How to Build a High-Converting FAQ Page on Your Website

FAQ pages represent a crucial component of the customer conversion funnel. Anyone who lands on this page has already identified the need for whatever you’re selling and is now entering the consideration phase of the purchase process.

Your FAQ page can provide them with the information required to finalize their buying decision.

However, I see so many websites that overlook the importance of this landing page. I read lots of FAQ pages that sound more like an afterthought, as opposed to a page that’s been designed to drive conversions.

FAQ pages must have a purpose. Don’t just add one to your website because you feel like it’s a requirement and you want to fill up space.

While most websites should have a FAQ page, yours could be doing more harm than good if it doesn’t have any clear intentions. It’s possible that your FAQ page is driving people away from buying, as opposed to drawing them in. Obviously, you don’t want that.

For those of you who are currently neglecting your FAQ page, it’s time to make changes. The rest of you might not have an existing FAQ page and want to add one from scratch.

Regardless of your situation, you’ve come to the right place. I’ll show you how to address common problems with FAQ pages and learn how to optimize them for conversions.

Ask the “right” questions

I’ve seen plenty of FAQ pages that have a great design, layout, and optimal user experience. But to be blunt, the questions are awful.

Somewhere along the line, so many sites have lost the meaning behind frequently asked questions.

Anything related to where your company was founded, how many employees you have, or where your CEO was born does not belong here. You can include details about the history of your company on your about us page. I have a separate guide on how to create an impactful about us page on your website.

But adding irrelevant or useless questions and answers to your FAQ page is just going to confuse your visitors.

They’ll end up having a more difficult time finding information that will answer their actual question. So you need to have questions that are more related to conversions.

Check out some of the questions on the Allbirds FAQ page.

This company has an ecommerce platform for selling shoes direct to consumer. So all of the questions are intended to drive sales.

They have questions related to how the shoes fit, sizing, returns, exchanges, refunds, and shipping. All of these are important to the consumer buying decision.

Allbirds does not offer half sizes in their shoes, which is definitely something that might throw some of their shoppers off. But they have questions directly made to address this potential concern.

Do you offer half sizes? Will the shoes stretch? Do the shoes fit a wide foot?

These are all logical questions that someone would ask before buying. You want your customers to feel confident when they’re shopping.

Buying a product, such as sneakers, online can be a challenge. Customers don’t get a chance to try on different sizes, walk around, and see what feels good like they would in a store.

But Allbirds alleviates any uneasiness by asking the right questions on this FAQ page.

If you’re still unsure about how to ask the “right” questions, just see what your customers are actually asking. Take a look at questions and comments from:

• Submission forms
• Customer emails
• Live chat
• Social media comments and messages
• Phone support

Keep a database to track all of these questions and group similar ones. If lots of people are asking the same thing, it definitely belongs on your FAQ page.

Simplify the navigation

Like the rest of your website, Your FAQ page must be frictionless.

You might have great questions and answers, but if your site visitors can’t find them, then your FAQ page is going to fail.

Do your best to try and emulate an in-person shopping experience. If a customer was in a physical store, all they would need to do is find an employee and ask their question. Sure, sometimes that employee might direct the customer to another department or something like that. But in the end, the question is answered directly and timely.

Don’t make people hunt for answers on your website.

If the format of your FAQ page is just questions followed by answers repeating all down the page, visitors will have to keep scrolling to find what they’re looking for. This is not ideal. They might even overlook their question, which wouldn’t solve their problem.

Take a look at how Microsoft simplifies things on their FAQ page for software downloads.

Right away, you’ll see that there are two categories to choose from.

So the website visitor can narrow the results depending on if their question is related to Windows or Office. That way any Office questions won’t have irrelevant Windows questions that need to be sifted through.

When a user clicks on one of the options, the menu expands, without redirecting to a new page.

Here’s what it looks like if I click on Office.

All 12 questions can be read without having to scroll. This makes it extremely easy for people to find exactly what they’re looking for.

Now, imagine if there was an answer directly below each of these questions. It would take up probably four or five times the amount of space on the page.

That layout would be much more challenging and require additional scrolling and text to read through. But this approach by Microsoft is clean and simple.

If you want to know something specific, like how long it takes for software to download, just click on the question and the answer will expand below it.

Frictionless.

If a site visitor has multiple questions, it’s still easy for them to navigate and find answers to everything.

Here’s the way you need to look at your FAQ page. If a site visitor has a question and it does not get answered, they aren’t going to convert. It’s that simple.

So if you approach your FAQ page trying to design the navigation in a way that’s optimized for user-experience, then it will increase the chances that people will find what they’re looking for.

Keep the answers short

Another common mistake that I see made on FAQ pages is the length of the answers. Everything needs to be clear and concise.

For the most part, your FAQ page should be fairly broad. You want everything to appeal to as many people as possible.

So you won’t have super-specific questions that require in-depth explanations.

But even for a general question that most people would ask, you still need to keep the answer concise. You don’t need to answer everything. Certain details can be left out.

I’d rather see FAQ pages with 30 questions that have short answers, as opposed to 15 questions with long answers. So if you currently have long paragraphs on your FAQ page, see if you can take one question and break it down into two or three.

This will provide a much better user experience.

Visitors shouldn’t have to read through an essay or short blog post to get a simple answer.

Let’s say that a website visitor is able to locate their question and ends up reading through a long answer. They might end up having additional questions, based on the length and details of that answer. You don’t want that to happen.

So sharpen your writing skills and only include the most important information related to the question.

Check out this example from the PayPal FAQ page.

Look at the first question—what is PayPal?

Talk about a loaded question. PayPal is so many different things. They offer services for businesses, consumers, and websites. They could probably answer this question in 50 pages if they wanted to, going into details comparing PayPal and Stripe for ecommerce.

But no, they take a much simpler approach. The entire answer is just three sentences.

If they got into all of the specific details of PayPal, what it is, what it does, and who it’s for, it would only confuse the initial question. The answer above is clear, concise, and still answers the question.

Offer added support

While a FAQ page should be written to help most of your website visitors with broad questions, sometimes it’s just not enough.

No matter how good your questions are, how great the answers are, or how simple the format is, some people will still need additional assistance. That’s OK.

If it’s going to take a little bit of extra support to get people to convert, then give it to them.

Just make sure that all support options are available. Here’s how Samsung approaches this on their FAQ page.

The first thing I noticed when I landed on this page was the list of categories. Samsung is a huge company, so it makes sense for them to start this way.

But as I stayed on the screen without making any actions for a while, this pop-up window appeared prompting a live chat session.

They obviously have this triggered to appear whenever someone doesn’t scroll or click since the implication would be that they can’t find what they’re looking for. I love this approach.

It’s much better than forcing the site visitor to go back and find another support page or make them go through countless questions manually until they find an answer. That’s just too many added steps.

Put a live chat window directly on your FAQ page.

Furthermore, Samsung has a phone support button in view at all times as well, as I pointed out in the screenshot above. So the customer has options.

Can’t find a solution on the FAQ page? No problem. Just pick up the phone or speak with one of our live chat representatives. This strategy should be incorporated into your FAQ page if you want to drive as many conversions as possible. The extra effort will go a long way.

Optimize for SEO

When you’re crafting a high-converting FAQ page, you need to keep the big picture of your website in mind. Nothing screams big picture louder than SEO.

