Tag Archives: products

5 Benefits of Using a Website Builder for Blogs

The post 5 Benefits of Using a Website Builder for Blogs appeared first on HostGator Blog . Website builders for blogs make it easy to publish your content. As a blogger, you’re already tasked with creating and promoting your work. The last thing you want to worry about is building your website from scratch. Haris Bacic , a Forbes contributor, writes: “Creating a website for your business doesn’t have to be a headache and it certainly doesn’t require hiring an expensive design agency to create it for you. Depending on the type of business you own, there are several quick and affordable solutions.” Should you use a website builder for your blog? Here are five benefits to consider right now.   1. Quick Setup A blogger’s focus is creating compelling content for their readers. You need to craft creative topics, design beautiful images, and maybe even record a video (or two).   Your time is limited, and you shouldn’t waste it constructing a site. With website builders, you don’t have to learn how to code or hire a website designer . Website builders cater to first-time site owners and beginners. There’s no stressing about fixing  a HTML error. You could literally set up your site during a lunch break. For example, HostGator’s setup is simple and quick. You can either register a new domain or enter an existing one. Then, you can select a hosting plan and any additional services, like hack alert monitoring or site backup . Website builders also make it effortless to brand your blog. You can add a favicon—a branded icon—in the address bar and browser tab for your visitors to see. It’s a clever way to give your blog a more professional look. If you sign up with HostGator, you’ll also receive 24/7/365 support. The friendly support team will answer your questions and help you resolve any issues. A quick setup means more time doing what you love. Website builders for blogs decrease the technical difficulty.   2 Affordability Whether you’re a seasoned or novice blogger, you don’t need to bruise your bank account to create a website. Your goal is to find an affordable option that will help you communicate with your audience. A few decades ago, developing a website required a tech guru. You would book an appointment with an agency, go to the business’s downtown offices, and talk with their experts about the look and feel of your desired site. This complicated process meant expensive rates. The professionals even charged you for making monthly updates. Bloggers depleted a lot resources to exist on the World Wide Web. With website builders, you’re in control. Now, it doesn’t make sense to squander your time and money with an overpriced specialist. It’s worth it to utilize a website builder . “Be realistic with what’s essential for your website…A DIY website builder will more than suffice. A majority of individuals and businesses looking to build a website will fall into this category…Rest assured, building your website is affordable and doesn’t have to break the bank,” writes Entrepreneur contributor Ana R. Alvarado . When comparing website builders, go beyond primary features. Figure out if the hosting provider offers multiple email accounts, a one-click application installation, or a money-back guarantee.   3. Pre-Designed Templates Visuals are a key component when developing your website. You want an eye-catching design that sparks visitors’ interests. Then, you can lure them in with your original content. The cost of hiring a website designer can get pricey, ranging anywhere from $300 to $5,000. It can take several weeks to produce a custom design that fits your business’s needs. The whole process also can leave you overwhelmed. Pre-designed templates remove that anxiety. You don’t have to constantly contact someone to make simple changes. You can modify the color scheme, font