Tag Archives: visitors

5 Best Infographics & Illustrations to Try on Your Small Business Website

Posted on August 26, 2019 by Hosting

The post 5 Best Infographics & Illustrations to Try on Your Small Business Website appeared first on HostGator Blog . Visual content plays an integral role in your small business website. It can either grasp your visitors’ attention or repel them in the opposite direction. To spice up your site, you can add infographics and illustrations to your site. These visuals help tell your brand story and convey key information to your audience.  But everything shouldn’t be transformed into a visual. Here are 5 of the best opportunities to use infographics and illustrations on your site.  1. Display Statistics  Visual content attracts visitors to your site. According to Demand Gen Report , infographics can increase web traffic by 12%. Use this opportunity to highlight your brand and to engage with consumers.  Statistics are an effective way to persuade your audience. People like interpreting complex details into simple numbers. However, stats alone can easily bore your site visitors. You can refresh your data with a dynamic infographic. You can add charts, graphs, and symbols to tell the full story of your statistics. It will quickly draw people’s eyes to specific sections and encourage them to learn more. Jobvite focuses on stats related to the United States employment. The infographic below uses line and bar graphs plus a map to paint a vivid picture of the economy. Avoid overcrowding your infographics with a bunch of stats. It will confuse the visitor and deter them from the visual experience. Instead, only pick the stats that will bolster the purpose of your infographic. If the stat doesn’t support the overall topic, you can leave it out. 2. Explain a Process It’s better to show, rather than tell. This principle holds true when you want to explain a convoluted process.  Illustrations work as a guide for your audience. If they don’t understand something, the graphic can add context. James Brockbank , an experienced SEO and content marketer, agrees: “Data has a bad name for being boring…however, when you visualize it, it can take a new form and attract those who likely wouldn’t read it when presented in another format.” Think of an infographic as a visual journey. Your goal is to lead visitors through a complete story, from the introduction to the conclusion. This approach will hold people’s attention, and they will engage with the entire infographic. Fix takes its readers through the process of avoiding (and curing) a hangover. Each section of the infographic matches data with an appealing illustration.  A pro tip is to map out your infographic before talking with your designer. That way, you know exactly what graphics and copy you want included in the visual. 3. Showcase Products & Services Before consumers buy anything, they want to see what you’re selling. So, it’s your responsibility to showcase your products. Take accurate photos of your products. Give your audience the chance to experience every angle as if they were purchasing it in the store. If your small business sells services on your website, you still want to invest in an illustration. It should represent the outcome of the service. For instance, hair salons may post a happy woman with a gorgeous haircut. Some brands take the easy route and post various stock photos on their websites. Yet, this shortcut isn’t always receptive to your audience. When asked about the best performing visuals, 41.5% of marketers said that original graphics, such as infographics and illustrations, performed best. So, you’ll want to engage your consumers with one-of-a-kind graphics. You’ll also want to create a consistent brand style with your infographics and illustrations. Check out the example below from Learn Joomla Fast . The company uses bright colors and expressive icons to match its tone and style. Be bold in your design when spotlighting your products. It attracts consumers and keeps them coming back for more. 4. Make Comparisons Apples or oranges. Cars or trucks. Beyonce or Rihanna. Today’s culture likes comparing things. It’s easier for people to understand. Plus, it can build a competitive nature of picking sides.  Comparisons can show similarities between two concepts as well as emphasize their differences. A side-by-side visual makes it useful for your visitors to retain the information.  With this type of illustration, you can tell a compelling narrative. Jack Knopfler , lead content editor at Mammoth Infographics, explains: “Without a powerful narrative, you will end up with a bunch of disconnected data points and a confused audience. A narrative enables your readers to go on a journey through the infographic and leave feeling enhanced.” University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital makes a comparison with the simple illustration below. The graphic designer created sugar cubes and silhouettes of popular brand bottles. With one glance, someone can understand the meaning of the image. From a design perspective, use white space to make your infographic easily scannable. Too much clutter can distract your visitors and move their attention away from your visual. 5. Present a Sequence of Events Timelines work beautifully to display a sequence of events. It adds order to what could be chaos if you just listed a bunch of activities.  If you want to give the history of a topic, a timeline is one of the best options. Your audience can clearly see the progression from one time period to the next. So, make sure your dates are accurate. Rather than displaying the month, day, and year, you can keep it simple by only using the year.  Also, consider the layout of your timeline infographic. A vertical design is practical if you have lots of text and images. A horizontal design is well-suited for timelines with a few dates. Coca-Cola takes its audience down memory lane with a timeline infographic. You learn about the background of the beverage through text and images of the actual bottles. Don’t forget to share your infographic, too. You can add it to your blog content and post it on social media. Get people talking about your work! Get Creative With Visual Content on Your Small Business Website Infographics and illustrations serve as a bridge to connect your audience with your brand. Use these visuals to display statistics, explain a process, or showcase products. Ready to create a professional website? Check out HostGator’s Web Design Services .   Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Does Your Small Business Website Have the Cybersecurity Basics Covered?

