Tag Archives: industry

On-Site vs. Off-Site SEO: What’s the Difference?

Posted on August 21, 2019 by Hosting

The post On-Site vs. Off-Site SEO: What’s the Difference? appeared first on HostGator Blog . Search engine optimization (SEO) comes in many shapes and sizes. It’s not limited to one technique or a single tool. If you’re just getting started with SEO , you will want to know the difference between on-site and off-site SEO. Each type offers benefits to help your business acquire more website visitors. While some strategies take a few hours to execute, other tactics will involve extra time to plan. Take this opportunity to attract people to your site. Learn the difference below. On-Site SEO Strategies On-site SEO focuses on optimizing individual pages to earn organic search traffic. By implementing these techniques, it’s easier for search engines to categorize your content.   1. Keyword Research All businesses desire more website traffic. To gain those visitors, it starts with understanding keyword research. Consumers enter keywords in search engines to find specific information. They search for everything from holiday gift ideas to cute puppy videos. Knowing your potential customers’ search intent will help you craft content with targeted keywords. That way, you receive qualified visitors, not just every curious person online. Keyword Planner and Moz’s Keyword Explorer are effective platforms for conducting keyword research and keeping track of trends. Garnering this insight gives you an edge over your competition. Stay away from broad terms. For example, if you sell women’s clothing, stick to distinct, longer-tail keywords that describe your products. Aim for “high-end winter plaid skirts,” rather than “women’s skirts.”   2. Internal Linking When an individual lands on a web page, it’s quite likely that she will want to learn more about the specific information mentioned. Internal linking gives you the chance to act as a tour guide, sending the visitor to another appropriate page. Linking boosts your SEO performance. Serial entrepreneur Neil Patel outlines the advantages: “One of the corollary benefits of internal linking is that it improves user engagement on your site. When a user sees an informative link that truly matches the context of the content, they are likely to click on that link. It can be an external link, as long as it’s something that the reader will be interested in.” Internal linking helps search engines crawl your site. So, direct visitors to another relevant page on your site.    3. Page Speed A few years back, search engines announced that a site’s page speed would impact its ranking. This guideline still influences SEO today. As a result, you should monitor your pages’ load time. According to Google , it takes on average 22 seconds for a mobile landing page to load.  However, “53% of mobile site visitors leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to load.” Their free PageSpeed Insights  tool analyzes the content of your web page and generates suggestions to make your page faster. It’s user-friendly and only takes a few seconds to receive your speed score. Large image files can negatively impact page speeds. You can solve this problem by using a tool like TinyPNG to reduce the file size and following image SEO best practices . Consider the number of widgets connected to your site, too. Excessive social buttons, comment areas, and pop-up ads can slow down page speed.   Off-Site SEO Strategies Off-site SEO is the process of improving your search rankings through referral traffic. These techniques include driving brand awareness and creating remarkable content.   1. Public Relations The perception of your business informs customers’ decisions. Public relations coupled with SEO serves the purpose of increasing your inbound links and brand recognition. Earning coverage in online publications and news outlets starts with developing an enticing story around your business. Jeremy Knauff , founder of Spartan Media, explains: “[Public relations] focuses on getting real humans who work at legitimate, authoritative publications genuinely interested in and talking about your story. It’s about truly adding value, which in turn tends to generate inbound links, as opposed to simply producing garbage links on websites that no one visits.” To catch an eye of a journalist, you’ll want to highlight a newsworthy activity. Maybe you’re partnering with a charity to donate funds, or you’re releasing groundbreaking research that supports your brand. You can generate buzz by writing a press release and initiating a social media campaign with a unique hashtag.   2. Guest Blogging Content writing is another way to obtain backlinks for your website. Through guest blogging, you can become a thought leader in your industry as well as maximize your SEO potential. Guest blogging involves crafting content for non-competitive sites with similar audiences. You’ll gain powerful relationships and site traffic. When guest blogging, it’s key for you to follow the rules described by the specific website. Below is an example from Mention , a social media monitoring tool. You’ll also want to choose a topic that will resonate with readers. If possible, tell a narrative about a recent experience, spotlight a customer story with humor, or even grab people’s attention with stunning statistics. Guest blogging is a perfect time to add your expertise to a larger conversation. You should aim to satisfy the publication and its readers.   3. Influencer Outreach You’re only as good as the community around you. To upgrade your circle and earn inbound links, influencer outreach offers a step in the right direction. Influencers are individuals who shape consumer buying habits. They can persuade people to visit websites, try products, and join social communities. For businesses, this engagement transforms into a huge benefit. Michael Quoc , founder and CEO of Dealspotr, gives his insight: “When your business engages with a new social audience, it unlocks the potential for more followers and engagement. This can lead to more site traffic, backlinks, and other factors that improve SEO.” Do your research when selecting influencers. It’s important that their values match your brand and their audience possess some interest in your products. Influencer partnerships will build your brand reputation faster. Plus, it gives bloggers another reason to link back to your website.   Focus on SEO Knowing when and how to apply on-site and off-site SEO strategies matters. Each type holds a different solution for your website to attract more visitors. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