choice, and images when you see fit. Check out the pre-designed template below. HostGator provides a selection of more than 100   mobile-friendly website themes , plus an image library. The drag and drop functionality makes it trouble-free for non-coders. With pre-built sections and pages, you have an array of customization options so you can fully customize and categorize your site. There are no limits on how to develop a site suitable for your audience. Test out your design to ensure it’s delivering the right message. You can run a beta test asking a few consumers for their opinions via a short survey. Then, you can use that input to make improvements. Website builders help you skip the drama when it comes to design. Pre-designed templates offer bloggers the convenience to choose what’s best for them.   4. SEO Tools Getting your website up and running is only the beginning. The next step is to draw attention to your blog and persuade users to actually visit. Search engine optimization (SEO) is one method of earning more visitors. By raising your organic search traffic, you can convert the occasional visitor into a frequent blog reader. HostGator’s SEO tools can provide you with easy-to-follow insights and analytics that help improve your search rankings, boost your website traffic, and monitor local competition. “The best way to start is to build a website that is SEO-friendly. Website-building software that caters to this will help your site rankings to be boosted through allowing you to add and edit title tags, meta tags, and meta descriptions, at a bare minimum,” states Inc. contributor Bubba Page . SEO is more than stuffing keywords into a blog post. It involves doing research to find relevant keywords, optimizing your images, and linking to authoritative sources. Also, consider the permalink structure —how visitors locate your blog and its internal blog posts. After your blog setup, be sure to do experiments and measure the results. SEO isn’t a one-time tactic; it’s an ongoing strategy that needs fine-tuning. Focusing on SEO is essential for growing your readership.   5. Ecommerce Shopping Cart Some bloggers don’t set out to make money with their words. And that’s fine. It starts as a hobby and surprisingly leads to a full-time business. Statista reports that an estimated 1.66 billion users worldwide purchased goods online in 2017. eCommerce opens doors for small businesses to market their products to a global audience. If you’re expanding into eCommerce, one of the first steps is to decide what you will sell to your readers. As a food blogger , you might sell your latest cookbook. A lifestyle blogger may sell unique jewelry. It’s really up to your imagination and the purchasing desires of your shoppers. HostGator makes it painless to manage your store. With a convenient dashboard, you can view recent orders and total monthly sales. Before launching your eCommerce store, you’ll also want to think about how you will ship your products, payment options for customers, and your refund policy. These factors play a critical role in how you run your business.   Starting can be a fun adventure, but if you ever feel exhausted, find ecommerce communities online.  Your local library may be a powerful resource, too. When you’re ready, you can turn your blog into a business. Use the eCommerce shopping cart add-on to monitor your incoming sales.   Blogging with a Website Builder Creating a site shouldn’t be a worry for bloggers. Website builders exist to make the process of publishing content easier. Look for a website builder for blogs that offers quick setup. You want pre-designed templates, so you don’t have to spend money on hiring a web designer. The e-commerce shopping cart also lets you expand your blogging into a business. Start your blog today. Choose HostGator as your website builder. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading

