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The 5 Pages Every Website Needs
The post The 5 Pages Every Website Needs appeared first on HostGator Blog . Your website is an important part of your business. Without it, you can lose potential customers and miss out on revenue. Whether you sell jewelry or counseling services, your site must tell a compelling story of who you are, how you can help visitors, what you offer, and how people can contact you. This virtual welcome gives people peace of mind. At a minimum, you’ll want to include five specific pages on your website to do this. 5 Pages Every Website Needs Do you have them all? Read below. 1. Homepage The homepage is where all the action happens on your site. It’s the first thing visitors see, and it determines if an individual will browse around or say goodbye. When crafting your homepage, you must think from the customer’s perspective. From navigation bars to images to copy, you control your visitors’ first impression. Visitors should clearly understand the objective of your homepage in just a few seconds. You want them to see your logo with a visible call-to-action button. CarMax implements this strategy flawlessly with simple copy and a self-explanatory header photo. Both new visitors and returning customers get user-friendly directions. Avoid cluttering your homepage with multiple, irrelevant images. You also don’t want outrageous color patterns. Represent your small business well by aiming for simplicity in your design . If you’re creating a new site or rebuilding an old one, get feedback from your potential visitors. Running a small soft launch will give you incredible insight to enhance your homepage. Your homepage should improve how visitors perceive your small business. It’s your gateway to raising brand awareness and gaining more conversions. 2. About Page The About page is an opportunity to elaborate on your brand’s vision and accomplishments. Be bold in your statements and discuss how your goals will help customers. Storytelling is pivotal for this page. You want readers to relate to your brand values, join your journey, and share the message with their family members and friends. “An About us page is meant to connect emotionally with people. Hence, when you own a story that tells how you have touched lives, say it loud to the world. Such content humanizes your business supplying meaning and context for your product,” says Prince Kapoor , a digital marketing analyst at LoginRadius. Rent the Runway uses its About page to share the company’s vision and mission. It discusses why the co-founders started the brand and gives an explanation for their relentless confidence. Then, it concludes with an open-ended question for the reader. Consider adapting your About page to fit your audience’s needs. You may want to write it in multiple languages or make it easy to read with a timeline graph. 3. Products or Services Page The products and services page is the crux of most websites. It should convert a casual visitor into a frequent shopper. Rightfully so, you want to spend a considerable amount of time improving this page for the customer experience. When crafting a product description, you’ll want to sell the benefits, not the features. Tell a vivid story that emphasizes how buyers will feel after purchasing your product. You want them to feel a part of the product before they even receive it. Product photography plays an integral role, too. Highlight multiple angles of the product and allow users to zoom in and out. When applicable, shoot a short video to strengthen the visual experience. Bobbi Brown Cosmetics ’ product page offers a sleek, modern design. You don’t have to squint your eyes to see the product items. Shoppers also can visibly see the product’s star rating and price. If you sell services , write the same elaborate descriptions. Give your customers context into how you deliver your services. For example, a hairdresser may spotlight the in-store experience of a serene ambience with immediate service. 4. Blog Page The blog represents a major platform for your brand to talk directly with customers. You can feature product updates, the latest trends, and respond to buyers’ FAQs. Successful blogs are ongoing journeys, not destinations. Your blog must capture visitors’ attention and take them on your unique brand adventure. For instance, you may give them a behind-the-scenes look at product design or record a testimonial video with a happy customer. “Your blog posts can demonstrate your expertise in a particular subject area by sharing high-quality and relevant information with your readers. Over time, you can become known as a go-to resource that provides consistent and useful information,” writes Alyssa Gregory , an entrepreneur, writer, and marketer. The Slack blog coincides with the brand’s mission to be a collaboration hub. You can read articles about product tips, work culture, and productivity. It’s a true reflection of teamwork. In your blog, stay away from using your every post to sell products. Customers will quickly get annoyed and visit your competitor’s site. Instead, offer your visitors solutions and inspire them to live better. 5. Contact Page Communication helps build solid relationships with your customers. You get to learn about their needs and desires as it relates to your products. Plus, it opens the door to receiving critical feedback. Think of your contact page as a customer support tool. The priority is to deliver a superb service, no matter the visitor’s reason. You want customers to get accurate information as well. Depending on your type of business, you may post the brand’s physical address, email address, or phone number. If you have a live chat option, please express the availability of the support agents on the page. When customers land on Burger King’s contact page, they see an option to receive free food for completing a survey. They also can leave a message or call the fast food chain’s headquarters. Your contact page should be easily accessible. You don’t want customers clicking through five different pages to connect with your business. The contact page is the perfect spot to set customer expectations. Let your visitors know your response time and commit to that promise. Upgrade Your Website Educate your visitors with key information about your business. Your website is an effective tool to boost brand awareness and earn more sales. Upgrade your site with all the pertinent pages. Get started building your website today. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading
