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7 Marketing Goals for Your E-commerce Website in 2019

Posted on November 18, 2018 by Hosting

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

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Customer Appreciation Guide: How to Show Your Customers You Are Thankful For Them

Posted on November 17, 2018 by Hosting

The post Customer Appreciation Guide: How to Show Your Customers You Are Thankful For Them appeared first on HostGator Blog . For many businesses, the holiday season starts with Black Friday. Or, really the season starts far ahead of Black Friday, as you’ve likely spent months planning your holiday sales strategy. Thanksgiving may seem like your last moment of calm before the storm. But don’t fall into the trap of missing the purpose of the day before Black Friday – giving thanks. Spend time reflecting on all the blessings and opportunities in your life, and also remember the people who make your business possible – customers. Without customers – especially loyal customers – your business wouldn’t be able to thrive. Here are some ideas for how to show your customers that you are thankful for them. 1. Do a customer spotlight. One way to show that you are thankful for your customers is to prove that you know who they are. What better way than to talk to your customers personally? Consider doing a monthly customer spotlight to showcase the people who make your business great. Start with your most loyal or frequent customers. Conduct a short interview with them and get permission for a quick spotlight for your website or social media. You can learn valuable insights by meeting your customers, learning more about what they like, and what they expect from your business. Added bonus? The customer spotlight can also act like a review or customer testimonial so potential customers can read about why customers like your business. 2.  Hold a monthly giveaway for customers that subscribe to your email list. One way to show your customers you appreciate them is to reward them for being loyal. Costa Del Mar offers a unique customer appreciation – they do a weekly drawing for a pair of sunglasses, exclusive to their email subscribers. Not only is this a great way to encourage customers to sign up for your emails, but it gives them a reason to stay engaged and encourages them to continue opening your emails. In turn, increasing your email open rate will boost your deliverability and decrease your odds of showing up in a spam inbox. 3. Offer a “next purchase” discount. Before purchasing something online, many customers go to their email inbox first to look for coupons. Check out this example of a next purchase coupon that was sent after a customer’s first purchase on the Dick’s Sporting Goods website. Offering a “next purchase” coupon is a great way to let customers know you are thankful for their purchase and will encourage them to become repeat customers. 4. Send a handwritten thank you note. Who doesn’t love receiving “snail mail”? With the convenience of email, the act of sending a handwritten note in the mail is no longer common place. However, a handwritten note can go a long way to show that you are thankful for someone and took time out of your day to pause and think of them. Imagine how much more surprising it would be to receive a note from your favorite store after a recent purchase! Small businesses can really capitalize on this idea by sending a quick note after a customer visits the store for the first time in several months. Or if a customer makes a large purchase tied to a specific life event. For example, you could send a short note to say: “Thanks for letting us style you for your new job. We wish you all the best and hope you love wearing these new clothes at work!” 5. Host an in-store social event. Throw a party for your customers! Consider a grand re-opening party or a launch of a new product line or menu. A fun event with free drinks and food can encourage customers to come in, chat with you, and see new products for the holiday season. Try to host this event early in the season before your customers get busy. Or, better yet, as a new year’s party! Either way, make the event about appreciating our customers rather than sales. Offer free giveaways for attending, early launch discounts, pre purchase exclusives, and more. If the event is about fun and appreciation, sales and customer loyalty will follow naturally! If you don’t have a storefront, you can still take advantage of the event idea. For HostGator’s 16th birthday, we hosted an online event celebrating our customers and our success as a small startup. To honor the “moment” we held a birthday sale celebrating and supporting customers. You can create an online event for anything – consider a cyber sale, preorder event for a new product launch, celebrate your new website redesign, or simply create a customer appreciation sale. 6. Make their to-do list shorter. Holiday shopping can be overwhelming. It seems like there are never enough hours in the day to accomplish everything on the to-do list, especially when it comes to finding the perfect gift for everyone. You can show your customers that you appreciate them by making their shopping process easier. Maybe you can offer free in-store gift wrapping. Or offer call-ahead curbside pickup for orders purchased online.  Or simply have extra staff on hand during busy hours of the day so customers spend less time in line. You can even create an online gift guide so customers can quickly shop by categories based on who or what they are shopping for. 7. Tell them. This may seem like an obvious one, but sometimes we get so caught up in “doing” that we forget to simply say – “Thank you. I appreciate you. You’re important to me.” Customers that feel appreciated and valued will always find ways to return to the businesses that treat them well. Create a greeting of appreciation that your staff can use when interacting with customers. And always tell your customers “thank you” when you can. What do you think? Has a business or store made you feel appreciated in a unique way? What other “ways to say thank you” would you add to this list? If you try one of these ways to say thank you, email us at hg-blog@hostgator.com and let us know how your customers responded. Oh. And thank you for being part of the HostGator community! Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Web Hosting for Blogs: Everything You Need to Know

