Tag Archives: search-engines

How to Optimize Content Before Publishing

Posted on March 11, 2019 by Hosting

The post How to Optimize Content Before Publishing appeared first on HostGator Blog . Even the most engaging content with all the right elements won’t serve the purpose if the search engines can’t find it . Before you hit that publish button, there are several steps you can take which will ensure that your content is properly optimized. If you are ready to invest your time and attention to optimization, the following tips will show you how to do that effectively. Create Content with Optimization in Mind In order to optimize your content, you need to add some important and relevant links, as well as some keywords, to catch the attention of search engines. Some writers make the mistake of creating the content and then placing the links and keywords where they think it fits. This is a BIG mistake! Why? Well, if you add search engine optimization elements after everything has already been composed, it will most probably stick out. Readers can’t overlook randomly added words and links that just don’t naturally fit into the flow of the content. Writers used to stuff articles with meaningless words just so they can add keywords and links to optimize the article. Then in 2011 everything changed because Google established Panda Penalties to make sure that people would be penalized for low-quality, keyword-stuffed content. If you want to write high-quality content with naturally embedded links, you need to know which optimization elements you want to add before you start with the writing process. First, you should know your topic and your target audience. This will help you to search for corresponding optimization elements. Find suitable keywords and valuable links and save them. Along the way, start brainstorming how you can form your content and which subtitles you can create by adding the keywords. During the whole process of research and writing, you will already have your links and keywords ready which will inspire you to write suitable content. By having the optimization elements in mind while you write, you will find a way to add them without sounding forced. Apply Reader-Friendly Formatting We live in the age of people with short attention span or skimmers, how they are popularly called. That is why you need to format your content so that they stay long enough to read through the article and hopefully click on some of the links. There are several elements that every content should have if you want to optimize it in the right way and keep the reader’s’ attention. For reader-friendly formatting, focus on the following: A headline with the main keyword Subtitles which consist of the main or relevant keywords Using H1, H2, H3 metatags for titles and subtitles The main keyword in the first paragraph (recommended) Images with ALT attribute (with main or relevant keywords) Placing keywords naturally and evenly in the text Remember that you’re not writing a book but a text for a website Pay Attention to Content-Length and Readability Focus on the length of the article because you need to write just enough so that the content doesn’t seem stuffed with optimization elements but not too much so that you lose the reader’s attention. The recommended length is at least 1,000 words when it comes to writing articles and having a readability score of 60-70 points. Keep in mind that these numbers depend on the niche, so don’t go to extremes. (Note: the HostGator blog team aims for minimum 2,000 words when we really want to rank!) It can be very helpful if you can ask someone to read your article, web post, or blog post before you publish it. Having a second pair of eyes looking at what you wrote from a different perspective can ensure you that you will give the audience what they want. The person who will read your content can tell you whether there is a natural flow or if some keywords or links pop out. This is a helpful way to find out whether you accomplished to create high-quality SEO content. If you want to improve the readability of your content, you can use some online writing tools such as Grammarly , EssaySupply.com , Readable , and GradeProof . Add Social Media Elements Social media is the perfect tool for raising awareness about your brand and what you represent. It is also a very important element when it comes to content optimization . If you want to optimize your content fully you need to be aware that the readers won’t spend their precious time trying to share your content with their friends and family. Considering that social media is the most common place for sharing interesting findings, your content needs to feature convenient social sharing elements. That means that you should add sharing buttons and locate them strategically on a visible place which doesn’t distract the reader such as the top or at the bottom of your page. You can also set it up so that it follows your readers on the left or right as they scroll. Adding social sharing buttons is good for SEO because it helps to generate more traffic, drive more links, and eventually increase SERPs. Include Comments Section Comments are a great way to connect with your readers, establish a certain relationship, and maybe give them some further insight into the subject you are writing about. But what may surprise you is that comment section can also serve as an optimization tool. How is that? Comments will keep your content fresh and updated and since they are part of the content that will matter to search engines especially if they consist of targeted keywords and high-quality links. Your readers can ask you about a different content piece which will attract shares and backlinks. Also, when answering questions you can also add some relevant links. In addition, you will signal Google that you care about providing value to your readers which is always a plus. Veronica Wright, CEO at Resumescentre has shared a valuable piece of advice concerning this topic, “A comment section is great for SEO! However, you need to pay extra attention to unrelated comments, spam, and low-quality links because they can harm the process of optimization. Don’t hesitate to delete those comments.” Final Thoughts The usual steps of optimization such as adding the links and using the right keywords have been discussed million times, but these steps will take you a step further and help you to create high-quality content with just the right amount of optimization. Dedicating your time to content optimization will certainly improve your ranking and provide you with some valuable clicks. That is why it is important to follow these guidelines and adapt them to the type of content you are creating. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Your 2019 Website Redesign Checklist