Posted on August 2, 2019 by Hosting

The post Does Your Small Business Website Have the Cybersecurity Basics Covered? appeared first on HostGator Blog . Think your business is too small to be targeted by hackers? Think again. Last year, 43% of all reported data breaches affected small businesses —and the costs of recovering from a breach are high enough to force many small businesses to close. So, if you’ve recently launched your SMB website or are getting ready to launch, make sure you’ve got these 8 cybersecurity basics nailed down. 1. Domain Privacy There are so many things to love about the internet, but spammers, identity thieves, and stalkers are not among them. You can protect yourself with a domain privacy plan that shields your name, email, mailing address, and phone number from people who look up your site in the ICANN’s Whois database.  2. SSL Certificate An SSL certificate is a must-have if you run an eCommerce store or collect visitor information on your site. That’s because an SSL certificate proves that any data your visitors send to your site is encrypted, so hackers can’t see it while it’s in transit. (You can read a more detailed SSL explanation here.) SSL certificates also keep visitors from seeing a browser warning that your site may not be secure. Plus, they may also help your site rank better in search results. 3. Automatic Site Backups If your business website site is hacked, or if an update crashes it, you need a way to get up and running again fast so you don’t miss out on customers. Get an automatic site backup service like CodeGuard , and you can quickly restore the most recent uncorrupted version of your site if something goes wrong. Make sure that whichever service you choose runs daily backups, so you don’t have to go back to an out-of-date site version in case of a crash.  4. Automatic Malware Scans and Removals Thanks to cybercriminals armed with botnets and malicious code, all sites are continuously at risk for malware injections that can steal data and let criminals take over sites. This means site owners need to monitor their sites closely for attacks. And the only practical way to do this is with automatic scans. A site-scanning tool like SiteLock gives you daily protection from new malware and botnet attacks. SiteLock also seeks out vulnerabilities on your site, so you can fix them before hackers exploit them. 5. Automatic Domain Renewals Domain registrations don’t last forever. At some point—anywhere between one and 5 years from when you first sign up–you’ll need to renew. If you don’t, you can lose control of your business domain name, and anyone who comes along and buys up your expired domain may be able to access the email accounts on it. That could open you and your customers up to data theft and fraud. The best way to prevent this is to enable automatic renewals, either when you register your domains or during your next renewal. You may also be able to switch to automatic renewals now by logging into your domain registration account and adjusting your billing preferences. (HostGator customers, here’s how you can renew your domain registration.) 6. Automatic WordPress, Plugin and Theme Updates On the internet, you have to stay up to date. That includes WordPress software and the plugins, themes, and addons you choose for your SMB site. Why not stick with the old versions if they’re working for you? There are lots of reasons, but the main one is security.  Some updates are designed to patch flaws that hackers have shown they can exploit. So, when updates are announced, you need to install them right away. But updates don’t always come out on a schedule, and if you have a large site with lots of plugins, updating manually can be a hassle that’s too easy to postpone. The solution is to set WordPress and everything else on your site—themes, plugins, etc.—to update automatically. You can do this within most apps, or you can use a WordPress security plugin like Easy Updates Manager to handle it all for you. 7. Seriously Secure Passwords One of the simplest ways to protect your SMB website is to use a unique, secure WordPress password that would-be hackers are unlikely to guess. Make sure that any employees or contractors who have access to your site use secure, unique passwords, too.  You might think this goes without saying, but even in 2019, too many people are still using passwords like 123456 , monkey, and blink182. 8. Site Login Protection Login forms on your site make it easy for customers to sign into their accounts with your store or business. These forms also create potential weak spots where attackers can break in. In simple terms, a bot-powered brute force attack can try thousands of possible login credentials to try to get past a login form. If they find a way in, they can unleash malware, ransomware, or other mayhem to disrupt your business. To keep bad actors and botnet attacks from experimenting with logins until they find a way in, add some layers of protection to your sign-in forms.  