Tag Archives: search-engine

5 WordPress Plugins For Monitoring Your Website Rankings

Posted on February 25, 2016 by Hosting

The post 5 WordPress Plugins For Monitoring Your Website Rankings appeared first on HostGator Blog . When it comes to building traffic, understanding your visitor behaviors, and generally being on top of your search engine rankings, website analytics and ranking platforms are usually the thing you want to explore more since it provides direct insight in the way your website is performing, and in many ways that can provide a way […] Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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5 Reasons Your Website Is Turning Off Your Customers

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Hosting

The post 5 Reasons Your Website Is Turning Off Your Customers appeared first on HostGator Blog . You know that having a website is an important asset for your business. However, if you have very low conversion rates, or have been seeing a steady decrease in traffic it might be time to fix your website. The web is constantly evolving, and your site needs to be up to the current web standards and user preferences if you want to keep your visitors happy. Below you’ll find a series of problems that a lot of websites currently fall victim to. If you’re committing any of the following mistakes it’s important to fix them as soon as possible.   1. Slow Loading Speeds Most web users are becoming more and more accustomed to fast loading speeds. This means that when your site loads slowly you’re testing your visitor’s patience. In most cases they’ll hit the back button, instead of waiting for the site to load. Having a website that loads slowly can also lead to lowered search engines rankings, as Google factors in page loading speed into their search engine rankings algorithm. Put simply, your website must load quickly and cater to the fastest internet connections.   2. No Mobile Optimization Our world is becoming increasingly mobile. Mobile Internet usage is only continuing to increase and it shows no sign of slowing down. So, if your site isn’t optimized for the mobile web your users aren’t even going to attempt to navigate your website. When creating a separate mobile website, or are optimizing your current website it’s important that you consider every possible interactive element and piece of your website. For instance, some ads may not display properly, so you’ll want to ensure they won’t display on certain screen sizes.   3. Poor Photography Stock photography is dead. If you’re using dated stock photos your visitors will be able to tell and it will make your website feel cheesy. However, keep in mind that not all stock photography will have a negative impact on your website. Using images is a great way to create a more emotional experience for your user, but just make sure they’re high quality, unique, and showcase your actual business or products.   4. Keyword Stuffed Copy Over a decade ago you could get away with having walls of keyword stuffed text across your website. Most web copy was written for the search engine robots, not human beings. However, those times are long gone and your copy needs to reflect this. If your web copy speaks to the search engines more than your readers, you’ll actually see your rankings start to decline. Keywords are still important, but even more important is making a connection to your visitors. The only way to do this is to write copy that’s geared towards your visitors and their needs.   5. Too Much Clutter When it comes to your website less is always better than more. Even though it can be tempting to hit your visitors with everything at once, and embed interactive widgets, this will lead to nothing but overwhelm. Think about your visitor every step of the way, and engineer your site towards the best user experience for them. By taking time to fix the mistakes above, your site will start to see higher levels of traffic, and increased levels of engagement across the board. web hosting Continue reading →

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YouTube vs. Facebook Video Marketing: Which Is Better In 2015?

