Tag Archives: visitors

How to Set Up Google Adsense on Your Blog or Website

Posted on November 20, 2018 by Hosting

The post How to Set Up Google Adsense on Your Blog or Website appeared first on HostGator Blog . You’ve been creating great content for a while and you’ve finally gained a decent following. People like your stuff and keep coming back! Now you’re at the point where you can start making money by advertising on your blog .   Why You Should Use Google Adsense If you’re already maintaining a website and creating content, then Google Adsense provides a way to make passive income from what you were already doing. Here are a few good reasons to consider going with Google Adsense.   1. A lot of advertisers use it. As a Google property, Adsense is one of the biggest platforms for businesses wanting to advertise on the web. That means it’s an easy way to tap into a large network of people willing to pay money to make sure their ads get in front of people. Google Adsense uses a bidding model, which means that you’ll always get the highest amount possible for every click. 2. Ads are targeted. And one of the selling points of Adsense for advertisers is that they’re able to target their ads so they’re more likely to get in front of the right people. That’s a benefit for you too, since it means that your visitors are more likely to see ads that are relevant to them and you’re more likely to make money from them clicking on it.     3. You can control what shows up. You’ve worked hard to build trust with your audience. You definitely don’t want that ruined with an ad on your site for something that’s offensive or a product that you wouldn’t feel comfortable condoning. The Adsense platform lets you decide the categories of ads you want showing on your site and makes it easy to block any specific ads or advertisers you don’t want showing up.   A note: keep your expectations realistic. Adsense is free to sign up for and pretty easy to get started with. But you should keep your earnings goals realistic. You only earn when visitors to your website click, and you can only expect a fairly small portion of your visitors to click on the advertisements. Making money can be a slow process and Google will only send you payment when you reach $100. As long as you don’t quit your day job prematurely though, making some extra money is a good thing even if the amount is low.   How to Create an Adsense Account On the Google Adsense site, you’ll see a green button that says Sign Up Now. When you click, you’ll end up on a page with a form asking for your website, email address, and whether or not you want emails with performance suggestions. You’re expected to use an email tied to a Google account, so if you’re already using Gmail or Google Analytics, then go with the email you use for those. If not, you can create an account here . From there, you’ll be asked to provide your country and accept the terms. Then click on a blue button that says Create Account. Once you’ve taken this step, you’ll get an email from Google walking you through the next steps to take: Provide Adsense with your payment address. You’ll see a form when you first log into to Adsense that will allow you to do this. Verify your phone number. This step is only required in some countries, but you’ll see a note when you’re logged in letting you know if it’s necessary for you. Add the code provided to your website. This confirms for Google that the website is yours and officially connects it to your Adsense account. When these steps are completed, Adsense will review your website for compliance and, if everything looks good, approve your account to get started.   How to Enable Ads After your account is approved, you can start setting up ads on your page. Log into your Adsense account and select My Ads on the menu on the left side of the screen. Click on the button that says New Ad Unit. Then decide what to name your ad. The name is just for your internal use and to differentiate it from other ads you enable on the site, so it can be something simple and descriptive like Top of Page Ad. You’ll see a few different options for types of ads to allow on your page. This includes: Text and display ads – This is the most common type of ad you’ll see. Generally these show up along the side of a page or at the top of it. In-feed ads – These show up in a similar format to the content and links listed on a page, so that they look more like the other content visitors are browsing. In-article ads – These show up further down on the page in the midst of the content visitors are reading, usually in between paragraphs. Choose which type of ad you want on your site now. You can repeat this process later to add the others if you want more than one. On the next page, you’ll have the option to choose the ad size and colors. One of the size options is Responsive , which means that instead of the ad being a consistent size and shape each time, Google will choose the best size based on the space available according to the browser and device a visitor is using. After you fill in your preferences on this page, click save. Google will provide you with the ad code to add to the webpage the ad will be on.   Start Making Money If you want to maximize your Adsense earnings over time, keep an eye on which ads run on your page and how often your visitors click them. Experiment with different ad styles over time to see which ones your readers respond to. If you change up what you use based on what works best, you should be able to increase clicks (and therefore your pay) by sticking with the types of ads and categories your visitors like best. As you set up ads for your website, make sure to keep in mind the user experience. You don’t want your regular readers to be turned off by ads that are overly distracting, make the page look cluttered, or block the text. You can make money without ruining their experience of the site (and won’t make much if you do ruin it). And if you want to keep people visiting and clicking on those ads (and hopefully gain more visitors and clicks over time), keep creating the content that helped you earn your first visitors to begin with. You have to give them something to keep coming back for. Remember, Google advertising works both ways. You can sign your own site up to be featured in ads on other people’s sites. For help getting started with Google PPC on your blog or website, contact HostGator today . Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Web Hosting for Blogs: Everything You Need to Know

