Tag Archives: hostgator

Today’s 5 Best Free WordPress Themes for Freelancer Websites

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Hosting

The post Today’s 5 Best Free WordPress Themes for Freelancer Websites appeared first on HostGator Blog . Every freelancer needs a website for one major reason: Clients can’t find you if you don’t show up in their search results. Other reasons freelancers need websites are to show your work to prospective clients, to let prospects know which kinds of services you provide (and which you don’t), and to give people an easy way to get in touch with you. To make the most of your website, you’ll need a theme that loads fast, looks good and is easy to use on phones and computers, and establishes your professional brand . Here are five free WordPress themes that work well for different types of freelance businesses. 1. Bootstrap Journal Bootstrap Journal from Bootstrap Themes describes itself as feminine, but perhaps a better word is fun. The fonts are what give this image-heavy theme a slightly whimsical look, which can work for freelancers in businesses that require an outgoing personality, like wedding and event planners, independent travel agents, stylists, makeup artists, and hair stylists. This theme is best for freelancers who have a strong visual portfolio to display. On my laptop, the full-width header image fills the space above the fold. Beneath it are page navigation tabs and a 5-image grid with post titles over the images. Post excerpts with large images follow, and there’s a subscription box to encourage visitors to join your email list. On a smartphone, everything converts to one column. Bootstrap Journal is responsive, fast, SEO friendly and WooCommerce compatible. The pro version ($49) adds ad management tools, multiple design customization options, and an editable copyright text option.   2. Clean Fotografie Clean Fotografie from Catch Themes , as you might guess from the name, is a good choice for freelance photographers. It’s also useful for freelancers in other businesses whose portfolio is mainly visual, like makeup artists, fine artists, interior decorators, and landscape designers. Clean Fotografie’s responsive design puts images front and center on computers and phones, gives you hero image options for your home page or the entire site, a portfolio feature, full-screen HD image capabilities, and Instagram compatibility. The free version also includes customization options for text excerpts, menus, header media, and layouts. On a laptop screen, the header media includes a call-to-action button to get visitors moving through the site. Beneath the header, a three-column row of images for categories is followed by a header image and text block, featured images in another three-column row, and news items with large featured images. On a smartphone, the content shifts into a single column but keeps the focus on images rather than text. Clean Fotografie’s pro version ($55) is WooCommerce ready and adds more customization options,  featured slider tools, and font families.   3. Experon Experon from ThinkUp Themes looks like a good option for freelancers who work in a field that requires precision and a sense of understated style, thanks to the hexagonal category icons below the slider banner. Because of the design, the above-the-slider-banner tabs for pages and social media, and the three-category row just beneath the banner, Experon is a good option for a freelance agency or solo freelancer that offers multiple services they want to describe in depth on the site. Experon’s free version loads quickly, is SEO friendly, and is optimized for HD screens. It’s compatible with WooCommerce for selling on the site and Elementor for drag-and-drop page design. The free version also gives users access to regular security and feature updates. The pro version of Experon ($35) adds full-width and boxed layout options, more than 100 shortcodes to add features to the site fast, hundreds of Google Fonts, and unlimited color and sidebar options.   4. Life Coach Life Coach from Blossom Themes is a great choice for freelancers who are serious about building their email list through content marketing. Designed for—you guessed it—life coaches, this theme also works for writers, teachers, and speakers. On both laptops and smartphones, there’s a sign-up section where visitors can enter their email in exchange for a free info product (a checklist, e Book , or some other marketing content). Next comes page navigation tabs and a hero image with another subscription section. Next, there’s a social proof section for the logos of media outlets, websites, and events where your work has been featured. About, services, learn more, testimonials, and articles are next, followed by contact information and a contact form. Life Coach’s free version is fast, SEO friendly, Schema.org optimized, responsive, and WooCommerce compatible. Coach Pro ($49) adds more layout and design options as well as sections for case studies, pricing, podcasts, and events.   