Posted on September 1, 2015 by Hosting

The post YouTube vs. Facebook Video Marketing: Which Is Better In 2015? appeared first on HostGator Blog . One of the most surprising analytic discoveries of 2014 was the number of desktop views on videos Facebook received in comparison to YouTube, the second largest search engine in the world. While this may seem like a sign of the future, there were several algorithm changes Facebook made right around the same time to severely alter these figures, what happened at the times the red arrows are indicating? In Fall 2013 Facebook decided to roll out a new feature, which many of us remember as the auto-play videos no one could figure out how to turn-off. There were seemingly more articles devoted to teaching people how to turn auto-play videos off, than there were talking about the marketing benefits. The point here, is that although Facebook’s video views soared for a few months, they all began to plummet once people started turning the auto-play feature off. In May 2014, Facebook reported that the number of videos being posted to their website was 94% steeper than a year prior in the US, and the number of views increased by 50% from May to July. In June of 2014, they also improved their News Feed to where videos are now the most readily visible content on the social platform, ahead of Status Updates, Photos, and by far the links to other sites people share. Along with this update, Facebook has also made it to where YouTube links are being driven out of the News Feed.   What Does This All Mean? While the numbers might seem like Facebook is onto something revolutionary, the ways in which they’ve climbed to video success have come by their own hand. By combining auto-play, higher visibility for video, and cutting back on YouTube’s reach on their platform, all of these numbers came right at the same time, while simultaneously cutting down on YouTube’s views.   Here’s What Facebook is Missing: Organic Content Discovery – What happens when you want to find a video of your favorite band on Facebook? You could go their Fan Page and look on the videos tab, but there’s no search query to pinpoint all the exact keywords you’re looking for. YouTube is still the number two search engine in the world for a reason, their framework is built entirely around searchability . Content Distribution – While Facebook has made it possible for their videos to become embedded to reach outside viewers, YouTube has partnered with Apple, Android, Hulu, and many others to have apps built right into nearly any device. Content – YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005 and has a decade worth of content that’s not only important to viewers, but the creators as well. Facebook has a lot of catching up to do in this area, along with the need for a better way to find old videos.   What Facebook Can Offer The majority of this article has been made to debunk statistics that don’t carry a lot of weight just yet. The truth is though, Facebook’s video scheme has a very promising business model simply based on the social integration aspect. In the top four metrics there is: Engagement, Shares, and Time Spent Watching, three things Facebook is already built for. Facebook also makes it very easy for advertisers to directly target certain social groups, which is essentially the essence of good advertising, knowing your audience.   Conclusion For the time being, YouTube is still the biggest and best video platform in the world, and you can bet any declines they’ve suffered will regain traction sooner than you think. Facebook has an incredible model working, but according to Forbes Facebook was the one network people used less in 2014. While other platforms like Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram and SnapChat all continue to grow, it’s a good question to ask whether it’s worth investing video into a declining social platform? What are your thoughts and experiences in regards to this on-going debate?   *Photo Credits: Cover Photo- Photoshopped by Jeremy Jensen using stock image from: http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/eastvalleytribune.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/9/20/920b3bc0-652f-5591-9920-c0b5c78d0819/50ca55f89cff0.image.jpg Views Graph, from http://www.beet.tv/2014/10/brandcomscorefulgoni.html, modified by Jeremy Jensen with indicating arrows Most Important Metrics, http://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/most-important-video-metrics.jpg web hosting Continue reading →

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6 Steps to Making Your WordPress Site Mobile-Friendly

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Hosting

The post 6 Steps to Making Your WordPress Site Mobile-Friendly appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . The world is going mobile. And quickly. In 2014, for the first time ever, mobile devices were used to access the Internet more often than PCs. It was a landmark occurrence. A game changer. And yet many businesses continue to pay little attention to the mobile-friendliness of their websites. But Google is paying very close attention. In fact, if your business website isn’t mobile-friendly, you can expect Google to be giving you the cold shoulder in search engine rankings. As recently reported in the Wall Street Journal , Google has begun favoring mobile-friendly sites, and penalizing sites that are less mobile-friendly. So if your business WordPress site isn’t mobile-friendly, making it so should probably be bumped up in priority on your to-do list. Tech.co recently published a 6-step process for making your site mobile-friendly.   Step 1: Choose Your Hosting Service Carefully Any mobile-friendly changes you make to your site could be for naught if your hosting company provides slow and unreliable service. Pennies saved in choosing the cheapest hosting services available may turn out to be quite expensive in the long run.   Step 2: Choose a Mobile-Friendly WordPress Theme The WordPress theme you choose serves as both the foundation and framework of your website. What type of theme is mobile-friendly? A fast theme. Loading speed is a key factor in making a site mobile-friendly, so a fast-loading, responsive theme is ideal. Look for themes that have been tagged as having a “responsive layout.”   Step 3: Customize Your Content Structuring your content to be mobile-friendly is critical. What defines “mobile-friendliness” when it comes to content? In general, your content should be easy to view on small screens, and should be “finger-friendly” – easy to navigate by touch. Here are a few specific tips for making content mobile-friendly: Larger font sizes are better than smaller Buttons should be large in size, and isolated enough to easily tap with a fingertip without inadvertently hitting something else Lots of whitespace Short headlines Make content scannable: break text into lots of subsections with subtitles Position the most important info on a web page close to the top   Step 4: Manage Plugins One of the great advantages WordPress offers is the wealth of plugins that are available. But plugins are so easy to add that website owners often end up with quite a collection. The result is that sites are often burdened with a number of plugins that aren’t really needed or useful. A proliferation of plugins can contribute to performance issues that can make your site less mobile-friendly. So stay on top of the plugins you’ve added to your site. Prune away those that aren’t really contributing to your site. And make certain that the plugins you use are kept up-to-date with the latest versions.   Step 5: Optimize Images Images are an important component of your website’s content. But they can significantly slow the load time of your site, making it less mobile-friendly. You can help to counteract that problem by using plugins that work to optimize the loading of images. Some plugins worth considering for this purpose include: Image Pro CW Image Optimizer Imsanity Hammy EWWW Image Optimizer PB Responsive Images   Step 6: Test Once you’ve optimized your site to be mobile-friendly, test it. See how it performs on your own mobile devices. Does it load fast? Is it easy to navigate via touch screen? Does the text fit the screen? The greater the variety of mobile devices you can use in testing your site, the better. Ask friends and family to also check out your site on their devices. And be sure to find out whether your site rates a mobile-friendly thumbs-up from Google. You can easily use Google’s testing tool to evaluate your site for free.   Worth the Effort It can be a bit of a chore to make certain that your site is mobile-friendly. But it’s worth the effort. Doing so will help to assure that your site ranks as highly as possible in search engine results. And making your site comfortable and easy-to-use for mobile visitors will help to keep them on your site longer. But most importantly, making your site mobile-friendly will make your site accessible to a huge audience. By 2017, nearly 70% of the world’s population is expected to be able to access the Internet via smartphones. That’s a pretty sizable potential audience for your business. Or not – depending upon the mobile-friendliness of your site.   ***** Chris Delker is a freelance copywriter based in Dallas, Texas. web hosting Continue reading →