Posted on November 16, 2018 by Hosting

The post Web Hosting for Blogs: Everything You Need to Know appeared first on HostGator Blog . Before the internet, sharing your ideas with the world beyond your immediate friends, family, and colleagues was out of reach for most people. With the rise of blogging, everyone who has ideas or artistic creations they want to bring to a wider audience now has a way to do so. But before you can start pushing your thoughts and works out into the larger world, you have to get your blog up and running. One of the first and most basic things you need to accomplish that is web hosting. Website hosting for a blog is one of the most essential services required if you want to reach other people online. It’s one of the main building blocks of a new blog. Why Your Blog Needs Web Hosting Do you know why web hosting is important? Let’s take a look at what web hosting actually does and how it influences your overall site. We don’t often think about it when browsing the web, but every website we visit is taking up space. All the different files and elements that make up that website have to live somewhere physical. As much as the internet feels untethered by the physical world, in fact, every word and image you see takes up a tiny amount of space in a room filled with servers somewhere. Web hosting companies own and maintain those servers. Every blogger on the web has essentially rented space from one of these  web hosting companies of their choice on one of the servers the provider owns (except in rare cases where a particularly tech savvy blogger may own their own server). Now you understand the web hosting basics . Web hosting services are  basically the online version of renting real estate for your home or business but —as you’ll be glad to learn— much cheaper.   Typical Cost of Blog Web Hosting Web hosting plans start as low as $5 a month for the most basic shared web hosting plans. Shared hosting will be the best choice for most new bloggers. But as your blog gets more popular, you may end up upgrading over time to either a cloud hosting plan or a VPS hosting solution. A cloud hosting plan generally costs in the range of $5-$50, whereas a VPS , costs $20-$100 per month. In some cases, these starting rates won’t include additional features you may want or need, such as a domain name registration , SSL certificate (for security), domain-branded email addresses , or a website builder . Make sure when choosing the best web hosting services for your blog that you review the available features for different options and factor in the costs of anything that’s not included that you’ll need to pay extra for.   Web Hosting for Blogs : Top 10 Features While every blog will be different, the best web hosting for a blog will typically accomplish at least ten things. 1. Uptime Have you ever tried to visit a site only to get a message that it’s not available and to come back later? That usually means either that: The website has more traffic at the moment than its web hosting plan can handle, or The website’s hosting platform server is undergoing maintenance or facing another issue that’s taking it temporarily offline. In either case, you don’t want that happening with your blog. You want people to be able to find your posts at the moment they’re ready to read them. Otherwise, they may leave your website and never come back. We’ll discuss the answer to the first issue in a section below on types of web hosting, but for the latter issue, the answer is to find a web hosting company that consistently delivers on uptime. Look for a web hosting provider that promises at least 99% uptime, and check their claims against what third-party sources say. All of HostGator’s web hosting plans promise a 99.9% uptime, a claim that has been tested and confirmed by independent reviewers as well. 2. Speed Website speed is an extremely important part of user experience. Many visitors won’t stick around if your blog takes longer than a couple of seconds to load— especially on mobile devices, which are making up a bigger portion of internet use every day. While there are a few different steps that bloggers can take to keep your blog loading as fast as possible for your users, one of the biggest factors in website speed is your web hosting. You need both the right web hosting company and the right plan to make sure your website consistently performs at the kind of speeds your visitors expect. Make sure you choose a web hosting platform that can promise speedy loading times, and continue to test your blog out over time so you’ll know sooner rather than later when your traffic levels are slowing things down so you can upgrade to a plan that delivers the speed you need. 3. Security Hackers are always looking for opportunities to steal data or otherwise use a website for their own purposes. Bloggers that don’t plan to monetize their blog may think they don’t need to worry as much (and certainly, any bloggers that do set up the site to accept payments need to give security extra priority), but there are a number of different ways that hackers can cause problems for you—all of them troubling: They can take over your website and turn it into something to promote their own scams—or worse, use it to try to blackmail you into sending them money. They can slip spammy links into your website that hurt your authority and potentially lead your visitors to dangerous other websites. They can hijack your website’s traffic and redirect it to other spammy sites. They can load malware to your website so that it infects the devices of your visitors. They can steal visitor information that’s been submitted through forms on your website (e.g. names and email addresses) Most serious of all: if you do accept credit card payments for donations, information products, or blog subscriptions, they can steal your customers’ financial information. Look for a web hosting provider that has a good reputation for security, offers SSL certification as part of their web hosting plans, and works with reputable security software like Sitelock . 