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What Is the Fastest Web Hosting

Posted on July 9, 2019 by Hosting

The post What Is the Fastest Web Hosting appeared first on HostGator Blog . If you have a slow loading website, you’re killing your site before it’s even had a chance to succeed.  Today, having a fast web host is no longer an option. It’s a necessity. With a slow loading site you’ll be negatively influencing your search engine rankings, impairing your user experience, and likely losing a lot of potential sales.  But all the onsite optimization in the world won’t matter if your web host is slow.  While on-page improvements like image optimization will make a huge difference, your web host sets the stage for your site speed. You can think of your hosting company as either making it easier or harder to achieve blazing fast loading speeds.  Below we not only examine why having a fast loading website is so important, but we also show you what to look for in fast web hosting services .  Why You Need a Fast Web Host If you didn’t hear the news, attention spans are down . You can’t expect your users to sit around and wait for your site to load. In fact, if your site takes longer than 2 seconds, then they’ll click the back button and head over to one of your competitors. Your web host can either greatly enhance your site speed or make it very difficult to achieve even subpar loading speeds. Here are some of the biggest reasons you’ll want fast web hosting services behind you: 1. Rank Higher in the Search Engine Rankings Google loves websites that load fast. Think about it, Google’s mission is to provide search engine users with the most relevant and highest quality search results.  When your site loads slowly, your visitors are immediately put off. They start moving their mouse (or trackpad) towards the back button as fast as possible.  Site loading speed is a Google ranking factor . Keep in mind that it’s not a big one, but everything adds up when it comes to SEO. Plus, if your site takes too long to load, then Google will send crawlers to your website less often. So, they won’t know if you’ve published that new blog post you’ve spent hours on. Beyond the ranking factor impact, having a slow loading website will also influence user experience factors like your bounce rate . Having a very high bounce rate will signal to Google that your site is low-quality, so you can say goodbye to those hard-earned rankings.  2. Offer a Positive User Experience If you want your site to succeed in the long-term, then you need to be creating a positive experience for your visitors.  Face it, the web is a crowded place, so if you’re looking to stand out, a great way to do that is with your user experience. Create a super enjoyable experience for your visitors and you’ll be having visitors come back to your site again and again (and maybe tell their friends about it too!). As you’ve already seen, today’s internet users are impatient. We all are. We all expect things to happen instantly. So, if your site fails to achieve this expectation you’re going to have a lot of disappointed visitors on your hands.  Also, as we mentioned above, when you create a great user experience you’ll improve key website stats like your bounce rate and dwell time, which suggest a positive user experience . This will have a compounding effect of ensuring it’s easier for your site to rank, and helping turn visitors into customers, subscribers, and more.  3. Create a Stellar First Impression The moment a visitor lands on your website they’re judging you. This doesn’t mean you need to feel self-conscious. It’s something we all do.  Visitors are immediately making judgments about your site. Should they trust you? Is this site worth their time? Are you a professional? These judgments happen instantly. One of the best ways to help bring visitors over to your side is to have a fast loading website.  