For the most part, FAQ pages are designed with the idea that a visitor will land somewhere on your website, have a question, and then navigate to the FAQ page. In many cases, this very well might be the case.

However, you can set up your FAQ page to get traffic directly from organic searches as well.

So every question doesn’t need to be brand-specific. For example, let’s say your website offered web hosting plans for small businesses. Your FAQ page could ask, what is shared web hosting?

This question isn’t exclusive to one of your products or services. But it’s definitely something that one of your prospective customers will search for online. Your question could end up in the SERPs, driving more traffic to your website, and ultimately leading to conversions.

A great tip for finding SEO questions is to just use Google.

Let’s say you sell sneakers. Type in keywords that you’re trying to rank for, like “sneakers for travel,” and then scroll to the bottom to view related searches.

Based on these search suggestions, you can get SEO-inspired questions for your FAQ page.

So you can add questions related to shoes for walking all day or stylish shoes for Europe.

Another way to improve your SEO is by creating dedicated landing pages for your questions. Now, this slightly contradicts what we talked about earlier in terms of user experience. Redirecting people every time they want to see a new question could be a bit annoying.

However, these dedicated landing pages that interlink with each other can give you a boost in terms of SEO, if your website architecture and sitemap are optimized properly.

Conclusion

FAQ pages are critical resources for your website visitors.

Anyone who lands on this page is on the verge of converting. Sometimes getting a question answered is all it takes for them to finalize a decision.

So stop wasting time and space with FAQ pages that don’t add real value to your site.

Focus on questions that are related to conversions. Keep the user experience in mind by simplifying your design and writing concise answers. Offer additional support options for people who still have questions. Go the extra mile and optimize your FAQ pages for SEO.

If you follow the tips that I’ve covered in this guide, you can turn your FAQ page into a conversion machine.

from Quick Sprout https://ift.tt/3310yvh

9 Popular Ecommerce Products to Sell Online in 2019

The ecommerce industry is booming.

People are buying products online more than ever before. Nearly anything you can imagine can be purchased on the Internet and delivered to your doorstep. It’s a great time to be a consumer.

But as an entrepreneur, you can leverage this craze by creating your own ecommerce shop.

You can take advantage of this opportunity and start an online store from virtually anywhere with Internet access. While technology has made it easier than ever for consumers to buy, it’s also easier than ever before to start an online business.

Sure, there are a handful of things that you need to figure out. You’ll have to create a website, choose an ecommerce platform, pick a web hosting service, and learn how to market your brand online.

But before you get ahead of yourself and start all of that, you need to figure out what you’re going to sell.

Lately, I’ve been talking to so many entrepreneurs who want to sell online, but they just don’t know what to offer. That’s what inspired me to write this guide.

Using in-depth research and trend analysis, I’ve come up with a list of nine popular products that you can sell online in 2019. Use this guide as an inspiration for your ecommerce shop.

1. Groceries

When most people think about selling products online, they automatically think of new gadgets or products that are designed for everyday use around the house. Or they try to think of something innovative that will solve a common problem.

However, it seems like people rarely think to sell food.

Consumers are buying everything else online, so why not groceries? It’s something that everyone uses on a daily basis.

Take a look at the current and projected growth of online grocery sales in the United States alone.

By 2021, experts predict that this will become a $30 billion industry.

Furthermore, the online food and beverage industry is growing at 18% year-over-year

While the majority of grocery shopping still takes place in physical store locations, the ecommerce grocery movement is the way of the future. So this is a great chance for you to jump on board before the market gets too saturated.

There are seemingly endless opportunities here. You could sell anything from snacks, to produce, to prepared and pre-packaged meals.

Ultimately, there is plenty of money to be made in this space if you’re able to carve out the right niche. Just make sure you educate yourself about the legal aspects of selling food online, as the regulations are different from selling other products.

2. Electric scooters

If you live near any major American city, you’ve probably seen the rise of electric scooter usage over the last couple of years.

Depending on the area, this trend has seemingly taken over the streets and sidewalk.

Companies like Bird, Lime, and Razor are pioneering the scooter ridesharing industry. Even bigger names like Uber and Lyft have entered the e-scooter space.

The idea behind ridesharing scooters is great.

Essentially, riders just use a mobile app to locate and start a scooter. Then they ride to a destination and park it anywhere. They are charged based on usage and everything is handled through the mobile app.

With this trend growing in popularity, it seems like more and more people want to own electric scooters, as opposed to just using the rideshare options.

In 2018, there were roughly 44 million electric scooters and electric bicycles sold worldwide. That number is expected to reach 50 million in 2020.

This is a great opportunity for you to seize. That’s because high-end products can be sold at a higher price point.

Research shows that the average cost of an electric scooter is roughly $300. But some high-end models can retail for more than double that amount.

3. Virtual reality headsets

Virtual reality and augmented reality are increasing in popularity.

If you read my blog on a regular basis, you know that augmented reality already made my list of the top mobile trends that are dominating 2019. I also wrote about how augmented reality is impacting the future of SEO.

But now I want to take a moment to talk about the business opportunity for the virtual reality market. First, let me clarify the differences between AR and VR.

AR uses overlays on computer-generated screens to put digital figures into real-world images. For example, AR can be used on a smartphone to play games like Pokemon Go.

As the name implies, VR puts users into a virtual world, using more specialized and sophisticated equipment, like a VR headset.

Take a look at the growth of VR and AR users in the United States.

As you can clearly see from the graph, both VR and AR users are growing each year.

There are more AR users, simple because augmented reality is easier to use and doesn’t require special equipment.

With that said, the number of virtual reality headset users is still continuing to grow and carve out a good-sized market share in this niche.

In 2017, there were roughly 11 million VR headset users in the US. That number has already doubled and will reach 26.5 million users by 2021.

There are lots of potential consumers to target with this product. According to a virtual reality headset review by The Verge, VR headsets have quite the price range. Inexpensive headsets can be bought for less than $100, while higher-end models retail for upwards of $800.

4. Smart speakers

As long as we’re on the technology subject, I figured this would be a good time to talk about smart speakers. This is another trend that’s growing in popularity.

Today, in 2019, there are more than 74 million smart speaker owners in the United States.

However, this only makes up 26% of US Internet users, meaning that there is still plenty of room for growth in this space.

China has that most smart speaker owners in the world, with 85 million. But this makes up just 10% of the country’s total Internet users. Again, this proves a high global demand for the product, with tons of room for growth in the category.

Speaking of growth, look at the number of households in America that have a smart speaker.

There was a 78% growth rate between 2017 and 2018.

Here’s a crazier statistic. More than half of smart speaker owners have two or more devices.

This means that current smart speaker owners are still potential customers for you. This product is a great opportunity to sell online via your ecommerce shop.

5. Vapor products

E-cigarettes and electronic vaporizers, better known as “vapes” are growing in popularity.

There are several different components to vapor products. There is the device itself, which operates by heating a liquid solution. Then there are the flavored liquids, usually containing nicotine. Plus there are other accessories as well, and these products come in all different shapes and sizes.

Just to be clear, I’m not here to talk about the health risks of vaping or anything like that. Nor am I encouraging the use of e-cigarettes or nicotine products.

But like every other product on this list, I’m simply identifying market trends and sharing the information with you. These trends are telling me that it’s a hot category.

By 2023, the global vapor market is expected to reach $43 billion. That’s a 15% compound annual growth rate for five years. The figures are impressive, to stay the least.

