Nobody likes a slow website. Poor website performance results in fewer visitors. For online merchants, slow-loading pages lead to shopping cart abandonment and loss of sales. Underlying the experiential problems, website performance has a huge impact on SEO and search rankings. When your page rank falls, the number of visits decrease, and your revenue stream will suffer. Unless you have optimized your site, it’s highly likely that some elements of your code are leaking page load time. Milliseconds add up, and the fixes may be simple. First, you need to identify the leaks.

What is Slowing Down Your Blog?

As you prepare to optimize your website, it is important to determine what is impacting page load times. To test the speed of your website, go to http://www.thewebhostinghero.com/speed/ and enter the URL of a web page you would like to analyze.

Once the speed test is completed, have a look at the Performance Grade and PageSpeed reports. Those reports will provide you with various tips to improve the performance of your website.

Don’t Spend Your Money… Yet!

As you analyze the results of the speed test, you will see that are many on-page factors that can contribute to increased load times. Before you start spending money on content delivery networks and other online optimization services, it is advisable to make all the on-page adjustments possible. If your code is resource-intensive, optimization services won’t make a significant difference, and your return on investment will fall flat.

On-Page Optimization Tips

For this tutorial, our example site is a vanilla WordPress installation on a Bluehost shared hosting account with only the Akismet plugin installed. We generated fictional content with the WP Example Content plugin and then removed the plugin.

Before we start optimizing our WordPress blog, let’s see how it actually performs. Here are the summary results from the speed test:

As we perform the optimization tasks described below, we will constantly monitor the website’s speed it to determine which changes have the most impact.

Let’s start optimizing our WordPress blog.

Optimization Tip #1: Reduce and Compress Images

For your images to load as quickly as possible, it is important to resize them before uploading them to your website. Don’t upload images larger than what you actually need to display. Scaling images in the HTML code might display them as desired, but it won’t reduce its original file size. For example, a JPG image that is 800×800 pixels with a 100kb file size will take just as long to load when coded to display at a 200×200 size as it would if you displayed it at full size. If you optimize the JPG to only 200×200 before you upload it, you might be able to get it down to 20kb and reduce the load time significantly.

The PNG image format is actually the best choice as it allows to store high quality images with a high level of compression. Unfortunately, PNG files are usually large due to the simple fact that they are not compressed.

To compress PNG images, you can use TinyPNG.org, a free online tool that allows you to compress PNG files without losing quality while preserving alpha transparency.

By compressing island.png, the only PNG file on our blog, we saved 324 KB, reducing our file size from 409 KB to 93 KB. Below you can see the difference in loading times for both versions of the image. Notice that the transferred image size is not the actual size of the image, since it is compressed using Gzip by the web server. The actual image size is much larger. There is still an improvement in load time; the compressed images loads about 27% faster than the original one:

Optimization Tip #2: Reduce the number of requests

When a browser retrieves all of the elements of a web page, it will not simultaneously download more than five (5) elements from the same host. Therefore, the more files that your web page has, the longer it will take to load it, no matter how small the files are.

If you have multiple CSS and Javascript documents, it is a good practice to combine them to reduce the number of requests made to the web server.

Optimization Tip #3: Minify HTML, Javascript and CSS

Remove extra spaces and line breaks from your source code to reduce the amount of data transferred and decrease the load time. The following plugins are some of the easiest ways to dynamically minimize the documents:

1. WordPress Compress HTML: This plugin will compress HTML content exclusively and requires no configuration. Simply install and active it.
2. Better WordPress Minify: This plugin will “minify” Javascript and CSS documents exclusively and is completely configurable. A “minify” process combines multiple CSS or Javascript files, removing unnecessary whitespace and comments, and then serves them with gzip encoding and optimized client-side cache headers. If you decide to activate Javascript compression, make sure to test your website thoroughly, as it could break your scripts. This plugin also gives you the possibility of excluding certain files from the compression process.
3. WP Minify: This plugin can minify HTML, Javascript and CSS documents.

If you would rather not use a plugin to compress CSS and Javascripts documents, it is also possible to minify them by using some online tools such as these:

• CSSMinifier.com
• Javascript-Minifier.com

If you use online tools to compress your files, make sure to keep a copy of the original sources files in case you need to edit them later.

Here’s how compressing HTML and CSS files translates into load time reductions:

Optimization Tip #4: Leverage Browser Caching

By specifying a longer caching period for your web page components (HTML, images, Javascripts, CSS documents, etc.), web browsers will cache these elements locally so that they don’t need to be downloaded from the server each time the page is accessed.