Posted in HostGator, Hosting, VodaHost | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on On-Site vs. Off-Site SEO: What’s the Difference?

How to Improve SEO

Posted on July 26, 2019 by Hosting

The post How to Improve SEO appeared first on HostGator Blog . Your website can only do its job if people can find it.  SEO (search engine optimization) —a collection of tactics website owners can use to increase your ranking in the search engine results—is one of the best ways to make sure your audience can find you.  But on-page SEO is challenging. And many website owners struggle with the question of how to improve SEO for their websites.  The search engines are fairly tight-lipped about how the algorithms that determine how search engine rankings work . But between the information they have shared and an analysis by SEO experts of what the ranking web pages have in common, we have a pretty good understanding of how to improve Google search results. Improving SEO involves a mix of things you can do on your own website and offsite strategies.  How to Improve SEO on Your Website On-site SEO is mostly about two main things: making sure Google can tell what your website is about, and ensuring the site has a good user experience for users. To do that, there are eight main steps you should take.   1. Review your website analytics. If you already have a website, then your first step is to review your website analytics to better understand how people find and interact with your website now. If you haven’t set up Google Analytics for your website, do that now! You won’t have any data to review to start, but you can come back to this step once you do.  In Google Analytics, you’ll learn how much traffic you’re getting now, and what share of it is coming from Google (labeled “Organic Search”). The Acquisition section gives you an easy snapshot of how often people are finding you through Google now. In addition, you can find a list of any keywords you rank for now and what your average ranking is. Click on Acquisition, Search Console, and then Queries.  This gives you a good understanding of where you are now in terms of your SEO strategy. That’s helpful in setting goals for where you want to be, and working out a plan to get there. And any relevant keywords you rank for now (even if you’re not on page one) are a good place to start your optimization efforts, since you already have a headstart.  2. Identify your keywords. Keyword research is the cornerstone of SEO. Before you can do any of the other steps involved in SEO, you need to know what keywords to target. Sit down and write every word or phrase you can think of that’s relevant to your business and products. Once that’s done, use keyword tools to figure out how valuable the terms on your list are, and build out your list further.  Google’s free Keyword Planner provides data on the average number of searches a keyword has, and how competitive it is. It also provides suggestions for long-tail keywords relevant to your website that you can use to build out your list. To get new ideas, start by plugging either your URL or a starter list of your main keywords into the tool. You can export the list of long-tail keywords they suggest to better organize it based on relevance, popularity, and competitiveness. Using these keywords throughout your website or a blog post will help tremendously when trying to drive organic traffic.  Google’s tool may give you enough information, but many businesses that have an SEO strategy go further and use paid SEO tools that provide more detailed keyword information. With these, you can learn what keywords your competitors rank for, and get more analysis on the value of a keyword based on factors like the search engine results page (SERP) features, level of competitiveness, and the number of clicks the top results are likely to get. 3. Optimize every page on your site for SEO. Once you know what keywords to target, it’s time to get to work on your website. For each page and blog post of your website, determine the most relevant keyword from your list you want to rank for. To optimize the page for the selected keyword, look for natural ways to include it in these parts of the page: The URL – Always edit your URL so it’s relevant to the content of the page and uses your primary keyword.  The heading tags – Using headings and subheadings (in the HTML, these look like , , etc.) break up your page copy for readability and provide more opportunities to naturally get your keywords onto the page. The image names and alt tags – Before you load an image to a page, give it a name that includes your keyword. Then add an alt tag that includes it as well.  The title tag – Write a short title for each page (50-60 characters) that uses your primary keyword.  The meta description – The meta description is what shows up underneath your link on the SERP. Like your title tag, they don’t directly affect rankings, but they can increase your click-through rate (CTR). Write a meta description for each page that describes what’s on the page in under 160 characters, includes your keyword, and has a call to action that encourages people to click.  The page copy – Look for opportunities to use your keyword in the words on the page where it makes sense naturally. Google wants to deliver relevant results for every search. All of this helps signal to Google what the page is about so they know what keywords it makes sense for it to show up for.  4. Create relevant content. Creating and publishing content on your website accomplishes a few important things for SEO: Fresh website content signals to Google that your website is current and active—they don’t want to show outdated results. It gives you a chance to create more pages optimized for more of the keywords on your list. It gives your visitors a reason to stick around, and time on site is a metric that signals to Google that people like what they see when they visit your site. When you publish valuable content on your site, it gives other websites more of a reason to link back to you. Creating high-quality content that’s relevant to your audience is therefore an important part of good SEO. Use your keyword research to help guide your content strategy. Knowing what topics people are searching for tells you what your audience is interested in.  