Posted in HostGator, Hosting, VodaHost
Tagged action, business, customers, family, hostgator, hosting, pages-every, visitors, vodahost, web hosting tips, website-needs
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Benefits of Joomla Hosting
The post Benefits of Joomla Hosting appeared first on HostGator Blog . When you’re building your website, one of the big decisions you face is which web hosting plan to choose. As you research your different options, you’ll find that there are a lot of different types of web hosting plans out there. It can be a little confusing figuring out what’s what. Along with navigating the details of how a shared plan differs from a VPS, there’s also a whole category of application web hosting plans to consider. One of these is Joomla hosting . What is Joomla Hosting? Joomla hosting is a web hosting plan that provides compatibility with the content management system Joomla. For businesses and individuals that decide to build their website using Joomla, a Joomla hosting plan is a logical choice to ensure that your web hosting plan works well with the main system you use to run and maintain your website. What is Joomla? The reasons to consider a Joomla hosting plan probably won’t make much sense to you if you’re not already familiar with Joomla. Joomla is one of the most popular content management systems available. Over 2 million websites are powered by Joomla, and it falls only behind WordPress in popularity. If you’re still not sure what all that means, you should start by learning what a content management system is . What is a Content Management System? A content management system, regularly shortened to CMS in casual usage, is a type of software that allows people to create, edit, organize, and publish content online using an intuitive interface. For the many people who want to build and run a website, but don’t know the proper coding languages to build something from scratch, a CMS is a much easier option for creating a new website and making updates to it over time. In addition to providing ease of use, a CMS also provides the website owner control over the amount of access to allow different contributors to have. For businesses or media sites where a number of different people are involved in making updates and changes to the site, a CMS lets you decide what changes you’re comfortable allowing each person to make, and set a limitation on what they can do accordingly. That can save you from a contributor making big changes to your website without permission, or accidentally doing something that breaks an important page on the site. For any website that will publish a large amount of content—blogs, media sites, or businesses doing content marketing, for instance—a CMS platform is a valuable tool for managing all the content you’ve created. Because you can provide access to multiple people, it enables collaboration between the content creators, editors, designers, and anyone else who will be involved in a particular piece of content. You can use your CMS to keep track of which pieces of content are in draft form, scheduled for a future date, and already published. The functionality a CMS provides also helps you stay organized and on top of your content calendar. How Does Joomla Measure Up to Other Content Management Systems? If that all sounds like something you want when creating your website and updating it over time, then you should know Joomla is just one of several options. Joomla is one of the three main content management systems that dominate the CMS market; the other two are WordPress and Drupal. Before you can choose a CMS, you must know the differences between WordPress vs. Joomla vs. Drupal to see which one is the best option for you and your website. WordPress is the most popular CMS and widely regarded as being the easiest to use, particularly for beginners. WordPress hosting solutions are also available. Drupal is the third most popular and known for having a steep learning curve that makes it better for skilled developers than for beginners. But the added difficulty of Drupal comes with the potential for more power and customization options for those who know what they’re doing. Joomla falls directly between the two in popularity, ease of use, and functionality. It’s still an accessible option for beginners, although will take a little more time and work to learn than WordPress. By using the thousands of Joomla extensions available, you can add a wide range of features and functionality to your website, making it a flexible option that allows for extensive customization. Notably, all three options are available for free, but with plugins, Joomla extensions, or themes that sometimes come at a cost. And all three have a solid community of users who provide support and resources about how to use the CMS. They’re all good options, but for businesses that want a little more functionality than WordPress and are prepared to spend a little more time learning, but don’t have the level of skill required for Drupal, Joomla is the best choice. 