Tag Archives: businesses

4 Ways to Make Money With Your Small Business Website

The post 4 Ways to Make Money With Your Small Business Website appeared first on HostGator Blog . You’ve finally got a website for your business , because you know it’s the key to getting found by new customers who start most of their searches online. But your website can do more than raise your visibility in search results. It can also provide another revenue stream for your business. Whether you sell physical goods in a brick-and-mortar location, provide in-person services to a local market, run a restaurant, or offer your freelance expertise online, there are ways you can make your website work harder for you. One or more of these options may be just right for your small business site. 1. Build an Online Store If you have a brick-and-mortar retail shop, selling your products online is an obvious choice to expand your market, but other businesses can benefit from having an online store, too. Own a coffee shop or bakery? You can offer your branded merch (t-shirts, mugs) online along with special coffee blends or cakes and gift baskets. And any type of business can offer gift certificates online. No physical products? No problem. If what you sell is expertise, consider putting some of it into e-books on topics that matter to your clientele, and sell them in your online shop. (We’ll talk more about expertise in a moment.) Setting up an online store is easier than you may think. Gator Website Builder’s eCommerce plan gives you the templates and drag-and-drop tools you need to set up shop online fast. The eCommerce plan supports HD video and audio so you can create compelling product videos, and you get tools to manage your inventory, calculate shipping and sales tax, and offer coupons to your customers. 2. Let Customers Book Appointments Online Worldwide access to global knowledge is great, but I think the real benefit of the internet is being able to book appointments without a phone conversation between two harried people who toss out days and times until one works. Setting up appointments online is easier for everyone—your receptionist can focus on other tasks, and your customers don’t get stuck on hold. Online booking also lets customers reserve a spot whenever they’re ready, instead of having to wait for office hours to make a call. When you make people wait, they sometimes forget—or find a competitor who lets them book online, so you lose out. You can add booking capability to your WordPress website with a plugin. One of the most popular is Booking Calendar , which lets you customize the fields customers will fill in, notifies you of new booking requests, and stores all your booking information in a single database so you don’t have to toggle back and forth to manage your client list and appointments. 3. Share Your Knowledge Online Once you’ve been running your business successfully for a while, you’ll probably have insights other people will pay to learn. Writing, design, and coaching businesses are a natural fit for online one-on-one entrepreneur mentorship programs and group courses aimed people in the same field who want to learn more about some aspect of the business. Other businesses can use this approach, too. Maybe you grew your landscaping business from zero to six figures in under two years. Other new landscapers will want your advice on marketing and customer retention. Does your HVAC repair company have the lowest employee-turnover rate and the best customer reviews in town? Other contractors will want to know how you retain top talent. There’s one big difference between selling this type of expertise online and setting up an online store or booking tool: You’ll need to reach a different audience from your regular customer base. That requires some research to see if there’s a demand for your knowledge, and to find out where your potential customers hang out online so you can start connecting with them. You’ll also need to establish yourself as an expert, with a blog, podcast, or videos that gives away some of your knowledge for free. You can set up a blog fast with the Gator Website Builder and its blogging templates. You’ll want to make sure your business website’s hosting plan can handle more traffic and load audio and video content fast. It may be time to upgrade to cloud hosting if you expect spikes in traffic when you open new course registrations, or if you need faster load times for your instructional videos and podcasts. Building up this type of revenue stream takes some time, but it can be lucrative if there’s enough demand and you put in the marketing work. And if your main line of business is seasonal, like landscaping or air-conditioner repair, an online sideline can help smooth out income peaks and valleys. 4. Add Ads and Affiliate Links to Your Small Business Website With a decent amount of traffic, your site can also generate revenue through affiliate links and ads. Affiliate marketing is big business, and just about anyone with a website can take part. Simply defined, affiliate marketing lets you earn commissions on sales of other people’s products that you promote on your site. Let’s say you own a cupcake shop, and your shop’s website has a popular blog that features tips on decorating cupcakes. You might sign up for the affiliate program offered by your favorite decorating tools company, include links to their products in your posts (along with an FTC-required disclosure that they’re affiliate links), and earn a commission on each sale that comes from your links. You can also run ads on your website. Google AdSense is the most popular option, because it’s easy to integrate with your site, it gives you control over which ads appear, and it tailors ads to your content and audience. It can take a while for your AdSense ads to bear fruit—you need to reach a $100 threshold before you receive your first payment. But as far as revenue streams go, it’s a low-effort, low-maintenance way to start monetizing your site. Want more ideas for making the most of your small business website? There’s always something new and useful on the HostGator blog . Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading

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10 White-Hat Link-Building Strategies for Local Business

The post 10 White-Hat Link-Building Strategies for Local Business appeared first on HostGator Blog . 10 White-Hat Link-Building Strategies for Local Business When you own a small local business, you have to find the most affordable options for promoting and marketing your brand. Unfortunately, when it comes to SEO, that need can put you at risk. Many of the cheapest SEO companies employ black-hat techniques based around trying to game the system – for example, building hundreds of low-quality links on spammy sites or publishing keyword-stuffed pages that don’t make much sense to humans. While some of those techniques worked in the early days of the internet, search engines have continually updated their algorithms over time to ensure that black-hat techniques not only aren’t rewarded with high rankings, but are now punished with search engine penalties . This is one area of business where cutting corners can have big consequences . You’re a lot better off employing a few white-hat link-building strategies on your own or hiring a legitimate SEO company than taking on the risks that come with black-hat SEO.   10 Link-Building Ideas for Local Businesses Here are ten legitimate link-building strategies that local businesses can benefit from.   1. Partner With Other Local Businesses. A lot of link building is ultimately about relationships. People are much more likely to add a link to your website on theirs if they have a genuine connection to your business. Research other local businesses in your area that do something related to what you do. For instance, if you sell dog treats, that could include pet groomers, dog walkers, veterinarians, and dog trainers. Reach out to the business owners to discuss ways you can help each other out. You could offer referral discounts for customers you recommend to each other or plan events together. Working together with other businesses will lead to natural linking opportunities, along with any other benefits you get from the relationship.   2. Sponsor Local Events or Organizations. In addition to local businesses, start looking into relevant local events and nonprofits that seek out business sponsorships . For event sponsorships, look up conferences, festivals, or professional events in your area and consider which of them are likely to attract people who are potential customers. Any event with a relevant audience of attendees is one that could be a good fit for sponsorship and, in most cases, your sponsorship will come with a link on the event’s website. For nonprofit sponsorships, consider the values your typical customers have and look for nonprofits that are a good match with the message you want to send to them. If you own a health food restaurant, then organizations that focus on improving healthy food access or sustainable food practices would be a natural fit.   3. Join Local Professional Organization with Directories. Most cities have a chamber of commerce and some have a number of different chambers focused on certain business owner demographics (e.g. an LGBTQ chamber of commerce, a Hispanic chamber of commerce, etc.). In addition, you can often find a number of professional organizations specific to certain industries. Identify any relevant professional organizations in your area and see if membership comes with inclusion in a directory. If so, it’s another good way to earn a local link.   4. Host a Charity Drive or Fundraiser. This tip doubles as both a way to do good and a way to earn links. When you work to help a cause other people care about, they have every reason to help spread the word to get more people involved. The nonprofit that you support will help promote it on their own site. Local journalists and bloggers are likely to cover the story as something newsworthy. And any followers of the nonprofit or publications that cover the story may be inspired to share news about it to their own followers as well.   5. Write and Promote Local Content. Content marketing is a big part of white-hat link building because when you create really great content, it gives other websites something worth linking to. A lot of businesses are doing content marketing , which means this tactic can be pretty competitive. But you don’t have to compete with every business in your industry in the search rankings, just those that serve the same local audience you do. Local businesses can therefore often gain some real traction by creating useful content that focuses on local issues. Try to find topics that are relevant both to your business and to the local community. If you own a bike shop, you could write blog posts about the best biking trails in town and provide coverage of local legislation that adds new bike lanes. 