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Google Ads: 7 Pros and Cons for Small Businesses

The post Google Ads: 7 Pros and Cons for Small Businesses appeared first on HostGator Blog . Small businesses desire to promote their products, and Google Ads can open doors to doing it the right way. Understanding potential consumers’ needs and interests helps your advertising efforts. Serial entrepreneur Neil Patel elaborates: “When people go to Google, they’re looking for something specific. That means they have intent. They’re actively looking for something to buy. They’re literally telling you what they want to buy by typing out words around your products and services. That’s why Google AdWords is so powerful (and profitable).” Before you get started with Google Ads , you’ll want to weigh the pros and cons. Check out what we found below. Google Ads: Pros for Small Businesses You want your small business to thrive. Here are a few benefits of using Google Ads.   1. Target Specific Audiences When marketing products, there’s value in talking to your ideal customer. Your brand will be more attractive to these buyers. The key to advertising is knowing the habits and behaviors of your target audience . This insight helps you pinpoint where and how to communicate with potential customers. Google Ads gives you the opportunity to narrow down who you can reach during a campaign.  By using a specific term or phrase, you can advertise to consumers actively researching products like yours. Figuring out who not to target is just as vital. For instance, if your product is a hazard for kids under five years old, you probably can rule out adults raising toddlers. Filtering out unlikely consumers improves your campaigns.   2. Set Up Quickly As a small business owner, time is a precious resource. The more time you spend on a task means you may neglect another responsibility. Therefore, when it comes to setting up your advertising, you want to get started quickly (without any unnecessary hassle). Google Ads wants you to start as soon as possible. Aden Andrus , director of content marketing of Disruptive Advertising, explains: “Google wants your money, so they make it pretty easy to set up an account and start advertising on AdWords. All you have to do is visit Google AdWords and hit ‘Start now.’ From there, you’ll be asked for your email (preferably a Gmail account) and the URL of your site.” Unlike other platforms, where you may have to call a sales representative, Google Ads takes you through easy-to-follow steps. Now, you can focus your time on building a worthwhile campaign.   3. Stay Within Your Budget Like most small businesses, you’re probably strapped for cash. Between paying for operational costs and unexpected fees, your budget isn’t always ready for an additional marketing cost. The landscape of advertising rates has changed drastically over the years. Back in the day, you had to pay thousands of dollars for a billboard or a newspaper ad. Now, with online advertising, more options exist, alleviating a lot of the financial burden. Google Ads works within your budget. You choose the daily campaign budget based on your advertising goals. Plus, you can change the budget at any time. By staying in control of the budget, you can map out where to allocate funds. Let’s say you have two campaigns running simultaneously. If Campaign A isn’t performing well, you can stop it immediately and move those funds to Campaign B. Google Ads gives you more flexibility with your budget.   4. Design Multiple Ad Types Every customer isn’t the same. Depending on your product, you may serve young hipsters as well as joyful senior citizens. Despite the differences, it is important that you engage each buyer in the manner they desire. Courtney Danyel , a digital marketing and business writer, agrees: “Businesses can choose from several different ad-types that appear around the internet. But if you want to make the most of the selection, you should choose the one(s) that offer the most value for your business and target audience.” Google Ads equips you with multiple ad format choices, including search, display, video, and app. Search ads pop up when a consumer types your designated keywords in the Google search engine, while video ads appear on the YouTube platform. This ad versatility supports your goals to connect with more interested buyers. Your ads become part of their normal shopping experiences, instead of an annoying distraction.   Google Ads: Cons for Small Businesses Every tool won’t be perfect. You’ll want to scope out the flaws before you make a 100% commitment.   1. Expert Management Knowing the basics will only get you so far. If you want to get the most from an advertising platform, it will require expertise. Some small business owners learn the hard way. They try tinkering with a new tool over a period of time and end up getting little to no results. Google Ads isn’t a platform you can learn in a day. So, you may need to hire an expert to consult with your team. Paying an expert may cut into your initial campaign budget, which means less money to target customers. But with their knowledge, you can make your marketing dollars go much further toward reaching new customers.  Interested? Check out HostGator’s expert PPC services.    2. Competitive Segments Today’s market is very competitive. Companies, big and small, are all vying for attention from consumers. That competition spills over into Google Ads when selecting similar segments. When businesses target the same keywords, Google expects you to pay more to advertise to that audience. You can get tangled into dishing out more money. “Google AdWords is one of the most challenging platforms when it comes to monitoring your success. You can quickly spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars and see little to no return on investment. The metrics are tricky to establish, and you could find yourself with $0 fast,” writes Brad Smith , contributing writer at AdEspresso. As a consequence, you may have to choose secondary keywords . Even though they may cost less, it may not meet your advertising goals. It’s a hard decision that every small business must evaluate.   3. Strict Policies When you’re using an advertising tool, you’re obligated to play by their rules. No matter whether you agree or not, their policies will protect the platform. Before jumping into any advertising space, you’ll want to assess their requirements. Then, you’ll have a better understanding of how to proceed. For example, with Google Ads, the company has policies that prohibit certain content. You can’t advertise counterfeit goods, dangerous products, or offensive content. Google also has editorial guidelines that restrict how you appeal to consumers. Your ads can’t be overly generic or use gimmicky language, like FREE. They only approve relevant and useful content. So, if Google deems your ad as unsafe, you can’t promote your campaign.   Moving Forward with Google Ads Advertising is a real challenge for any small business. Google Ads may be a good option to get your products in front of potential customers. Consider the pros and cons of the tool. It’s easy to set up with your team; however, you may need to hire an expert to manage the day-to-day operations. Learn what works for your small business. Explore Google Ads. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading

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How to Sell Products Online in 6 Easy Steps