5 Benefits of the Joomla Hosting Platform If you decide Joomla is the right CMS for you, you still need to decide on your web hosting plan. Joomla provides the structure for building and updating your website, but doesn’t offer hosting services. While most web hosting plans you consider will work for a Joomla site, seeking out a application web hosting plan rather than a typical web hosting plan can provide some unique benefits. Choosing Joomla vs. Drupal or WordPress hosting solutions will mean you can count on a few main things over the other CMS platforms. 1. Installation will be easy. Adding Joomla to a Joomla hosting account will typically mean one-click installation. You don’t have to worry about a lengthy process of connecting your Joomla account to your web hosting one. Within a couple of minutes, everything will be in place for you use and you’ll be ready to publish your Joomla-built website to the web. 2. Adding Joomla to your account will be free. While web hosting plans come at a cost, when you use Joomla hosting you can be confident that using Joomla with your web hosting plan won’t add any additional cost or fees to your subscription. Your web hosting cost will remain the amount you agreed to for the plan, even after you connect your accounts. 3. You can count on compatibility. The last thing you want is to figure out the web hosting plan you choose has compatibility issues with the CMS you built your entire website on. When you choose Joomla hosting for a website built with Joomla, you know right from the start that the two accounts will work well together. Your web hosting plan will have no problem accommodating your Joomla site, and your work in Joomla won’t cause any problems with your web hosting. 4. Making updates will be intuitive. One of the big benefits of using Joomla is that it makes all the ongoing updates you’ll need to make to your website—big and small—easy to do yourself, without having to call on a web development professional to help. With the right Joomla hosting plan, you can ensure that all the updates you make to your website are still easy with Joomla, and any updates you need to make to your hosting plan will be simple and intuitive as well. 5. You have two sources for helpful support. If you’re not an expert on building and running a website—and maybe even if you are—you’ll hit up against issues working on your website where you need help. When you use Joomla to build your website, you gain access to a large community of Joomla users who provide help and support in the Joomla forum, in Joomla user groups that meet around the world, and at a number of events and conferences that are all about Joomla. And that’s in addition to the educational materials like courses and tutorials that are readily available online. With a good Joomla hosting provider, you also gain access to a committed customer support team who can help you out with many additional aspects of keeping your website working the way you want. This is especially valuable if you go with a web hosting provider that offers 24/7 customer support or provides additional skilled services to help out with things like SEO , PPC , or web design . Even with an intuitive web hosting plan and CMS like Joomla, many aspects of running a website can be difficult, so having multiple sources you can turn to for help is a valuable benefit. 5 Things to Look for in a Joomla Hosting Plan If you’ve decided that you want to use Joomla and invest in a Joomla hosting plan for your website, there are a few main features to consider in your search. 1. Scalability When choosing a Joomla hosting provider, you have to think about what you need today, but you’ll make a better long-term choice if you also consider what you could need in the future. Determine whether the web hosting company you go with provides room to grow. Will it be easy to upgrade your plan down the line if your website starts getting a lot more traffic, or if you decide to expand your website to include features that require a higher level of bandwidth? Figure out what type of plan best meets your needs today, but also look at some of the other plan options your provider offers. Do they look like a good fit for where you want your Joomla website to be in five years? Ten? 2. 24/7 Support A good web hosting provider will make a lot of what you need to do through your web hosting account simple and intuitive. But nonetheless, you may well have times where you need a little help figuring out how to do something or fixing a problem that’s not working right. When that happens, you want to get ahold of someone that knows how to help and can provide the information you need fast. Any web hosting provider you choose (as long as they offer paid plans), should provide customer support. But also check to see if the support they provide is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And check some hosting reviews to see if their customer support team has a reputation for having a good track record. The quality and accessibility of the customer support you receive can make a big difference in how satisfied you are with a Joomla hosting provider. 3. 99% Uptime Uptime is the term used in the web hosting industry to describe the amount of time your website is accessible to visitors on the web. Because web hosting servers occasionally have to go offline for maintenance, no company can promise 100% uptime. And web servers can go offline for a number of additional reasons, such as hackers, improper maintenance, parts breaking, or web servers being affected physically by extreme weather conditions like flooding. Part of what you pay a Joomla web hosting provider for is to keep their web servers well maintained and working consistently. The most reliable companies put a lot of work into delivering on that. Look for a web hosting company that offers at least 99% uptime, but ideally promises closer to 99.9% 4. Security Website security is an issue every website owner has to prioritize today. Data breaches and hacked websites are an all too common reality, and often websites built using a CMS are a particular target since hackers know how to find vulnerabilities in the CMS code. While there are a number of steps you can take to make your website more secure from hackers , including keeping your Joomla version up to date, one of the best ways to ensure website security is choosing the right web hosting provider, Check that your Joomla hosting provider has a reputation for using strong firewalls to keep their web servers protected, and that they offer key security features like an SSL certificate and security software. 