Before you write a piece of content, do some research to learn what’s on the SERP for it. Seeing what’s ranking there now shows you what Google likes for that keyword and what you need to beat. In addition, if there are rich results on the SERP for a term, you want to know so you can optimize your content to claim them.  5. Update your old content. This is a step many people skip, but a regular content audit can be really valuable for improving your SEO. Make a point of returning to your old content to update it periodically. Google likes content that’s fresh and up to date, so changing outdated information can go a long way to making sure the search engine (and your visitors) still see an old piece of content as valuable.  6. Use internal linking. An internal link is any link on a page that goes to another page on the same website. Google’s algorithm factors a link’s anchor text into its analysis of what a page is about. The anchor text is the words that are hyperlinked, the part that usually shows up in blue with an underline.  For internal links, you get to choose the anchor text. That gives you another opportunity to use your primary keyword and signal to Google what keywords to associate with your page. 7. Make your website mobile friendly. While Google keeps a lot of the details about its algorithm under wraps, one of the things they’ve been upfront in telling people is that mobile matters . For the sake of both SEO and your visitors—many of whom will be visiting your website on a mobile device— make your website mobile friendly .  8. Improve your site speed. Speed is another ranking factor Google has told people about outright . They know people care about how fast a website loads, so Google does, too. Taking steps to improve your site speed will both improve the user experience of your website, and improve Google search results for your site.  How to Improve Google Search Results Using Off-page SEO Many of the steps involved in on-site optimization require a lot of work, but the harder part of SEO happens offsite. In order to determine a web page’s value, Google pays attention to how often other websites link to it, called backlinks . A link is seen as an endorsement of what’s on the page. When a lot of websites with authority link to a particular page, it suggests that whatever’s on it is useful.  Building backlinks is challenging because you can’t control the decisions other people make about what they put on their websites. But there are a few strategies you can use to encourage other websites to link to yours.  1. Promote your content. Publishing great content is only worth the work if you get people to read it. Make promotion part of your content strategy. Share your pieces on social media. Send them to your email list. Highlight industry influencers in your content and let them know when it’s up. Consider paid promotion like pay-per-click (PPC) or social ads if you need that extra boost.  2. Sign up for relevant directories. This is one of the easiest ways to build links, but it’s important not to abuse. Add your business information to sites like Yelp and Google’s My Business. Research industry organizations that have member directories, and consider joining local organizations like your Chamber of Commerce that have one.  Only sign up for directories that are legitimate and relevant to your business. A lot of links from low-quality directories will look spammy and could hurt rather than help you.  3. Guest post. A guest post on a blog in your industry is a good way to bring awareness of your brand to a new audience and gain a backlink to your site at the same time. Identify blogs that cover topics relevant to your business that accept guest posts, and start pitching. It takes time, but it can pay off in both links and new traffic.  4. Become an expert source. Whatever your business does, you’re an expert on it. When a blogger or journalist is writing a topic that relates to your expertise, providing a quote or interview will often result in a link back to your site. You can hire a PR consultant to help you find these kinds of opportunities, or sign up for email alerts from Help a Reporter Out to find opportunities yourself.  5. Develop industry awards. People (and businesses) love getting awards. The recognition feels good and is something they’re likely to talk about on their own website. Handing out awards for your industry is therefore a good strategy for earning more links. It’s one employed by successful internet businesses like TripAdvisor: Figure out what categories to include in your awards. Research businesses doing good work in each of them, or open them up to nominations. When you’ve decided on nominees and winners, alert them to the award. Create a badge they can share on their website to encourage them to post about it with a link back to the awards page on the website.  6. Create a relevant certification program. This requires a lot of work, but is a good way to position your business as an ultimate expert on what you do as well as a strong link building strategy. Anyone who completes your certification program will want to let others know they’ve done so. As with awards, create a badge people can add to their websites to show they’re certified.  7. Do broken link building. Some SEO tools will help you find links around the web with your target keywords in the anchor text that no longer work. These are a link-building opportunity. If you track down the website owner, you can alert them that there’s a broken link on their website that needs fixing, and propose the content you have on the topic as a replacement. Because you’re helping them fix a problem they have at the same time that you’re asking something of them, it increases your chances of getting your desired response.  Improve SEO with Less Work SEO is difficult and time consuming. You know you want better SEO results, but reading over a list like this may have you feeling hopeless. How will you find the time for all this? While there’s no good shortcut to getting better Google search results—someone has to do the work—that someone doesn’t have to be you.  You can hire the skilled SEO professionals at HostGator. We know how to implement all these SEO strategies and more to get your website to start showing up for your target keywords. It saves you time and work, and will also net better results since they come to the job with more knowledge and experience.  Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