Sure, there are important elements of your site that need to be in place too. But, users tend to view fast loading sites as more trustworthy. On the other hand, when your site loads slowly, it does the exact opposite of inspiring confidence. In fact, if your site loads too slowly, your visitors may never return again.  4. Improve Your Conversions Most people will leave your site and never return again if it loads slowly. According to some experts , 40% of people will abandon your site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.  So, let’s say your site gets 10,000 visitors per month. With a slow loading site, 4,000 of those visitors will leave your site! That’s 4,000 visitors who could have become customers.  If your site is generating revenue, then any lost visitor is a potentially lost customer. Of course, not every website visitor will buy something from you. But, losing 40% of your visitors due to a fixable problem with site loading isn’t something you’ll want to experience. The more traffic your site gets the more tragic this figure becomes.  5. Make Speed Optimization Easier Finally, when you choose a fast hosting services you’re making your life as a webmaster so much easier. No matter what kind of hosting plan you’re on there are steps you can take to help get the highest performance out of your site. But, if you’re on a slow loading web host, even big changes will only lead to very small improvements. It’ll be near impossible to overcome the slow loading baseline that’s set by your host.  Some web hosts are so blazing fast that they deliver incredible loading speeds without any onsite speed optimization. In an ideal world you’ll have a host that values speed, along with having proper onsite optimization to truly get the highest levels of performance out of your site.  What to Look for in a Fast Web Host Now that you understand the importance of having a fast loading website let’s look at the things you should look for in a web host . Note that some of the factors are actual features of a hosting company while others are more dependant on the needs of your site.  The following factors will help you find a host with the fastest web hosting:  1. Choosing the Right Plan  One of the biggest influences on the performance of your site is choosing the right type of hosting and plan for your needs. For example, if you’re on a basic shared hosting plan, but your site gets a large volume of monthly traffic, then this will probably lead to poor performance. There’s no way around it.  It’s important to choose a host that can actually support your website needs. For most hosting plans there are limits, and when you hit these your site performance is going to suffer.  First, ensure that you choose a hosting plan that can support your existing traffic and storage levels while giving you space to grow or upgrade your plan. Second, consider choosing a type of hosting that’s best suited to your site. For example, if you run a WordPress site whose traffic levels are increasing, then you might want to consider moving to WordPress hosting .  2. Server Location One thing that’s typically overlooked is the actual physical location of the servers. If you primarily get traffic from the UK, but your servers are based in Los Angeles, then your loading times won’t be as fast as they could be. If you have the opportunity to select the location of your servers, then choose a location that’s the closest to your website visitors and not your physical location.  If you can’t select this, then at least make sure there’s a bundled CDN, or you have the opportunity to utilize one.  3. Quality Server Hardware The server hardware will also influence your site’s performance. Look for a host that uses the latest web server hardware technology, not simply a host that’s trying to get by with older server hardware.  Typically, the higher the level of your plan the better web server hardware you’ll have access to. This includes things like the quality of the processors, integrated caching, unlimited bandwidth, along with support for faster software or program updates, like PHP 7.  