One option is to limit the number of login attempts a user can make in one session. For example, after three failed attempts, the user is locked out of trying again until they contact your tech support team for more guidance. This lets legitimate customers get the help they need and prevents bot-powered brute force logins. Another option is one you probably see every day. Ask visitors to prove they’re not a robot when they sign in with a reCAPTCHA tool. The Contact Form 7 plugin lets you enable reCAPTCHA , or you can install a different reCAPTCHA plugin for the forms on your site. Yes, it’s an extra step for your site visitors, but one that can keep your visitors and your business safe from bot-powered data theft. Now that you know the cybersecurity basics, are you ready to set up your site?  HostGator’s Managed WordPress Hosting plans come with CodeGuard, SiteLock, and SSL certificates for free and make it easy to buy domain privacy services. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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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 →

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What Is An Affiliate Program?

Posted on July 24, 2019 by Hosting

The post What Is An Affiliate Program? appeared first on HostGator Blog . The idea of affiliate marketing is simple. You recommend  high-quality products or services, and if a person buys through your link, then you receive a commission. Usually, a percentage of the total purchase price, or a flat fee. Affiliate programs can be used as a marketing technique to raise brand awareness and increase revenue.  Recommending affiliate products is usually one of the first ways people will earn an income online. It’s a much simpler process than creating a course, selling services, or starting any other kind of online business . Naturally, you probably have a lot of questions.  What is an affiliate program? How does affiliate marketing work? Was I born to be an affiliate marketer? If you’ve been curious about earning income as an affiliate, or just want to know the intricacies of how affiliate programs work, then this post is for you. Below we answer your most pressing questions related to affiliate partners and programs, so you can decide if you should join an affiliate program to promote products you love.  What is Affiliate Marketing? Put simply, affiliate marketing describes the process of earning a commission for a sale of a product you recommend.  Affiliate marketing is one of the most common ways that people earn money online. Site owners find products and services they love, then recommend them to their visitors. Entire sites have been built on the back of affiliate marketing. Plus, it’s a relatively passive way to earn money if you want to monetize your blog . For example, if you write blog posts reviewing certain affiliate products, then you’ll earn commissions whenever someone buys something through your link. Plus, all of this takes place without you having to do any additional work. It’s like having a salesman work for you around the clock.  Here’s a visual of how the process works with HostGator’s affiliate program : At its core, affiliate marketing remains the same. You get paid a commission for recommending products to your website visitors. But, as you’ll learn below, there are a wide range of different products you can recommend, along with a ton of different affiliate networks you can sign up for.  How an Affiliate Program Works Affiliate programs can be a great way for companies to expand their user base and add new customers and clients. People who recommend products get a piece of the commission and it’s a win-win situation—especially if it’s a product or service that you’re already a fan of and would recommend even if you weren’t getting a piece of the sale.  With an affiliate program, there are multiple different parties involved.  Here’s a quick breakdown of the different parties and their roles: 1. The Merchant Business The first essential role is the merchant business. This is the retailer who actually sells the product or service. Beyond just offering a product or service there also needs to be an affiliate program created. To use an example let’s look at Amazon. They’re one of the biggest retailers in the world and they have a very long-running affiliate program. You can sign up to be an affiliate for Amazon, and you’ll get a unique tracking link. You add that link to your site and whenever someone clicks that link and orders that product from Amazon you’ll receive affiliate commissions. The mechanics will differ slightly depending on the merchant business, what they sell, and how they structure their program, but the core elements remain the same. 2. The Affiliate It would be hard to have an affiliate program without the affiliates. Affiliates are the people who promote products in exchange for a commission. As an affiliate, you join the affiliate program or network, which gives you access to certain marketing materials, or a unique link that will track your commissions.  