Posted on February 22, 2019 by Hosting

The post Your 2019 Website Redesign Checklist appeared first on HostGator Blog . The beginning of the New Year is a good time to make resolutions and commit to the work that often gets pushed aside during the busy year. For a lot of business owners, that includes redesigning your website. The website that was bright and shiny and looked just how you wanted it to a few years ago probably isn’t pulling its full weight anymore. Every website owner should periodically revisit their website’s design to look for opportunities to improve. How to Tell When It’s Time for a Website Redesign Taking on a website redesign project requires a commitment in time and money, which makes it easy to find excuses not to do it. But there are few compelling reasons that are good enough to squash those excuses and move forward in 2019 with a website redesign.   It’s been years. Web design best practices change. Just because your website was intuitive to visitors five years ago doesn’t mean it is now. And if you haven’t done a thorough update in a few years, you’re likely missing opportunities to get more out of your website based on current trends in SEO (search engine optimization), UX (user experience), and new technology. If your last website design project was years ago, at the very least you should do a thorough review to figure out if your website is currently meeting your needs or could use a makeover .   You’re not getting as many visitors as you’d like. If you’re not seeing much traffic, you should both step up your online marketing and look for ways to strengthen your website. A website redesign presents the opportunity to analyze any weaknesses in your current website and spot missed SEO opportunities, so you can create a version that will perform better in search and bring in more visitors.     Your visitors aren’t sticking around or returning. Getting visitors to your website doesn’t matter much if they immediately click away and never come back. A good website is designed to get visitors to stick around, click through to additional pages, and keep coming back for more. If your visitors aren’t doing that now, you’ll want to reconsider your website strategy and look for ways to redesign your pages to encourage longer and repeat visits with useful content and compelling CTAs (calls to action).   It doesn’t work on mobile. One of the top sins of web design in 2019 is having a website that’s awkward or difficult to use on mobile. Too many people do their web browsing on mobile devices now for you to get away with providing a bad mobile experience. If your website is hard to use on a small screen, visitors will click away and the search engines will punish you in the rankings. This is probably more urgent than any other item on this list. If your website isn’t mobile friendly , a website redesign project is imperative.   Your business strategy has changed. For business websites, a New Year means revisiting your business plan and considering if your overall strategy and goals need to change. Anytime your business embarks on a new strategy—developing a new unique value proposition (UVP), introducing a new product, deciding to target a new demographic, etc.—your website needs an update to bring it in line with your new approach.   You’re tired of the website you have. Really, this is a good enough reason on its own. If you’re no longer happy with the website you have—maybe you want different colors, think the design looks outdated, or have recently come across a few websites with designs you like more—that’s a good enough reason to change your website so it better matches what you really want.   10 Steps to Include on Your Website Redesign Checklist When launching a website redesign, you can cut down on a lot of guesswork and risk by spending time on research and planning. Here’s a ten-step checklist to help you get your website redesign right.   1. Clarify your goals. Before you start working out the details of your website redesign, define what you want to accomplish. Every website will have some main overarching goals, such as making sales or developing an engaged community. In addition, you may have a number of smaller goals that help you achieve your main ones, like increasing traffic or getting people to sign up for your email list. Write out a list of the main goals your website ought to achieve, and determine the priority levels of each so you know what to focus on in your website redesign. Where possible, assign specific metrics to track to each goal so you can better measure your success once your new website is up.   2. Analyze your website metrics. Dig into your website analytics to gain a clear understanding of what about your current website is working, and what isn’t. Your analytics will reveal insights about who your audience is, how they find your website, and what they do once there. Look for trends in the data that suggest the types of topics, CTAs, and design elements your audience responds to. And confirm that the audience you’re attracting now is the one you want to reach—otherwise, your website and marketing may need to take a different approach to get in front of the right people.   3. Develop a persona. While you definitely want your website redesign to produce a website you like, that’s actually less important than making sure your website appeals to your target audience. For your website to work for the people it’s really for, every decision about the website’s design needs to put them top of mind. A buyer persona is a basic sketch of the type of person you most want to reach. It typically includes demographic details, a description of their interests and online behavior, and notes on their common questions and problems. A persona lets you picture the person you’re building your website for, so it’s easier to get inside their head and make sure you center their experience in your approach to the design. 4. Do keyword research. Keyword research is both a crucial step in optimizing your website for the search engines, and a useful way to gain knowledge about what your audience is looking for and the language they most commonly use. Using the terminology your customers use is a helpful way to make the website more user friendly for them, and increases the chance that your site will show up in the search engines for the terms they’re looking for. For on-site optimization, choose a relevant, unique primary keyword for each page of your website, along with a couple of secondary keywords. Work them into the URL, title tag, headings, alt tag, and website copy—but always naturally, don’t try to force them in. Lots of keyword research tools are available to help identify the best keywords for each of your website’s main pages, and many of them are free. If you do content marketing, keyword research is also a valuable resource for finding the topics your audience cares about.   