There is definitely a market for this product, and plenty of money to be made by selling vapor products online. Just make sure you comply with all of the legal regulations associated with selling vapes and accessories through an ecommerce shop.

6. Jewelry

Jewelry is another product category with seemingly endless opportunities for online sales.

You can target men, women, children, and teenagers with high-end diamonds, low-end rings, and everything in between. There are so many options for products and targets in this industry.

Plus, you can even make jewelry by hand. More than 2 million handmade jewelry products are sold on Etsy.

Studies show that the global online jewelry market is expected to grow at a CAGR of nearly 16% between now and 2022.

According to Shopify, ecommerce only represents 4-5% of all jewelry sales worldwide. However, that number is expected to be 10-15% by 2020.

What does this mean? Jewelry sales, like most products, are starting to trend in the ecommerce direction. There is so much room for growth in the coming years with this product category.

7. Digital courses and learning material

You don’t always need to sell tangible products on your ecommerce shop. You can also sell digital goods like ebooks or online learning courses.

This is another booming industry.

According to Forbes, the e-learning industry is going to reach $325 billion by 2025.

There are so many potential customers here as well. In fact, 77% of corporations in the US use online learning tools. E-learning increases retention rates by up 60%.

So if you’re good at something, take advantage of it. Teach others how to do whatever it is that you know best.

Product content like blogs, ebooks, and videos. Then sell those digital goods online.

The best part about this is the low overhead. Your only costs will be running your website, processing transactions, and your time. Everything else is just straight profit.

8. Drones

The drone market is segmented into two categories.

• Consumer
• Commercial

There’s actually a military category too, but that’s not really relevant for ecommerce purposes.

While you might be tempted to just target the average Joe who wants to flow a drone around his neighborhood, you might want to consider the commercial market as well. Check out the growth of commercial drones over the years.

Between now and 2025, the global commercial drone market is expected to grow by roughly 700%. Now is the time to jump on this trend to get your share of the action.

You can still go after consumers as well. The unit sales of personal drones dominate 94% of the market. However, this only represents 40% of the total revenue share, since commercial drones are typically priced higher.

9. Clothing and accessories

It may sound simple, obvious, or boring, but the online clothing industry is huge.

But in order to be successful here, you definitely need to go after a niche. Trying to sell to anyone and everyone will be too competitive to survive.

By 2023, revenue from online clothing, footwear, and accessories in the US is expected to surpass $145.7 billion. That’s up from $93 billion in 2017.

58% of Americans have purchased clothing online.

Again, this is another industry where you have tons of options. There are different types of people to target, and countless options of products to sell at varying price points. Ultimately, there’s lots of money to be made selling clothes online.

Conclusion

There has never been a better time to sell products online. Starting an ecommerce store is easy, and consumers are continuing to buy products on the Internet more and more each year.

But what should you sell online?

Use this list as a reference. Unlike other similar posts that you’ll find online, I took the time to actually research industries and trends. I didn’t just pull random products out of thin air.

That’s why this information is so valuable. If you can set up your ecommerce shop around these trends, it has a much greater chance of being successful.

from Quick Sprout https://ift.tt/2yc03QL

Podcast 154: How Mark Thompson Has Generated Over $20 Million in Sales Online and Why He’s Now Focused on PayKickStart

Today I'm excited to bring you a podcast interview with Mark Thompson from Pay Kick Start.   Mark is someone that I have known online for a long time (in internet years).  Going back to around early 2013, Mark helped with…

The post Podcast 154: How Mark Thompson Has Generated Over $20 Million in Sales Online and Why He’s Now Focused on PayKickStart appeared first on Niche Pursuits.

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Best Web Hosting Providers

Quick Sprout recommendations for web hosting services are based on months of research and testing. We’ll never point you to a product or service that we don’t believe in or have first-hand experience with. Our content is reader-supported, which means if you click on one of our links to a recommended web hosting service, we may earn a commission.

Hosting seems like an enormous headache at first.

Shared hosting, dedicated hosting, VPS, managed hosting, server cores, different RAM, CDNs, SSL certificates. It’s endless.

We’ve managed hundreds of websites ourselves over our careers.

Large, small, and everything in between.

Using our first-hand experience, we waded through all the hosting options and narrowed it down to the best five web hosts.

We’ve broken down the best options, when to use each, and our method for picking the best web host.

Let’s jump in.

The 5 Top Web Hosting Providers

• SiteGround – Best Overall
• InMotion Hosting – Best for Small Businesses
• WPEngine – Best for WordPress
• Dreamhost -Best for Shared and Cheap Packages
• Hostgator – Best for Shared and Cheap Packages

This guide is quite extensive, so feel free to bounce around:

• The Best Shared Web Hosting
• The Best Cloud Hosting
• The Best Small Business Hosting
• The Best WordPress Hosting
• The Best Cheap Hosting
• How to Find The Best Hosting For You
• Web Hosting Reviews
• SiteGround Review
• InMotion Hosting Review
• WPEngine Review
• Dreamhost Review
• Hostgator Review

The Best Shared Web Hosting

For the vast majority of folks, you’ll want shared web hosting.

Shared web hosting means that your website is on the same server as other websites. Most sites are small enough that they don’t need an entire server to themselves so web hosts bundle a bunch of sites together and put them all on the same server.

This is how web hosts get the price of hosting down.

In most cases, it’s a great deal.

The biggest downside to shared hosting is that another site can take your site down with it. If several sites are on the same server and one of those sites gets a huge traffic spike that takes the server down, all the sites go down. So it’s possible for your site to go down at no fault of your own.

In practice, this rarely happens. Especially for smaller sites that can handle a little downtime every once in awhile, having shared hosting is a great trade-off in order to get the hosting bill lowered.

Think of shared hosting as the ideal “entry-level” package for your site.

So which hosting companies are the best for shared hosting? These are:

• Siteground – Best overall host and plenty of room to scale as your site grows
• InMotion – Best customer support
• DreamHost – Best overall heap host
• HostGator – Best cheap host with support included

The Best Cloud Hosting

If you’re building a larger site or want to guarantee your uptime, you’ll want to look for cloud hosting.

Cloud hosting is a bit different than shared hosting.

Instead of a bunch of different sites using the same server, your site will get spread across multiple servers. This has a few major advantages:

• Other sites can’t take your site down. If they get a spike, your server can simply start using other servers.
• You can quickly scale your site bandwidth up and down. Since you’re already using multiple servers, it’s really easy to add more or take some away.
• Since there’s redundancy across multiple servers, server uptime gets a lot better.

All these benefits do come with a higher cost. No matter which cloud host you choose, it will be noticeably more expensive than a shared hosting package.

I use the 50,000 visitors rule. If my site has above 50,000 visitors a month or will in the foreseeable future, I move it to cloud hosting.

Consider cloud hosting if you’re planning on building a large site or have a business that can’t afford any downtime whatsoever.

• Siteground – Best overall cloud hosting
• WP Engine – Best cloud hosting for WordPress

The Best Small Business Hosting

Any small business owner has a lot on their plate. Marketing, managing the service or product delivery, all the back-office tasks, it adds up. Resources are also limited so if something breaks, the owner has to fix it themselves. And on top of all that, they need to watch every dollar. Every extra dollar in an expense means one less dollar in their pocket.

The best web hosts for small business are super reliable, have world-class support when the odd issue does come up, and have a reasonable price. This minimizes the extra tasks for the owner while also keeping expenses low. And when things do go wrong, a solid support team makes the fix as painless as possible.