5. Ryan Grid Ryan Grid from ThinkUp Themes has a black-and-white palette and a focus on text blocks that’s good for writers , editors, tutors, transcription, and other freelancers whose work is based on text. On a laptop, Ryan Grid is similar to Experon, with two unobtrusive menu headers for social media icons and pages, followed by a slider header, then three category text blocks. On a smartphone, that first text block is where you’ll want to put your most important information, because it’s the most prominent element on the smartphone-screen homepage display. If you do have images to include, Ryan Grid is HD Retina-ready. The free version has an options panel for easy customization of the design and it’s Elementor-compatible for drag-and-drop page building. It’s also WooCommerce compatible, which is helpful if you have information products you want to sell on your site. Ryan Grid’s pro version ($35) adds unlimited color and sidebar options, Google Fonts, and more than 100 shortcodes for easy customization.   Choosing a WordPress Theme for Your Freelance Website Once you’ve decided on a couple of themes you like, download them and try them out with your own content to get a sense of which one will work best for you. After you make your choice, ask for feedback from your peers, clients, and prospects about how easy it is for them to find what they need on your site. If you need to make changes to your theme, or pick another theme, you’ve got lots of good free options. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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7 Things You Can Do with Gator Website Builder

Posted on January 28, 2019 by Hosting

The post 7 Things You Can Do with Gator Website Builder appeared first on HostGator Blog . Choosing the right website builder can be a little overwhelming. You’ve got a lot of options and reviewing the different features in each can lead to as much confusion as it does answers, especially if you’re new to building websites and don’t really know what you’re looking for. To help you out, we’ll explain seven useful things you can do with our new Gator Website Builder in clear terms anyone can understand—no confusing jargon for beginners or vague references to features you don’t really understand, just simple explanations of actions you can take once you invest in Gator. 1. Choose from hundreds of mobile-friendly designs. Part of what makes website builders easy to use is that you can start from a template—that’s a design that gets the basic structure and style of your website in place. Then all you have to do is change what’s there to bring it in line with what you want. Gator provides over 200 templates that have been designed by professionals that each: Are responsive , which means that the template can adapt to whatever browser or device size your visitors come from. You don’t have to do anything extra to make sure your website is mobile friendly, since you’ll be starting with a responsive design. Adhere to web design best practices. You don’t have to learn all the tips for what people respond to best in a website, because our designers have already done that and made sure your website design incorporates what works. Are useful for common website purposes . Whether you’re starting a small jewelry eCommerce business, building a website for your auto shop, or launching a photography blog , you can find a template designed with your purpose in mind. Having a good template to start with goes a long way to making the rest of the process of building your website easier. Gator has you covered on that front.   2. Personalize your website’s style and color scheme. With Gator’s intuitive editing software, you can easily change out the colors of your template to bring them in line with the color scheme you have in mind. Changing colors is as simple as clicking on the element you want to change, clicking on the color icon in the menu, and choosing your color. You can change the general layout of the page by clicking on “Change Design” and selecting from the options provided. You can change the background image, add in visual effects, or even bring an animation component in with the Style section. And you can move different parts of the page by clicking on the element you want to move, dragging it to the place you want it to be, and dropping it there. Even though you start from someone else’s design, you can quickly and easily make the website’s look and style your own with these intuitive features.   3. Load unique images, media, and copy. The other easy way to make the website your own is to add your original images and media to the site. Loading your own logo, photographs, or images you designed yourself is easy enough. You can use them to replace images already in the template, or drag them to the spot you want them to be in. You’ll also need to update the placeholder text in the template with words that accurately reflect what your website is all about and why your visitors should care. Simply highlight the text that’s there and type in new words. Or, to add text where there the template doesn’t have any yet, choose text in the Elements section of the menu and select either heading (for larger text that will introduce a section of the page) or paragraph (for smaller, longer blocks of text that provide more detail).   