5. Affordability Web hosting is a necessary expense if you want to have a website, but it doesn’t have to be a large one. A good Joomla hosting plan can start at less than $3 a month for shared web hosting , which is usually a good choice for new websites. When you’re considering your options, you have to think about what you can afford. In some cases, paying a little more can be worth it for what you get for the extra money—such as choosing a web hosting plan that includes features you need like an SSL certificate or a website builder. So consider carefully what you’re getting for the cost, and make sure it fits in your website budget. Find Joomla Hosting Today HostGator offers Joomla hosting plans that check all the boxes on this list. We also offer easy setup, full compatibility with Joomla, 24/7 support, and 99.9% uptime with a money-back guarantee. If you’re ready to invest in a Joomla hosting plan, get started today.Whether you are looking for cloud hosting , dedicated server hosting , or Joomla hosting, HostGator offers all the best web hosting plans. Talk to one of our representatives today to learn more about the pros and cons of each option. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading
Posted in HostGator, Hosting, VodaHost, vps
Tagged content, hostgator, hosting, hosting-plan, joomla, web hosting, web-design
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What Is Drupal Hosting?
The post What Is Drupal Hosting? appeared first on HostGator Blog . You’re doing your due diligence as you start your new new website—doing all the research into your different web hosting options in order to make sure you make the right choice before you buy. That’s smart! While it’s always possible to switch to a new web hosting plan down the line, it’s a lot easier to stick with the same company if you make the right choice from day one. You may have come across an option called Drupal hosting , and now you’re wondering what that’s all about. What is Drupal Hosting? Drupal hosting is any web hosting plan that promises compatibility with the content management system Drupal. All of the hundreds of thousands of Drupal websites require a web server and hosting to be accessible to visitors on the wide web. Where Drupal provides the basic framework for building a website, Drupal hosting is the necessary component that makes that website available to the masses. For many of sites that use Drupal, choosing an application web hosting plan that specializes in providing hosting services for Drupal sites is the best choice, What is Drupal? Drupal is an open-source content management system that powers hundreds of thousands of websites online. It’s particularly popular with professional developers, who appreciate how powerful and flexible it is, and by government and enterprise websites that choose it for the high level of security it offers. The Drupal core—the main framework it provides—consists of the main features and functionality common to content management systems in general (more on that in a bit) and can work as a good foundation for any kind of website. But while the core is powerful, where Drupal really sets itself apart is the customization options developers can tap into with the use of Drupal modules. As long as you, or someone you hire, has the skills to run a Drupal website, you can do just about anything with your website you could want. What Is a Content Management System? To really understand what Drupal is and whether it’s right for your website, you need to understand what a content management system is . A content management system, or CMS for short, provides a number of important functions to website owners. Some of the top features common to pretty much all content management systems include: 1. An intuitive interface for making website changes One of the main reasons individuals and businesses use content management systems is because it saves you from having to know and use coding languages when you’re building your website and then again every time you have to make an update to your website. For businesses, that can save you the cost of having to pay a developer for every time you have a minor update to make to a web page. A CMS gives you the power to publish new content to your website, change the layout of pages, add media and images to the website, and manage your menus—just to name a few functions—all through a user interface that’s easy for most beginners to figure out. It removes the headache of trying to get code just right every time or having to know a coding language to begin with. 2. Content management and organization options As the name makes clear, a big reason websites have for using a CMS is that it helps you manage your content. For any website likely to have a lot of content—which includes government websites, enterprise websites, media sites, entertainment sites, and businesses doing content marketing—you’ll end up with a lot of different content pieces to keep up with. A CMS allows for collaboration on pieces of content, since you can control who has access to content in the system and what they can do with