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5 Common Beginner WordPress Mistakes

Posted on June 24, 2015 by Hosting

The post 5 Common Beginner WordPress Mistakes appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . WordPress can be a great framework to build your first website with. However, since it’s a platform that has a relatively low barrier to entry a lot of beginners make the same mistakes. In order to avoid frustration in the early stages of your online career it’s important that you avoid these beginner mistakes. In this post I’ll dive into the five most common WordPress mistakes you’ll want to avoid, so you can have a beautiful functioning site, instead of one that screams amateur.   1. Choosing A Poorly Coded Theme When you’re trying to find the perfect theme for your website you’ll notice there are thousands of themes to choose from. How do you choose the correct theme? Sometimes you might come across a beautiful theme from an unknown developer that has very little reviews. Even if the theme looks great it’s not recommended to use the theme. If you want to use a free theme it’s recommend to choose one from the WordPress approved list of developers. However, the best course of action is to go with a premium theme . These themes might cost you a little money up front. But, with that cost you’ll also receive dedicated support in case anything goes wrong, and a host of upgraded features not available when using free themes.   2. Not Changing The Default Login Information When you install WordPress you’ll be able to choose your username and password. The best way to prevent your site from being hacked is to use a strong password and username. Simple passwords, like your pets name, are not good enough. The best passwords are those that use a combination of characters, symbols, and uppercase and lowercase letters. You can use a tool like, Passwords Generator to generate a very strong and complex password.   3. Forgetting Basic Page Elements When you’re building out your website it’s easy to get carried away with all of the cool things you can do. However, it’s important not to neglect common website features. For instance, every website needs a contact page and an about page. Without these elements there won’t be way for people to learn about what you do, or get in touch with you. Make your site beautiful, but don’t forget the basics.   4. Not Changing Your Permalinks Your site’s permalinks is the link structure of your URL. The default structure for your WordPress site, is usually something like ‘http://www.yourwebsite.com/?p=21′, rather than ‘http://www.yourwebsite.com/first-post’. Luckily, making this change is simple, and it will give your URL’s a more memorable appearance. Once inside your WordPress Dashboard, navigate to Settings> Permalinks. This will open up a window to change your settings. For most websites the fifth option ‘Post name’ will suffice. Check the box, click ‘Save Changes’ and you’re all set.   5. Failing To Use A SEO Plugin Getting search engine traffic is a crucial aspect of any online business. However, if you’re not optimizing your posts and content properly, you could be missing out on potential traffic. Luckily, there are a lot of plugins that make the process of SEO optimization very simple. All you have to do is install a plugin, such as, Yoast SEO , follow the steps and you’ll be set. WordPress makes it easy to have a beautiful website up and running rather quickly. By avoiding the mistakes above you’ll be able to avoid most beginner pitfalls. web hosting Continue reading →

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