In order to leverage browser caching, create a file named .htaccess at the root of your blog (ie.: /public_html/path/to/blog). If an .htaccess file already exists, append this code to the end of it:

AddType image/x-icon .ico

<IfModule mod_headers.c>
# YEAR
<FilesMatch "\.(ico|gif|jpg|jpeg|png|flv|pdf)$">
 Header set Cache-Control "max-age=29030400"
</FilesMatch>
# WEEK
<FilesMatch "\.(js|css|swf)$">
 Header set Cache-Control "max-age=604800"
</FilesMatch>
# 24 HOURS
<FilesMatch "\.(html|htm|txt|php)$">
 Header set Cache-Control "max-age=86400"
</FilesMatch>
</IfModule>

Another option is to add an Expires header by appending this code to your .htaccess file:

AddType image/x-icon .ico

<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/gif A29030400
ExpiresByType image/png A29030400
ExpiresByType image/jpeg A29030400
ExpiresByType image/x-icon A29030400
ExpiresByType application/pdf A29030400
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript A604800
ExpiresByType text/plain A86400
ExpiresByType text/css A604800
</IfModule>

Using the htaccess directives above will instruct web browsers to cache files for a period based on file type:

• Image files: 1 year
• Javascript, CSS and SWF files: 1 week
• HTML and PHP files: 24 hours

Optimization Tip #5: Enabling GZip Compression

By enabling GZip, the web server will compress files on the fly before sending them to the web browser. This significantly reduces the total size of a web page. In some cases, GZip is enabled by default by the web hosting provider. But if that’s not the case, you can add this code to your .htaccess file:

<ifmodule mod_deflate.c>

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/gif image/png image/jpeg image/x-icon
application/pdf application/javascript application/x-javascript text/plain
text/html text/css text/x-component text/xml application/json
</ifmodule>

Optimization Tip #6: Add a Caching Plugin

Caching pages on your WordPress blog will significantly decrease processing time. When a web page is generated by WordPress, the caching plugin will store the output in a database. The next time the page is requested, it will be retrieved from the cache for faster rendering. Another benefit of caching pages is that it decreases server load, leaving more resources available for other processes.

There are various WordPress cache plugins that can accomplish this, but the best one, by far, is WP Super Cache. From my experience, it is the most efficient caching plugin and it plays well with other WordPress plugins. Here’s a quick and dirty step-by-step guide to installing and configuring WP Super Cache:

1. Download and install WP Super Cache from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/
2. Activate the plugin and go to Settings > WP Super Cache.
3. Under the Easy tab, select Caching On and click Update Status.
4. Click the Advanced tab and check the following parameters:
   • Cache hits to this website for quick access.
   • Use mod_rewrite to serve cache files.
   • Compress pages so they’re served more quickly to visitors.
   • 304 Not Modified browser caching. Indicate when a page has not been modified since last requested.
   • Don’t cache pages for known users.
   • Cache rebuild. Serve a supercache file to anonymous users while a new file is being generated.
5. Click on Update Status.
6. Scroll down the Advanced settings page and click the Update Mod_Rewrite Rules button below the Mod Rewrite Rules section.
7. Scroll down to Expiry Time & Garbage Collection and select Timer next to Scheduler. Click on Change Expiration.
8. Click the Preload tab set the preload cache process to be executed every 720 minutes (twice a day). You can decrease this value if you have a lot of activity on your blog.
9. Click the Update Settings button.
10. You can chose to preload the cache right away by clicking on Preload Cache Now but this is optional.

Caching pages will increase the first byte time of our speed test because there’s less processing involved.

Let’s see how that translates into performance improvements, compared to our initial results:

By simply applying these on-site optimization tips, the load time has improved by 89%.

Using a Content Delivery Network

If your website has a high level of traffic, you might want to take things a step further and use a Content Delivery Network (CDN). A CDN will replicate the content of your website on multiple servers that are located around the world. Visitors will download your website from the location that is geographically closest to them.

There are several CDN services out there that employ various technologies. Some CDN services will only cache CSS documents, Javascript, and media files (images files, videos, etc.), while others will cache the content of your pages, too.

For this tutorial, we’ll be using Cloudflare, a CDN that can cache all of the static resources of your website and decreases load time for your visitors, no matter where they are geographically located.