You can then promote a variety of products and services via your link. Some affiliates will build entire sites dedicated to affiliate marketing (which we highlight below). Others will simply promote a single product via email, or even share a unique link across social media. As an affiliate, you’ll have plenty of options for earning an income around the products and services you recommend.  3. The Customer You won’t earn an income as an affiliate without customers. To earn  affiliate commissions you need people to click through your link and buy a product from the business you’re promoting. With most links there will be tracking cookies in place, so the merchant will be able to see that the sale originated from your link. For some affiliate networks, this cookie will last between 24 to 72 hours. So if a customer clicks your link and then ends up making a purchase the next day, you’ll still get credited with the sale.  Some companies like Amazon will even give you a commission for any item that a customer orders, even if it isn’t the same item as the original link. For example, let’s say you’re promoting a fancy Vitamix blender. A customer clicks the link but ends up buying a new television. You’ll still get a commission, even though they didn’t buy the original item. For some networks, your customer will have to buy the exact product or service you’re selling, but for others, the requirements are much looser.  4. The Merchant Network The merchant network is usually integrated with the company running the affiliate program, or it can be managed by a third-party vendor.  Essentially, this network is how clicks are tracked and payments are taken care of. Nowadays this is usually done through software. At HostGator, we use ImpactRadius to manage our affiliate program. You get a unique tracking link. That link is connected to your affiliate dashboard which will show you the number of clicks, sales, and your conversion rate.  The payments will also be processed by the merchant network. Your commission and frequency of payments depend upon what you’re selling and the affiliate network you’re using.  What to Know Before You Join an Affiliate Program There are a myriad of different affiliate programs out there. You could probably find an affiliate program for virtually every niche on earth. But, not all of them are of high quality. Some of them are basically scams. This isn’t said to scare you, but instead to highlight the need in finding a quality and reputable affiliate program.  Most big companies will offer their own affiliate programs. Usually, you can find this via a link or page on their site. For example, here at HostGator, you can sign up for our web hosting affiliate program. Then, whenever you recommend HostGator web hosting to a friend you’ll earn commissions.  There are also other big affiliate networks that have a multitude of different products and services you can promote.  Keep in mind that the quality of the company’s website whose products you’re promoting will have an influence on how much you’re able to make as an affiliate. Send your customers to a low-quality website and it’ll decrease the chances that they’ll buy. This is another reason why you want to only sign up for affiliate programs with reputable companies.  Affiliate Program Payment Breakdown The affiliate program you sign up for will dictate the payment options and level of commission you’ll receive.  Often the price of the product will influence how much you make per sale. Generally, you’ll get paid more when a customer purchases a higher ticket item, or if it’s a subscription service since that kind of customer is very valuable to a company. There are typically two types of ways an affiliate commission can be recorded. The first is pay-per-click . This is where you’ll get paid the moment a person clicks a link that takes them to the merchant’s site. This type of payment is usually much lower, but it can pay well if you can send a high volume of clicks. The second is pay-per-action . This is where you’ll get paid when a customer completes a desired action. This can either be buying a product, signing up for a service, or even something like completing a customer interest form or placing a phone call.  Payments for affiliate programs can be a little slow as all sales and commissions have to be verified. But, it can still be a nice additional income. As you’ll learn below extremely profitable sites can be built on the back of affiliate marketing.  What Do Affiliate Sites Look Like? Affiliate sites come in all shapes and sizes. Find any niche of products selling online or off, and you can bet that there’s an affiliate site dedicated to that style of product.  You don’t have to build an entire site around the affiliate products you’re promoting. Some website owners will have dedicated blog posts that promote certain products, affiliate links placed throughout their website, or resource pages contain affiliate links to all the tools, products, and services they can’t live without. Some people will simply use affiliate links throughout their emails to subscribers. This is a very common way to promote different products, courses, and services. Chances are you’ve gotten a few emails today that are recommending or selling certain affiliate products.  