5. Do a content and SEO audit. A successful website redesign doesn’t require starting over from scratch—you can still use a lot of the pages you already have, but look for ways to make them better. A thorough SEO and content audit will reveal opportunities to make the content you already have on your website go further and get better results. In particular, in reviewing your current website, look for: Web pages that aren’t well optimized for search now Web pages that lack a clear CTA, or have one that isn’t getting results Opportunities to improve your site structure so it’s more intuitive for users through more useful categories or a clearer menu Successful content that can be repurposed into different formats Successful content that can be updated to better drive visitors to take the actions you want Underperforming content that can be improved upon for better results Broken links or other issues contributing to high bounce rates Content that no longer supports your goals, that your website is better off dropping While your content has little to do with your website’s visual design, incorporating it into your website redesign plan will ensure your new design supports your content—a crucial feature of a strong design.   6. Develop a style guide. A style guide is a helpful tool for clarifying the general look you want your website to have. If more than one person will be involved in your website redesign, it will keep everyone on the same page when it comes to the website’s primary design elements. Even if your website redesign will be completed by one person, it makes it easier to ensure each web page communicates a consistent visual brand. Your style guide doesn’t have to be something complicated. It can be as simple as defining your color scheme, choosing your typography, and addressing formatting choices. You can also include choices about the images to use, the button colors and styles to go with, and the proper icons to use (and not use). Whatever you decide to include, a simple style guide will serve as a handy reference point as you work to helps you achieve visual consistency throughout the site.      7. Find the right designer or website builder. With your basic research and strategy in place, the next step is deciding how you’re going to create you new website design. Your main two options are hiring a web designer or choosing a website builder. Each option has its advantages. Most notably, a web designer allows you more flexibility and control, while a website builder provides convenience and affordability. Whichever you’re leaning toward, take some time in this step to research your options. Hiring a web designer that’s a good fit for what you want is crucial to the overall success of your website redesign process. And choosing the best website builder for your needs will make the designing process easier and ensure you have all the features and functionality you need.   8. Consider UX. UX is the term used to describe design that centers the user experience. In other words, thinking through how your visitors will interact with your website in order to spot issues that may be confusing or difficult for them. For example, if a significant number of your visitors come to the site looking for kids’ products, then making sure you put a link to the Kids category of your website right in the menu makes it easier for people to find what you’re looking for. Other factors that influence UX include making sure your text and buttons are in colors that are easy to see, your fonts are easy to read, and your links are well sized for people on mobile. Before you settle on your new website design, go through it looking for any factors that could make it difficult or confusing for your visitors to take the actions you want them to take.   9. Prioritize the mobile experience. A mobile friendly website is a requirement in 2019. When you’re considering your website builder options, take into account whether they offer responsive templates that make creating a mobile friendly website easy. Or, when you’re interviewing designers, ask about their experience creating responsive websites. Double check how all your design elements look and work on mobile devices. A too-small button or link can make a website that otherwise seems fine basically unusable on mobile. You can’t treat mobile as an afterthought any more, it ought to be top of your mind throughout the website redesign process.   10. Do user testing . When you’ve finally got everything else on this list checked off and your website seemingly finished—don’t publish just yet. You’re never going to be as good at seeing your website the way your visitors will as someone who comes to it with fresh eyes. So find some customers or friends to help you test out your website. Ask them to complete a few main actions on the site, like making a purchase, filling out a form, or navigating to a particular product. Encourage them to do so on different types of devices and in different browsers. And make a note of anything they have trouble with, so you know what changes to make before you go live.   Launch Your New Website! Once you’ve checked off all ten steps, your new and improved website is ready for the public. Publish it to the web, but keep a close eye on your website analytics to see how it fares. You never want to assume a website redesign will accomplish everything you hoped. Track specific metrics based on your stated goals to see what’s working, and continue to make small tweaks to the design as you go based on what the data tells you. Your redesign is a great way to make your website go further in 2019 and beyond, but when it comes to website maintenance, your work is never entirely done.   Ready to transform your website? Contact HostGator’s Web Design team today. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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The Best Free WordPress Themes for Lifestyle Blogs Now

Posted on February 14, 2019 by Hosting