4. Easily find free stock photos. Images are a crucial component of any website. Not only do they make your web pages look better, but they play a big role in how people interact with them—to the degree that 80% are more likely to read your content if you include an image and they’re 64% more likely to remember what they read. But finding good, affordable images to use for your website can be a difficult and time consuming process. And it’s even more challenging if you’re hoping to stick with images you can use for free—unless you use Gator. Gator comes with dozens of stock images included. Each time you want to add an image to a page, you’ll have the option to click on a tab that says Stock Images, and browse photographs that are divided into useful categories. Easy access to a variety of high-quality images can make your life much easier when designing a new website.   5. Create and manage a blog. Blogs are useful for all sorts of websites. If you’re building a personal site, it’s a good way to share your thoughts with the world. For business sites, blogging is a powerful marketing tool. And for anyone who wants their website to be easy for visitors to find, it’s one of the best ways to help your website show up more often in Google . For anyone using Gator, adding and maintaining a blog is simple. You can choose your blog design and add new posts in the same menu you use for the rest of designing your website. Consistently writing really great blog posts that your visitors will love will still take time and work, but the technical side of things is taken care of when you use Gator.   6. Set up a store. Not everyone building a website needs eCommerce capability, but if you want the ability to sell products or services through your website and securely accept payment, then these features are a must. In Gator, a simple upgrade enables you to list your products, include a shopping cart, and set up a secure checkout experience for your customers. If you want your website to start making you money fast, Gator provides all the functionality you need without requiring any special skills.   7. Track your visits and visitor actions. If you want your website to be successful, you should pay attention to how people interact with it. Gator puts useful website analytics right in the same dashboard you use for the rest of your web design and management, including: The number of people who have visited your site How many of them are visiting for the first time (unique visitors) How many different page visits you got (which tells you how many visitors went to more than one page while on your website) And how many visitors clicked away soon after coming to your website (your bounce rate ) That information will help you understand if your website is doing what you want it to . If you’re not getting as many visitors as you want, you can figure out the best online marketing strategy to make it easier for people to find you. And if people aren’t sticking around or taking the actions you want once they’re on the site, you know to change up how your site looks or what your pages say to see if you get better results.   Get Your Website Going with Gator Website Builder Gator provides advanced capabilities accessible with a beginner’s level of knowledge. And it’s not only affordable, with plans starting at $3.95 a month, but it also comes with web hosting included in the price. That saves you time and trouble, while helping you get your awesome new website up ASAP. Build your website with Gator now. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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How To Start An Online Business in 9 Simple Steps

Posted on January 24, 2019 by Hosting

The post How To Start An Online Business in 9 Simple Steps appeared first on HostGator Blog . Do you have an idea for starting an online business and need help getting online? In the past, all businesses needed physical locations, but as online shopping continues to rise, many people are making successful business on the internet. All you need is a good idea, some startup money, time to get started, and you can start an online business. If you’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur, starting an online business is one of the easiest ways to get your foot in the door. And online businesses, when run well, can be extremely profitable. Ready to get started? Here are the first steps to start an online business. Start with a really great idea. Decide on a business name. Secure a domain name. Determine your income model, and develop a business plan. Select a web hosting package. Build your website. Prepare your inventory. Tell the world! Create and execute your marketing plan. Launch! Download a FREE checklist to chart your progress! Let’s dive in! 1. Start with a Really Great Idea. Since you searched for this article, chances are that you already have an idea for your online business. If you have a business or product idea that you think people will be interested in, confirm that with market research. You can get creative and do a little bit of online market research yourself. For example, a couple of businesses like Ask Your Target Market and GutCheck will connect you with members of your target audience so you can ask them questions directly and gain a better idea of what they’re likely to think of your product. If you already have an idea of your target audience, you can browse forums on Reddit to see what people are talking about. Are there hobby groups on Reddit related to your product? If so, they may talk about new products they would like to see or complaints about an old product. You can use these discussions to help refine your business idea. Or, if you’re looking for direct feedback, consider posting on Reddit about your product or idea and see how people respond to it.   