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Are You Making These 5 Common Website Mistakes?

Posted on March 24, 2015 by Hosting

The post Are You Making These 5 Common Website Mistakes? appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . As a website owner you’ll want to do everything in your power to ensure your website is doing as much as it can to convert new visitors into subscribers and potential customers. A lot of websites try to do too much and as a result they end up doing nothing at all. Your website should be elegant, purposeful, and directed towards your core group of users. It’s easy to make mistakes. We all do. However, some common website mistakes are avoidable, or can be fixed with a little more hard work. In this we’re going to explore the five most common website mistakes a lot of website owners make.   1. Lack Of Direction And No Coherent Focus I’m sure you’ve been to websites in the past that are very confusing and leave you in a frazzled state. On a sad note, most of the web is like this and it leads to information overwhelm and downright confusion. Our minds aren’t meant for the dizzying pace of the web and a lot of websites actually make this worse. There are many ways to do this, but some of the most common mistakes include: Weird or cluttered navigation A site that aims to please everyone in the world Strange color scheme No coherent direction or sequence of steps for the user to take Design that is out of alignment with the message of the company When a person lands on your website you’ll want them to be able to determine, in a matter of seconds, if you’re going to be able to help them or not. This is done through purposeful design and an understanding of who your customer actually is. Nailing down your focus has to do with simplifying your offering as a business and communicating it in a simple manner to your core group of customers. When in doubt choose one element to be the highlight of your business and do it well.   2. Too Much Focus On The Company, Not The User No one wants to land on your website and hear about how great your business is, at least not at first. The first thing a person landing on your website wants to know is if you can help them. Once they’ve determined you can help them reach the magical land where their problem is solved, then they’ll start to look deeper into your company. However, this can still be done strategically to make sure you’re not bragging. The number one page people go to after the home page is the about page. This means you have another chance to convince the visitor you’re the right person for the job. The best way to do this is by adjusting your copy to show you deeply sympathize with the user and their problem. Next, make sure to bring in relevant experience that shows you actually know what you’re talking about. You can even bring in testimonials and other forms of social proof, so people know they’re not alone in working with you.   3. No Incentives To Draw In Customers A lot of website owners try to get people to opt-in without providing an incentive to do so. As inboxes are becoming more and more sacred you’ll need to do something special for the visitor to get them to part with their information. One of the best ways to do this is by creating a free download that solves a portion of the visitors problem. This should be enough to get the visitor to opt in. From that point on you can work on building the relationship and converting them into a long-term customer.   4. Looking Good Across One Device And One Device Only Mobile is becoming more and more prevalent. It isn’t going anywhere. All trends and statistics suggest that mobile is the future. It’s a smart idea to make sure your website works across every device your customers are going to be using. That doesn’t mean you have to upgrade your design right away, but if your website looks funky or doesn’t function properly across the most common screen sizes then you may want to consider a change. Responsive websites are slowly becoming the new norm, so it would be a good idea to switch over sooner rather than later.   5. No Relevance Relevance has to do with how valuable you are to your visitors. This is the test your should be running for every element of your website. If it doesn’t provide value to your readers, then cut it. Being ruthless with what’s useful and what isn’t may feel a little harsh, but it will allow you to have a website that’s more streamlined to serve your customers.   By avoiding the mistakes above you’ll be on your way towards having an efficient website that is geared towards the only people that matter, your customers. web hosting Continue reading →

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Why Your Online Presence Matters