4. Type of Drives When you purchase hosting services you’re basically buying a place to store your site’s files. If possible, try to find a host that uses Solid State Drives (SSDs) . This is an upgrade from the traditional HDD drives. SSDs have a much higher level of performance and can execute server commands at a much faster rate.  5. Bundled CDN Using a CDN will help your site load faster across the board. With a CDN behind you, cached versions of your site will be stored on different servers across the globe. Whenever a visitor accesses your site, they’ll be served a version of your site from a server that’s in the closest physical proximity.  Choosing the Fastest Web Host for Your Needs Even though speed is important, there’s a lot more that goes into choosing a web host than just evaluating speed. Here are a few factors you’ll want to look for along with fast performance:  1. Fits Your Budget Even if you’ve found the fastest web host in the world, it won’t matter if you can’t afford it. Usually, a VPS or dedicated server plan will be faster than a shared hosting plan.  You’ll need to find the fastest form of hosting available within your budget. In time, as the size of your site and traffic levels grow you can upgrade to more expensive forms of hosting that will also offer upgrades in performance.  2. Quality of Support A rock-solid customer support team should be mandatory when deciding between different web hosting providers. The chances are high that you’ll need to reach out to support at some time to help you resolve an issue regarding your hosting or your website. You’ll want to look for a support team that offers customer support in your preferred channel, along with actually being responsive and helpful. When an issue arises with your website you’ll want to be confident you can get it resolved as quickly as possible.  3. Ability to Grow With You Chances are your site will grow in time and so will your hosting needs. Even if you’re building out your first site you’ll want to choose a hosting company that can grow with you. This means you should be on the lookout for hosts that offer multiple plans, as well as, multiple forms of hosting services.  4. Bundled Tools and Features When looking for a host make sure they can meet all of your needs, not just your need for speed.  For example, maybe you want a host that allows you to manage and send email, or you know you want to use cPanel to manage your web server, or you want a host that has a website builder . Take stock of your additional needs before you begin researching and exploring different web hosting services..  5. High Level of Reliability Site uptime is incredibly important. Even if your site loads in 10ms, this won’t matter if it’s offline all the time. Look for a host that offers an uptime guarantee of 99.99%.  This uptime percentage refers to the percentage of time that your site will be online. This might not seem crucially important, but think about it from the perspective of a visitor who comes to your site while it’s offline.  Or, a visitor who came to your site with the intention of making a purchase, but all they see is an offline site.  Look for a host that offers a high level of uptime, and even an uptime guarantee if the time your site is offline drops below their baseline percentage. Choose a Fast Web Host for Your Website Hopefully, you have a better understanding of why having the fastest web hosting is very important. With a low loading host behind you, you’re going to have an uphill battle from the very beginning.  By using the information above you’ll be on your way towards finding the best blazing-fast web hosting package for your website. Whether you go for shared hosting, dedicated server hosting , or any of our other web hosting packages, our team at HostGator will help you find the best service for you and your website. If you’re looking for a web host that values load time speed and also checks all the boxes above, then explore HostGator’s hosting plans today. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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5 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website from Social Media