6. Connect with Local Bloggers. Many communities have local bloggers that write about things to do around town or issues relevant to residents. These blogs are often a good opportunity for earning local links. Reach out to see if the blogger is open to a relationship. Maybe they’ll provide a review in exchange for a free visit to your business, or you can set up an affiliate-style arrangement where they make a little money every time one of their readers comes to your business because of hearing about it through the blog. If you can work out an arrangement that you both consider beneficial, they’ll have a good reason to mention you on their blog and you’ll earn a new link.   7. Look for Relevant Round-up Pages. A lot of websites that have a local focus will write round-up posts highlighting the best businesses of different types – think titles like “The Best Brunch Spots in Chicago” or “The Best Coworking Spaces in Austin.” Think of different categories your business could fall into and see if there are any local round-up blog posts you could be a fit for.  For any you find, reach out to the author to see if they’re aware of your business and willing to consider an addition to the list. Don’t expect this strategy to have a huge success rate. The blogger would have to choose to do extra work in order to include your business, and also may not honestly see you as belonging on the “best” list by their standards. But if they are willing to give your business a try and see if you belong, it could earn you both a link and be the start of a relationship with a new local blogger.   8. Write Guest Posts. Guest posting is one of the most common white-hat link building tactics because it provides value both for you and the other website. Instead of asking another stranger with no investment in your business to do the work of adding a link to their website, you’re offering to do something for them that benefits them and their audience. Research the blogs in your industry and in your city to identify ones that are relevant to your business and accept guest posts. Brainstorm topic ideas that are relevant to the blog’s audience while also providing a natural opportunity for you to include a link back your website. Then start pitching. For every blog that accepts your pitch, make sure you write a really good piece and include a link or two to pages on your website where it fits naturally (don’t awkwardly force it in).   9. Do Broken Link Building. Broken link building is another common tactic that combines doing something useful for the website owner at the same time that you ask for a link. The goal here is to find examples of broken links on relevant websites that point to something similar to a page on your website. Then contact the website owner to let them know there’s a broken link on their site and recommend yours as a good replacement.  It’s alerting them to a problem with their website they may not have been aware of while offering an easy solution (that just happens to benefit you). Spotting broken links on the web may sound like an unrealistic undertaking, but a number of subscription SEO tools have features that make that part of the process easier. Once you’ve identified the broken links, it’s just a matter of crafting a solid email that explains why your webpage is a good replacement.   10. Create and Give Out Awards. People love getting awards and are quick to share about it whenever they’re recognized. If you start giving out local awards to individuals or businesses in relevant categories, it’s a good way to get the positive attention of the people you honor who are then likely to share about the award to their own audiences. If you own a local gym, you could create awards for business types your customers are likely to value such as healthy restaurants, natural food stores, or vitamin brands and open up voting to your members. It provides your customers a way to engage and provides you an entry into connecting with the businesses that win (see also, tactic #1). The winning businesses are likely to link back to your awards page and the people who love those businesses may share news of the award as well.   White-Hat Link Building for Your Business A lot of these tactics won’t just earn you links; they’ll help you become a more valuable and appreciated part of your local community. That’s one of the nice things about white-hat tactics – they’re not about being sneaky or taking advantage of weaknesses in the system, they’re all about doing things that are genuinely beneficial for the websites you reach out to, their audience, and your own business all at the same time. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading

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Datacenter Remote Hands Field Service in the Dallas Area from Tier.Net

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Getting Started with Snapchat Advertising: A Guide for Businesses

The post Getting Started with Snapchat Advertising: A Guide for Businesses appeared first on HostGator Blog . Snapchat Advertising Guide For some of you reading, the mass appeal of Snapchat might still be baffling. Who knew one of the things social media users were missing was the ability to make the social experience even more temporary and fleeting? Well, the founders of Snapchat knew and they’re banking on just how right they […] Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading

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