Maybe you want to start an online business for some passive income, but don’t have your idea fully developed yet? That’s okay too. Start by thinking about popular products in a hobby or niche area that you’re familiar with. How can you improve on those products or create a companion product that would make the experience better? Maybe a service offering is more your speed. Consider these trendy online business ideas for your side hustle.   2. Decide on a Business Name. As you’re steadily moving toward the point of your launch, it’s time to determine how your business will appear to the world. If you’ve gotten this far without settling on a name for your online business, then now is the time to make a decision. Choosing a name for your business is hard. The name is the biggest decision to make as you work on your brand, and it’s likely the most important decision since it will set the foundation for your brand and other decisions you will make next.   First, decide what needs to be in your online business name. For example, what keywords do your competitors use in their name? Are there key terms you should use or avoid? For example, your personal training business may get more traction and recognition if “personal training” is in the name versus something vague like “Bill’s Transformations.” After you brainstorm a list of keywords to consider (and keywords to avoid), come up with half a dozen or more business name ideas with your keywords in mind. Next, you’ll need to see which business names are available. Run your list of names through the trademark database search tool at the US Patent and Trademark Office. If your business name idea (or a close variation) is already in use, remove that name from your list of options. Do a similar search on social media and on Google to be sure someone else isn’t already using the name.   3. Secure a Domain Name. You’ve decided on a business name – congrats! Now it’s time to claim your domain name. You’ve spent so much time thoughtfully deciding on the name for your online business, and you don’t want someone else to buy it before you. Even if it may be a few months before you’re ready to start a website, that’s ok. Purchase your domain now so you know it’s safe and ready when you are. Use HostGator’s domain name search tool to see if your top choice is available. Then follow the steps to purchase your domain. If your business name is unique enough, you can go straight for the most obvious choice: YourBrandName.com. If the most obvious domain is already taken, then you may have to get a little creative.  You can either go with one of the other domain extensions like .net or .me, use a hyphen or underscore between words to change things up, or add a minor addition to the name, like “go” at the beginning or a word that clarifies the industry afterward.   4. Determine Your Income Model and Develop a Business Plan. So how will you make money? Are you selling products? Are you launching a blog and need to make money through an affiliate program or referral links? Do you want to earn passive income? Maybe you need investors? The answer may determine the type of website you need (an online store and shopping cart function) or the type of partnerships you’ll need to find (sign up with a website that pays for purchases from referral links). If you need investors to make a profit, a business plan will be one of the most important tools you have for convincing them to buy in. Even if you aren’t explicitly looking for investors, creating a business plan will help you clarify your goals and figure out the specific steps you need to take to achieve them. Make sure your business plan includes an analysis of the competition and a clear positioning statement of where you fit within the market. It should also include information on your target audience, which your market research should have given you a nice head start on collecting. All of that gives you the information you need to make sure your approach is solid. With that in place, you’ll have an easier time working out the chronology of what to do when and what finances and resources you’ll need to complete each step. In short, your business plan should do two key things: Make a case for why your business idea is a good one, and Provide the roadmap to turn your a good idea into something actionable. Even if you never show your business plan to someone else, a business plan can help keep you mentally organized. As your online business grows (or experiences growing pains), your business plan can remind you of your goals and be a guide as you navigate how to approach decisions for the direction of your business.   5. Select Your Web Hosting Package. Website hosting refers to the server space where you website lives. You can choose hosting based on the amount of server space that you need, how fast you want the website to load, or how private you want your online space to be. You can choose 5 main types of web hosting: Shared hosting Cloud hosting Managed hosting for WordPress Virtual Private Servers (VPS) Dedicated servers For more details on the benefits of each package, read this article titled “What type of web hosting do I need?”   or check out the infographic below: Want to share our web hosting infographic? Click to enlarge.   6. Build Your Website. For an online business, your website is everything. You need it to look good, be intuitive to navigate, and make a clear case to visitors why they should buy.  