The post The Best Free WordPress Themes for Lifestyle Blogs Now appeared first on HostGator Blog . Lifestyle blogging is a popular hobby and it’s easy to get started. Earning an income from a lifestyle blog ? You’ll need more than good writing and images to make that happen. You’ll need technical tools to give your blog a fresh and appealing look, make it easy to find, and help you earn money through advertising, an online store, affiliate marketing , or a combination of those income streams. A good WordPress theme is the key to creating the right look, getting found, and making money from the content you to create. Here are a few lifestyle blog themes we like for their features, looks, and free versions. Fashion Lifestyle This mobile-friendly theme from Blossom Themes is tailored for fashion but can be altered to suit any type of lifestyle blog, thanks to its customizable elements and mobile-friendly design. The basic layout includes an image slider above the fold, image-based menu categories, an understated but impossible-to-miss newsletter opt-in box (so you can start sending your blog email campaigns ), and merchandise displays. Fashion Lifestyle is built to work with the WooCommerce plugin for WordPress so you can set up an online store . There’s also a built-in Instagram section to make social media marketing easier, and schema.org compatibility means it’s easier to format rich content that performs well in Google search results . The Pro version of Fashion Lifestyle ($49) gives you the ability to change the color of your blog’s header, footer, and buttons. It also adds more header, homepage, banner, and slider layout options, and includes AdSense-optimized spots and affiliate marketing capabilities.   Travel Lifestyle This free lifestyle theme from The Bootstrap Themes loads fast and displays cleanly on a variety of devices. Travel Lifestyle’s image-centric layout is ideal for travel photos and features as well as other types of photography, special events, destinations, and décor. Like Fashion Lifestyle, Travel Lifestyle has a built-in Instagram section and other social media integration tools and it’s WooCommerce compatible. The layout and customization options are more limited in the free version of Travel Lifestyle than Fashion Lifestyle—one layout, banner slider, and header option, plus a limited menu of Google Fonts. The premium version ($49) adds theme and menu color options, ad management and ad-blocker bypass capabilities, and more layout choices. Premium users have the option of a right sidebar, left sidebar, or full-width single column layout in desktop mode, and a full-width column or left sidebar below the fold on mobile.   Chic Lifestyle If you’re the kind of blogger who likes to feature snappy headlines with your posts’ featured images, Chic Lifestyle is a theme worth exploring. The image-grid layout leaves room for short blocks of text under each image, to encourage viewers to click through and read your posts. Like Travel Lifestyle, Chic Lifestyle is published by The Bootstrap, and it has the same free and premium features and pricing.   WP Mint Magazine Bloggers who want a clean, tech-oriented look and who update their content frequently may like WP Mint Magazine . This free lifestyle theme from ProDesigns looks somewhat similar to Chic Lifestyle  at the top of the page, with a row of images coupled with blocks of text and a full-width newsletter opt-in section. But there’s a more complex category-based image hierarchy further down on the page, so you can display lots of content to encourage your visitors to stick around and explore. Like the other themes in this list, WP Mint Magazine is responsive so it displays well on mobile. There’s no paid-upgrade version, so you get this theme’s multiple layout and widget options for free.   Savona Savona from Optima themes is a theme with classic style. Its layout is similar to Fashion Lifestyle – banner slider, category images, and a sidebar with room for a bio and photo, Instagram, and recent posts. But Savona has a more traditional range of fonts than Fashion Lifestyle, and the free theme is available in several variations: Savona Classic, Blog, Bold, Lite, and Minimal. Each Savona theme has a free version that’s WooCommerce compatible, optimized for search engines, and responsive for display on mobile and desktop screens.   Online Blog Online Blog from Thememattic is for bloggers who have big personalities and want to stand out from the lifestyle blogging crowd with unique web design . Bold, animated splashes of color add movement and visual interest to your pull quotes and images and they keep the reader’s eye moving down the page for more of your content. Three featured post images and headlines make up the eye-catching banner slider, giving visitors a quick glance at several of your posts at once, even before they click the slide arrow. The free version of Online Blog gives you live editing previews in Customizer, an author bio sidebar, WooCommerce compatibility, SEO-ready structure, and support for some social media content. The pro version of Online Blog ($49) adds the ability to change fonts and theme colors, an Instagram slider, more social media options, and logo and title customization tools.   Choosing Your Lifestyle Blog Theme Each theme publisher offers a live demo on their site, but it’s a good idea to try out the themes you like with your content to make sure they look good before you commit. Things to think about as you decide: What type of content do you feature the most, images, text, or videos? You’ll want a theme that puts the most emphasis on what you do best. How do you plan to monetize your blog ? Your plans can affect your theme choice, especially if you want to have ads or sell merchandise in a store on your site. How will your audience view your blog? Do they read it at their desks on coffee breaks, or on their phones while they’re in the carpool line? Choose a theme that makes it easy for them. Once you set up your theme, keep tabs on metrics like your traffic, bounce rate, and conversions. If, after a few weeks or months you’re not seeing growth, you may want to try a different theme—and there are plenty to choose from. Check out this blog post for more tips on selecting a WordPress theme for your blog .  Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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The Best Ways to Advertise Your Website

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Hosting