You’re looking for that sweet spot between price, reliability, and an amazing support team.

These are the best web hosts that excel at all three:

• InMotion – Best customer support with straightforward plans
• SiteGround – Best overall web host

The Best WordPress Hosting

Blogs are one of my favorite ways to build traffic and customers. I’ve managed multiple sites with hundreds of thousands or millions of visitors per month.

When it comes to blogs, WordPress is by far the best option for running the blog.

These days, I always get managed WordPress hosting for my high traffic blogs. Managed WordPress hosting is a specialized hosting package built entirely around WordPress.

There’s a few major advantages to getting specialized WordPress hosting:

• Everything is streamlined around WordPress
• Security is extra tight
• WordPress updates and server maintenance happen automatically
• Backups happen automatically
• The support team has advanced knowledge of WordPress
• The site can handle much higher traffic volume since everything is built around WordPress

There is one major downside though: the cost.

Managed WordPress hosting tends to be more expensive. If you’re building a site with the goal to generate tons of traffic (50,000+ visitors/month), it’s absolutely worth it. I go this route even if I don’t have the traffic volume yet. As long as I’ve set a goal to build that traffic over time, I’ll choose a managed WordPress host from the beginning.

What about smaller sites that want to use WordPress?

In that case, skip the managed WordPress hosting. The premium features won’t provide enough value to justify the extra cost. Just about every host out there allows you to install WordPress easily and quickly.

Our favorite WordPress hosts:

• WP Engine – Best managed WordPress hosting for high traffic blogs
• SiteGround – A standard host with great WordPress features for smaller sites

The Best Cheap Hosting

Sometimes, you need to stretch every dollar.

Whatever the circumstances, there are ways to save on your hosting bills. And since they recur every month, getting them as low as possible does add up over time.

I want to give you a quick warning though.

On web hosts, you can definitely go TOO cheap. There is a point where reducing the costs any further seriously impacts the quality of your hosting. Your site will be down on a regular basis, you’ll never be able to get a competent support rep to help you, and every task you try to complete will have a horrendous user experience.

We’ve found the best cheap web hosts. While their service isn’t quite as good as the others that we recommend, it’s good enough if you’re trying to get the cost down. Just be careful about shopping around for even cheaper deals, it’s usually too good to be true.

We recommend these two hosts if you’re trying to get the cost as low as possible:

• Dreamhost – best overall cheap hosting
• Hostgator – best cheap hosting with support included

They’re also good for side projects or ideas that you’re playing around with. Then if it becomes a real project or business, you can always switch to one of the better hosts later.

How To Find The Best Hosting For You

Before divining into all the criteria on how to evaluate web hosts, I have some simple rules for you on picking your web host:

1. If you plan on building a high traffic WordPress blog, get WP Engine. The extra cost is well worth it. This is also a good option for folks that want to pay a little extra so they never have to worry about anything related to their hosting.
2. For all other sites, get a web host that’s fast, has great uptime, and amazing support. Siteground and InMotion are your best bets here.
3. If you really want to get the cost down, do with Dreamhost or Hostgator. Both are decent at low prices. I wouldn’t consider hosts that are any cheaper than this though.

By following these rules, you’ll be happy with the host that you get and won’t have to switch any time soon.

So how do we evaluate web hosts? What actually matters?

Let’s go through all the key items.

Site Uptime

If people can’t access your site, why have it at all?

First and foremost, you want a web host with great uptime. This means you’re site is always available and never goes down.

To try to avoid the “just trust us” promise of near-perfect uptime, most hosts provide some sort of guarantee of at least 99.9 percent uptime. However, that guarantee isn’t much of a guarantee. It just means your bill can be discounted in the event of any unplanned downtime. There’s a lot of fine print on these guarantees, too, including not accepting self-reported or third-party uptime data, and not providing refunds for downtime that was out of the host’s control (for example, a hurricane).

Site Speed

Site speed impacts everything related to your site. Want search rankings? Get a fast site. Want conversions on your site? Make it fast. Want happy users? Speed it up.

Every part of your business is impacted by the speed of your site.

When looking at different web hosts, make sure you’re choosing a host that can serve every page lickity split.

There is some nuance with site speed.

In the early days, you need a host that’s fast “enough.” It doesn’t have to be blistering fast but it needs to be fast. Think of Amazon. Back in the day when Amazon just sold books, their site needed to be fast but it didn’t need to be instantaneous. Now that many people use it for all their shopping, Amazon’s site can’t be fast enough.

The bigger you get, the faster you’ll want to be. If you’re planning on building a high-traffic site, you’ll want a host that can maintain crazy-fast speeds on large sites.

Customer Support

When running your own site, web host customer support is the single most important thing a web host can offer.

Digging through use reviews doesn’t always give you a conclusive answer on the quality of support at a particular web host.

There can be a discrepancy between reviews and quality. Take, for example, HostGator. Technology publications tend to rank its products highly: it earns a score of 4.5 out of 5 on both CNET and PCMag. But it has 1 star on Trustpilot and only 37 percent of nearly 600 users give it 5 stars on WhoIsHostingThis — and nearly all of negative comments are directed at customer service.

Watch out for glowing reviews on top publications, they don’t always reflect reality.

There is one true test for assessing the customer support quality at any host.

The free trial customer support test.

Pretty much every web host has some sort of money-back guarantee on their shared hosting plans, which means you can set up your website and see what you think of the service with relatively low stakes — just your time and any add-on fees you opt into, like paying for domain registration. We recommend going to town with customer support during that trial period. Get on live chat, open tickets, hop on the phone as much as possible to see if you like what you’re being served up.

Most web hosts offer some sort of free trial period. I recommend using this time to really dig into your host’s customer support — its knowledge center and especially support staff across all channels. That’ll tell you the real story.

Traffic Volume

The amount of traffic that you get has a huge impact on the hosting that you need.

For a site that gets 300 visitors every month, pretty much any standard hosting package will be good enough. As long as your web host has strong customer support, you’re good to go.

As you get bigger, all sorts of small details start to matter a lot more.

Is the PHP on your server being updated regularly? Do you have a CDN for your content? Is your site being backed up daily and can you restore it within 15 minutes if something goes wrong? Do you have an SSL certificate? Can your server handle a giant traffic spike during a marketing promotion?

Whenever I have a larger site, I look for premium hosting that takes care of all this for me. And if I’m planning on building a large site, I look for a host that can easily scale to millions of visitors per month. I’m happy to pay a premium price in order to guarantee easy upgrades in the future.

Don’t skimp if you’re going big.

And if you plan to stay under 50,000 visitors/month, get a standard shared hosting package. There’s no reason to worry about the advanced stuff.

Price

While you don’t want to overpay on hosting, you definitely don’t want to underpay either.

Avoid choosing a host exclusively on price.

Most basic web hosting plans are in the $10-$20/month range. Yes, there are cheaper options. Some of them are promotional offers that go away at renewals. Others are hosting plans with terrible support and uptime.

My rule is if the price sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

I also don’t worry about chasing promotional offers to save a few dollars. For every site I’ve ever managed, we used our host for years on end without ever switching once we had a host we were happy with. Promotional offers come and go pretty quickly.

Migration Features

The ability to easily and quickly migrate an existing site will save you weeks of time.