Posted on November 16, 2018 by Hosting

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

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5 Benefits of Using a Website Builder for Blogs

Posted on November 13, 2018 by Hosting

The post 5 Benefits of Using a Website Builder for Blogs appeared first on HostGator Blog . Website builders for blogs make it easy to publish your content. As a blogger, you’re already tasked with creating and promoting your work. The last thing you want to worry about is building your website from scratch. Haris Bacic , a Forbes contributor, writes: “Creating a website for your business doesn’t have to be a headache and it certainly doesn’t require hiring an expensive design agency to create it for you. Depending on the type of business you own, there are several quick and affordable solutions.” Should you use a website builder for your blog? Here are five benefits to consider right now.   1. Quick Setup A blogger’s focus is creating compelling content for their readers. You need to craft creative topics, design beautiful images, and maybe even record a video (or two).   Your time is limited, and you shouldn’t waste it constructing a site. With website builders, you don’t have to learn how to code or hire a website designer . Website builders cater to first-time site owners and beginners. There’s no stressing about fixing  a HTML error. You could literally set up your site during a lunch break. For example, HostGator’s setup is simple and quick. You can either register a new domain or enter an existing one. Then, you can select a hosting plan and any additional services, like hack alert monitoring or site backup . Website builders also make it effortless to brand your blog. You can add a favicon—a branded icon—in the address bar and browser tab for your visitors to see. It’s a clever way to give your blog a more professional look. If you sign up with HostGator, you’ll also receive 24/7/365 support. The friendly support team will answer your questions and help you resolve any issues. A quick setup means more time doing what you love. Website builders for blogs decrease the technical difficulty.   2 Affordability Whether you’re a seasoned or novice blogger, you don’t need to bruise your bank account to create a website. Your goal is to find an affordable option that will help you communicate with your audience. A few decades ago, developing a website required a tech guru. You would book an appointment with an agency, go to the business’s downtown offices, and talk with their experts about the look and feel of your desired site. This complicated process meant expensive rates. The professionals even charged you for making monthly updates. Bloggers depleted a lot resources to exist on the World Wide Web. With website builders, you’re in control. Now, it doesn’t make sense to squander your time and money with an overpriced specialist. It’s worth it to utilize a website builder . “Be realistic with what’s essential for your website…A DIY website builder will more than suffice. A majority of individuals and businesses looking to build a website will fall into this category…Rest assured, building your website is affordable and doesn’t have to break the bank,” writes Entrepreneur contributor Ana R. Alvarado . When comparing website builders, go beyond primary features. Figure out if the hosting provider offers multiple email accounts, a one-click application installation, or a money-back guarantee.   