The post The Best Ways to Advertise Your Website appeared first on HostGator Blog . You’ve put a lot of time into creating an awesome website. Now you need people to find it. Frankly, that’s the hard part. The web is huge. With millions of websites on just about every topic you can imagine, you’ve got a lot of competition to capture people’s attention. You can’t expect to launch your website and wait for your audience to find you. For people to visit your website, you have to work to get it in front of them. Luckily, there are a lot of different tactics you can use to make that happen and some of them are even free! If your website doesn’t have a budget to put toward promotion, you still have some powerful ways to start reaching new website visitors. The catch is that, what you save in money, you should expect to spend in time. Most of these tactics will require a significant time commitment (although notably, you can save the time if you have money to spend on hiring a professional to do these for you). 1.     Prioritize SEO. Google is the main way people find most of the websites they visit. Over 90% of all web searches start there. One of the best ways to make your website easier for people to find is to get it showing up in the search engines. To be clear, this isn’t easy. Search engine optimization is competitive and requires doing a variety of tasks on an ongoing basis, including: Doing audience research to identify the people you most want to reach. Doing keyword research to learn the terms and topics your audience is interested in. Optimizing each page on your site for your target keywords. Creating relevant, high-quality content on a regular basis. Promoting your website and content to bring in more visitors and gain the attention of influencers. Performing link building campaigns to increase your website’s authority. It requires creating a strategy and putting in the work, but SEO is one of the most valuable tactics for making your website more discoverable online. We know that SEO can feel intimidating. Maybe you know that you need SEO, but don’t know where to start. Check out the HostGator Business Cloud package . It comes with a free SEO tool that will generate a personalized step-by-step SEO plan for your website. The SEO tool will show you how to improve your search ranking, and will send you real-time updates to your website rankings and monitor your competitors’ rankings as well.   2. Do social media promotion. Creating accounts on the various social media sites is completely free, as is sharing your content with followers on those sites. You don’t have to be on every single social media channel—for most website owners that would be overwhelming. Take some time to research where your audience is most likely to be and how they use the different sites. And consider which social channels are a fit for your website . If your audience generally prefers written content over video, then you may not need to be on YouTube. A photography website should definitely be on Instagram, but one that’s light on images may do better on Facebook and Twitter. Whichever social media channels you decide to go with, there are a few best practices worth keeping in mind: Tailor your messaging to the channels. If you promote your website on both Instagram and LinkedIn, you’ll need to take different approaches to each. Promote your content more than the general site. Including your home page in your social media bio makes perfect sense, but tweeting out a link to just the homepage usually doesn’t. You’ll get more results if you drive people to pages on your website that include helpful content. Do more than just promote your site. A common mistake people make on social media is to treat it only as a platform for promotion, when it’s supposed to be social—it’s right there in the name. Do drop your website link into your bio and share your awesome content with your followers, but also devote some time to interacting with other people on the site. Share and respond to their stuff and look for opportunities to join conversations and communities. Think before you share. Social media faux pas are far too common. Don’t let the fast, transitive nature of social media make you lazy. Proofread your social media posts and make sure everything you share is something you’re willing to stand behind. Social media is one of the most powerful free tools for promoting your website, but getting something out of it without sinking all your time into it can be a challenge. Be thoughtful and strategic about which sites you use and how you use them.   3. Create high-value content. Consistently producing great content is useful for both SEO and social media promotion , but it’s also good for drawing new visitors to your site in and of itself. The more content you create that helps people, the more reasons they have to visit your website. Blogging is a great tool for consistently producing fresh content that shows Google your website is current and relevant, while also giving visitors something useful to read and return to. And you can use especially high-value content like an ebook or course to stand out in the crowded content space, draw in new visitors, and potentially get email addresses for your list.   4. Start guest blogging. Creating content on your own site is a smart strategy for giving people more reasons to visit, but usually it works best if you combine it with creating content on other relevant websites that give you the chance to reach a new and bigger audience. Many websites accept guest blogs because it means free content for them. For you, it means an opportunity to build links (good for SEO) and drive new visitors to your website. Be strategic in your guest posting to make sure you get the most out of it: Look for websites that cover similar or related topics to yours, whose audience will overlap with the one you’re trying to reach. Prioritize pitching websites that have a large or dedicated audience (ideally both). Take some time to get to know the website before you write a piece for it. You want to be familiar with their audience and the types of posts that generally perform well there. Include relevant links in your guest posts back to your own website, along with the link you include in your bio. Make sure your guest posts are high quality—you want to make a good impression on the new audience you reach. Guest posts help you build up the authority of your website and attract new visitors at the same time.   5. Join and participate in online communities. Online communities are valuable on a number of levels. They give you the chance to connect directly with your target audience. You can learn how they talk and the kinds of questions they regularly ask. You can turn that knowledge into a content strategy that ensures you’re creating content you know your audience needs. And then you can go back and share that content in the communities the next time someone needs it, driving people back to your website. But as with social media, it pays to spend time participating in the community and becoming a valued member before you start pushing out your stuff. Depending on where your audience hangs out, you could find worthwhile communities to join on Reddit, Quora, LinkedIn, Facebook, or in industry-specific forums. Decide which ones to join and start spending a little time in them each day or week to learn from your audience and start becoming a part of the community.   