The post How to Sell Products Online in 6 Easy Steps appeared first on HostGator Blog . Deciding to start an online business and begin selling products online can be an exciting experience. However, this excitement can soon be replaced with overwhelm if the proper process isn’t followed. There are a lot of considerations and research to be done if you want to learn to sell products online the right way. Below you’ll learn the proper steps to take before you launch, during launch, and how to set your online store up for long-term success.   1. Decide What to Sell Choosing the right products to sell will make or break your success online. As a result, you should spend a lot of time during the research phase. It can be helpful to choose a product or market that you actually care about. With more and more competition every single day, choosing a market you have passion about will give you a leg up, as you’ll be willing to go the extra mile. Ask yourself: What kind of products would I love to sell? What would be my dream niche to serve? What industries do I have experience and knowledge in? What pain points currently exist in the market? Do my products provide a practical solution? This should give you a list of products or markets that you’d love to serve. With this in mind it’s time to get a better picture of the existing market, so you can decide how to compete and position yourself.   2. Research Your Market You probably already have an idea of some of the competitors in your space, but now it’s time to take a deeper dive. You’ll be looking for companies that sell similar products, what makes their approach unique, the methods they use to market themselves, and how they speak to your target market. Find your top competitors and make a list with the above elements in mind. This will not only help you better understand how to market and sell your products, but you might be able to uncover an underserved portion of the market hungry for your products. Beyond having a deep understanding of your market, you’ll also want to thoroughly understand your customers . This will make the sales and marketing process much easier. Ask yourself the following questions: How old is my customer? Where do they live? What’s their gender? How much money do they make? What’s their occupation? What other interests do they have? How do they spend their time? What are their beliefs about the world? Why do they buy products like yours?   3. Decide How to Ship Your Products With an idea of what you’re going to sell, the existing market, and your buyer preferences, it’s time to think about how you’re going to ship your products to them. The first is hiring a manufacturer to create your products for you. This can lead to a more custom product, higher quality control, and less cost per unit. But, you’ll have to spend more time creating your product, working out manufacturing issues, and figuring out shipping. The second approach is relying on dropshipping . With this approach, you’ll be purchasing other people’s products and selling them through your online store. The drop shipper will also fulfill and ship orders on your behalf. This approach will have lower overhead costs, and less work overall. However, you may have to operate on slimmer margins and will have less quality control over the final product.   4. Build Your Online Store Now it’s time to start building your online store. You’ll have a few different approaches to take. You can build your own online store through WordPress and a tool like WooCommerce. You can sell products through an existing platform like Etsy, or Amazon. Or you can use an eCommerce website builder to easily build your store and manage your products. For the sake of this tutorial, we’re going to assume you’re using a website builder. This approach will give you the freedom of customizing your own site while helping manage all of the technical details for you. With an eCommerce website builder all you have to do is select a theme, customize it to your liking with the drag and drop builder, upload your products, and press publish. You’ll also be able to manage your inventory, handle tax, and shipping rates, and even integrate a payment processor.   5. Craft a Marketing Strategy Simply publishing your site online isn’t enough; you need to craft a marketing strategy to help get the word out. It would be impossible to cover every single aspect of marketing your online store in this post, but here are a few questions and considerations to get you moving in the right direction: What marketing approaches will you take? Social media? Content marketing? Paid advertising? Influencer outreach? Guest blogging? How will you get customers to buy from you again? A royalty program? Subscriber discounts? How will you convert traffic to buyers? Regular promotions? Product and upsell suggestions? What will make your strategy successful? Rising traffic? Conversions? Email list growth? As you can see you have a lot to think about when it comes to marketing your store and ensuring it’s success over the long run.   6. Launch and Execute The day has come to finally launch your online store and start sharing your products with the world. Even though it probably feels like your work is finished it’s actually only just begun. All of the preparation work, research, and website building has been leading you up to this point. Continue to execute and experiment with your marketing strategy and optimize your site based on user feedback, analytics data, and the kinds of products they’re actually buying. Selling products online is a journey and you’ve just taken your first steps. Hopefully, you’re now better equipped to create and launch a successful online store. Get your store up and running quickly with the GATOR website builder. Find the post on the HostGator Blog Continue reading

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amazon emails abandoned cart or seen products

I have a question how amazon is selecting the products that you have seen and how they sent them to the emails ? Is there any tool availabl… | Read the rest of http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1724668&goto=newpost Continue reading

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New HostBill modules!

HostBill has recently introduced new plugin that gives you new ways to market and sell your products and services . With [B]Private Pr… | Read the rest of http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1723567&goto=newpost Continue reading

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