it (e.g. who has the power to view, edit, and schedule a piece of content). With a CMS, you can schedule out content in advance, making it easier to plan out and stay on top of a content calendar. And you can easily track which pieces of content are still in draft form, which are scheduled, and which are already published, which helps you keep everything better organized. If your plans for a website include the potential for a high volume of content, a CMS is an extremely valuable tool for managing it all. 3. Account management and permissions Business or media websites typically have a large number of people that will need some level of access to make changes and updates to the site. Content creators, editors, designers, developers—the more people using a website, the more risk you’re potentially opening the website up to. What if a writer with limited technical skills actually does something that breaks a page on your website? Or what if an angry employee you let go uses their access to make malicious, embarrassing changes to the site? A CMS reduces your risk by allowing the website owner and any administrators they trust to manage the accounts associated with the website and the levels of access each one is allowed. A writer only needs to be able to load the text on the pages they’re working on, for instance, and doesn’t need the ability to mess with your menus or plugins. Through this feature, a CMS increases the security of your website and gives you more control over it. How Does Drupal Measure Up to Other Content Management Systems? The features described above are common across the different types of content management systems, so can provide insights into whether you should use a CMS or not. But there’s still the question of deciding which one makes sense. Drupal is one of the three most popular content management systems, falling behind just Joomla and WordPress in popularity. The reason those two beat Drupal in market share is pretty clear to anyone familiar with the CMS market: Drupal’s harder to use. WordPress and Joomla are accessible for beginners with limited experience building or maintaining websites. They’re democratic software options that put website updates into the hands of almost everybody. Drupal, on the other hand, is mostly used by professional developers who come to it with some web design skill to begin with. Drupal requires more work to learn and use, but the tradeoff to that is notable: it also provides more flexibility and power. Anyone with especially specific or complicated plans for a website will need a solution that enables them to make their vision a reality, and Drupal is better for that than the other top CMS options. Who Should Use Drupal? Drupal is most commonly used by companies and organizations that: Have professional developers on staff Care about security Have complex and specific needs For the most part, small businesses or individuals aiming to create a fairly basic website will be better off with either WordPress or Joomla. But enterprise companies and government entities that have more advanced needs and the budget to hire the right talent to realize the potential Drupal can offer will benefit from the greater flexibility and higher level of security it provides. The Benefits of Drupal Hosting Plans Choosing the best CMS for your website is an important early step in building a website. But a CMS doesn’t usually provide web hosting on its own. If you decide to use Drupal to build a website , you’ll still need to purchase a web hosting plan separately. Most web hosting plans you consider will work for a Drupal website, but you can benefit from specifically seeking out an application web hosting plan that supports Drupal. Here are a few good reasons to go with Drupal hosting specifically. 1. Drupal hosting will offer easy installation. Working with Drupal requires skill, but adding a Drupal site to your web hosting account shouldn’t. A Drupal hosting plan will offer one-click installation that you can complete within minutes. You might have to hire developers for some of the other updates and specifics you want for your website, but linking your CMS to your web hosting plan is something anyone on your team will be equally capable of getting done in a matter of minutes with Drupal hosting. 2. There’s no cost for adding Drupal to your web hosting account. Because the Drupal platform is open source, using it is free. You’ll likely pay for the developers you hire for it, and you’ll need to pay for your web hosting plan. But with a Drupal hosting plan, you can avoid one more cost because you’ll know for sure that using Drupal with your web hosting account won’t cause any additional fees. 3. Compatibility is assured. One of the biggest annoyances of the technology age is finding yourself with two tech products that aren’t compatible with each other. After you’ve put money and resources into developing a website on Drupal, you definitely don’t want to face compatibility issues with the web hosting plan you choose. When you start by choosing a web hosting plan that specializes in Drupal, then you’ll know with absolute confidence your web hosting plan will work well with your Drupal site. 4. You have two sources for helpful support. The Drupal community is well known for being large, devoted, and supportive. A large, skilled community means a huge library of modules and extensions—many of them available to the larger community for free (although some for pay). But it also means access to many people willing to offer support and guidance on using Drupal. The Drupal community gathers online in Slack channels and on other chat tools. Regional groups meet up in person around the world to commiserate over using Drupal, and you can find conferences and other events that are all about Drupal. In addition, many members of the community