Posted on June 3, 2019 by Hosting

The post 5 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website from Social Media appeared first on HostGator Blog . Everyone is spending time on social media. It’s the hangout spot for people to chat with their friends and get the latest updates on their favorite TV shows. It’s also a place for you to attract new customers to your brand. It’s important for people to engage with your website. However, social networks are doing their absolute best to keep people in-platform. But you can change all that! Here are five social media tips for your brand to get people to actually visit your website. 1. Optimize Your Profile It’s very likely for potential customers to learn about your brand on social media before they even land on your website. So, you’ll want to make a good first impression. You’ll need two key people from your team: a graphic designer and a copywriter. The designer will ensure your logo and profile images represent your brand well. You may need to adjust the color schemes or image sizes to maximize your brand’s visibility. Then, work with your copywriter to draft a creative message about your business. You can use your tagline or meaningful saying that will strike an emotional chord with your followers. Here’s an example from Califia Farms . Their Instagram profile shows a clear image of their logo. Plus, the copy sparks curiosity and spotlights their plant-based mission. Lastly, you want to lead people to your site with a link. Experiment with your homepage or a specific landing page. Your goal is to increase traffic and keep your new visitors’ attention. 2. Tease Exclusive Content Consumers love the velvet rope treatment. That’s when a few people receive access to a special offering. It gives people a sense of belonging and labels them as part of the “cool kids” group. Exclusivity can encourage more people to visit your site. Julie Neidlinger , writer, artist, and pilot from North Dakota, provides her perspective: “Exclusivity works because, frankly, people like to be in on the secret. Exclusivity makes people want something. If they can’t have it, they want it all the more. Some of us take a bit of pleasure when others are excluded (though we’d rather not admit that).” Use this strategy to your advantage by only posting links to specific content on your social media channels. For instance, let’s say you did an interview with a well-known expert. You can post the link to the video only on your Facebook account for 48 hours. That exclusivity will motivate your followers to click the link to your site. Another idea is to announce product releases on social media. It’ll prompt your audience to follow you on social media and visit the official announcement page. It’s a win-win for everyone: your fans get the exclusive perk and your brand gets traffic. 3. Engage Followers Directly Social media has earned a bad reputation because businesses like to rely on too many automated processes. This dependence on automation hinders brand engagement. Your customers want personal attention, not a bot sending them a canned response every single time they reply to your social account. To truly get people to your site from social media, you must engage them directly. So, invest in hiring (or outsourcing) a part-time social media manager to craft direct responses to your followers. Whether it’s a potential customer looking for a quick answer or a long-time customer needing assistance, you want someone to provide a unique reply in a timely manner. Footwear and apparel brand Vans offers a good lesson on how to connect with your social media audience. Below the company provides a friendly reply along with a recommended site for the customer to visit. When directing followers to your site, make sure it fits their needs. Matching the right page with their current issue ensures a positive outcome. 4. Connect with Influencers When building your marketing plan, don’t forget the power of relationships. Your team shouldn’t be tackling every task in a silo. Instead, recruit influencers to help you spread your message and get people to your site. Choose influencers within your industry that align with your brand’s values and goals. David Zheng, former contributor to The Daily Egg, offers his insight: “It can be excruciatingly overwhelming to track down influencers…The key to finding the right influencers is to remember that the more you know about your target, the better you can create a pitch that will engage and sell them on your idea.” You’ll want to draw up an agreement highlighting the expectations for the influencer partnership . Will the individual retweet specific posts? Or will the person post about your business three times a week on his account? Moreover, give influencers creative control to develop new social media ideas for your brand. Maybe they can post a series of funny videos or do a takeover on your Twitter account. These innovative approaches will earn your business more traffic. 5. Promote Special Deals A good deal is hard to find. That’s why customers are happy when they find a coupon for their favorite brand. Customers will even go the extra mile to locate a promotional code before purchasing products in their online shopping carts. You brand can leverage people’s need to save money. Start by offering special discounts on your social media accounts. It can be a one-time holiday offer or monthly deals just for your followers. These incentives will get people to your site, and it gives visitors a reason to buy from you now, rather than later. Check out this example below from Letterfolk . On Facebook, the brand is showcasing a special 20% discount on all their inventory for their Mother’s Day Sale. Like any good marketing strategy, don’t overload your customers. You shouldn’t post discounts every day. Also, state any restrictions about the coupon upfront. The last thing you want is followers upset because their coupon doesn’t apply to the items in their cart. Driving Traffic From Social Media to Your Website Social media is all the craze, but you need visitors to come to your site. From profile optimization to direct engagement, there’s an opportunity for your brand to get more traffic. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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How to Use Facebook Messenger for eCommerce