6.     Connect with influencers. A lot of getting your website in front of other people depends on other people wanting to share it. That’s part of what makes successful promotion difficult. You can share content on your own site all day, but people are more likely to care if someone else they follow and trust shares or links to it—giving it their endorsement in internet terms. And people who have a lot of authority or followers online are more likely to share content from people they know and trust. You want to be one of those people. You can pinpoint some of the influencers in your space by using tools like Buzzsumo or Followerwonk to find the people with the most followers in your niche. Follow those influencers and pay attention to the people and websites they share. Over time, you’ll become familiar with the top websites in your topic area and the personalities behind them. Look for ways to interact with them. Share their content, respond to their status updates, or leave comments on their blog. If you notice them participating in Twitter chats or social communities, join and participate as well. By interacting with them, you can start to get onto their radar and, ideally, begin to develop a relationship with them. This step takes time, and you need to be careful not to get pushy or ask too much—your interactions need to be genuine. But relationships are a crucial part of promoting your website and content, so this is an important step to incorporate into your strategy. Plus, you may get a few friends out of it!   7. Become a source. Journalists and bloggers often look for quotes and anecdotes from sources to add depth to the stories they write. If you can position yourself to be that source, you can gain a link back to your website and some attention from a new audience. The easiest way to become a source is to sign up for Help a Reporter Out . You can select the topics relevant to your expertise, and receive emails daily that collect all the requests writers around the web have for sources. When you see one that’s a match for you, follow the instructions and share your knowledge, along with the name of your website and a link. If the writer uses a quote from you, they’ll often (but not always) include a link back to your website in the piece.   8. Use expert sources. When you quote somebody in the content on your website, they’re more likely to take an interest in what you’ve written. Even better, they’ll often share it with their network of followers. When you’re working on a new piece of content, consider if it could be strengthened by a quote from an expert—bonus points if you can identify an expert on the list of influencers you’ve been working to connect with—and reach out to ask them for their insights. Try to keep your ask small. Most people that make a good expert source are busy. A quick answer by email or a 15-minute phone interview should do the trick. Work their insights into  your piece, and then let them know once it’s published.   9. Do email marketing. Email marketing isn’t exactly a strategy for finding new customers since it requires someone to have already visited your website and signed up for your email list. Keep in mind that people signed up for your email list because they already liked something on your website or something from your business. This is where email marketing comes in handy – getting them to come back to your website or business. Look for places around your website and in your content to encourage people to sign up for your email list. If you created an especially high-value piece of content like an ebook or course, you can put that behind a form that requires a visitor to provide their email address in order to access it. You can even promote your email list on social media . Once people start to sign up for your list, you can use your emails to drive them back to your website whenever you add new content or, if you have a business website, new deals and products. If you use email marketing, make sure you send emails consistently to keep your website top of mind for your subscribers. Make your emails as valuable and entertaining as possible. And, as with social media, don’t make them all about promoting yourself or your website. Fill your emails with information that will be genuinely valuable to your audience. A note on email marketing: many email marketing software services have a free version , but as your list grows, you’ll likely need to upgrade to a paid version. This is a tactic that can be free to start, but may require a budget with time.   10.  Do link building. This is part of SEO, but also worth mentioning on its own. Link building provides two key benefits: It makes your website look more authoritative to Google—links are widely considered to be one of the top ranking signals for the search engine. It drives more traffic to your website from people who follow the links from other sites. You have to be really careful with link building that you only use legitimate tactics. Links on low-quality sites could hurt rather than help you in the search engine rankings and wouldn’t drive much traffic your way anyways. But including some smart white-hat link building tactics in your strategy can help boost your rankings and raise awareness of your site to readers around the web.   Conclusion Creating your website isn’t enough. You need to make it easy for people to find. You don’t necessarily need to do everything on this list, but use it as a starting point to figure out the best tactics for you and put together a strategy that will ensure your website reaches more people. 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16 Tips for Promoting Your Small Business Website During the Holidays

Posted on October 22, 2018 by Hosting