Even a basic WordPress site can be a real hassle to migrate. First you have to set up a new WordPress install on your new host. Then you need to export the database of content from your old site and import it into your new one. Finally you have to re-configure everything in WordPress like the theme, plugins, and settings.

That’s a real pain and that’s why we put together an entire guide on WordPress migration.

It is possible to skip all this.

Some hosts will offer a 1-click migration for popular site builders like WordPress.

If you’re switching hosts and handling the migration yourself, look for an easy migration feature. This is a great way to make the final decision once you’ve narrowed it down to a few final options.

Managed Hosting

Here’s how a normal host works:

• After you sign up, you get a login.
• The login takes you to cPanel. The cPanel is an app on your server that lets you manage it through a UI without needing to know how to code anything.
• You configure your server however you want.
• There’s a FTP option to upload files manually to your server.
• There are also quick options for installing WordPress and other site software if you want.
• You get full access and can do anything you want. It’s a “choose your own adventure.” Install WordPress, Drupal, Magento, or code your entire site by hand.

Most web hosts work like this.

There are also managed web hosts. These hosts customize the hosting environment and manage a lot more of it for you.

WP Engine is the best example, they’re a managed host for WordPress. Instead of getting a cPanel login that lets me do anything I want, WP Engine gives me a login to their custom interface that’s built to manage WordPress sites specifically.

When a web host is optimized exclusively for WordPress, three key things happen. First: It gets faster than pretty much any shared hosting provider can dream of. Everything can be tailored to making WordPress work its best, whether that’s optimizing website caching or tinkering with the command line tools. The host only needs to know how to support WordPress, as opposed to, say, Joomla and a Node server and some sort of custom-made site and on and on.

Second: Sites get more secure and stable. A managed WordPress host can build a system that predicts, accommodates, and patches all of WordPress’s vulnerabilities. That means fewer malicious attacks and less downtime.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly for small businesses: Admin and site maintenance get a lot easier. And that service is vital because managed WordPress hosting is significantly more expensive than shared web hosting.

While I give up some flexibility from not having a basic web server like other hosts, a managed host takes care of a lot of ongoing tasks that I’d normally have to handle myself.

If you have a small business site, a normal host is fine. If you’re building a larger site, a managed host will save you a ton of time in the long run and is worth the extra cost.

Shared, Virtual Private Servers, Cloud, and Dedicated Hosting

Let’s start with definitions on the types of hosting your can buy.

Shared hosting means that you share space with a bunch of other sites on the same server. The advantage is that it’s a lot cheaper. The downside is that other sites can impact the performance of your site. If someone else gets a huge traffic spike, it could impact everybody on that server before the web host throttles their traffic.

Virtual private servers (VPS) also has multiple sites on the same server But these sites have dedicated space that’s managed by software. You get many of the benefits of having a dedicated server (you own IP address, less volatility in uptime, etc) without needing an entire server for just yourself. But the performance isn’t quite as good as having your own server to yourself.

Cloud hosting is similar to VPS but instead of having space on once server, you get space across multiple servers. Like VPS, it’s resilient to traffic spikes from other sites. If a site on your same server takes that server down, your host simply moves your site to another server. That’s why they call it “cloud” hosting. It’s also extremely scalable for your own site. Adding more resources to your site is a breeze since your host only needs to increase the total server resources that you can consume at any given time. Because of these advantages, it does tend to be more expensive.

Dedicated hosting gives you a server just for you. No one else gets space on that server. You’ll also be in complete control and can configure that server however you want.

Which of these should you get? Here are some simple rules of thumb:

• Small sites should be on shared hosting. Any impact from other sites on the same site will be minor. This is the best option for any site that does 50,000 visitors per month or less.
• When you get over 50,00 visitors/month, move towards cloud hosting and then a dedicated host if you really need it. Don’t worry about a dedicated host until spending thousands of dollars per month on hosting sounds like a rounding error in your annual budget.

Ignore Free Web Hosting

For just about everyone, free hosting is not worth it.

Web hosting is not where you should save money. If you’re worried about the price of hosting, I’d say you need to worry about generating revenue and traffic before trying to save a few extra dollars cutting hosting costs.

A free host is only good for something like an event one-pager or an extremely small, extremely low-traffic site. If you are doing either of those things, you should still skip the free host route and jump straight to a free website builder that’ll let you link your site to a custom domain for free, like UCraft or Google Sites. They’re both very basic limited builders, but they are easier to get up and running than a free web host.

That being said, there are some great free and discount web hosting plans for nonprofits and educators. If that’s you and you want to know more, head over to my best free web hosts review. I go into lots of detail there.

5 Steps for Picking a Web Host

If you want to follow the same step-by-step process that we use when evaluating web hosts, here’s the process:

1. Match your specs
2. Test customer support
3. Check their reputation
4. Look for room to grow
5. Start with SiteGround, InMotion, and Dreamhost

Web Hosting Reviews

Here are individual reviews of all the top web hosts.

SiteGround Hosting Review

Best For:

• Shared Hosting
• Cloud Hosting
• Businesses
• WordPress

SiteGround has one of the best reputations among web hosts with a rabid fan base and glowing reviews.

Along with DreamHost and Bluehost, SiteGround is one of WordPress’s three recommended web hosts. WordPress hosting is built into all of its shared hosting plans, you’ll get automatic updates, streamlined security, and expert technical support.

SiteGround is widely considered to be a leader in shared hosting. Its servers are ultra fast and extra secure, and SiteGround is constantly deploying new updates to keep them that way.

While all its shared hosting plans are powerful, SiteGround is especially well-known for its highest-tier shared plan, GoGeek, which is suped up with tools developers will find especially useful, including a staging server and Git repo creation. Lots of small business and personal websites will probably find this overkill, but if your needs are more complex than the basics, SiteGround has a lot to love.

There is one downside. Once you blow through SiteGround’s introductory pricing, your plan’s price will triple. For example, its lowest tier of shared hosting jumps from $4/month to $12 and its highest tier jumps from $12/month to $35. That doesn’t feel great. In fact, it was the reason for most of the one-star reviews on TrustPilot. Watch for this when you’re comparing pricing and remember that your hosting plan will last a lot longer than the promotional period.

SiteGround also has the shortest trial period of all our other shared hosting our top picks: only 30 days. This isn’t a major problem though. You’ll be able to easily evaluate any host within a month.

SiteGround does have cloud hosting and dedicated servers. In fact, SiteGround is one of our top picks for cloud hosting. If you think there’s a chance that you’ll need to upgrade to some serious hosting power once you generate lots of traffic, SiteGround is a great option that will make upgrades easy later.

SiteGround’s customer support is available 24/7 across all channels — phone, chat, and email — and its knowledge base is rich and well-organized.

SiteGround also has the most transparent uptime: it has a 99.9% annual uptime guarantee (or you get a month of hosting free) and posts both its annual average and the previous month’s uptime right on its site.

SiteGround’s annual uptime compared to last month’s.

SiteGround is an amazing option for businesses with room to grow. There’s plenty of upgrades to support you along the way.

Just watch out for the promotion pricing that goes away at your first renewal.

InMotion Hosting Review

Best For:

• Small Businesses
• Shared Hosting

InMotion may not look flashy, but it’s a solid web host with truly excellent technology, a wide assortment of plans, and a legion of longtime customers.

Its massive self-help knowledge base is the industry standard, and customer support is among the best. Don’t believe it? Try for yourself. InMotion’s 90-day free trial period for shared hosting is one of the longest around and gives you plenty of time to test out InMotion’s support team.