Posted on May 7, 2019 by Hosting

The post How to Use Facebook Messenger for eCommerce appeared first on HostGator Blog . Facebook Messenger is no longer just an app you can use to message your friends. Now it’s an app where you can chat with your friends and shop at the exact same time. That’s right, Facebook Messenger is also a powerful tool for eCommerce. According to Statista, there are now 1.3 billion monthly active Facebook Messenger users worldwide. That’s a ton of users that you can interact with. But, don’t open Facebook Messenger and start messaging your followers at random, telling them to buy your products. Not only is that time consuming, but it’s also ineffective — and weird. So, how do you use Facebook Messenger successfully to impress your customers and grow your sales? Here’s how to use Facebook Messenger for eCommerce. 1. Convenient Customer Support With the advances in technology we have today, customers are no longer interested in calling your customer service line or waiting hours for you to answer a customer support email. In fact, 12% of Americans rate their number one frustration with customer service as “lack of speed”. They want lightning fast customer service and support, so your business needs to adapt. Luckily, with Facebook Messenger you can provide quick and convenient customer support to consumers around the clock, no matter where they are. But this doesn’t mean you need to be sitting around, Facebook Messenger app open, and answering customer support questions all day, you can use a Facebook Messenger chatbot to handle customer service for you. With a tool like Many Chat , you can easily create a Facebook Messenger chatbot to answer all of your customers’ pressing questions and concerns — without having to touch a line of code. With this tool, not only can users access your customer support right from Facebook, but you can also add a Facebook Messenger Customer Chat window to your eCommerce website . This way, all of your customers will be aware of your convenient customer support option, not just the ones who follow you on Facebook. 2. Generate Leads and Deliver Content Most users that visit your website will not buy anything from you on their first visit. They might be checking out what you have to offer, comparing prices, or reading reviews before they make the decision to purchase. So, instead of risking losing these visitors, take the opportunity to turn them into a lead. A highly effective way to turn consumers into leads is by offering a free gift like a coupon or exclusive content through an email signup optin on your website. But, for those users who would prefer not to get content via email, you can send their content via Facebook Messenger instead.   OptinMonster , a powerful lead generation tool for your website, now has a chatbot integration feature that allows you to do just that: Simply connect your OptinMonster account with your ManyChat account and you can drag and drop the Facebook Messenger block right inside your optin form. The users who previously would avoid signing up for your email list have a whole new avenue available to them, giving you more opportunity to generate leads. 3. Personalized Recommendations Personalization is important in eCommerce. In fact, 33% of customers who abandoned a business relationship last year did so because personalization was lacking. Luckily though, you can use Facebook Messenger to enhance personalization for your customers too. By using a chatbot for Facebook Messenger, you can give personalized recommendations to give your customers exactly what they want. That will not only impress them, but boost your sales as well. Take a look at this example from Lego. Their chatbot, named Ralph, can help customers find the perfect products by asking questions such as where they’re located , how old they are, budget, and interests. This added level of personalization will help prime your potential customers for checkout and make their overall shopping experience with your online store a breeze. 4. Offer Easy Checkout What if customers didn’t even have to visit your website to make a purchase? After all, the more options your online store provides for your customers to buy, the more opportunity you have to boost sales. Well, you can make that dream a reality with Facebook Messenger. With Facebook Messenger chatbots you’re not limited to giving users product recommendations; you can actually allow users to browse products and checkout right from the app. This option eliminates steps for the consumer; instead of asking them to visit your site to make the purchase, the checkout button is right there, making them more likely to take action. You can even send abandoned cart messages via Facebook Messenger that include a checkout button. So, no more losing out on potential sales. Consider adding urgency with a message like “Last chance to claim this offer!” to increase conversions even more. Your customers will love having the ability to shop at your online store without ever having to leave the Facebook Messenger app. Boost eCommerce Sales with Facebook Messenger Your target audience is probably on Facebook multiple times throughout the day — aren’t we all? Why shouldn’t your eCommerce business be there too? Don’t miss out on using this powerful social media messaging app for your eCommerce business. When you use Facebook Messenger for your eCommerce business you can increase customer satisfaction, generate a ton more leads, and boost your sales. Plus, it’s easy and affordable too. Start turning your instant messaging conversations into sales today. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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Do I need to manually update the website sitemap?

Posted on April 21, 2019 by Hosting

Hi Friends, I wanted to know, do we need to manually update the sitemap after adding new pages to the website, or their is any plugin whi… | Read the rest of http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1761524&goto=newpost Continue reading →

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The Best Free WordPress Themes for Travel Blogs Now