Posted in HostGator, Hosting, VodaHost | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How to Improve SEO

What Are Backlinks?

Posted on July 12, 2019 by Hosting

The post What Are Backlinks? appeared first on HostGator Blog . Your website is up and you’ve started the hard work of trying to increase your organic traffic. You’re learning the ropes of SEO and think you have all the on-page work down, but now you face the hardest part: building backlinks. What Are Backlinks? A backlink is any link on another website that points back to yours.  Backlinks are one of the most important components of SEO (search engine optimization) . Google’s algorithm is carefully designed to try and deliver the most authoritative, valuable results in every search a person does. To do that, the search engine algorithm weighs a number of different ranking factors all meant to help determine how credible each website and webpage are. Using a link building strategy helps to boost your organic marketing efforts and is one of the influencing factors that contributes to your search engine ranking.  Each time another website includes a link to yours, it’s like telling their visitors that there’s something useful on your website. It’s an endorsement of the content on the page. When a lot of websites with authority link to the same page, Google sees that as an indicator that what’s on the page is valuable.  Generally speaking, websites gain authority in the search engine’s eyes by having more backlinks. And the more authority a website has, the more valuable backlinks on that website are for the website being linked to.  For any website owners that care about SEO, backlinks are the main currency of the web. In other words, if you want to improve your SEO , you need to know about backlinks. 9 Types of Backlinks You know what backlinks are now and you’re ready to go out and get them. As you start to work on your strategy, you may be thinking the more the better, right? Not so fast. Not all backlinks are created equal.  To build backlinks effectively, you need to understand the different types of backlinks and the relative value they have for your brand. Dofollow Backlinks When someone adds a link to a webpage, by default, it will be a dofollow link. That means the search engine algorithm will see the link and count it toward the authority it assigns the website. For a link to have any direct value in how the search engine algorithm measures the website, it must be a dofollow link. Nofollow Backlinks Many of the backlinks around the web are dofollow, but in some cases, websites opt to tweak their HTML to label a backlink nofollow. This is a simple change that involves placing rel=”nofollow” in front of href in the HTML code.  Why would a website do this? There are three main reasons websites use nofollow links: To combat comment link spam – This is the reason the nofollow attribute was created to begin with. Lots of black-hat link builders were spamming websites with comments meant purely to gain links. By giving websites the option to make all links in the comment section nofollow, websites could avoid inadvertently endorsing spammy websites because of links included in the comments. To alert Google to links they’ve paid for – The other main use of nofollow links is for signaling to Google when a link on your website is from an advertiser who paid for the placement. Since ads are legitimate, but paying for links is against Google’s guidelines, this gives websites a way to continue making money from ads, while staying in Google’s good graces.  To avoid having to vet all the links included on the site – Originally, nofollow was meant for the two cases above. But several major websites have opted to make all links on the website nofollow, presumably to save them the trouble of figuring out if every link published on the site is to a high-quality website they’re OK endorsing. For website owners who publish a high quantity of content from a lot of different sources, this is a way to cover their bases when implementing a link building strategy.  Nofollow backlinks can still have value for your website by introducing your site to new visitors and sending organic traffic your way. And some SEO experts are convinced they deliver some SEO value as well. But for anyone working on building backlinks, understanding the distinction between dofollow and nofollow is important.   Directory Backlinks These are one of the easiest legitimate types of backlinks for businesses, especially local businesses, to get. Directory listings such as those for professional organizations, local Chambers of Commerce, and review sites like Yelp and Google My Business almost always offer the option of including a link to your business website.  You can easily build links by listing your website on legitimate review and directory sites, and joining relevant professional groups that include a directory.  