3. Pre-Designed Templates Visuals are a key component when developing your website. You want an eye-catching design that sparks visitors’ interests. Then, you can lure them in with your original content. The cost of hiring a website designer can get pricey, ranging anywhere from $300 to $5,000. It can take several weeks to produce a custom design that fits your business’s needs. The whole process also can leave you overwhelmed. Pre-designed templates remove that anxiety. You don’t have to constantly contact someone to make simple changes. You can modify the color scheme, font choice, and images when you see fit. Check out the pre-designed template below. HostGator provides a selection of more than 100   mobile-friendly website themes , plus an image library. The drag and drop functionality makes it trouble-free for non-coders. With pre-built sections and pages, you have an array of customization options so you can fully customize and categorize your site. There are no limits on how to develop a site suitable for your audience. Test out your design to ensure it’s delivering the right message. You can run a beta test asking a few consumers for their opinions via a short survey. Then, you can use that input to make improvements. Website builders help you skip the drama when it comes to design. Pre-designed templates offer bloggers the convenience to choose what’s best for them.   4. SEO Tools Getting your website up and running is only the beginning. The next step is to draw attention to your blog and persuade users to actually visit. Search engine optimization (SEO) is one method of earning more visitors. By raising your organic search traffic, you can convert the occasional visitor into a frequent blog reader. HostGator’s SEO tools can provide you with easy-to-follow insights and analytics that help improve your search rankings, boost your website traffic, and monitor local competition. “The best way to start is to build a website that is SEO-friendly. Website-building software that caters to this will help your site rankings to be boosted through allowing you to add and edit title tags, meta tags, and meta descriptions, at a bare minimum,” states Inc. contributor Bubba Page . SEO is more than stuffing keywords into a blog post. It involves doing research to find relevant keywords, optimizing your images, and linking to authoritative sources. Also, consider the permalink structure —how visitors locate your blog and its internal blog posts. After your blog setup, be sure to do experiments and measure the results. SEO isn’t a one-time tactic; it’s an ongoing strategy that needs fine-tuning. Focusing on SEO is essential for growing your readership.   5. Ecommerce Shopping Cart Some bloggers don’t set out to make money with their words. And that’s fine. It starts as a hobby and surprisingly leads to a full-time business. Statista reports that an estimated 1.66 billion users worldwide purchased goods online in 2017. eCommerce opens doors for small businesses to market their products to a global audience. If you’re expanding into eCommerce, one of the first steps is to decide what you will sell to your readers. As a food blogger , you might sell your latest cookbook. A lifestyle blogger may sell unique jewelry. It’s really up to your imagination and the purchasing desires of your shoppers. HostGator makes it painless to manage your store. With a convenient dashboard, you can view recent orders and total monthly sales. Before launching your eCommerce store, you’ll also want to think about how you will ship your products, payment options for customers, and your refund policy. These factors play a critical role in how you run your business.   Starting can be a fun adventure, but if you ever feel exhausted, find ecommerce communities online.  Your local library may be a powerful resource, too. When you’re ready, you can turn your blog into a business. Use the eCommerce shopping cart add-on to monitor your incoming sales.   Blogging with a Website Builder Creating a site shouldn’t be a worry for bloggers. Website builders exist to make the process of publishing content easier. Look for a website builder for blogs that offers quick setup. You want pre-designed templates, so you don’t have to spend money on hiring a web designer. The e-commerce shopping cart also lets you expand your blogging into a business. Start your blog today. Choose HostGator as your website builder. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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How Create a Successful Blog Business in 2019 in 5 Steps