The post 16 Tips for Promoting Your Small Business Website During the Holidays appeared first on HostGator Blog . If you’re reading this post, you already know that running a small business is hard work. And it only gets more difficult during the holiday season. As a small business owner, you may feel that each day with an “open” sign is a reason to celebrate. We get it. HostGator is turning 16 years old , but like so many other businesses, HostGator started as a small business with a single client. Our customer base grew quickly from dozens to hundreds, and hundreds to thousands, and so can you!   We may be turning 16, but we’re celebrating you – small businesses – and helping you succeed with a birthday sale and 16 tips to promote your small business website during the holidays. Let’s get started! 1. Determine your holiday marketing budget. Hopefully you have a regular budget set aside for online marketing. If not, it’s likely time to think about a budget, even a small marketing budget, particularly since some social media channels require a small “pay to play” amount. Yes, your Facebook business page is still free, but the Facebook algorithm gives high preference to sponsored posts and ads. As such, it’s harder to be seen in the busy news feed. One solution is to work incredibly hard at organic posts – publishing your posts multiple times or offering giveaways if your fans will share your page. The quickest solution, however, may be to buy small ads or promoted posts to ensure that fans see your posts. If you already have a marketing budget, great! Think about how much additional money you can contribute to your marketing budget during the holiday season. 2. Make a “set it and forget it” plan for social media marketing. In the hustle and bustle of trying to work your business during the holiday season, give yourself a break by planning and pre-scheduling as much as you can. Social media may be the last thing on your mind when the holiday season ramps up, so create a social “set it and forget it” media promotion plan. Creating and scheduling social media posts in advance can save you a ton of time during the busy season, and it will free up your mind to be more creative in the moment. Make a list of at least three posts per week that you can pre schedule. Your scheduled post can be as simple as a reminder of your holiday hours or as detailed as a featured item of the day or a blog post you’ve already written. If social media content seems too overwhelming during the holiday season, consider hiring a freelance social media manager. You can find affordable freelancers on websites such as Fiverr . But hiring a freelancer doesn’t completely eliminate your need to be involved. A freelance social media manager will likely want to schedule a meeting with you to go over ideas, and may even request your approval of the content before posting to social media. A freelancer can certainly be helpful with on-demand needs such as if you expect to get more inbox messages on your page. If you have social media-savvy staff members, consider giving them access to post on your social media accounts during the holiday season. Ultimately, be smart about what will pose the least risk for your business and will also help maximize your time during the holiday season. 3. Be sure that your physical location and office hours are correct and consistent. Be sure that your physical location and office hours are correct and consistent across the internet. Don’t forget to check all mentions on your own website, all ‘about’ sections on social media, your Google My Business listings, and any other local listing websites. In the long run, consistent information will give you credibility with search engines which may, in turn, list your website higher in search results. Take a few minutes to be sure all your information is correct and consistent. If you have special holiday hours, be sure to list them and consider noting that they are, in fact, holiday hours. Customers are more likely to shop with you if they can trust that you’ll be open when your website says you will be open. 4. Offer a holiday coupon. According to a 2016 CouponBox survey , coupons can increase revenue for retailers up to 40 percent. But what type of coupon should you offer? First of all, determine your profit margin and create a coupon that brings revenue without cutting into your profit margin. Create a coupon that will be intriguing for your customers, and share the coupon as often as you want – on social media, in email marketing, or even a traditional printed coupon stuffed into shopping bags for future purchases. Create unique coupon codes for each coupon that you offer in order to track which coupons are most popular. For instance, have a coupon code such as “EMAIL” for email offers and a different code, such as “SHAREME,” to indicate coupons found via social media. At the end of the holiday season, count the coupon codes to know which coupons were most profitable for your business so that planning for next year will be easier. Online coupons are very shareable, which can be in your favor, but keep in mind that online coupons can also be picked up by sites like RetailMeNot. Be sure you are able to sustain a coupon (and orders) on a large scale. 5. Develop an email marketing campaign to promote your sales & holiday promotions. Email marketing is an efficient and cost-effective way to communicate with your customers. As social media feeds continue to limit timely exposure to your fanbase, email marketing allows your customers to see and open your emails on their own schedule. To make it easier on you, set up email automation by scheduling a series of emails to distribute throughout the holiday season. Use your email campaigns to promote the coupons, holiday gift guides, and other holiday sales you have going on during the holiday season. 6. Develop new ideas for your holiday campaigns by reviewing last year’s analytics. You know that statement about learning from your past? You can apply the same concept to your holiday marketing efforts by looking at last year’s data to find ideas you can apply or tweak this year . Create a list of all your data and analytics that could be helpful such as Google Analytics, analytics from your email marketing software, and social media analytics for paid and organic posts. Review your data from October to January, and look for trends such as what your audience reacted to, which posts received the most traffic, and what time of day your website received the most traffic. You can learn a lot from last year’s analytics that can help shape your holiday marketing strategy this year. 7. Build your following by co-sponsoring a giveaway with a complementary brand. Word of mouth still has a strong influence on shoppers. One way you can capitalize on word of mouth is to partner with other small businesses or brands. Look for small businesses that offer products or services that would be of interest to your customers. Consider small businesses with a strong social media following that is larger than yours or has customers that are similar to yours. To double your exposure, both companies should tag the social media promotion. 