Brand Mention Backlinks Anytime another website mentions your business, that’s an opportunity for a backlink. Often bloggers that talk about your products, business publications that cover your business news, or third-party websites that mention you in reviews or product roundups will include a link to your website when they mention your brand.  A common link building tactic is to find brand mentions around the web that don’t include a link, and reach out to the website owner to ask them to add one.  Industry Publication Backlinks These are a valuable type of link that can be earned through PR and guest posting. This includes any link to your website that comes from an online publication in your industry. An example of this would a company that sells gardening supplies earning a link on the Better Homes and Garden website. These are challenging to get, but worth a lot to your website (especially if they’re dofollow). .Gov and .Edu Backlinks Backlinks on .gov and .edu website are notable because many SEO experts are convinced they’re worth more on average than .com or .net websites. This isn’t an absolute rule—gaining a link on a .com website with a lot of authority is probably better than a small and largely unknown .edu website. But they’re valuable enough that many SEO consultants put special effort into finding legitimate ways to earn a link on these types of sites.   Blog Backlinks Between business blogs, personal blogs, media blogs, and entertainment blogs—a lot of the backlinks on the web live on blogs. Blog backlinks are often easier to build than some of the other backlink types we’ve described, but how valuable they are depends a lot on the blog. Any blog that covers topics relevant to your industry and has a high SEO authority is a worthwhile target for building backlinks. Blogs that have few readers and don’t have much of a reputation, or those in completely unrelated industries, aren’t usually worth your time.  Some common strategies for building blog backlinks are through guest posting , contacting bloggers to share valuable resources relevant to the topics they cover, or being an expert source for a blog post.  Forum Backlinks Forums are a popular type of website that allow users online to connect with each other and form a community. There are thousands of forums online that focus on a wide array of topics—from business industries, to product-focused forums, to fan forums about an entertainment property. Because forums are made up of user-generated content—any member can post—it’s easy to create forum posts that include links. If you’re strategic in how you build forum backlinks, meaning you don’t overdo it and only publish in high-quality forums when you have something useful to add to the conversation, this can be a good link-building tactic. But as with anything that’s easy to do, forum link building is easy to abuse. If you do it badly, you’ll create low-quality links that make your website look worse to the search engines.  Spammy Backlinks The different types of links described above have different levels of value when it comes to how much they’ll help your website’s SEO. But this is the category that not only won’t help you, it will actively hurt you. Google’s algorithm penalizes websites that have a lot of spammy backlinks pointing to them.  This category includes paid backlinks, links in low-quality or irrelevant directories, and spammy forum or comment links. Basically, if a link is unlikely to deliver traffic back to your website, it’s probably spammy. Google gets better everyday at recognizing which backlinks are built using SEO schemes that are only about gaming the algorithms, so if you don’t want to get penalized, avoid any tactics that feel sleazy.  How Do I Get Backlinks? Unlike the parts of SEO you can do on your own website, which you have control over, link building requires getting other people to add your link to their sites. That makes it a lot harder.  How to get backlinks in ways that are legitimate and white hat is probably the biggest question in SEO. We mentioned some link building strategies in passing in talking about the different types of backlinks, but there are a number of legitimate techniques a business can use to get relevant backlinks that are both good for SEO and for driving new traffic to your website.  eCommerce businesses can build links by offering free products to bloggers for review, sponsoring industry events, and publishing original research (bloggers love linking to statistics). Local businesses can earn links by working with local charities, hosting local events, and giving out awards.  And any website can potentially earn links by creating useful content that’s good enough that other websites want to link to it.  Building backlinks requires creativity, but there are a lot of tactics worth trying that won’t get you blacklisted by Google. Just make sure the links you aim for are actually valuable to your audience and the website you work with.  Backlink FAQs That covers most of the basics about backlinks, but you may still have questions about how backlinks work. Here are answers to some of the most common questions.  