4. Ease of use Most new bloggers don’t have a ton of technical skill, but that shouldn’t be a problem if you choose the right web hosting platform. You will probably need to learn some web hosting 101 stuff about how to use your web hosting company’s cPanel ,  loading your files with FTP , and using the main features your web hosting plan provides. A good web hosting plan for a blog will make most of that pretty intuitive and provide a number of resources to help you learn the ropes when you get started. Take some time to peruse a web hosting provider’s support resources and customer reviews to get a feel for how they fare when it comes to ease of use. Selecting a web hosting platform that’s easy to use will save you time and trouble in getting your blog up and running. 5. Customer service Even if you find your web hosting provider’s setup easy to figure out, you may need to get in touch at some point to get their help. As in any industry, your experience with a web hosting company can change completely based on the quality of their customer service. If you have a hard time getting ahold of someone when you need their help, or if they don’t provide the help you need once you do, you’ll end up frustrated and dissatisfied. Look for a web hosting provider that offers 24/7 customer support . And do some research into the company’s general reputation for customer service. If other customers have had issues getting the answers they need, then you may well experience the same. 6. Backup features The more work you put into your blog, the worse it would feel to lose it all in one fell swoop. Just like your computer or mobile devices, your website needs to be backed up  regularly to save you the trauma of losing all your work. Many web hosting providers offer automated backups as an affordable add-on to your web hosting service, so you can focus on your blogging, confident that all your work is saved and easily accessible if something happens.   7. SEO tools If you want readers to find your blog, then doing what you can to show up in search engines for relevant keywords should be an important part of your blogging strategy.  Taking a few basic SEO steps can make a difference in how discoverable your website is, and the right web hosting platform can offer tools or features that make those steps a little easier. Namely, you want an easy way to customize your URLs, fill in meta descriptions, and submit your website to search engines. Even better is a web hosting plan that offers SEO analytics and reporting features to help you track your SEO progress over time.   8. Monetization features Many bloggers hope to reach a point with their blogging efforts when they have enough devoted followers to start making money from their blog . If that’s your goal, or something you want to at least keep your options open for, then you need a web hosting provider that offers the proper features for accepting payments down the line. That means proper security features (although, as previously discussed, you should want those anyway), ecommerce features if you’ll be selling products, and compatibility with common payment processing options such as Paypal or Stripe. 9. Website builder You’re ready for your blog to be up! You don’t want to spend weeks building it before you can publish your first post. The easiest way to get your blog ready to go without having to hire a professional or spend a lot of time learning how to code is with an easy-to-use website builder. While there are many website builders you can subscribe to separately from your web hosting, you can cover two needs at once by going with a web hosting provider that also sells a website builder. A good website builder for blogging will include a number of responsive blog templates for you to choose from, easy drag-and-drop functionality, and handy multimedia and SEO features. It will help you get your blog looking just how you want it without a big time commitment, so you can get straight into sharing your thoughts with the world. 10.  Affordability While some blogs will reach a point where they start to make money, for most bloggers, making a profit is unlikely. That means you probably want to spend as little as possible to get your blog going and keep it maintained. Web hosting services bill on a subscription basis, so you can expect to pay either monthly or yearly for the length of time you have your blog. Consider both the upfront costs of a web hosting plan and the ongoing costs. If you start with basic shared hosting, also take a minute to research the cost of upgrading with your web hosting provider down the line. Sticking with the same provider will make your life easier, so you want to know that if your blog takes off you can afford to switch to their cloud or VPS plans.   The Different Types of Web Hosting for Blogs We’ve touched on the different types of hosting briefly in the previous sections, but new bloggers can benefit from having a better understanding of what the main types of web hosting for a blog are.   Shared hosting Shared hosting is the most affordable web hosting plan and usually the one that makes the most sense for someone just starting out. As the name suggests, under this type of plan you’ll be sharing a server with a number of other small websites. Since none of the sites sharing the server have just a huge amount of traffic, the server should be able to easily host all of them. If your website starts to see a significant increase in traffic down the line though, you’ll want to upgrade to a hosting option that’s better equipped to handle it.   WordPress hosting WordPress is the most popular blogging platform out there. It’s easy to use and perfectly designed for blogging. A WordPress hosting plan is designed with features that will make it especially useful for any bloggers using WordPress, such as a WordPress cloud interface that’s more intuitive for WP users than a typical cPanel might be, one-click scalability for when you experience traffic spikes, and faster load times. If you’re building your blog with WordPress, consider a hosting option that’s specifically designed with your needs in mind. In order to have a successful website down the road, you need to find web hosting for WordPress sites that works with you and can adapt to your goals.   