work hard to develop resources and documentation to help other Drupal developers. Choosing Drupal taps you into this thriving community, but choosing a good Drupal hosting plan also gives you access to a helpful team providing customer support. While web hosting customer service professionals won’t necessarily be experts in using the Drupal platform, they’ll often be able to provide helpful information on a large number of other issues or questions you’ll encounter when working on your website. And if you choose a web hosting company that provides customer support around the clock, you can count on getting those answers at the moment you need them. Ready to Find a Drupal Hosting Web Plan? If everything in this blog post has convinced you that you should use Drupal and specifically seek out a Drupal web hosting plan, then you’re probably wondering now how to find the best plan for you. Here are the main features we recommend looking for: Room to grow. If you’re using Drupal, it likely means you have big plans for your website. You need to know that as your traffic grows and as you add new functionality to your website over time, the web hosting provider you choose will still work for you. Don’t just look for the web plan you need now, also look at the other plans your provider offers to see if they match up to what you’ll need down the line. Security. Drupal is one of the best options for building a secure website, but you can never be too careful in our era of frequent data breaches and website hacking. Choosing a web hosting provider that values security and does their part to keep your website safe is one of the best choices you can make to avoid vulnerability. Uptime . Anytime your website’s unavailable you run the risk of losing trust or angering your attempted visitors. For businesses, it also means lost money and a blow to your reputation. Make sure you find a Drupal hosting provider who can not only provide at least 99.9% uptime, but also backs that up with a money-back guarantee. Web hosting is a service every website depends on. To make sure your Drupal website can do its job—remaining accessible to your visitors at the moment they need it and keeping any information they provide secure—choose a Drupal hosting plan that covers all the most important bases.At HostGator, we offer a variety of different hosting plans. Whether you are looking for a cloud hosting service or a dedicated server hosting package, our online resources are ready to help. To learn how to build a website , register a domain , or for any other web hosting questions, please contact our support team at HostGator today. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading
The Best WordPress WooCommerce Themes for eCommerce Sites
The post The Best WordPress WooCommerce Themes for eCommerce Sites appeared first on HostGator Blog . Selling products online has never been easier, even for the smallest of businesses, thanks to WordPress-compatible eCommerce tools like WooCommerce and free themes to customize your store’s appearance. Whether you’re still in the planning stages or want to update your online store, it can be a challenge to pick the right theme from so many options. Here’s a look at some popular eCommerce themes for WordPress, along with a quick overview of WooCommerce for WordPress, to help you find what you need. Setting Up an Online Store on Your WordPress Site A lot goes into building an online store : product categories, search tools, inventory tracking, color and size options, a way for customers to pay, and shipping options. And those are just the basics. WordPress doesn’t provide these functions automatically, so you’ll need to install an eCommerce plugin to get started. One of the most popular eCommerce plugins for WordPress is a free, open-source program called WooCommerce . It’s used by small store owners and major brands around the world because it integrates so well with WordPress and because there are so many ways to customize it. For example, you can add support for different payment methods, email list management, and merchandising with extensions from the WooCommerce library. Want to sell memberships or subscriptions? There are WooCommerce extensions for that, too. (Many but not all WooCommerce extensions are free.) Best WordPress WooCommerce Themes for eCommerce Themes give you another way to customize your WooCommerce store by changing its appearance and creating the user experience you want your customers to have. These are our picks for the best WordPress themes for eCommerce, and they’re all compatible with WooCommerce. 1. WooCommerce Storefront Storefront is a free theme built by and for WooCommerce. It includes schema markup for SEO, and it has a responsive design to so it looks good and works well on all kinds of devices. Storefront’s developers built it for fast loading and easy use. You don’t have to use WordPress shortcodes to customize Storefront, and it’s compatible with lots of payment, shipping, and SEO plugins. When you want to update your store’s look, you can use the WordPress customizer with Storefront. You can also switch to one of Storefront’s child themes. Each of the 14 child themes (free to $39 each) is tailored to a different type of business, like food, fashion, books, toys, and vacation lodgings. Storefront is a good choice for both: Non-tech people. Because it’s tightly integrated with WooCommerce, you’re unlikely to run into compatibility issues that would require coding skills to fix. And Storefront is compatible with the new block-based Gutenberg editor in WordPress . Tech people. If you’re happy to write your own code, Storefront and WooCommerce’s open-source foundation make it easy to build your own extensions to customize your store. Storefront’s not the only free WooCommerce theme out there. Let’s look at a few top choices from other publishers. 