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Hosting

The post Why Your Online Presence Matters appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . You’ve just setup a new company, and you think it’s going to be big. It’s got everything – all the bells and whistles that you could ever possibly want. It addresses all of the concerns that you’ve ever had in regard to the jobs you’ve held in the past. No questionable benefits for your employees! A great vacation plan! Flexible schedules and a sick day policy that works to address all of the gripes that you’ve had in the past. You’ve got a winning product, one that’s sure to make your company an overnight success, and a marketing plan that’s guaranteed to ensure that the product you’ve created catches the attention of the masses. You’re pleased. It’s taken years of hard work and dedication, but nothing could possibly go wrong, right?   Your Social Media Over the years you have amassed profiles in a variety of different places. Your long-ago MySpace account hasn’t been touched in almost a decade, though it’s still out there. You’ve got a G+ profile that you don’t use much, a Facebook profile, and a LinkedIn profile, and you even, if you’re old enough, may still have a profile floating about in AOL land somewhere. You may not use any of these accounts anymore, but they still exist, and with them so does all of the information you posted. That time with the tequila and your friends out on the beach, that time you ranted about your boss and how much you hated his guts, and maybe even that time you streaked down the football field back in college is documented somewhere. This information may be about to come back to haunt you.   Cause And Effect Picture this: Your company’s marketing campaign is a huge success. Your product has just taken off, and people are clamoring to get a hold of you to find out just what your secret is. Then someone pulls up Google. Thirty seconds later and *BAM* you’ve just gotten some of the worst publicity of your life. All that stuff you put up on social media? It’s now a part of the daily news. This may seem far-fetched, but today we truly live in a digital world; after all, that’s why you’re reading this online, right?   The Fact Of The Matter The truth is, I’ve seen not one, not two, not even three, but five news articles within the past two days from legitimate online news sites that have utilized information in an individual’s social media profile as legitimate sources, linking those profiles to the readers of the article for all to click through and view. The fact of the matter is that no matter how “private” you set your profile up to be, there is still information that can be gathered by others and used as a means of making a determination or judgment against you just because you’ve placed it on a social media site.   What To Do? Social media can be a beneficial tool for businesses, allowing them to connect with their customers and their target market in ways that were not possible in the past, but it’s a two way street. Before you launch that product of yours, before you start up that company, go to the old social media sites that you don’t use anymore and delete your old profiles. Set everything to private that you wouldn’t want that nice little old lady down the street from you to read or to see. Make sure to untag yourself from all those pesky photos of that time you went to Vegas. Ask your friends to take down embarrassing photos, explaining that it’s nothing personal, but that your online reputation could suffer as a result. Don’t stop doing the fun stuff, just don’t broadcast it for the world to see. I was a part of the generation that received in-home Internet access for the first time as teenagers – most of the embarrassing stuff that we did never made it online – primarily because these social media sites didn’t exist at this time. I’m now a part of that first generation of parents whose children are growing up with the Internet and technologies as a part of their everyday lives; the best bit of advice I can give you is the same thing I tell my kiddo: “It’s okay to keep your personal life personal; the whole world doesn’t have to know what you do all the time. And if it’s something you know you would get in trouble with me for doing, you darn sure don’t want strangers knowing about it either.” Think of it like that – if you don’t want your mother, or your grandparents seeing you do something, there’s a good chance you don’t want your potential customers seeing it either. Clean up your online presence and then launch the product. Trust me; you’ll be glad you did.   Image Source: Millet, J. (n.d.). Woman Sweeping Her Home. Retrieved from http://www.canvasreplicas.com/images/Woman%20Sweeping%20Her%20Home%20Jean%20Francois%20Millet.jpg web hosting Continue reading →

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Is All Traffic Created Equal?

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Hosting

The post Is All Traffic Created Equal? appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . Face it, if you want your online business to succeed you’re going to need a steady stream of traffic. However, there are crucial differences in the quality of traffic across the internet that could have an even larger effect. Some people believe that driving traffic to your website is purely a numbers game. However, the quality of your traffic matters much more than the quantity. In this article we’re going to explore the differences in quality of web traffic and what it means for your business and success of your website.   What Is Quality Traffic? Quality traffic is composed of visitors who are actually engaged with what you’re offering, browse multiple pages, and spend a decent amount of time on your website. Essentially, they are going to make up the backbone of your revenue, as these people are also more likely to buy what you’re offering, or at least sign up for your email list. These visitors should be the core focus of your business as your work actually resonates with them. Often, the amount of quality traffic flowing into your website will be low compared to other forms of traffic. However, if your business was built to serve everyone it would probably end up serving no one. This differentiation in your business allows you to more effectively serve a small group of people in deeper ways. To sum up, quality traffic will have qualities similar to your ideal visitor. For instance, they will be a regular visitor to your site and hopefully a champion of your work.   What Is Low Quality Traffic? Low quality traffic doesn’t bring any positive advantage to your website other than increasing the amount of visitors to your website. The typical traits these visitors will embody includes only stopping by your website once, not viewing multiple pages, and barely reading the page they landed on in the first place. It’s not a good idea to focus your traffic efforts on this type of traffic, as it won’t do much to increase your bottom line. Usually, these traffic spikes come from instances when your content goes viral, or your website gets featured on a site like Reddit or Stumbleupon. The high-volume traffic you get from these sites usually won’t do much to increase your sales, or number of subscribers. Although, you don’t want to discourage traffic from these sources it doesn’t make a lot of sense to focus your traffic generation efforts on these high volume sources alone.   Focusing On The Wrong Traffic Metrics When it comes to digging through your traffic metrics you’ll want to make sure you’re looking in the right place. After all, it’s easy to get caught up in vanity metrics, forgetting the real data that can actually be useful for your business. For starters, the total number of visitors you have per month isn’t crucially important. What is important is the sources where your traffic is coming from, and the bounce rates that are associated with each source. The bounce rate is the percentage of people that come to your site and leave very quickly. So, if you have a few traffic sources that have very high bounce rates you’ll want to diminish your efforts on those sources. Your best bounce rate scenario would be a high traffic source with very low bounce rates. Another metric you’ll want to keep an eye out on is the number of users that are returning to your site time and time again. Although, it’s always good sign that new visitors are coming to your site you’ll also want to take note of how many people are returning. Traffic doesn’t have to be a mystery. By focusing on the right metrics and sources of traffic you’ll be well on your way towards fine tuning a traffic strategy that works.   Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/17893072@N00/4475333077/ web hosting Continue reading →