Cloud hosting Cloud hosting moves your web hosting into the cloud, which makes your website instantly more scalable and faster. If you expect (or at least hope) that your website traffic will grow quickly and want the flexibility to grow with it in real time, cloud hosting is a good option. It typically costs a bit more than shared hosting, but can manage higher traffic without slowdowns or interruptions.   VPS hosting A virtual private server, or VPS , is the next step up from cloud hosting. When you invest in a VPS, your website will no longer be sharing a server with as many other sites. You’ll have a much bigger share of the available bandwidth. That both means your site can handle more traffic, but also that you have more storage to work with. It’s worth noting that there is one more option beyond a VPS, a dedicated server , but most bloggers are unlikely to need that level of web hosting when just starting out. Usually dedicated servers come into play for enterprise businesses or especially popular media sites. That said, if your blog does become an internet sensation, it’s an option you may want to consider down the line.   Get Web Hosting for Your Blog No matter what, to have a blog you need web hosting. Web hosting is an important element of any website. Which provider and plan you choose will depend on your particular needs and preferences, but making the right choice now will make building your blog and keeping it running for years to come easier. If you have any questions about how to choose the best web hosting for a blog , HostGator has skilled support staff available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Get in touch and we’ll do our best to guide you toward the right decision for your blog. 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Use a Website Builder to Set Up Your New Online Store

Posted on November 14, 2018 by Hosting

The post Use a Website Builder to Set Up Your New Online Store appeared first on HostGator Blog . You’ve decided it’s time to start selling your products online . You’ve known for a while you should, but you just didn’t know how. The skills it takes to become a business owner aren’t the same as those it takes to set up an online store from scratch. But even though you worry it will be hard, you trust it will be worth it. With an online store, you can bring your products to a wider audience than you can with a storefront. You make the decision to purchase more convenient for your customers – being able to buy something without leaving the couch removes a lot of the possible barriers to a sale.   And you can tap into the power of online marketing and SEO . Now that so many people start their search for a new product online, the best way to show up when someone’s looking for what you sell is to be online. If the main thing stopping you was concern that setting up an online store would be difficult, we’ve got good news. With the right website builder , creating an online store is easy — no matter your level of experience.   Why You Should Use a Website Builder to Set Up Your Online Store For any business ready to get an online store up and running, there are a few clear benefits to using a website builder to make it happen:   It’s easy. This might be the most important benefit for most small business owners. You don’t have time to learn all the ins and outs of setting up an online store from scratch, and you don’t have the budget for hiring someone that does. But you don’t need either if you use a website builder.   It’s quick. Every day your website isn’t set up for selling products is a day you could be losing out on sales. The sooner your online store is functional, the faster you can start making extra money.   It brings the main tools you need into one interface. If you set up an online store on your own, you have to remember to find the right design tools, eCommerce software, and security features all as separate steps. With a website builder, everything you need is brought together in one place, where you can access it all through one interface. It makes your job easier and ensures you don’t forget anything important.   How to Set Up an Online Store with a Website Builder If you already have a website that you’re adding an online store to, you can skip the first few steps. But if you don’t have a business website yet, you’ll need to start at the beginning.   1. Choose a domain name. Your domain name will ideally be yourbusinessname.com. But if your business has a name that’s at all common, that may already be taken. You can use a domain search tool to find out what’s available and brainstorm options that will be easy for your visitors to remember. If the .com is taken, then .net or .co may be a better option. You can also consider variations of your business name using hyphens between words, so a business called Acme Knives becomes acme-knives.com, if acmeknives.com is taken. Get a little creative if you need to, but make sure the end result is something that will be intuitive for your visitors to use and remember.   2. Select a hosting plan. Every website online requires hosting. When you start looking into your hosting options, you’ll quickly realize that there are both a lot of providers and a lot of different plans to consider. In your search, make sure you prioritize finding a hosting plan that supports an eCommerce website and that will be compatible with the website builder you use. Here’s a helpful checklist to follow when selecting your web hosting provider.   