Take time to get it right, and run the finished product by some other people (ideally people in your target audience) to get feedback. Make sure the website design matches with your overall visual branding and your website copy effectively communicates your brand positioning. No previous experience building a website? No problem. HostGator has a drag-and-drop website builder that makes building a website frustration free. It comes loaded with more than 200 free, professional design templates to choose from. Better yet, HostGator’s website builder has eCommerce website functionality. If you have a little more technical knowledge and want more control of what you can do behind the scenes of your content management system, try a WordPress website . You can customize your WordPress website with many paid and free templates that are designed specifically for WordPress. If you’re selling products, don’t forget a shopping cart function.   7. Prepare Your Inventory. Now it’s time to create or stock up on whatever you’re selling. If you’re selling physical items, you want them ready to ship by the time any orders start coming in. If you’re launching a service-based business, this step is where you should clarify your process. If you’re selling digital products, like SaaS software, then you need to make sure the product is ready. Do user testing to ensure that it not only does what you’re claiming it does, but that customers will be able to use it without confusion or difficulty. Obviously this step will vary considerably depending on the type of business you’re launching. Just be sure that, before your actual launch date, you take whatever steps are necessary to ensure you’re ready to start providing what you’re selling by the time your first customer is ready to buy.   8. Tell the World! Create and Execute Your Marketing Plan. Before you actually get going, you should establish your marketing plan. Every business is different and marketing isn’t one size fits all. Because you’re starting an online business, you will want to make use of a mix of content marketing, social media promotion, and paid search promotion.   If you don’t know much about online marketing to start, this may be a step to hire out. There is a learning curve to get started and some mistakes of ignorance can cause serious consequences – you wouldn’t want to find yourself facing a Google penalty due to trying an outdated SEO strategy , for instance. If you don’t have the money for a marketing agency, you can find affordable freelancers on websites like Fiverr . If you really don’t have the funding to outsource your marketing, then take some real time to research online marketing best practices. Sites like Moz , HubSpot and Copyblogger all have good, reliable resources for beginners.   9. Launch! Launch day will be a big day for your new online business. If your website isn’t already live, then you’ll definitely want it up and running on launch day. You should put out a press release , set up any PR interviews you can get, announce the launch on social media, and start your marketing campaigns. And you should be prepared to start filling orders and fielding any questions that come through. Your first day in business is a big day, but your success will depend on what you do for every day that comes after.  Be prepared to work hard, learn as you go, and make a point of providing great customer service. Running an online business isn’t easy, but if you take the right steps and do the work, the rewards can be great.   Ready to start your online business? Step 1:  Download our FREE checklist to stay on track! Step 2: Build your website with HostGator. Step 3: Launch! Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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How to find out which theme a WordPress site is using?

Posted on January 24, 2019 by Hosting

The post How to find out which theme a WordPress site is using? appeared first on HostGator Blog . Have you ever come across a website that you simply loved in terms of design and functionality? Better yet, have you ever found a website that you were so impressed with, you felt you just had to have it for yourself ( with your own branding elements, unique style and content of course! )? If you find yourself wanting to give your WordPress website a makeover, without starting over from scratch and re-doing everything from blog posts to pages, media uploads to comments, you’re in luck. All you have to do is change your site’s WordPress theme. In fact, WordPress is popular in part because its design is so flexible and can be changed at any moment, without affecting too much of your site’s foundation. Finding a fellow WordPress website that you want to draw inspiration from is great – until you realize you have no idea what WordPress theme it’s using . That’s why today I am going to walk you through how to manually find which theme any WordPress website is using , as well as share some helpful online tools that may speed up the process for you, so you can start your site redesign right away. So, let’s get started. How to Find the Theme of Any WordPress Website There are many online tools dedicated to helping you determine what theme WordPress websites are using ( more on those later ). But the problem is, sometimes website owners change the name of their