Posted on April 19, 2019 by Hosting

The post The Best Free WordPress Themes for Travel Blogs Now appeared first on HostGator Blog . Sharing stories is part of the adventure for most people who love to travel, and one of the best ways to share your experiences is with your own travel blog. Travel blogging can be a good way to document your trips for yourself and for your friends and family who want to travel vicariously through you. You can also earn money from your travel blog if you’re willing to put in the work to create a great-looking site, share entertaining content, and build an audience. Whether you blog about your travels as a hobby or a side gig, you need a site theme that fits your niche, your goals, and your audience habits. Best WordPress Themes for Travel Blogs Here are four WordPress blog themes we like for travel content because they’re designed to highlight your travel photos. They’re also free, which means more money saved for your next big trip.   1. Travel Magazine If you post a lot, run a travel blog with multiple authors, or have a lot of posts in your blog’s archive, Travel Magazine by Rara Theme offers a way to display a whole bunch of your visual content without crossing the line into visual clutter. The desktop display includes a slideshow banner with thumbnail images, plus featured images in varying sizes below. Travel Magazine’s mobile configuration scales down the slideshow banner and uses a single column display featured images for posts. Search engine optimization, social media integrations, and fast load times make it easy for visitors to find your site and stick around to explore. Travel Magazine is fully compatible with WooCommerce, so you can set up a store to go with your blog . The premium version of Travel Magazine is its parent theme, Numinous Pro ($59). Numinous Pro includes more customization options than the free version. It also includes an ad management system to help you monetize your blog and an ad-blocker detector to help you protect your ad revenue stream.   2. Travel Lifestyle Travel Lifestyle is a free theme from The Bootstrap Themes that loads quickly and displays cleanly on computers and phones. Travel Lifestyle’s image-heavy design focuses visitors’ attention on your travel photos. There’s also a built-in Instagram section plus integration tools for your other social media accounts. The layout and customization options are somewhat limited in the free version of Travel Lifestyle. You get one layout, banner slider, and header option, plus a limited menu of Google Fonts. But with its clean design and WooCommerce compatibility, Travel Lifestyle’s free version is a simple, budget friendly way to start your travel blog and an online store. To get color options for your theme and its menus, ad management tools, and ad-blocker bypass functionality, you can upgrade to Travel Lifestyle’s premium version ($49). The premium version also includes options for right sidebar, left sidebar, or full-width single column layout on desktop, and a full-width column or left sidebar below the fold on mobile.   3. Image Gridly Image Gridly, from Superb Themes , is a good choice for travel bloggers who take professional-quality photos. The design, as you might guess, is an image grid, with titles overlaid on the lower third of each post’s featured image rather than formatted as separate blocks of text. The desktop display features a full-width banner photo, with a three-column image grid below. On smartphones, the display switches to a full-width banner that’s smaller in proportion to the featured post images that are displayed in a single column. Image Gridly is an exceptionally good looking theme. However, the free version offers few of the features you can find in free versions of other themes, like comprehensive SEO configuration, fast load time, Google fonts, and appearance customization tools. For these features, you’ll need to upgrade to the premium version. Premium plans start at $26.   4. Camer Camer, from Blogging Theme Styles , is another image grid theme, this one featuring images that display text only when visitors mouse over or tap the images. On computers, Camer has a full width text header and 4-column image grid. On phones, the images display in a single column. Camer’s free version is ready for Gutenberg, WordPress’ new modular editor that’s designed to make post creation faster and more intuitive. The free version of Camer also includes lots of design options, including blog- and box-style layouts, recent and related posts widgets, five page templates, 13 sidebar positions, and a built in social media menu. Camer Pro ($49) adds more design options, the ability to adjust the width of the sections on your pages, and more layouts, page templates, and sidebar positions.   Picking the Perfect Theme for Your WordPress Travel Blog The live demos that theme publishers offer on their sites can give you a general idea of how a particular theme will look and act, but it’s smart to try out the ones you’re interested in with your content before you commit to one theme. As you try out different themes on your computer and mobile devices, think about: How well the theme highlights the type of content you publish most often , whether that’s photos, videos, or text. How you intend to make money with your blog. If you plan to display ads, sell merchandise in a store on your site, or offer a subscription service, will the theme support those plans? How your followers access your blog. Are they reading on their laptops or checking in on their mobile phones during their own travels? Choose a theme that makes it easy for your fans to see your posts and get the most from your site. Your theme journey isn’t over after you pick a theme and publish it. You’ll want to monitor site metrics like visitors, bounce rate, time spent on the site, and—if you’re selling—conversions. If your numbers aren’t trending upward after a few months, you might want to try a different theme from this list to see if that gives your numbers a boost. Running a travel blog is a journey of its own, and choosing a good theme is just one element of your travel blogger’s online toolkit . To get even more functionality our your blog, check out these  WordPress travel plugins. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading →

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