InMotion’s plans are really straightforward and almost identical. As you upgrade, you’ll get faster servers and extra databases, websites, and subdomains. It’s a straightforward approach we like, especially for small businesses and websites that aren’t overly complex. No pushy upsells or confusing tiers to worry about.

Even the entry level plans has excellent customer support. It’s 24/7 via 5 communication channels: phone, chat, email, tutorials, and Q&A, which were actively answered. I also appreciate that none of this support is hidden or hard to find. The phone number is broadcast at the top of the page and the chat support login is easy to find in your admin panel. There’s nothing more annoying than 24/7 support that requires you first unearth the contact methods on your own. It’s a waste of time and tells me exactly what I need to know about the host.

I also appreciate that the support is available at your level — whether you’re just starting and need someone to walk you through the ultimate basics with a friendly and supportive demeanor, or you want someone who can talk specs and technical nuances like a pro, the InMotion support has you covered.

InMotion’s support is what makes it stand out from other hosts. If you’re looking for a no-nonsense host with an amazing customer support, InMotion is you best option. It’s our favorite pick for small businesses because you’ll be able to get all the help you need.

InMotion regularly runs promo pricing, with deals that start as low as $5/month. Normal pricing for shared hosting bumps up to $8–$9/month after the initial contract is up.

In addition to shared hosting, InMotion offers upgrades to managed WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated servers.

WP Engine Review

Best For:

• WordPress
• High Traffic Blogs

When most people think of managed WordPress hosting, they think WP Engine. And for good reason — it provides a truly excellent product. It does come at a price though. A fully managed WordPress host is noticeably more expensive than shared hosting providers. WP Engine’s lowest-priced plan is $35/month, and that’s only for one 10GB site with max 25,000 visitors/month.

But when you factor in what WP Engine does for that price, it’s an incredibly appealing option for WordPress site owners. As a managed WordPress host, WP Engine only provides service to WordPress users, which means its entire infrastructure can be optimized for WordPress. You’re site will be wicked fast, there’s virtually no downtime, and lots of maintenance tasks get taken care of automatically. If you want a blazing fast site where everything is taken care of automatically, you’ll want WP Engine.

Customer support is also laser-focused on WordPress, which makes for highly competent knowledgeable support staff available through tracked tickets and on live chat 24/7.

Just be mindful of the price. You’ll be paying more in order to get a lot more.

Dreamhost Review

Best For:

• Shared Hosting
• Cheap Hosting Packages

DreamHost is notable for doing things its own way. It doesn’t use the standard cPanel that most hosts use. It has built a completely custom control panel that you’ll use to manage your website. Many of Dreamhosts do love it but it could make things much more difficult should you ever need to migrate off Dreamhost. I wouldn’t plan on migrations into Dreamhost to be easy either. So it’s a great option for brand new sites.

In addition to shared hosting and managed WordPress hosting, DreamHost offers upgrades to VPS and cloud hosting, as well as dedicated servers should you ever need them.

What’s really worth noting is the outstanding offers DreamHost has for nonprofits: one free Unlimited shared hosting plan (which includes unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited sites, and email hosting) for 501(c)(3) organizations, plus a 35% discount on the suped-up DreamPress managed WordPress hosting. That’s a fantastic deal.

DreamHost is another one of WordPress’s three recommended hosts, and includes some managed WordPress hosting in its basic shared plans. It also offers a managed plan with more bells and whistles called DreamPress. Monthly plans under $3/month are available if you pay annually, $8/month if you’d like to add email. It does have an industry-leading free trial period — a full 97-day money-back guarantee — and transparent pricing that doesn’t increase after your initial contract.

Customer service is a little less traditional: email support is available 24/7, but live chat is only on during business hours, and you actually have to pay $9.95 to get technical support over the phone. DreamHost calls this a “nominal fee” — I call this annoying. If you would like lots of support while you set up your site, I’d pick a different host.

That said, the free trial period is the longest in the business — 97 days. Shared hosting plans start at $2.59/month, and since DreamHost doesn’t do promo pricing, it won’t jump after your first contract is up. This is one of the lowest hosting prices out there, it’s a great option for anyone looking to save every dollar.

Hostgator Review

Best For:

• Shared Hosting
• Cheap Hosting Packages

Another big name in small business web hosting, and it’s a bit of a mixed bag. While HostGator does have an extensive self-serve knowledge base is, it doesn’t offer any sort of email support — just phone and live chat. Be prepared to get on the phone whenever you have a question. Unlike Dreamhost, Hostgator does include support in all it’s plans. If you want a hosting plan that’s cheap and includes hosting, this is the host for you.

HostGator tends to rank highly on tech publications like PCMag, but customer reviews are pretty dreadful: it has only one star on Trustpilot. If you’re interested in trying HostGator, I recommend taking full advantage of the 45-day money-back guarantee and testing out their support thoroughly before committing.

HostGator does offer Windows hosting in addition to Linux, as well as a variety of options to upgrade, including cloud hosting, VPS hosting, managed WordPress, and a dedicated server. Shared hosting plans start at $2.75/month.

If you’re looking for a cheap host, you should start by testing Dreamhost first. Then test Hostgator as a comparison and pick the one that you’re happiest with.

But only consider HostGator if you need to keep your hosting bill as low as possible.

More web host reviews

• The Best Web Hosting for WordPress
• The Best Cheap Web Hosting
• The Best Free Web Hosting

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The Beginner’s Guide to CSS

If you currently have a website or plan to build a website, CSS is definitely a term that you’ve come across. But for those of you who don’t know how to code and don’t have any development experience, it can be a little confusing.

Let me start with the basics.

CSS stands for cascading style sheets. It’s a stylesheet language that describes the appearance or presentation of a website. Essentially, CSS tells web browsers how each element in an HTML document should be displayed.

Along with JavaScript and HTML, CSS is a crucial component to every web page on the Internet.

The main benefit of CSS is the ability to separate website content from the design elements, simply by changing rules in a CSS file.

Before CSS was used, nearly every attribute related to how HTML documents were displayed was written in HTML markup. This means that so many rules had to be repeated throughout the HTML code.

But CSS makes it possible for developers to move that information into a style sheet, which simplifies the HTML.

As a result, the HTML is shorter, lighter, and less prone to errors. It also makes your HTML much easier to maintain.

In this guide, I’ll give you some common use cases for CSS and show you my favorite ways to learn CSS online.

CSS common uses

There are lots of different ways to use CSS on your website. But I want to show you some of the more basic and common applications so you can get familiar with how CSS works.

Once you’re able to master these common principles and use cases, you’ll be able to tackle more complex CSS elements in the future.

Font styling

You can use CSS to create a font style. Write properties for elements like:

• Font type
• Color
• Weight
• Size
• Alignment
• Case
• Line height

CSS can also be used to add effects like underlining and strikethroughs. Let me give you an example to show you how this works.

Take a look at the three rules I wrote in the style of this CSS. Property A is a normal font style, Property B is an italic font style, and all H1s are red.

Now when you look at the body, you can see that I wrote the HTML to correspond with those properties. Based on this information, you can see how it would appear on the web page, by looking at the right side of the split screen.

With a simple example like this, you may not immediately see the benefits of CSS.