WordPress themes, preventing these tools from recognizing the theme they’re using and spilling the beans to you. That’s why knowing how to manually find the theme of a WordPress website is so helpful. And the best part is, it’s not that hard to do! Each WordPress theme has what’s called a style.css file. This file contains information about the theme in use such as the name of the theme, the theme author, the stylesheet URL, the theme version, and more. It also has the CSS styles used by the theme. This file is what you need to find if you want to learn what theme a WordPress site is using. Step 1: Find the Style.CSS File The first thing you’ll want to do is go to the WordPress website you love. For this example, I’ll use my very own website https://www.websitehostingrating.com. Next, right click anywhere on the screen of the website you’re investigating. From the options available, choose the one labeled “ Inspect .” Note – You can click on the “View Page Source” option as well, though I find that Inspect Element makes searching for the specific theme file a whole lot easier. That said, if you do choose to use the View Page Source option, you can always use Ctrl + F ( on Windows ) or Cmd + F ( on Mac ) to open a search bar near the bottom to find the style.css file. Step 2: Inspect the CSS File When you click on Inspect Element, you’ll see a bunch of crazy looking code appear at the bottom of the screen. Don’t panic, you don’t need to understand all of this. All you need to do is find a line of code that looks something like this: This is the theme’s stylesheet – the css file. The easiest way to find this line is to enter the word “theme”, “style.css” or something similar into the search bar and click enter. This should bring up the line of code you’re looking for. In the above image, the line of code we’re looking for is highlighted in blue. Now, this bit of code may be enough for you to find the information you want, which is the name of the theme being used on the website. For instance, you can see that I use the theme Academy Pro , which happens to be a StudioPress theme built on the Genesis Framework . Notice the places the name Academy Pro appears. If you didn’t know that Academy Pro was a WordPress theme offhand, a simple Google search will bring it right up for you. If you’re looking for more information about the theme, you might be able to click on the URL in the style.css file and see data such as the theme’s URL or author. When you do this, it should look something like this: Theme Name: Academy Pro Theme URI: https://my.studiopress.com/themes/academy/ Description: The theme for online course creators, membership site owners, and educational content marketers. Author: StudioPress Author URI: https://www.studiopress.com/   Unfortunately, because WordPress themes are all different, and the code that comes with each theme file differs too, you may end up seeing a screen like this: I don’t know about you, but I have the theme name and that’s enough for me! I should also mention that this method won’t work for custom made themes or where the site owner has renamed, or deleted, the name of the WordPress theme he or she is using. Using an Online Tool to Determine a WordPress Theme Now that you know how to manually find the theme of any WordPress website out there, it’s time to make things easier by using an online theme detector tool. There are plenty of online WordPress detection tools to choose from, but in my opinion these two are the most accurate: WP Theme Detector WP Sniffer (Google Chrome extension) They both work really well, however some of them will also report the plugins that are being used on a website, which can be really helpful for that added functionality you might be after in your site’s redesign. For our example, I’ll use WP Theme Detector and see what pops up when I enter the URL: https://www.websitehostingrating.com . As you can see, this online tool determined that I am using the Academy Pro WordPress theme, which is a child theme of the Framework Genesis, which is authored by StudioPress, all of which I already determined manually. And there you have it! You now know how to manually find the theme any WordPress website is using should you want to look into using the same theme for your own website. And if you’re lucky, and the code is correct, you can find this information even faster using a free online tool such as WP Theme Detector and begin your site redesign right away! Have you ever had to manually determine the theme being used on a WordPress website? I would love to hear all about it in the comments below! Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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8 Best Apps to Process Credit Cards on Your Website

Posted on January 23, 2019 by Hosting