Posted on November 12, 2018 by Hosting

The post How Create a Successful Blog Business in 2019 in 5 Steps appeared first on HostGator Blog . With more than a billion active websites and blogs on the internet today, there are more than enough resources and guides on there on how to start a website or blog. The problem with the majority of these, is that they are either outdated, self-fulfilling and just trying to make money off a lead, or they simply don’t provide the value their audience is looking for. Today I have a wonderful reference guide for you that is different from the rest. Not only is there no fluff, it’s also loaded with great actionable content to help you build a blog, brand, and business for 2019. I previously wrote a great resource on how to turn your blog into a profitable business , but what I didn’t cover in detail was the base structure and foundation for how to get there in the first place. That is what we are going to explore today. Let’s get started and create something amazing! 1. Analyze Your Potential Niche and All Big Competitors First things first: Plan out why you are launching a new website or blog, how it’s going to provide value to your audience, and also how it will make money. These are all key metrics that you should know before getting started, as it will make the whole creation and promotion process a lot easier. To accomplish this, you need to analyze the competition and see what’s already working, how you can make it better, and discover who is the right audience. To get started, ask yourself the following: Why am I creating a blog in the first place? How can I serve better value than the competition? What are the best long tail keywords to rank for? What is the best way to monetize my content? Once you have answers to these questions, you can then start scanning through Google and searching for your competition and seeing what they are doing. You can also use tools like Google Trends, Ahrefs, SEMRush, Ubersuggest and other SEO analysis tools to give you an idea of where your blog and business idea should be headed.   2. Pick a Great Domain Name and Set Up Your Web Hosting The domain name for your blog is important. Not just from a branding and SEO aspect, but also because you are going to be stuck with it for the life of your site. With that being said, take the time to research a good domain name and don’t just pick the first one that is available. To get started, run a simple domain search and see what’s available. Anything simple and generic is going to be taken, but here are a few tips to help you out along the way. Stick with .com, .net, or .org — no one likes the other variations. Stay away from numbers and dashes in your domain name. Register your personal name if it’s available, even if just for future use. Make sure your domain is easy to spell and remember. If you keep coming up at a loss for what domain name to register, you can also perform a Google search to look for domain name generators  and  domain expiration services . You may even decide to purchase a domain from its current owner .  A decent com/net/org domain name could run up to a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars, but if it’s perfect for your business or blog idea, then it might very well be worth the initial investment. When it comes to web hosting, don’t spend too long trying to understand how the complex world of web hosting works. Something as simple as a shared hosting plan with HostGator is more than fine. Should your site grow in size and need more features or server power, you can upgrade to a better plan at anytime.   3. Go Live with 3 to 7 Initial Articles on Your Site “Content is king,” or so they say. However, you need to remember that there are now more than a billion active websites and blogs on the internet today — all of which are creating new content and flooding the search results. This means more competition, and increased time, money and effort spent on ranking. With this in mind, I want you to focus on only creating 3 to 7 different articles for your site when going live. These should be “pillar” content articles that are at least 1,800-2,000 words long and have real value. Also be sure that they are full of nice stats, authority references, data sheets or charts, and anything else you can include to make them look great. If you are really willing to put the work in, I would recommend adding a nice video, infographic, or any other custom designs you can add in. Remember, these should be relevant to whatever the purpose of your blog, brand, or business is, so you can reference them as a reliable source time and time again.  We’ll get to the importance of all of this in the next section.   4. Start Promoting Your Content to the Masses This is actually going to be the most important part of this whole process—and the potential deciding factor in the eventual success of your blog. Most people think it’s the content creation that will make your site, but it’s actually the promotion . As I mentioned earlier, it’s best to go live with your site when you have around 3-7 articles live. Just make sure these are really great articles that you can reference to time and time again. Now, when it comes to the actual promotion of the content on your site, you have a few options. I recommend you take a look at this content promotion expert roundup , that’s loaded up with a ton of ideas on how to effectively promote your content, many of which are free! Some of the most effective methods include: Guest blogging on other relevant websites and blogs Using social profiles and platforms to grow backlinks Starting a podcast and interviewing other experts Creating custom infographics and submitting to directories Analyzing competitor sites and creating better content 404 broken link building and outreach to sites As you can see, each of these methods are very unique, but also free. More than anything else, they will simply take your time and effort.   5. Further Explore Your Industry and Monetization Options Jump forward a few weeks or months, and you should have everything above in place. Your site will likely also have some nice organic and social media traffic flowing to your site. With the focus on promoting just a handful of articles on your site, these should be creeping up in the search results daily as well. Now it’s time to take a look at everything you have in place, and how to make it even better. Beyond exploring different topics and reference guides you can create for your site, you should also be exploring new media mentions and link building options as well. Here are 70+ more ideas to start scaling in different directions. Monetization is also a big focus now as well. With traffic flowing through your site, you can start testing different call to actions, affiliate offers, sales copy, and how your audience is reacting to your content. To truly master the art of making money online with a website or blog, you need to put in the time to split test and find new improvements and opportunities daily. This is something that will take place during the life of your site.   Ready, Set… GO! Exciting stuff, right? I always love creating new sites and projects, as you never know what they might lead to in the coming months and years. No matter what your expertise is, how many sites you’ve created, or even if you’re a complete newbie… this is a simple five step formula that results in success time and time again. Enough about me and my advice for creating something potentially life-changing and amazing. Now it’s time for YOU to take action and make things happen! Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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