Here’s how to use CloudFlare with your WordPress blog:

1. Go to your Bluehost control panel and click the CloudFlare icon.
2. Enter your email address below “Enable CloudFlare” and click on Next.
3. Once your account is created, you’ll be prompted to enter your website’s domain name.
4. Cloudflare will be scanning your website for a while, so you can watch the video in the meantime. Click on Continue when the scan is complete.
5. Cloudflare will present you with the suggested DNS records for your domain. If you need to add any records manually, you may do so now.
6. Click on I’ve added all missing records, continue.
7. Select the plan that you wish to use. For this tutorial, we’ll be using the Pro Plan.
8. Choose the performance level that you wish to use. We’ll select CDN + Full Optimizations for this tutorial.
9. Set the security level to Medium and click on Continue.
10. On the Confirm SSL page, click Continue to the final step.
11. Go to your domain registrar’s control panel and change the nameservers for your domain name to those given by CloudFlare. If Bluehost is your domain registrar, then you don’t need to update your nameservers, as your Bluehost account will be linked to your CloudFlare account.  Once you’ve updated your nameservers, it can take up to 48 hours before the traffic is directed to CloudFlare’s network.
12. Click on I’ve updated my nameservers, continue.
13. One the page titled My Websites, click the gear icon next to your domain name and select CloudFlare settings.
14. Select the Performance settings tab and set the following parameters:
    • Caching level: Agressive
    • Autominify: Check JS, CSS and HTML
    • Rocket Loader: Automatic
    • Website preloader: On

Let’s see how our WordPress blog performs after implementing CloudFlare:

Notice that the number of requests and the total size of the web page has increased since implementing CloudFlare. This is because CloudFlare pushes three (3) additional files: cloudflare.min.js, rocket.js and oracle.js. Fortunately, there is still an improvement of about 25% in load time. The real gain in using a CDN will be much more apparent for high traffic websites.

There are many other things you can do to improve the load time of your website. We’d love to hear how you optimize your site and what works for you!

Stephane Brault is a veteran web developer and system administrator. He is the owner of TheWebHostingHero.com, a website dedicated to providing tutorials, reviews and news about the web hosting industry.

As they announced in February, Posterous has been acquired by Twitter and as of April 30, 2013, the platform will shut down. To accommodate Posterous users that are looking for a new place for their content, Bluehost’s expert WordPress developers have created an import tool for Posterous users to transfer all of their content from Posterous to WordPress on Bluehost without a hitch. And to make the transition even smoother, Bluehost is offering all previous Posterous users a special hosting price of $3.95/month if they transfer to Bluehost before April 30.

Using the Bluehost import tool is easy. Follow these steps and you’ll be ready to go on WordPress in no time.

Instructions for using the Posterous-to-Bluehost importer: 

1. Request your backup from posterous.com.

   

    

   

    

2. Install WordPress on your Bluehost account using Simple Scripts with the following steps:

3. - First register for a Bluehost account here for a special price of $3.95/month. 
   - Then using the credentials emailed to you from Bluehost, log into your control panel.
   - Find the icon under site builders that shows WordPress and click.
   - You will then be taken to a SimpleScripts page.
   - Find WordPress and click the icon.
   - When you reach the next screen select “Install” not import(you will need the plugin mentioned later for that).
   - You will then reach a screen with some options, select any of the options you would like.
   - check the terms and conditions checkbox
   - click “Complete”
   - You can then use the login credentials to your WordPress admin to login and install the importer.

4. Download the Posterous importer here.
5. Install the plugin using the upload method.
6. Activate the plugin.
7. Goto Tools-> Import and select Posterous from the list.
8. Select a user to assign the posts to. (If you need to create a new user do so first)
9. Select the .zip file you got from Posterous
10. Click Start Import.

Note: if your export from Posterous is too large you will need to follow the Advance import instructions.

Advanced Import Instructions:

1. Request your backup from posterous.com.
2. Install WordPress on your Bluehost account using Simple Scripts.
3. Download the Posterous importer here.
4. Install the plugin using the upload method.
5. Activate the plugin.
6. Goto Tools-> Import and select Posterous from the list.
7. Click “Goto Advanced Form”
8. Upload your UNZIPPED export from Posterous to the posterous folder in the current month (ex: wp-content/2013/04/posterous) using your FTP program.
9. Select a user to assign the posts to
10. Click Start Import.

Note: the “Start Import” button will be disabled unless the folder is detected.

And if you have any trouble, just give our support team a call at (888) 401-4678 any time 24/7 and we’ll be there to help you.

How do I move my WordPress website to Bluehost?

At Bluehost, many of our customers use WordPress for their sites. So here is a step-by-step guide on how to move your WordPress site from another host to Bluehost with almost no downtime. There are a lot of steps in this process, but if you follow them one after the other, you should be able to transfer your website in no time.