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Pinterest Adopts the Use of Promotional Ads

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Hosting

The post Pinterest Adopts the Use of Promotional Ads appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . With over half a million businesses on Pinterest, the Social Media platform is becoming a lot more than just recipes and fashion photos. It’s time to prepare yourself to start seeing even more ads now that Pinterest unleashed new tools for businesses back in June. The “do-it-yourself Promoted Pins” feature will allow businesses of any size to promote their pins on a cost-per-click basis in order to reach more people and get more visits back to their homepage. Pinterest has been testing this program since early May with big brands like Old Navy, Target and Shutterfly, and is offering a sign up for any business to try it when they’re ready to get started.   Competing Against Facebook and Twitter, Subtly By adopting the same principles as Facebook’s ad promotions and Twitter’s promoted Tweets, Pinterest’s Promoted Pins have been touted as “changing the game one pin at a time.” What’s different about their advertisements is that they won’t appear any different than the other posts that interest you. If, for instance, you’re browsing new cocktail recipes you won’t see an ad for JcPenny’s, instead you’ll see pins from companies that deal in mixology or interesting cocktail glasses. Many have reported this as a noticeable benefit simply because the ads won’t be pestering potential customers by appearing in random categories. Pinterest is already such a product-and-image driven environment that users have been embracing brands long before any advertising was thrown into the mix.   Building Off Rich Pins Back in June we talked about standing out on Pinterest with Rich Pins , a change in eCommerce that shared pricing information and availability. Rich Pins also came with analytics and options to receive pricing alerts. Promoted Pins will only add to these features, with promises that pins will appear first in search results and category feeds on both the web and in mobile apps. If you aren’t on Pinterest already sharing your products, the time has never been better to join. Currently only select businesses are receiving the option to promote but getting started now will prepare you when the time comes.   Your Pinterest Board and Planning Your Pins While the notion of the promoted pins blending in with the rest is great from an advertisement perspective, the pins you’re choosing to designate as promotional should do anything but. Aim to make the promotional pins to be taller than those around them and really draw the viewer in. Customers have always found you on your own Pinterest boards and promoted pins will be no different. Some of the most compelling reasons for businesses to start using Pinterest include: It’s a great place to promote a contest As most users are visually inclined, it’s a great platform to optimize your brand’s image You’re allowed to comment and interact with potential customers Built in SEO benefits with hashtags and keywords Integration of other Social Media sites   So What’s So Promising? Back in April, the data tracking blog, Shareaholic, dubbed Pinterest as the reigning queen of social referrals . Since December it has seen a growth in traffic of 48% and is second only to Facebook in terms of steering Social referrals. In three years of operating there have been 30 billion items pinned and 750 million boards created. Even what once was a heavily female dominated user base has now shifted from over 80% females, to 68.2% female and 31.8% men. It’s become very clear Pinterest has established itself as one of the top marketing tools, and in no time businesses small and large will be benefiting from the use of Promoted Pins. When do you plan on starting? web hosting Continue reading →

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Domain Names Matter

Posted on February 19, 2015 by Hosting

The post Domain Names Matter appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . It is generally understood these days that a domain name is necessary for brand recognition. Domain names also serve many higher purposes as well, including being a primary contributor to the overall user-friendliness of the Internet. Without domain names, we would have to memorize IP addresses in order to visit websites… instead of “Googling” something, we’d “74.125.227.229” it.   Time To Select A Domain Name! ACK! The truth is that many people fail to consciously think of a domain name that they want, or several alternatives, prior to the signup process. As such, when it comes time to pick a domain name, they panic. This can lead to a host of different issues, as with the case of the now defunct, ill-fated domain name “The pen is mightier” a.k.a. thepenismightier.com. As you can see, while “The pen is mightier” is a pretty nifty name from a very famous quote (and one that worked well for a site that made custom pens, it just doesn’t work so well as a domain name, and can lead to a host of unfortunate situations. The site has long since been taken down. It would be best, however, to learn from their unfortunate mistake.   How Do I Avoid An Awkward/Inappropriate/Unfortunate Domain Name? It’s quite simple. Open a word document or pull out a pen and notebook and start jotting down potential domain names. See how they look in text and see if they communicate your message properly. From there, circle or highlight the five top choices. You can then check the availability at https://register.hostgator.com . If your choices are available, you can proceed with the registration process. If none of your choices are available, it’s back to the proverbial drawing board. Remember, you don’t just want to take any old domain name, you want one that will represent your site, convey your business appropriately, and adequately display your professionalism. Domain names matter. Give them the treatment they deserve and put some time into it. You are naming your site. If you wouldn’t just type in random characters on a child’s birth certificate, don’t do it to your site! Your business is not unlike your child. You are working to nurture and grow your site – your business – don’t put it at a disadvantage from the get-go!   Image Source: Wikipedia. (2014). Domain Name. Retrieved from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Internet1.jpg web hosting Continue reading →

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