Overall, it’s up to you to produce creative content as an affiliate marketer. Here are a few examples of different ways affiliate marketing can be done:  1. This Is Why I’m Broke This is Why I’m Broke is a very interesting example. Essentially, the site shows interesting and intriguing products from Amazon. If someone clicks on the link and buys something from Amazon, then the site gets a commission.  2. Smart Passive Income Smart Passive Income makes great use of a ‘Resource’ page to highlight affiliate products and services. If you’re a fan of their website, then chances are you’ll find value in the products and services they recommend.  3. The Best VPN The Best VPN is an entire site that’s built upon reviews. They review different VPNs and privacy tools and feature those that will provide the most value to their visitors. Affiliate review sites are incredibly common and can be very successful. 4. The WireCutter The WireCutter is another technology and product review site that focuses mostly on physical products. They review different products across a variety of niches and recommend those that pass the bar to their visitors. You’ll notice links to different retailers across their site.  5. Brain Pickings Brain Pickings is an interesting example. The site is built upon sharing the wisdom from different writers, thinkers, and other visionaries. You’ll notice that there are links throughout the content which take you to Amazon to check out the book currently being discussed.  As you can see there are a ton of different ways to not only make money as an affiliate but even create an entirely new website. Hopefully, the sites above can act as inspiration and get you thinking about the direction you’ll take with your affiliate recommendations.  Is an Affiliate Program Right for You? Chances are you won’t need to join an affiliate program the moment you build your first website. You’ll probably want to have solid traffic coming in, or an existing channel where you can make money promoting products. If you’re ready to sign up for an affiliate program, then make sure you do your research. If there’s a product or tool you love, then chances are you can sign up for an affiliate program through the original retailer. If not, there are reputable and large-scale affiliate networks like Amazon Associates , or even ClickBank for digital products. If your goal is to build a site like one of those featured above, then make sure there are products or online services you can promote that are in alignment with the niche you’ve chosen.  Making money as an affiliate isn’t as simple as throwing up a couple of links and waiting for the money to start pouring in. It takes careful planning, finding high-quality affiliate programs, and recommending products and services that are in alignment with the needs of your audience.  In time, you’ll get a feel for the types of affiliate products that convert well and that your audience actually loves.  Hopefully, you have a better understanding of what affiliate programs are, how they work, and know if it’s time for you to sign up for an affiliate program.  Ready to get started? Join the HostGator affiliate program today, and build out your affiliate marketing toolkit . Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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5 Best WordPress Email Plugins

Posted on July 16, 2019 by Hosting

The post 5 Best WordPress Email Plugins appeared first on HostGator Blog . It’s 2019, and email still rules when it comes to marketing. No other channel can match email’s 4400% return on investment , which means email campaigns earn an average of $44 for every dollar spent. And email marketing is more accessible than ever for businesses and blogs of all sizes.  When people can give you their email addresses right on your site, it makes a lot of marketing functions easier. These include building your list , targeting your email marketing to different segments of your list, and growing your business. All these things are possible with the right WordPress email plugin. The Best Email Plugins on WordPress Right Now Let’s look at some of the most popular options to see how they can help your business or blog. 1. MailPoet MailPoet lets your site visitors sign up for your newsletters, set up automated welcome emails to new list members, build newsletters right in your WordPress dashboard, and automatically notify your list when you publish new posts. Not sure how to design your newsletters? MailPoet has dozens of templates you can use. You can also set up automatic updates on a daily, weekly, or monthly cadence to keep your list members engaged and drive traffic to your site.  