.” SWANK blow dry bar offers its visitors the choice to book an appointment on its website. With this functionality, the brand streamlines the process of gaining a new customer. Functionality makes your website more than a pretty online space. A successful eCommerce web design template can transform a hesitant visitor into a loyal shopper.   4. Content Area Content plays an essential role in your website. The text and images fill out your design and inform your visitors about your products and services. Depending on your brand, your content area may include a blog, photo gallery, or a slideshow . Choose a content section that helps your visitors learn more about your value. However, don’t complicate your design with too many content areas. The clutter will confuse (or maybe annoy) visitors on where they should focus their attention. If they can’t decide what to do next, it’s likely they will just leave your site. Kitchen Konfidence exhibits a vivid content area with beautiful photos, concise descriptions, and direct call-to-action buttons. Also, there’s enough white space to not overwhelm visitors with loads of content. Your content area is a good place to experiment with how your brand presents information. For instance, you may use a fixed sidebar with your navigation menu, social media links, and contact details. Your web design template should tell a story. Be selective on what content areas you use.   5. Mobile Version According to Statista , “the number of mobile phone users is forecast to reach 4.68 billion in 2019.” This research means a potential increase in website engagement from consumers. Mobile users expect to get what they need quickly without any hassle. Jenny Gove , a UX Research Lead at Google, states: “Make it easy to get back to the home page. Users expect to go back to the homepage when they tap the logo in the top-left of a mobile page, and they become frustrated when it isn’t available or doesn’t work.” Plan for fewer words on your mobile site. The headlines should be short to fit the mobile screen. Also the content should be easy to skim. Bose’s mobile site highlights the essential details. On first glance, a visitor sees the brand’s logo, menu, primary call-to-action, and an image of the product. The copy is short and sweet, too. Your mobile website should follow the same brand style and color palate of your desktop version. Using a different variation will only distract visitors from your brand’s value.   Choose Your Web Design Template Wisely Your web design template is the foundation for your site. Your goal is to create a useful and attractive website. There’s a lot that goes into finding the best web design template that meets that goals. Fortunately, website builders like our Gator Website Builder  make it easy. We have hundreds of mobile-friendly templates for you to choose from, and they all follow the latest trends in modern web design. Take a look today to find the best one for your business. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

Posted in HostGator, Hosting, VodaHost | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How to Choose Your Web Design Template: 5 Key Factors to Consider

How to Optimize Content Before Publishing

Posted on March 11, 2019 by Hosting

The post How to Optimize Content Before Publishing appeared first on HostGator Blog . Even the most engaging content with all the right elements won’t serve the purpose if the search engines can’t find it . Before you hit that publish button, there are several steps you can take which will ensure that your content is properly optimized. If you are ready to invest your time and attention to optimization, the following tips will show you how to do that effectively. Create Content with Optimization in Mind In order to optimize your content, you need to add some important and relevant links, as well as some keywords, to catch the attention of search engines. Some writers make the mistake of creating the content and then placing the links and keywords where they think it fits. This is a BIG mistake! Why? Well, if you add search engine optimization elements after everything has already been composed, it will most probably stick out. Readers can’t overlook randomly added words and links that just don’t naturally fit into the flow of the content. Writers used to stuff articles with meaningless words just so they can add keywords and links to optimize the article. Then in 2011 everything changed because Google established Panda Penalties to make sure that people would be penalized for low-quality, keyword-stuffed content. If you want to write high-quality content with naturally embedded links, you need to know which optimization elements you want to add before you start with the writing process. First, you should know your topic and your target audience. This will help you to search for corresponding optimization elements. Find suitable keywords and valuable links and save them. Along the way, start brainstorming how you can form your content and which subtitles you can create by adding the keywords. During the whole process of research and writing, you will already have your links and keywords ready which will inspire you to write suitable content. By having the optimization elements in mind while you write, you will find a way to add them without sounding forced. Apply Reader-Friendly Formatting We live in the age of people with short attention span or skimmers, how they are popularly called. That is why you need to format your content so that they stay long enough to read through the article and hopefully click on some of the links. There are several elements that every content should have if you want to optimize it in the right way and keep the reader’s’ attention. For reader-friendly formatting, focus on the following: A headline with the main keyword Subtitles which consist of the main or relevant keywords Using H1, H2, H3 metatags for titles and subtitles The main keyword in the first paragraph (recommended) Images with ALT attribute (with main or relevant keywords) Placing keywords naturally and evenly in the text Remember that you’re not writing a book but a text for a website Pay Attention to Content-Length and Readability Focus on the length of the article because you need to write just enough so that the content doesn’t seem stuffed with optimization elements but not too much so that you lose the reader’s attention. The recommended length is at least 1,000 words when it comes to writing articles and having a readability score of 60-70 points. Keep in mind that these numbers depend on the niche, so don’t go to extremes. (Note: the HostGator blog team aims for minimum 2,000 words when we really want to rank!) It can be very helpful if you can ask someone to read your article, web post, or blog post before you publish it. Having a second pair of eyes looking at what you wrote from a different perspective can ensure you that you will give the audience what they want. The person who will read your content can tell you whether there is a natural flow or if some keywords or links pop out. This is a helpful way to find out whether you accomplished to create high-quality SEO content. If you want to improve the readability of your content, you can use some online writing tools such as Grammarly , EssaySupply.com , Readable , and GradeProof . Add Social Media Elements Social media is the perfect tool for raising awareness about your brand and what you represent. It is also a very important element when it comes to content optimization . If you want to optimize your content fully you need to be aware that the readers won’t spend their precious time trying to share your content with their friends and family. Considering that social media is the most common place for sharing interesting findings, your content needs to feature convenient social sharing elements. That means that you should add sharing buttons and locate them strategically on a visible place which doesn’t distract the reader such as the top or at the bottom of your page. You can also set it up so that it follows your readers on the left or right as they scroll. Adding social sharing buttons is good for SEO because it helps to generate more traffic, drive more links, and eventually increase SERPs. Include Comments Section Comments are a great way to connect with your readers, establish a certain relationship, and maybe give them some further insight into the subject you are writing about. But what may surprise you is that comment section can also serve as an optimization tool. How is that? Comments will keep your content fresh and updated and since they are part of the content that will matter to search engines especially if they consist of targeted keywords and high-quality links. Your readers can ask you about a different content piece which will attract shares and backlinks. Also, when answering questions you can also add some relevant links. In addition, you will signal Google that you care about providing value to your readers which is always a plus. Veronica Wright, CEO at Resumescentre has shared a valuable piece of advice concerning this topic, “A comment section is great for SEO! However, you need to pay extra attention to unrelated comments, spam, and low-quality links because they can harm the process of optimization. Don’t hesitate to delete those comments.” Final Thoughts The usual steps of optimization such as adding the links and using the right keywords have been discussed million times, but these steps will take you a step further and help you to create high-quality content with just the right amount of optimization. Dedicating your time to content optimization will certainly improve your ranking and provide you with some valuable clicks. That is why it is important to follow these guidelines and adapt them to the type of content you are creating. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

Posted in HostGator, Hosting, VodaHost | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How to Optimize Content Before Publishing