But now try to imagine a document with 30 or 40 H1s. Based on the properties in this example, all of the H1s would automatically be red, without having to add any additional code in the HTML. If I wanted to change them to blue, all I’d have to do is change the CSS, as opposed to individually going through 40 H1s in the document.

Position properties

Website layouts can be defined with CSS position properties. You can write rules to specifically indicate the position of certain elements within an HTML document.

Common property values include:

• Static — Elements in order, based on how they appear in the document.
• Fixed — Elements are located in a position that’s relative the browsing window.
• Absolute — Elements are positioned relative to its first position.
• Sticky — Elements are positioned relative to a website user’s scrolling location.

If you use the position property to create website layouts, there will be instances where elements on the page overlap with other items. So there could be potential issues with this approach.

There are other ways to define the position of elements on a page, which we’ll get to next.

Float properties

The main usage of the float property is to send an element in HTML to the right or left of another element without changing the flow of the document. This is one of the best approaches to creating layouts for a website.

You’ve definitely seen floats used before when you’re browsing on the web, even if you didn’t know that you were looking at a float.

It’s most commonly used for images. An image can be positioned within a block of text, in a way that doesn’t create separation between the flowing text.

Here’s an example of the float property used for an image.

As you can see, the CSS property says that images will float right. So in the body of the HTML when an image is entered, the float property is automatically applied.

Floats are also commonly used for creating website menus. Items in the menu are floated in a way so they can appear in a horizontal line, as opposed to a bulleted list.

Clear properties

The clear property of CSS is often used to clear the float. As you just learned, when an element gets floated, all of the subsequent elements are adjusted so that they align properly based on the float property.

If you want those subsequent elements to begin below a floated element, as opposed to alongside of it, then you would apply the clear property to start the element on a new line.

Here’s a visual representation to show you what this would look like for images.

The clear property can be applied to other elements as well, but an image like you can see above is definitely one of the more common practices.

Box model

Every HTML element can be considered a box. When using CSS, the box model refers to the design and layout of a page.

The best way to describe this model is that there is a box wrapping around every element of HTML. There are three main components to the box model.

• Margin
• Border
• Padding

Here’s an example of how you could write a CSS rule for the box model.

P {

padding: 10px;

border: 20px solid blue;

margin: 20px;

}

These CSS properties would translate to 10 pixels of padding on each side of the text. This will be empty space around the paragraph. There would also be a 20 pixel border of solid blue surrounding the padding. Lastly, there would be 20 pixels of margins between the border and any other surrounding element.

Responsive web design with CSS

Today, we have hundreds, if not thousands, of different screens available on the market. This means that people who visit your website can be doing so from countless variations of devices, screen sizes, display sizes, and resolutions.

Having a full-size website with just one additional design for a smaller device is no longer an option. So you need to use CSS to create a responsive design.

In order for this to happen, there are certain principles that you need to follow to ensure that your CSS is responsive on any screen from any device.

Your entire layout and grid needs to be fluid. You need to make sure that images automatically resize to render aesthetically from any screen.

One of the most popular ways to tackle a responsive web design is with a mobile-first approach. This means that the design is made with the smallest screens in mind first, and then styles are added as the size gets larger.

There are lots of great benefits to this approach.

A mobile first design forces you to determine the most essential functions of your website. Once those have been identified, you’ll use them as the foundation and building blocks for the site’s design.

More often than not, a full-sized website has additional elements that aren’t viewed on mobile versions of the site. But a mobile-first approach ensures that all of the primary purposes and functions will be at the forefront of the design.

It’s also worth noting that this approach means mobile users won’t have download as many site resources and CSS rules when accessing a website from a mobile device. This will save data usage for the user, create faster loading times, and an overall better user experience.

CSS learning resources

Everything I’ve covered so far just barely scratches the surface with CSS. I just wanted to give you an introduction so that you’d have a better understanding of how it works.

But for those of you who want to learn CSS beyond a beginner level, there are some great tools and resources online for you take advantage of. I’ve narrowed down a couple of my favorite options.

Codecademy

Codecademy is one of the top platforms for learning to code online. Over the last seven years, more than 45 million people have learned to code with their system.

Nearly 500,000 of those people have taken the CSS course. It takes about 15 hours to complete, and you’ll need to take their introduction to HTML course as a prerequisite. So altogether you’re looking at roughly 22 hours of your time to learn CSS.

Codecademy will teach you how to style web pages with file structures, text edits, colors, and various layouts. You can use these skills to customize your web pages.

The class also covers:

• CSS selectors
• Visual rules
• The box model
• Displays
• Positioning
• Typography
• CSS grids

As you can see from this list, some of these subjects we discussed in this guide. So you’ll already have a basic understanding of some principles, which will give you a head start.

You’ll have access to some of these courses for free, but to get the full experience I’d recommend upgrading to the pro version of Codecademy.

Pricing is $19.99 per month for an annual contract, which is the best deal they have. Otherwise, you’d pay $29.99 or $39.99 for a six-month or month-to-month contract, respectively.

W3Schools

W3Schools has tons of free coding resources. In fact, I used their free editor twice for examples in this guide. The font styling and the float CSS that I showed you earlier were both written on the W3Schools platform.

I like this resource because it’s very simple and hands on.

First, they explain how a certain function or property works, then they show you an example. After that, they make it easy for you to practice with those examples by making changes to the CSS on your own.

There are more than 300 different CSS examples on the W3Schools site. You can test all of these with their editor.

Take advantage of their CSS templates, CSS exercises, and CSS quizzes as well.

For those of you who have an interest in pursuing web development or web design, you can also get a CSS certificate from W3Schools. Although this is something that you’ll have to pay for.

After you complete the training, you can take a 70 question exam, which you’ll have 70 minutes to complete. If you get 75% of those questions correct, you’ll pass and get a certification. If you get 95% of your answers correct, you’ll have a notation of excellency added to the certificate as well.

The CSS certificate program from W3Schools costs $95.

Conclusion

CSS is a crucial component of every website. You can use it to simplify your HTML, and ultimately reduce the complexity of your HTML files.

There are tons of different ways that CSS can be used. But as a beginner, I didn’t want to overwhelm you with too much at once.

With that said, the information in this guide is still very useful for anyone who is interested in learning more about CSS, so keep it as a reference for the future.

For those of you who want to take your CSS knowledge to the next level, try out one of the online resources that I mentioned above.

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11 Reasons to Use WordPress For Your Website

If you’re starting to build your first website, WordPress is inevitably a name that you’ve come across. I’d recommend it to nearly anyone who has any type of website.

But before I get into the reasons why WordPress is so great, I want to clear up any misconceptions about the platform.

What exactly is what WordPress?

You don’t host your website with WordPress. You’ll still need to find a web hosting provider for that service.

WordPress is a content management system (CMS for short). It’s a robust tool for creating and managing your website. Blogs, business websites, personal sites, and ecommerce stores alike can benefit from using WordPress.

This platform is run online, meaning you don’t need to download any desktop software to use it.

So now that you have a better understanding of what WordPress is and what it does, it’s time to talk about why it’s so great. I’ve come up with 11 reasons why you should be using this platform for your website.

By the end of this post, I’m sure you’ll be convinced that WordPress is the best CMS for you.

1. Reliability

You don’t want to take any chances when it comes to managing your website. Sometimes, looking at how many people use a platform is the best way to determine its reliability.

According a recent study from Kinsta, WordPress dominates the CMS market share.

WordPress controls 60% of the CMS market. Joomla is second on the list, with a percentage that’s 12 times smaller than WordPress.