8. Ask current customers for reviews. Building on the word of mouth concept, customers are highly likely to read online reviews before purchasing. In fact, customers often read product reviews on multiple sites during their decision making process. According to research from BrightLocal, 88% of customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Online reviews are also important for search engine rankings. Websites may rank higher in search results if the company has reviews, especially positive reviews. If a customer has a positive experience with your business, encourage them to share it on one of the review sites. You can get started easily with reviews on Facebook, Google My Business, Yelp, or even reviews posted on your own website. One thing to note – search engines usually want these reviews to be and feel organic. If you were to run a contest and encourage people to complete a review in order to enter the contest, Google may see this flood of reviews as spammy. Bottom line, keep it organic and honest. 9. Make sure your website is ready to handle the holiday traffic boost. Many businesses start with a small, shared web hosting plan, but eventually reach the point where they need to upgrade. Small businesses may choose to upgrade their website hosting for more server space, more speed, or if they want a more secure server environment. But how do you know if it’s time to upgrade to a dedicated server ? If you’ve experienced slow website performance or if you keep highly sensitive information, it may be time to consider a dedicated server.  During the holiday season, you’re likely to expect more traffic to your website, and upgrading to a dedicated server could the perfect solution to ensure your website is ready to handle the traffic spike. 10. Update your website to a mobile-friendly design template. The rise of website traffic from mobile devices , as compared to desktop computers, continues to grow. Some people who browse the web on their mobile devices don’t mind seeing the full website, but others want to find the information as quickly as possible. You can make your website responsive , meaning the layout adjusts based on the screen size of the user. As your customers are out on the road during the holiday season, they will certainly appreciate being able to access your website from their mobile phone or tablet. Added perk? Google will give higher search engine ranking preference to websites that are responsive. 11. Add social media links and feeds to your website. Social media is a channel that offers high return for sharing content with your fans, but did you know that you can make it easier for your fans to share your content across social media ? Add social share buttons to your website so fans can hit one button and quickly share your content without ever leaving your website. Consider adding a social media feed to your website, either on the sidebar or embedded in a page, so website visitors can easily see the sales or promotions you may have on social media. 12. Offer exclusive events for your members or top customers. Throw a holiday-themed party for your customers to encourage brand loyalty. If you can, time the event with a product preview, product launch, or a “sip and see” for your new product line. Promote the event on your website, in an email invitation, and even on social media. Try to host this party early in the season such as October or November when your customers begin to think about holiday shopping. 13. Create a holiday gift guide. As you know, shopping for everyone on your holiday gift list can be overwhelming. Make shopping easier for your customers by creating a holiday gift guide. A holiday gift guide organizes the best of your products and gifts into categories based on the gift recipient, dollar amount, or by theme. For example, sort products by gifts for her, gifts for him, gifts under $50, gifts for teens, gifts for the home, and more. A guide will highlight your products, make shopping easier for your customers, and will be easy for your customers to share with their friends.  14. Reorganize your website by gift categories or themes. Now that you’ve created a holiday gift guide, consider updating the main navigation of your website to match your holiday shopping categories. Many people visiting your website during November and December will likely be purchasing gifts. Make it easy for them to find your top recommended gifts so they will be more likely to purchase.  15. Bring customers back to your site by remarketing on social media. Have you ever searched for a product online and later saw an ad for the same product on social media? That’s a feature called remarketing that allows you to reconnect with people that have visited your website. You can use remarketing ads on social media platforms, on Google search, and in other websites that support display marketing ads. A remarketing campaign is an effective method to ensure customers keep thinking about your product and have easy access to the link when they are ready to buy. 16. Take website security seriously. Get an SSL certificate. Website security should be a top priority for you year-round, but especially during the holiday season. During the holidays, more people are shopping online, but so are hackers who are shopping for credit card information or personal data. If you haven’t heard, in July 2018, Google Chrome released a security update that will alert your website visitors if your website doesn’t have security measures in place. An SSL certification is meant to create a secure transaction of personal information such as contact information and credit card data. If you don’t have an SSL certificate, your website visitors will receive an alert message discouraging them from checking out on your website. What can you do about it? Many web hosting companies offer SSL certificates for purchase and they are usually a low-cost option to securing your website. If you don’t have an SSL certificate and aren’t sure if you can get one, switch to HostGator where a free SSL certificate comes with all web hosting packages . In conclusion… With 16 tips for how to promote your small business website during the holidays, there’s bound to be a few that would work for your business. Try them out and let us know your results ! What are your “must do” tips for other small businesses? Comment below with your best advice for how to promote a small business website during the holidays!   Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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