A few of MailPoet’s newsletter templates You can segment your list in MailPoet for targeted updates and promotions. If you have subscribers in the EU, you’re covered—MailPoet is GDPR compliant. Deliverability is a plus for MailPoet, too. The team tracks every message sent to optimize your deliverability and open rates. The premium version integrates with WooCommerce for opt-in at checkout, automated personalized recommendations, and easy product promotions. The optional sending service lets you send out as many emails as you wish each day, which can be helpful if your hosting plan caps your daily email traffic.  Pricing: MailPoet Premium plus sending service is free for accounts with under 1,000 subscribers. For larger lists, monthly rates start at $13. For MailPoet Premium alone, site licenses start at $149. 2. Newsletter Newsletter is another all-in-one email marketing plugin that’s consistently popular with WordPress users. Like MailPoet, Newsletter lets you build your list, manage it, and create newsletters in your dashboard. Drag-and-drop tools make it easy to create a good-looking newsletter using media from your site. You can customize Newsletter’s themes for your email campaigns, too.  Newsletter’s drag-and-drop composer tool The free add-ons for Newsletter give you useful extras, like premium content settings that only unlock for subscribers and an automatically generated archive page with a list of all your newsletters.  Pricing: Free. For automation and reporting add-ons and integrations with platforms like Facebook, WooCommerce, and Google Analytics, Newsletter Premium subscriptions start at $65 per year for a 3-site license.  3. SendInBlue SendInBlue goes above and beyond. The Paris-based WordPress plugin gives you GDPR-compliant email building and personalization tools, along with list management, real-time reports on your campaigns, and marketing automation tools. You can choose from more than 70 responsive templates, and then preview your messages to see how they’ll appear on different devices and with different email clients before you hit send.  A sample SendInBlue drag-and-drop email template With a SendInBlue account and a paid plan, you can also build landing pages for your website and manage your marketing, live customer service chat, and Facebook ads all in one place. Advanced segmentation tools let you get granular with your targeting. For example, “contacts who are less than 45 years who clicked links in my last 3 campaigns.” Pricing: SendInBlue’s free plan lets you send up to 300 emails each day and build an unlimited contact list. Paid plans with additional features start at US$25 per month. 4. SendPress With SendPress, you get a lot of features in the free version, including a simple newsletter editor in the WordPress dashboard, customizable templates, email tracking and reporting, unlimited subscribers, unlimited newsletters, customizable opt-in widgets and forms, and scheduled sending tools.  SendPress email editor With a personal paid SendPress plan, you can also get advanced reports with subscriber-level detail, automated post updates for your subscribers, tools for managing bounced messages, and tools for custom HTML-based templates and form fields. With a standard plan, SendPress users get easy spam testing tools to raise deliverability rates. They also get Autocron service from SendPress’ servers to check your newsletter delivery speed and help you get your messages out faster.   Pricing: Free for basic features. Paid plans start at $39 per year for a personal, one-site license. Plans that include all pro modules and services start at $99 per year for one site. 5. Sumo Sumo combines email subscription pop-ups, GDPR-compliant email marketing tools, and e-commerce integrations to help you reduce cart abandonment, increase your typical order value, and convert more customers. Sumo’s free tools include customizable, automated welcome emails for each new subscriber. You can create one-time email blasts as well as pre-scheduled email drip campaigns to create more touchpoints with your list members.  Sumo’s share button tools let your visitors raise your WooCommerce store’s visibility on social media. And Sumo offers free customer support, including one-on-one help when you’re just getting started.  Sumo pop-up form builder Pricing: Sumo’s free plan covers an unlimited number of email subscribers and up to 10,000 emails each month. Sumo’s pro plan ($39 per month) adds A/B testing tools, advanced site visitor targeting, e-commerce design templates, and advanced analytics.  Not Sure Which WordPress Email Plugin to Choose? You can try them all out for free. That way you can decide which interface you like best and which tools you’d prefer to work with. (For security and site management best practices, be sure to uninstall the plugins you decide not to use.) Ready to step up your email marketing game? Start with super-fast WordPress Hosting that includes advanced security tools, free site migration, and a free SSL certificate to protect the information your visitors share with you. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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