Why are backlinks so important? There are two reasons backlinks are important, even though one of them gets a disproportionate amount of attention: They signal to Google and the other search engines that your website is authoritative and should rank higher in the search results. They’re widely considered one of the most important SEO ranking factors.  They help new people learn about your business and drive relevant traffic back to your website. People spend a lot of time focusing on the first benefit, which definitely matters. But the end goal of SEO is making your website easier to find for the people looking for what you sell. A good link that shows up in a relevant context can help with that part, even before you consider the extra SEO authority it provides.   What is backlink anchor text? Most of the links you see around the web show up as a few words underlined in blue. To follow the link, you click on the words. Those words are the backlink anchor text.  Google pays attention to the anchor text of your backlinks. Along with the keywords you use on the page, it uses the anchor text to better understand what your page is about. When a backlink on a high-authority website uses the anchor text you want the page to rank for, it’s an SEO jackpot. A link that uses different anchor text than the keyword you’re targeting is still valuable, especially if the wording is related to your target keyword, but it’s not worth quite as much.  What is an example of a backlink? There are examples of backlinks all across the web. In this blog post alone, you can find two examples of backlinks to other websites in the Nofollow Links section:  One to a page on SEO-Hacker.com with the anchor text “several major websites” One to a page on the SEMRush website with the anchor text “some SEO experts” We are linking to these pages from the HostGator blog, so while these are backlinks for SEO-Hacker and SEMRush, they are actually outbound links on our site. Quality content often links out to content that in some way supports or expands on the points being made in a piece. That creates opportunities for a more passive type of link building, where by simply creating content of value, you gain links from bloggers who use your content to illustrate their point (as happened in both these examples). There are also examples in this post of something that’s distinct from a backlink, but looks similar at first glance: internal links. The link with the anchor text “How to get backlinks” in the section on the same topic is a link to another blog post on this website, which makes it an internal link.  Internal links are another important part of SEO, but different from backlinks. They’re valuable because they’re an opportunity to use relevant anchor text to further signal to Google what a page is about, because they help create connections between different pages on your site, and they drive traffic to other parts of your website.   What is a bad backlink? A bad backlink is any link that comes from a low-authority website, or that signals to Google that you’re using spammy link-building practices. Google doesn’t just pay attention to individual links separately, it also notes when your backlink profile shows a pattern that suggests you’re trying to game the system. Any backlinks that suggest that kind of pattern are bad badlinks. Can backlinks hurt your site? Yep! Many websites have been penalized due to having spammy links. You could incur a Google penalty that essentially blacklists your website. Or you could drop suddenly in the rankings due to an algorithm update that catches more of your low-quality links. Either way, you lose traffic and visibility, and recovering can be difficult. It’s important to only seek out quality, relevant backlinks.  What is a good backlink? A good backlink is one that comes from a website that has SEO authority and covers topics relevant to your website. SEO tools provide information on how much authority different websites have, so you can tailor your link building efforts to those that are worth it. The best backlinks don’t just deliver SEO authority, they also deliver relevant traffic to your website.  How can I remove backlinks from my website? If you made the mistake of hiring a black-hat SEO firm in the past and realize that you now have a lot of low-quality backlinks that are hurting your website, you can take steps to disavow them. SEO tools will help you identify the low-quality links out there that are hurting you. Then you can use Google’s disavow links tool to remove them from your backlink profile so Google no longer counts them against you.  Building Backlinks is Hard If reading up on what backlinks are and how they work has you overwhelmed, don’t worry. You don’t have to do all the work of learning different backlink strategies and executing them all on your own. If you hire the skilled SEO consultants at HostGator, they can use their years of experience to identify the backlink opportunities most valuable to your brand and earn you those links.  Contact our team today to learn more. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