1. To start, log into your current host and use a provided program (such as phpMyAdmin) to export your site’s database.
2. Use your preferred FTP program (such as Filezilla or Cyberduck) to download and save your wp-content folder (a.k.a. the files that make up your WordPress site.)
3. Log in to your Bluehost control panel.
4. Install WordPress using the SimpleScripts, one-click install tool.
5. Create an FTP account in your Bluehost control panel so you can upload your files to your new WordPress site folder. When creating your FTP account, keep in mind that you might want to change its designated directory to something easily identifiable.
6. Launch your preferred FTP program and open a new connection. Log in with your new FTP account info.
7. Overwrite the existing wp-content folder with the one you downloaded from your previous host.
8. Open phpMyAdmin in the Database section of your Bluehost cPanel.
9. Select the database to which you want to import your data. You may need to look up this information. (To do so, go to the File Manager in your control panel and open your public_html folder. Then scroll down to find the wp-config file, right click the icon, select “Code Edit”, and then “Edit.” In the code edit window, scroll down to identify the database you should use.
10. Back in your phpMyAdmin window, once you’ve selected the correct database, you will see a list of tables. Drop these tables before you import your new data by selecting the “Check All” option at the bottom of the list and then selecting “Drop.”
11. Now it’s time to import! Go to the “Import” tab in phpMyAdmin. Choose “Browse your computer” and find the SQL database file that you exported from your previous site. (It should be named something similar to “bluepm1_wor2.sql”.) Make sure the SQL format is selected and click “Go.”
12. Here is an important step after you import your database. After your database is imported, check to learn the new table names. If your table names begin with ‘wp_’ then you don’t need to make any changes. However, sometimes your tables will import with a name like ‘wrp-’ Go to your file manager and open the wp-config file in your public_html folder.
13. Right click on wp-config, select “Code Edit”, and then select “Edit.”
14. Scroll down until you find the line “Stable Prefix” line. Edit it to read ‘wp_’.
15. Now that you have your database and site files, it’s time to put everything on your temporary URL. This is how you move your site without any downtime.* First, in your phpMyAdmin site, select wp-options from the menu on the left of the screen. Then, select “Edit” on the “site url” line. (This will typically be line 1.) Paste in the temporary URL provided to you when you created your Bluehost account and click “Go.” (Tip: if you’re not sure what it is, it can be found in your Bluehost welcome e-mail.) *Note: all of these previous steps can help anyone move their WordPress site. The following steps are for those are want to move their WordPress site without any downtime. 
    
16.  Repeat step 11 for your “Home” line in wp-options. (This is typically line 36.)
17. Now it’s time to see if your work has paid off. Enter the temporary URL into your internet browser and check to see if your site is there. If so, you’re nearly done!
18. Log into your WordPress admin site to save your Permalinks. Go to “Permalinks” under the “Settings” tab of the dashboard and click “Save Changes.”
19. Before you can move from the temporary URL to your permanent one, you must change the nameservers associated with your domain to point to Bluehost. This can be done in the domain manager of your domain registrar, whether it be with Bluehost, or another registrar. Use the following: NS1.BLUEHOST.COM and NS2.BLUEHOST.COM. (This indicates that your site is hosted at Bluehost.com. The DNS change can take anywhere from a few hours to several days to propagate. Once it is finished you will be able to use your domain on your new site.)
20. Once the DNS change in complete, log into your WordPress admin site and go to “General” under the “Settings” tab. Then, enter your domain into the “WordPress Address” and “Site Address” fields, and click “Save Changes.”
21. The last step is to enter your domain URL into your internet browser to check to see if your site is live. If so, then congratulations! You have successfully moved your WordPress site to Bluehost.

We know this is a lot of steps, but if you follow these instructions you should be good to go. And of course, if you need help at any point in this process, you can always contact our support team for help by calling us 24/7 at 888.401.4678 or through 24/7 live chat.

How can I speed up my site?

It might help to imagine a website as if it were a car. To maximize a car’s performance, one must tune, clean, test, service, upgrade, and maintain it over time. The same goes for a website. Bluehost may maintain the best hardware in the industry, but the software underlying each and every website requires just as much attention and long-term care to ensure peak performance.