3. Choose your website builder. Some web builder plans come with hosting included (including HostGator’s ) , so you may be able to complete this step at the same time as the last one. If not, then spend some time reviewing your different options. Make sure you go with a website builder that’s easy for beginners to use and makes adding an online store to your website a breeze. Consider the number of themes and features each website builder offers and how the costs line up with the budget you have in mind. 4. Select your theme. Most website builders come with a number of different themes you can choose from. The theme works as a starting point that provides a structure for your website. You can make changes to it to make the design your own by moving different elements of the page around, adding in any new elements you want, and subbing in different colors, images, and copy.   5. Create your main pages. Your website can’t just be product pages. At the very least, you’ll need a Home page that communicates your company’s unique positioning and why your visitors should do business with you. In addition, you may want to include:      An About Us page that provides information about what your business is and who’s behind it      Category pages that help you organize your products based on the main attributes your visitors will use to find what they need      A contact page that makes it easy for your visitors to find out how to get in touch Figure out the most important pages you want to include on your website and how best to organize them.   With that done, you can start working on the online store part of your website.   6. Add an eCommerce app to your website builder. Depending on the website builder you choose, eCommerce features may be included, or may be an additional add-on. With HostGator’s website builder, the eCommerce store is an app you can easily add to your website builder. A good eCommerce app will make the next few steps easy.   7. Add products to your store. Now that the structure of your website and online store are in place, you can start adding in your products. In addition to filling in the product name and the price of each product, make sure to load high-quality product photography and include persuasive copy that touts the benefits of each product. This step is worth committing some time to. Your product pages have a lot of work to do to get your visitors to take that last step to purchase. It may be worth hiring a professional photographer and copywriter to make these pages really attractive and convincing. And take a little time to learn SEO basics and optimize each of your product pages. Your website will go a lot further if people can find your products when searching for them in Google.   8. Select your payment options. To make sales online, you need a way to process payments. Chances are, the eCommerce software or website builder you use will have some particular payment options it’s compatible with. These likely include Paypal, Stripe, CashonDelivery or other payment processing solutions. Choose which payment options you’ll accept and connect them to your merchant account.   9. Start promoting your store. You finally did the work of setting up your online store, now you need people to find it. With the sheer number of eCommerce businesses on the web, people are unlikely to stumble across yours without a little nudge (or a big one). Figure out a plan to market your website. A good digital marketing strategy often includes:       SEO – Strengthening your website’s authority to increase search engine rankings for relevant terms.       Social media marketing – Promoting your brand and products on social media channels where your audience hangs out       Content marketing – Creating high-quality content as a way to attract new traffic, build trust in your website, and convert leads to customers.       PPC advertising – Paying for ads on the search engines or social media sites that charge on a pay-per-click model.       Email marketing – Building an email list to sustain and grow your connection with leads to help convert them to customers (and keep them as customers for the long term once you do). Decide what the right mix of tactics is for your online store and get to work. Be aware that online marketing is a long game, and you may need to put some real time and work in before you start seeing big results.   10. Track analytics. A good website builder will come equipped with analytics tracking that helps you gauge the success of your website so you can improve over time. Pay attention to what your analytics tell you about your traffic: where it’s coming from, what people do once they reach your website, and which visitors become customers. The more data you gain over time, the better you’ll understand what works best for your particular audience. You can improve the copy you use on your website, select the most effective keywords to target in your SEO and PPC ads, and tweak your marketing efforts to focus on the tactics that result in the most profit.   Build Your Online Store Running an online store takes work, but you can save yourself a lot of time and money in the early stages by using a website builder to get your new online store set up. With an intuitive, accessible online store, your customers gain a new way to buy from you, and you gain a new stream of income. 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Web Design Best Practices: A Helpful Guide

Posted on October 26, 2018 by Hosting

The post Web Design Best Practices: A Helpful Guide appeared first on HostGator Blog . Your website is the main face of your brand online. And building your website with best practices in mind will ensure your brand is putting its best foot forward. What people see when they visit it influences how they see your brand – online and off. And your web design largely defines how people experience your website. In short, web design is important. A bad web design can make your website layout look unprofessional, lose visitors’ trust, or make it difficult for them to find what they’re looking for (and therefore increasing instead of reducing your bounce rates ). A good website design shows your visitors you know what you’re doing and that it’s worth sticking around and interacting with your brand. Whether you’re working on a building new website or launching a re-design for the one you already have, there are a few important web design best practices you should honor. 