2. Astra Like Storefront, Astra is WooCommerce compatible and uses schema markup to help your store’s SEO. Astra’s developers recently released a free library of blocks you can use with WordPress’ new Gutenberg editor to customize your site without coding. Astra is very fast—it takes less than 0.5 seconds to load, using standard WordPress data—and it only uses about 50 KB of resources. That means your store pages will load fast and keep your shoppers from bouncing before they see your awesome merchandise. Astra also has a library of pre-made starter sites. You can use the Astra Starter Sites plugin to install one and save yourself a lot of time on store design. Upgrading to Astra’s pro or agency packages ($59 to $249) gives you access to more starter sites. Astra is a good choice for: Shop owners with lots of mobile customers. The store’s light weight and fast load times make it a good fit for m-commerce. People who want to a pre-designed site. Astra’s starter site library gives you instant site options. 3. eStore Another popular theme for WooCommerce, eStore is responsive, SEO-friendly, and designed to help your pages load quickly. If you’d like your customers to be able to make and share wishlists from your store—a feature that can earn you more conversions—eStore is compatible with the YITH WooCommerce Wishlist plugin . This theme has a couple of cool design features in its free version: the ability to color-code your product categories, and a template that lets you feature all products in a collection on a single page, as well as in their categories. The pro version ($69) gives you more options for customizing eStore’s appearance, with the addition of Google Fonts, more header and color choices, and testimonial and product tab widgets. eStore is a good choice for: Store owners who want wishlists. YITH Wishlist and eStore work well together. Sellers who regularly feature new collections. The eStore product collection template makes those displays easy to update. 4. MetroStore Like eStore, MetroStore supports YITH Wishlist and provides product-collection page templates. It’s also compatible with YITH WooCommerce Compare , a plugin that lets customers select and compare different items in your store. Comparison charts can help increase your store’s conversion rate, especially if you sell appliances, tech products, or other items whose specifications and features are big factors in your customers’ purchasing decisions. MetroStore’s free version also lets you add video backgrounds to your full-width banners—a pretty cool feature if you have a brick-and-mortar store, fashion shows, or product demos to showcase. The pro version ($55) lets you import demo pages to your store in a single click so you can set up your shop faster. Upgrading also gives you offers and team members sections for your store. MetroStore is a good choice for: Stores that sell tech, appliances, or tools. Support for the YITH WC Compare plugin lets your customers create comparison charts. Store owners who want to use video in their store design. The video-background banner makes that possible. Choosing a WordPress Theme for Your eCommerce Site Before you choose a theme, it’s a good idea to explore their online demos on your laptop, tablet and phone to see if they’ll give customers the experience you want them to have. Then you can download the free versions of the themes you like best to try them out with your own content before you go live. After you debut your new theme, track metrics like bounce rate and conversions to see if your new theme is helping customers find what they want or whether you need to make adjustments. Ready to get started? Start building your eCommerce store today with HostGator WordPress hosting . Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading
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7 Mistakes Internet Entrepreneurs Make with Business Credit Cards
The post 7 Mistakes Internet Entrepreneurs Make with Business Credit Cards appeared first on HostGator Blog . A business credit card is a powerful financial tool that all good entrepreneurs should have at their disposal. But as they say, with great power comes great responsibility. When you’re running an eCommerce business , a business credit card helps you build business credit, allows you to finance a variety of important business-related purchases, and provides lucrative rewards, perks, and protections. It truly does it all. That being said, it’s easy to lean too heavily on your business credit card, or otherwise misuse it in an attempt to wring all possible value out of it. Not understanding the relationship your business credit plays to the rest of your business also leads to errors that have a ripple effect on your bottom line. Whether you’re exploring options for your first business credit card, looking for another card as your eCommerce venture scales, or a long-time business owner who hasn’t given your business credit much thought in awhile, here are seven mistakes entrepreneurs make with business credit cards . 1. Using their credit card to finance overly large purchases It can be tempting, once you get a hold of your new business credit card, to finance everything with it. Cloud-based software subscriptions, shipping costs, inventory—you name it. If you get points back on every purchase, why not get a discount on every purchase you make? This works, but only to a point. But financing hugely expensive purchases that will take a long time to pay down with your credit card doesn’t make sense—your credit card interest rate will likely be too high. Unless you have a 0% APR during your introductory period, or a plan to pay down your charges quickly, the extra costs will rack up. If you want to purchase something on credit that you expect will take months, or even years, to pay off, consider finding an alternate source of small business financing , such as a line of credit, loan, or inventory or equipment financing. 