Posted in HostGator, Hosting, VodaHost | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on What Are Backlinks?

5 Ideas to Boost Your Website Traffic Fast

Posted on July 5, 2019 by Hosting

The post 5 Ideas to Boost Your Website Traffic Fast appeared first on HostGator Blog . Building your website is only the beginning of your online marketing journey. If you want to get new customers to your site, you need to boost your website traffic. On top of that, you don’t want just anyone coming to your site. You want people truly interested in your services and products. It’s never too early to create a strategy for your online business. Here are 5 ideas to quickly boost your website traffic. 1. Host a Live Webinar People want to know the team behind the products and services they purchase. Hosting a live webinar is an effective way to spark future customers’ interest. The first step is selecting a topic related to your industry. Ryan Robinson , side project aficionado and part-time entrepreneur, explains: “Choose a topic that you’re all interested in and knowledgeable about, and you don’t even need to make it fancy. The best part is that everyone involved will bring some of their own audience, and you can get the attention of people interested in your field.” Then, choose a platform to host your webinar. Once you’ve selected the topic, date, and time, you’ll want to spread the word everywhere about your upcoming webinar. Ask friends and business partners to share a social media post (or two). During your webinar, direct attendees to your website to get additional information. Make sure you repeat the site address multiple times, add the site link to your presentation slide, and type it in the chat for people to click on it immediately. Creating an upbeat, fun webinar will keep your attendees engaged. As a result, they’ll feel more compelled to learn more about your business at your website. Pro Tip: Webinars are just one type of video that boost your website traffic. Get more video ideas for your website here. 2. Host an Online Giveaway Everyone loves being a winner. Give your consumers the spotlight by offering an online giveaway. It will spark brand awareness and lead to a boost in website traffic. A powerful giveaway starts with a cool prize. Don’t feel obligated to give away a new television. However, your prize should be relevant to your business. Let’s say you’re a chef with a blog, and you sell cookbooks and offer on-site cooking classes. Your giveaway prize may be a free cookbook or one free private class. Next, decide how you will execute the giveaway. You can host it on your site with the contest rules and a form for people to fill out. Or you can use a platform, like Gleam (shown below), to encourage people to visit your page to earn an entry. No matter how you implement your giveaway, your objective is to get people to your site. So, always include calls-to-action to your site along the way—-contest rules page, thank you page, and follow-up email. 3. Advertise on Social Media Social interaction remains an important part of marketing and sales, and there’s no exception when it comes to building your online audience. Social media is the spot for consumers to get their news, talk with friends, and learn about new products. For businesses, it’s an opportunity to build brand engagement with customers. To get traffic to your site fast, you’ll want to invest in social media advertising . Even with a small budget, you’ll get noticed by more people matching your audience criteria. Your ad should captivate people’s attention and give them a glimpse of your products. Be bold in your copy and carefully select a photo that tells a vivid story. Home improvement retail company Lowe’s uses Twitter to promote their sponsored posts. The example below shows how they use copy and a photo to motivate followers to create an outdoor oasis with the help of their products. It’s engaging and leads visitors to their site. Crunch the numbers to include social media advertising to your budget. It’ll help you achieve your traffic goals faster. 4. Answer Questions on Forums The Internet has evolved into a marketplace of knowledge. It’s where anyone can find answers to their most pressing questions: “Is Pluto a planet?” “Where’s the nearest Chinese restaurant?” People’s desire for information is good for your business because your product may be the answer to their question. It’s your chance to position your business as a solution. You can get in front of potential visitors by posting responses in online forums, like Quora . In these spaces, people are seeking honest, thoughtful answers to their questions. When participating in these forums, skip the fluff and jargon. Add a link your business when it’s relevant to the question, and only answer questions in your expertise. In the image below, the person offers a detailed response with examples and pictures. She uses a friendly tone and offers a straightforward answer. To drive traffic, it’s not enough to answer one question. Schedule in your strategy to post on forums three to five times a week. Most forums operate on an upvote system, so encourage people to upvote your answer if they find it useful. 5. Team Up with Influencers No one can achieve their goals alone. Successful businesses develop partnerships to expand their operations. Team up with influencers who share your same values and audiences. Search for non-direct competitors in your industry. For instance, your online store may sell only snow boots; so, it would be clever to connect with an influencer who only sells winter coats. You’ll want to define the partnership terms upfront. Will the influencer promote your site on her social media pages? Will the individual add your business logo and link to his homepage? Be as detailed as possible in the contract and get an attorney to review it. Also, remember that influencer partnerships should be genuine. You want to transform influencers into real customers. Teagan West , a contributing writer at Scrunch, says: “It goes without saying that you should do everything in your power to turn influencers into raving fans…When you have some influencers who are raving fans, your momentum will start to build and you’ll be connecting with new people and opportunities in no time!” Make boosting your website traffic a collaborative project. Join forces with influencers to increase your site visitors. Boost Site Traffic, Get More Visitors Don’t feel overwhelmed by the process of getting more website traffic. Do what works best for your business, like an online giveaway or influencer outreach. You’ll have new visitors at your site soon. Supercharge your site traffic with paid search advertising. See how the PPC experts at HostGator can help you can get more traffic, fast. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