The post 8 Best Apps to Process Credit Cards on Your Website appeared first on HostGator Blog . The internet makes it easier than ever to start a business or reach a larger clientele for the business you already have. But one of the most basic things you need in order to make money online is a way to accept payments on your website. In this article we review the top apps for processing credit card payments on your website, and walk you through how to choose the right app for your site. What You Need in a Payment Processing App No matter what type of business you’re in—or even if you’re just a blogger ready to accept donations— to accept payments through your website, you need to make sure of two things:   1. It’s secure. If people are going to give you their sensitive financial information, it’s your responsibility to make sure that doing so doesn’t put them at risk. You have to take the proper precautions to make sure you can accept payments securely. That means investing in basic security measures like an SSL certificate and security software , and using a reliable program for processing payments. Some hosting providers offer security packages that cover most of your bases, and picking the right credit card processing app will cover the rest.   2. It’s easy. Convenience is key when selling online. People aren’t going to take the time to write a check and put it in the mail or provide their bank account information for a transfer. In short, you have to accept credit cards. All of the best online payment processing apps make this possible and keep it convenient for your customers.   8 Top Credit Card Processing Apps for Websites Luckily, there’s a whole industry of products designed specifically to enable websites to safely and easily accept online payments. Here are eight of your top choices.   1. Flint Flint was specifically developed with small businesses in mind, so it’s easy to use and affordable. They promise security measures that are in compliance with PCI standards. And you can easily get it setup on your website within minutes, without having to use any coding. Their Pro plan costs $99.99 a year and allows for unlimited online sales.   2. Flagship Merchant Services Flagship ’s online payment product enables processing f or all major credit cards, as well as bank transfers. As with other payment processing apps, they offer a secure and convenient transaction process. They also have features to make recurring billing easier for repeat and subscription customers, and can be set up to sync with Quickbooks to easily import your sales details into the accounting software. They offer a number of pricing models that businesses can choose based on what works best for the way you do business.     3. Stripe S tripe ’s payment processing app allows you to accept both credit cards and wallets (like Google Pay and Apple Pay). They have a UI toolkit that lets you build your own checkout form. And they use an encryption process for security that’s in compliance with all the highest industry standards. They price per credit card transaction, with each sale costing 30 cents, plus 2.9% of the total charge.     4. Braintree Braintree  allows you to accept payments via credit cards, PayPal, Venmo and wallets.  They offer both a drop-in UI you can use to easily set up your checkout process, or a custom UI that allows you to tailor the details. They offer Level 1 PCI compliance for security, as well as additional features you can use for fraud protection. And they have features that make it easy to save billing info for repeat customers to make check out easier. They charge a per transaction fee of 30 cents, plus 2.9% of the total purchase.   5. 2Checkout 2Checkout ’s shopping cart product is easy to get set up and provides both an inline cart you can use that’s designed to be intuitive, and a gallery of different templates you can work from if you want a different cart design. All of their cart options are responsive, so you can count on them to work seamlessly on mobile as well as desktop. They accept payments from all the major credit cards, Paypal, Apple Pay, and bank transfers, and can process payments from all over the world. Their fees start at 3.5%, plus 35 cents for each sale.     6. PayPal Payments Pro The familiar brand for all types of online payments and money transfers also provides a product for accepting eCommerce payments through a website.  PayPal Payments Pro allows you to accept payments using credit cards or PayPal accounts. They offer a customizable API, if you want to create a particular checkout experience, and provide the option of financing, which can be useful for businesses selling big ticket items. They charge $30 per month, plus 30 cents and 2.9% for each transaction.   7. Authorize Authorize promises advanced fraud protection using a number of filters (velocity, IP, shipping, and transaction) to help you avoid scammers. They process all major credit cards, Apple Pay, PayPal, and Visa checkout. And they make recurring and repeat payments easier for customers. Getting set up is as simple as copying and pasting some html code into your site. The app costs $25 monthly, as well as 2.9% and 30 cents per charge.   8. Payline Payline promises PCI compliance for data security, as well as fraud protection features. They allow you to accept all major credit card options, as well as ACH transfers. They also offer free subscription billing features and integration with over 175 online shopping cart products. They charge a $10 monthly fee, as well as a 20 cent per transaction fee, and 2.3% for all credit card charges.   Get Paid Quickly and Easily The last thing you want is to make your customers feel like they’re jumping through hoops to give you their money. These payment processing apps make the purchasing process on your website quick and painless, so you get a higher conversion rate and more profits. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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