1. Make Your Site Navigation Intuitive. Part of the design process is figuring out how to organize all the pages and what to include in your website menus . Getting your site organization right is both important for your website architecture and because it determines how easy navigating your website is for visitors. When deciding what pages, categories, and subcategories to include in your website’s menus, think first about your visitors. What will make it easier for the average visitor to find what they’re looking for? But also decide what the most important pages you want them to find are. Strive to organize your website in a way that will make it just as intuitive to a first-time visitor as it is to someone who knows it well.   2. Maintain a Consistent Style. If you visited a website that had a specific style on the home page but changed to something completely different on the next page you linked on, you’d find the change confusing. You might wonder if you were in the right place at all or had somehow navigated away from the site you thought you were on. You don’t want your site visitors to deal with that kind of confusion. Early on in the design process, sit down to develop a web design style guide . A style guide is a useful web design tool that will help you make sure all the pages on your website visually match well enough to let visitors know they’re all related to each other as well as to your brand. Make sure it includes: The website’s color scheme The logo design to use (and any variations on it in terms of size and shape you’ll use throughout the site) The font(s) The visual style (for example, do you want a minimalist feel? A playful one?) As you move into the particulars of designing the site, your style guide will be a helpful resource to keep you on track.   3. Design Each Page With a Goal in Mind. You’re not just designing a website for fun, you want it to accomplish something. And even if you have one overarching goal for the whole website, different web pages will need to have more specific goals. For example, an eCommerce website will primarily be designed to get people to make purchases. But in order to do that, some pages will be focused on getting people to visit the website to begin with, so they’ll have the primary goal of improving search engine optimization  or encouraging social shares. Other pages will more directly try to get people to click that “Buy” button. Clearly define the specific goal you want and  to accomplish this and make sure your design for it centers the goal.   4. Keep Each Page Focused. Another good web design tip that goes hand in hand with having a specific goal for each web page is to make sure your pages have a clear focus. Don’t try to do too much on any one webpage. You don’t want your web pages to look cluttered – that not only makes it look bad (which makes visitors more likely to click away), but it also presents too many distractions. How will people know the next best step to take, if your page is filled with so many links and images and text that they can’t figure out what to focus on? If you realize a particular web page has too much going on, split it up into multiple pages. Having separate pages that each has a more clear focus will be good for user experience and improve your opportunities to optimize for SEO.   5. Make Your Website Responsive. Mobile use now surpasses computer use ,  and every year the amount of time people spend on the web on mobile devices only grows. For website owners, that means your web design has to prioritize the mobile friendly experience . In most cases, the best option for creating a website that works well both on desktop and mobile devices is to build a responsive website. Responsive web design involves identifying breakpoints on the page where the page can be cut off and everything to the side moved below the breakpoint without the experience losing anything. That’s why mobile devices often display the same images and text, but with all elements of the page that appear alongside each other on the desktop showing up as stacked above and below each other. When designing each page on your website, you need to define at least three breakpoints to ensure your pages work well on each of the three main device sizes (although many designers prefer to use more). To a large degree, responsive websites have become common enough that most web design tools or designers you turn to will automatically employ best practices for responsive web design. As just one example, all of the templates offered with HostGator’s website builder are responsive, so even newbie website owners that don’t know anything about HTML or other coding languages can easily create a website that’s responsive. No matter what web design tools you use though, make sure you design your website with mobile in mind and use responsive design best practices.   6. Use Fluid Images. Fluid images  can aid in responsive web design and improve user experience on your website. You can make any of the images you use fluid with the right HTML code. If you add “max-width: 100%” to the source code for the image, you’re letting browsers know to resize the image to fit the page on every device. As an example, the full code would look like: This will keep your images from blocking text or other parts of the page on devices where they outgrow the section of the page you want them to stay contained within.   7. Make Clickable Elements Large Enough for Mobile. Another important component of good mobile-friendly website design is thinking about how people use their mobile devices. Clicking a small button on a computer is easy with the pointer that you have total control over and that can get very specific in what it points to. On a mobile device though, you have to be able to “click” that same button by touching it with your finger. If a link or button is too small, or worse, if you have different links located too close together, your users will struggle to get the links to work. When designing your web pages, make sure you test each one out on a small mobile device to confirm that all the links and buttons are easy to use.   8. Use Visual Hierarchies. This relates back to the goals you developed for each page of your website. Every page will include the most important information that you want people to notice, as well as additional information and design elements that matter, but aren’t of the same level of importance. In order to make sure that every