2. Maxing out their credit cards Whether it’s personal credit cards or business credit cards, using as much of your credit available to you as possible is never a good idea. One of the main perks of having a business credit card is its flexibility. Hit with an unexpected charge, or want to surprise your team with a party for meeting an end-of-the-month goal? If you’ve already maxed out your cards, you lose out on your ability to spring for sudden purchases. Additionally, maxing out your cards throws your credit utilization ratio out of whack. This ratio is simple: How much credit is available to you, and how much of it are you using? Lenders look at this ratio when you apply for a loan to get an idea of how much outstanding debt you have. If you already appear overextended, creditors are less likely to offer you additional funding. Keep your credit utilization ratio below 30% and you’ll appear much more responsible to future lenders—as well as have plenty of wiggle room to take on unexpected expenses. 3. Carrying a balance from month-to-month Carrying your balance over from month-to-month is another mistake business owners make when they put too much stock in rewards points over their ability to repay their debt. The bottom line is that reward points and perks will never be worth having to make interest payments on your purchases. Your exact APR will vary depending on your credit history and situation, but even the best cards have APRs north of 13%, and it will likely be higher. When possible, only put on your card what you can afford to pay back at the end of the month. This habit will help build your business credit score and keep your money where it belongs—in your business bank account. 4. Mixing business and personal expenses If you use a business credit card for only one reason, it’s this: To separate your business and personal expenses. Everything else is window-dressing—albeit quite attractive window-dressing. So if you’re ever in a situation where you want to cover a personal expense with your business card, or vice versa, due to convenience or forgetfulness or wanting to take advantage of reward points—don’t. Mixing your expenses is also called “ piercing the corporate veil, ” and doing so may expose your personal assets in the event that your business goes bankrupt or you’re the subject of a lawsuit. Even a seemingly harmless one-off purchase can have repercussions. Plus, come tax season, you’ll be so much happier that you don’t have to parse through all of your personal credit statements for the odd business expense to write off. 5. Offering corporate credit cards to employees without setting boundaries You may get to a point in your small business where it’s easier to extend individual corporate credit cards—physical or virtual—to your team members, rather than forcing them to contact you for the approval of every purchase. This is a good thing: It means your business is growing and you have faith in your team. That being said, your employees may not be privy to all of your cash flow needs, and may not understand how easy it is to hamstring a small business with uncapped spending. Worse, their unchecked spending may affect your business credit, hampering your borrowing capabilities for years to come. Before issuing credit cards, discuss with employees exactly what qualifies as a business expense, and let them know that you’ll have clear oversight into their spending. 6. Overlooking credit cards with annual fees There’s a tendency for small business owners to want to cut costs any way they can. Often, this frugal mindset serves the well, and innovative techniques are borne out of the necessity to stay under budget. Sometimes, however, small businesses need to invest. And while there are plenty of excellent no-fee credit cards out there, some business credit cards have an annual fee that are worth it—depending on how you plan to use it. Research annual fee business credit cards and see what you get for your money. If you spending habits align with the perks offered on the card—point multipliers on travel, for example—you may actually come out ahead each year quite easily. Bottom line: Don’t instantly write off a credit card just because it’s not free. 7. Closing rarely used accounts As you continue to open up lines of credit and credit cards throughout the life of your business, you might think it’s time to close up your old accounts so you have an easier time reviewing your finances. But closing your accounts affects your credit utilization ratio. If there are no clear benefits to closing those accounts other than streamlining things, it’s better to just leave them open and give your business even more credit overhead. If your accounts are charging you money—e.g., with an annual fee—and you need to close them, time your decision strategically. About to apply for a loan from a bank or online lender? Hold off until after the deal is done. *** Many of the best practices for personal and business credit cards are typically the same: Don’t be late with your payments, don’t spend more than you can afford. The difference with some of the above mistakes that they can truly prevent your business from taking important steps in its growth process. Don’t limit your business to unaffordable lending options, or waste your time parsing through mountains of expenses. Make your life simple by avoiding these mistakes, and everyone involved in making your eCommerce business a success will be happier for it. 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Tagged business, cash, credit-cards, credit-score, debt, ecommerce, hostgator, small-business, vodahost, your-business
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