Posted in HostGator, Hosting, VodaHost | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on 5 Ideas to Boost Your Website Traffic Fast

How to Create a Membership Site with WordPress (Step by Step)

Posted on June 6, 2019 by Hosting

The post How to Create a Membership Site with WordPress (Step by Step) appeared first on HostGator Blog . Are you considering creating a membership site for your courses, products, or services? If so, it can be a great way to cater to your target market and increase your business’ revenue among many other benefits. A membership allows you to build a list of loyal members, create an active email list , and position yourself as a leader in your industry if it gains enough traction. But what exactly is a membership site? Put simply, it’s gated content that’s only accessible to members and subscribers. Most of the time there is a fee or recurring payment involved, but sometimes it can be as simple as signing up for an email list. Why Create a Membership Site? A membership site means you can sell practically anything: online courses, ebooks, coaching, you name it. What makes it exciting is its exclusivity and the perks that come with an engaged subscription. Premium services tend to offer subscribers more value to the point where paying a monthly or yearly fee is worth their money. If you’re able to rack up a solid list of subscribers, your revenue will increase drastically. It’s also a great way to build a list of loyal subscribers who genuinely enjoy your content to the point that they’re willing to pay for it. Think of Youtube Premium or Spotify Premium. Sure, with their free options you get to enjoy their content, but you’re bombarded with ads and can’t enjoy the full, uninterrupted experience. What makes these services powerful is that they deliver an optimized UX and, therefore, have a customer base that consists of happier customers. Gating your content allows you to offer your target audience the products and services they want while your business expands its subscriber list and grows monetarily. Before getting started, you need the following: A domain name. This is your website’s URL and it’s crucial that it matches your brand and the products and services you’re selling. WordPress web hosting. HostGator provides quick and easy set up so that even beginners can create their own website. You can also register your domain name here at HostGator. A membership plugin. MemberPress is simple to install and requires no coding knowledge to set up a membership site you’re proud to call your own. What to Look for in a Membership Plugin There are many options to choose from when it comes to membership plugins , but what it really comes down to is what best suits your business and its customers. It’s essential to keep them in mind when creating your membership site. Here are a few questions to consider when choosing a plugin: What is your budget? What are your measurable goals? How well do you know how to code? How many membership levels will you need? What payment gateways do you want customers to be able to use? Are there extra features you want to be included, such as add-ons and integrations? If you want to create a fully functional, easy-to-use membership site with WordPress, here’s how to get started. Install and Set Up MemberPress The very first step to creating a membership site is to use a plugin. This is what’s going to turn your regular WordPress site into a members-only website. MemberPress allows you to sell physical and digital goods, downloads, subscriptions, and more. It’s easy to set up payment gateways, restrict access based on different subscriptions, and design beautiful pricing pages so you can create the look you want. First, you need to create an account with WordPress. Then, purchase a subscription with MemberPress that suits your budget, goals, and business needs. Consider what features are most important to you when choosing your pricing plan. Sometimes it’s worth it to pay a little extra to give your customers exactly what they want. Plus, your membership fee could end up giving back to your business with an increased ROI . Once you choose the plan that’s right for you, go to MemberPress and download the .zip file. From your WordPress dashboard, click on Plugins > Add New > Upload. Select the file and click Install Now. Then click Activate Plugin and your MemberPress plugin will be activated. You should now be able to see a MemberPress menu option in the sidebar on your dashboard. From the menu, click Options where you can configure the plugin’s settings to your liking. Your plugin is now fully installed and ready to be optimized for your business! Getting Started with MemberPress Creating a membership site is a way to target a specific audience and cater to their specific needs. It makes selling products and services easy and builds a list of happy customers who enjoy content that matches exactly what they’re looking for. MemberPress is a fully functional plugin that makes creating a membership site on WordPress an easy and pleasant experience. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

Posted in HostGator, Hosting, VodaHost | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How to Create a Membership Site with WordPress (Step by Step)