visitor on every device sees the most important parts of the page before moving on, develop a visual hierarchy for each web page. The most important elements need to go at the top so they show up for everybody, and the other parts of the page can fall further down for the people interested enough to keep scrolling to see the whole page.   9. Make Your Site Accessible. Your visitors don’t all interact with the web in the same way. While that’s useful to consider in general, it’s an even more important point to remember when designing for people with different types of disabilities. An important web design tip to keep in mind during the design process is, therefore, to aim for inclusivity and accessibility. The Web Accessibility Initiative has outlined a number of Accessibility Principles for web designers to honor when creating their websites. The people who benefit most from accessible web design may be in the minority, but some are very likely in your target audience. By building an accessible website, you open your brand up to a wider audience and can build goodwill with a community that’s often underserved.   10. Stick to Design Standards. Have you ever been confused by a website that has its menu in a different spot than you’re used to? Or had a hard time closing a pop up that had the X in a weird spot? While web designers can often benefit from finding ways to be creative or unique, there are certain  web design standards that  define how people interact with websites and what they expect to find. When you move away from these norms, you risk creating confusion and a negative experience for your customers. A few of the main standards it’s a best practice to stick with include:     Putting your logo in the top left     Putting contact information in the top right     Having your main menu stretch across the top of the screen     Putting your value proposition high up on the home page     Including a CTA high up on the home page     Adding a search feature to the header When you think about it, everything on that list is probably exactly what you expect to see when you visit a website. If you’re going to venture away from these standards, make sure you think thoughtfully about why and make sure you’re not creating unnecessary confusion in the process.   A Good Design Makes for a Good Website Your web design determines how your website will look and feel to the people that visit it. Getting it right is paramount to the success of your website . Take some time to understand the main web design best practices and create a website that people will find useful and intuitive. 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The 10-Step Holiday Sale Launch Checklist for Online Stores

Posted on October 17, 2018 by Hosting

The post The 10-Step Holiday Sale Launch Checklist for Online Stores appeared first on HostGator Blog . The holiday season is coming! For eCommerce businesses, it’s not so much the most wonderful time of the year as it is the most important. For the next couple of months, people will be in spending mode as they collect gifts for loved ones and prepare for various holiday celebrations. For retail businesses, holiday sales account for 20-30% of all sales for the entire year. A lot of your online store’s success for the year could depend on these next few weeks — you don’t want to do anything wrong. And yet, even big sites like Target and Paypal have taken a hit in the past on the biggest shopping days of the year for not being adequately prepared. If your website isn’t doing its job right during the holiday season, you’ll lose sales. Your Holiday Sale Launch Checklist Do everything in your power in the weeks leading up to the holidays to make sure your online store won’t have any issues when it counts most. To make that easier for you, here’s a handy checklist of steps to take.   1. Review last year’s analytics so you know what to expect. You can learn a lot about what to expect this year by looking to last year. Pull up your Google Analytics data from last year’s holiday months to see:       How your traffic volume changed during the holiday season      Which pages got the most traffic      Which products were the most popular      What keywords brought the most people to your website (and are they different during the holiday season than the rest of the year?)      Which channels drove the most traffic (search, social, email, links from other sites, etc.)      The demographic break down of your visitors during the holiday season (and whether it’s different than the rest of the year)      What devices your visitors are coming from All of this information will be useful in forming a more effective strategy for your holiday marketing, If your primary audience is usually 15-year old boys, but during the holiday season you notice their moms are usually the ones visiting your site, then you’ll know it pays to shift your marketing strategy to the audience making the purchases. If your past data shows that paid search ads work especially well the week of Black Friday, then you know to increase your PPC ad spend during that time. Turning to your site analytics during the holidays can provide a wealth of insights that enable you to truly make the most of the season this year.   2. Create a plan for discounts and specials and how you’ll promote them. People are ready to spend money, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still want to save anywhere they can. Your competitors will definitely be offering deals and promotions during the holidays so if you want a chance at winning business, you need to promote attractive offers as well. Decide on the discounts you can offer on popular products this season to get people to buy. Consider other specials that may push potential customers to buy, such as free gift wrapping or shipping. And create a plan for promoting your offers to your target audience(s) on all your main marketing channels (especially those that your analytics showed worked best last year).   