Furthermore, WordPress powers 34% of all websites worldwide. Numbers like this are simply staggering, to say the least.

If the platform wasn’t reliable, it wouldn’t be so widely used. Big-name sites like TED, TechCrunch, UPS, and CNN all use WordPress.

Each month roughly 70 million new posts are published on WordPress. Those posts generate about 77 million new comments over the same period of time.

Considering the fact that WordPress is used by about one-third of websites across the globe, it’s safe to say that your site will be in good hands if you use it as well.

2. Great support

Since WordPress is used by so many people all over the world, there are countless guides, tutorials, and resources that can be found online. You can take advantage of WordPress forums where you can communicate with others who use the planet’s most popular CMS.

Aside from those options, you can also get help and support directly from the WordPress support team.

If you have a paid WordPress plan, you’ll have access to live chat support 24 hours per day, Monday to Friday. For those of you who have business or ecommerce plans, you can even reach live chat agents on the weekends.

With that said, it’s worth noting that this resource won’t be able to help you any third-party applications that you’re using on your WordPress site.

But as I mentioned before, you can easily find help with this on a community forum or guide on another site. There is definitely no shortage of WordPress “how-to” resources on the Internet.

3. SEO-friendly

SEO can make or break the success of your website. So it’s something that you need to start focusing on from the inception of your site.

WordPress makes this easy by having some built-in tools that tell you how SEO-friendly your content is. Although most of you will want to upgrade from the basic SEO tools and install a WordPress SEO plugin.

If you’re interested in this, Yoast SEO will be a top option for you to consider.

This plugin is great because there’s a free version that you can try out to get familiar with how it works. But I strongly recommend getting Yoast SEO Premium.

The paid version of this plugin gives you access to more keywords, phrases, and related terms. It will also automatically monitor your most important pages and send you a notification if too much time has passed between updates.

Upgrading to the premium plugin will give you content insights, internal link suggestions, and an ad-free experience, among dozens of other benefits.

4. Flexibility

WordPress can as in-depth and complex or as simple as you want it to be.

You have the option to just use the basic version of the platform to publish blog posts. Or on the other side of the spectrum, you can use it for your business website and add widgets and plugins to add functionality.

Nearly anything that you want to do with your website can be accomplished with WordPress.

Again, you may need to install a plugin or third-party application for that to happen, but the possibilities are still there.

The flexibility of WordPress also applies to the type of people who use it. No, I’m not talking about if you can touch your toes or not. I’m referring to your level of technical experience.

Newbies, developers, and everyone in-between the two can use WordPress. How you use it and what features you want to take advantage of will be completely up to you.

5. Security

In general, WordPress is a safe and secure platform. But it doesn’t mean you’re completely vulnerable from malicious attacks, hackers, and malware on your website.

Fortunately, WordPress makes it easy for you to enhance your site’s security with features like password protection for folder contents.

Keeping your WordPress version up to date will also fight off bugs and potential security threats.

It’s also easy to enable an SSL certificate for your WordPress site. Most of the time you can just get this from your web hosting service.

This is a simple and effective way to enhance your WordPress website security.

Furthermore, there are additional steps you can take to beef up your site’s security. I’d recommend installing a WordPress security plugin.

Adding one of these to your site is like building a moat around your house. Sure, doors might be locked, but the added layer will make it even harder for intruders to penetrate your walls.

You can also take proactive steps by installing a WordPress backup plugin.

In the event that your site is somehow compromised, you don’t want to lose all of your content and data. A plugin will make it easy for you to recover your website if something goes wrong.

6. Simplified content creation

Starting a new WordPress site is so easy; anyone can do it. You can get everything set up with just a few clicks.

Once your site is live, all you need to do is navigate to the “posts” section of your dashboard menu. From here, you’ll be able to find everything you need to write and publish a new blog post.

You’ll find text editors, formatting tools, and ways to upload media files.

As you’ll quickly learn, the entire content creation process on WordPress is very straightforward. So you won’t have any excuse for lacking in that department.

After your content has been published, you won’t have to jump through hoops to edit it moving forward. All you need to do is search the post and make any changes or updates using the visual editor.

Once those changes have been made, just click on the “save” button and the new version of that content will be live instantly.

7. REST API

Most of what we talked about today has been geared toward WordPress beginners. But the platform has plenty of advanced features as well.

If you’re a developer, you’ll be happy to know that WordPress has a REST API, which allows you to build apps using the platform.

For example, you could create a custom plugin for a new administrative dashboard experience. Or maybe you want to make changes to the front-end.

With the WordPress REST API, you’re not forced to write apps in PHP. You can use any programming language that has the ability to make HTTP requests.

Even if you have no idea what I’m talking about here, it may be something that you learn or become interested in down the road. Or maybe you’ll eventually work with a developer to create an application.

Either way, it’s nice to know that this is an option at your disposal if you use WordPress.

8. Optimized for speed

Slow websites are useless. WordPress knows this, so it has specific features and elements that you can take advantage of that will speed up your website.

For example, you can install a lightweight theme that won’t weigh down your code. You could add a plugin to reduce the size of your image files.

Take advantage of options for Gzip compression, advanced caching, and minifying CSS and JS files.

If you use tools like the examples I just gave, you can drastically reduce your website page loading speed. This will ultimately reduce your bounce rates, improve the user experience, and increase conversions on your WordPress site.

9. Affordable pricing

WordPress is open-source and free to use. So you can get away without paying anything if you want.

But if you’re going to do more than just have a basic personal website, you’ll definitely want to upgrade to paid plan. The plan types and pricing are as follows:

As you can see, you’ve got a wide range of options to choose from.

Including the free version, there are six total subscription options. These range from $3 per month to $45 per month.

If you’re willing to pay for WordPress, I wouldn’t even bother using the blogger or personal plan. I’d go straight to Premium.

For just a few dollars more, the added benefits you’ll get are well worth the price.

But if you want additional features like integration with Google Analytics and custom plugins, you’ll need the business plan, at a minimum.

This relates back to what we discussed earlier in terms of flexibility. WordPress has plans that meet the needs of virtually any type of website. All of which are very affordable. Even the most expensive plan will only cost you $540 per year. But I’m assuming the majority of you will be able to get away with spending significantly less than that.

10. Multilingual

WordPress has a global reach. It supports more than 160 languages worldwide. So you’ll be able to create a website to reach your global audience as well.

With that said, it’s worth noting that English is the most popular language used on WordPress.

71% of all blogs published on the platform are written in English.

But it’s nice knowing that if you want to take advantage of other languages, WordPress makes that easy for you to do.

11. Simple integrations

As I’ve mentioned throughout this list, WordPress is compatible with tons of different third-party tools.

In addition to plugins and widgets, you can also integrate things like email marketing software, payment gateways, Google Analytics, and countless other components that you might need to run a fully functional and operational website.

Third-party tools are made with WordPress in mind. Since the CMS platform is so popular, those other companies know that their current and prospective customers might be using it to manage their websites.

So you won’t have to ditch the platforms and resources that you’re familiar with once you build a WordPress site.

Conclusion

WordPress is the most popular CMS platform in the world

As I’m sure you’ve learned from this guide, that didn’t happen by mistake. It doesn’t matter whether you’re building your first website without any experience, or if you’re a veteran developer—you should be using WordPress for your website.

There really isn’t any other content management system I would recommend as highly as WordPress.

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