3. Make sure your website’s organized for holiday shoppers. For some online stores, the way your website is organized the rest of the year may work just fine for the holiday season. For others, you can benefit from trying to see your store and products with fresh eyes: what pages and categories would someone looking for holiday gifts or items find useful? If you have a lot of small, affordable items, creating a category for Stocking Stuffers or White Elephant Gifts might help your visitors find something specific they need this time of year, and help you optimize for some holiday keywords. Make sure any changes you make to your store’s organization are intuitive — keep your target audience top of mind in this step.   4. Confirm all new holiday pages are optimized for SEO. Every new page you add to your website for the holidays should follow the same SEO best practices you use for the rest of your website. Namely:      Do keyword research to determine the best primary and secondary keywords to target on the page.      Customize the page URL so that it’s both intuitive and includes your primary keyword.      Update the page’s title tag to include the primary keyword.      Update all the heading tags on the page to include keywords, where relevant.      Optimize all your images by including keywords in the file name and alt tags.      Add a meta description with a strong CTA to encourage click-throughs from Google.  But as always, make sure all the elements of your page combine to provide a positive experience for your visitors first, and search engines second. Don’t sacrifice clarity to get your keyword in there a few more times.   5. Review (and possibly update) your return policy. There are a lot of wonderful things about gift giving (and receiving), but the one big catch is that you usually don’t know for sure what the other person wants. During this time of year more than any other, having a good return policy is important for ensuring your customers choose to buy from you and have a good experience when they do. If your customer excitedly hands your product over to their loved one only to learn it’s the wrong size or something they already own — how will they feel if returning it is a difficult process, or worse, you don’t allow returns at all? If your return policy is at all strict throughout the rest of the year, consider updating it at least through the holiday season. A generous return policy will make people more likely to do their holiday shopping with you and return to your brand for future purchases.   6. Test out the checkout process on your website. If there’s anything about the checkout process on your website that’s difficult or inconvenient, you want to know about it before you lose customers over it. Use a company credit card to make a few test purchases on the site. Don’t just do this once on your usual computer and browser. Try it out on various computers, in different browsers, and on as many mobile devices as you can access. If possible, ask a friend to make some test purchases too so you can get an outsider’s perspective on the process. If you notice anything that slows the checkout process down or makes it even slightly more difficult, change it before the holiday season is in full swing.   7. Test out all important links and forms. If any of your links point to the wrong place, your visitors won’t be able to find what they’re looking for and are more likely to leave the site. And if your forms don’t work properly, you could miss out on important contact attempts and lose sales because of it. Have an employee spend a day going through the website to try out all the links and confirm that they take the user where they should. Test out all the forms on the site, too. As you did with the checkout process, make sure to do so on various devices and in different browsers to be comprehensive.   8. Calculate shipping speeds so you can advertise “delivery by” dates. While people care about how long they have to wait on an order year-round, it becomes especially important once you get into late November and December. Anyone browsing your website close to the main gift-giving dates will want to know they’ll get their items in time. You can increase conversions during that time by providing clear information on when your customers can expect to receive an order based on the shipping option they choose. Here’s an example from Nordstrom: Keep in mind that the winter months bring weather patterns to many areas that can slow packages down, so be prepared with a plan to make amends if a customer doesn’t get a package when they expect to because of a storm or icy roads. Even if the delay isn’t your fault, it’s your job to turn a disappointing experience into a good one.   9. Check that your hosting can handle higher traffic. It’s every online store’s nightmare: your website crashing on one of the biggest shopping days of the year. It even happened to Amazon on Prime Day this year, proving that it can happen to anyone. But you can reduce the risk of it happening to you by upgrading your hosting if you’re expecting a big increase in traffic. If you’re not sure if your website hosting plan can cover the amount of traffic you expect this year, get in touch with them and ask. If they can’t give you the answer you want, consider switching to a new web hosting provider or a more advanced plan.   10. Make sure you have plenty of stock. This one requires moving off your website to check that what’s on the website is accurate. Check your inventory to make sure that every product listed, and especially those you plan to promote heavily, are in stock. Use last year’s analytics to determine if you should buy more of a particular item so you don’t risk leaving money on the table if it runs out too early. Just as importantly, make sure you have all the packaging materials you need to handle the orders that will come in. You don’t want orders held up because you ran out of boxes or tape.   Be Prepared With Our Holiday Sale Launch Checklist Your website has a big job to do, but you have to make sure you’re ready to fulfill everything the website promises to your visitors. Go through our Holiday Sale Launch Checklist to make sure you’re ready for the season this year. A profitable holiday season will put your online store on strong footing as you move into the New Year. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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