Here are some tips to keep your website lean and mean:

1. Disable and remove unnecessary or unused software. This can include superfluous plugins, old themes, wasted add-ons, and other extra features that are just sitting there, unused. Often these elements clog your software in ways you can’t see and slow things down. The basic rule of thumb: if you’re not using it, get rid of it!
2. Upload images in a size appropriate for the WEB. Images are one of the largest drains on website load times. Try to limit the amount of images you have on your website. When you do use imagery, make sure it is exported to the exact dimensions for the space it occupies and no larger. Also, compress images as much as possible without sacrificing image quality. There are countless free utilities online that do this.
3. Install a caching plugin.  Caching is a process in which static HTML files of your website are created and given to visitors behind the scenes. Then when visitors come again to your site, any dynamic content (e.g. images) loads faster because the static material is already there, ready and waiting. If your site is a WordPress site, we recommend a plugin like WP Super Cache. You can also check out our Bluehost Help Center article about WordPress caching plugins for detailed instructions.
4. Activate CloudFlare. CloudFlare is a fantastic caching tool for all websites – especially those that for one reason or another cannot utilize a caching plugin. CloudFlare maintains a cache of particular files from your website, typically those that are traditionally problematic or require longer load times. It then stores this information on various servers all over the world. This effectively places your website closer visitors, making it load faster. With your Bluehost account, you can enable CloudFlare on your site for free! Check out our Bluehost Help Center article for further details.

These are just a few ways to quickly and easily speed up your site. You can further examine how your website is performing by using a site like GTmetrix. Services like these sometimes even offer insight as to what particular website elements need to be optimized!

When your website is tuned and running well, more of your server resources can be devoted to serving actual traffic and visitors, instead of doing heavy lifting with slow, heavy, sluggish website software. Make sure to keep your website lean and mean and you’ll be guaranteed to have more success!

If you need help with any of these steps, you can always contact our Bluehost Help Center by calling us 24/7 at 888.401.4678 or through 24/7 live chat. Don’t miss our next post that will explain the difference between various types of domain settings.

How do I backup my website?

One of the most important things you can do is make sure all of your data and content is regularly backed up. Websites take a lot of time, energy, and even money to develop, so you want to make sure your investment is protected. Most Bluehost customers seem to understand this, as they frequently call in asking how to best ensure a proper backup of their websites.

First, some good news: At Bluehost, we perform complimentary backups of your entire account data on a monthly, weekly, and even daily basis! So you can rest assured your data is protected against loss. Should you ever need or want a prior version of your files, here’s how to access and restore these automated backups.

Access system backups with these simple steps:

1. Log into your Bluehost control panel.
2. Go to the “Files” section and select “Site Backup and Restore.”
3. Select from the list which aspect of your website you wish to backup or restore.
4. Choose which system backup or restore option you prefer, either a daily, weekly, or monthly version.
5. From the download window, select a format in which to save your backup and click “Start Archiving”.

These automated backups can serve as a great safety net against loss. But to truly protect your data, you should perform regular manual backups, particularly after any significant work has been done on your account. Fortunately creating a manual backup is simple. Here’s how to do it:

Create your own backup with these simple steps:

First, if you are using a CMS, blog, or eCommerce platform, make sure you create a backup of your database.

1. Log into your Bluehost control panel and open the phpMyAdmin tool.
2. Identify the relevant database on the left-hand side.
3. Select the “Export” tab.
4. Make sure the format is “SQL”
5. Click “Go.”
6. Once the download is complete, save your exported files in a safe place, such as an external hard drive or cloud storage solution.

Once you’ve backed up any important databases, the final step involves backing up any website content.

1. Create an FTP account from your Bluehost control panel if you don’t already have one.
2. Open your preferred FTP program (e.g. Filezilla or Cyberduck) and connect to your account with your FTP information.
3. Download all your website files.
4. Save your files in a safe place, perhaps along with your saved database files.

Backing up files is one of the most important aspects to building and maintaining a successful website. Unfortunately, not many people take a proactive role in this process. Because Bluehost makes automated backups regularly, this helps spare a lot of customers who didn’t know better a lot of grief. But just the same, now that you know how to create your own backups, make sure you do so!

And if you ever need help backing up your site, visit the Bluehost Help Center for detailed instructions, or just give our support team a call 24/7 at 888.401.4678. Stay tuned for our next post about how to speed up a slow website!

Web hosting is one of the most important decisions you make as you begin the process of building your website. But what is hosting exactly? And how do you decide which host to go with out of the hundreds available? 

Think of hosting as your website’s home. Without web hosting, your website wouldn’t be online and available to users around the world. Hosting companies, like Bluehost, provide space on their servers for customers to store websites, thereby making them accessible through the internet 24/7.

But with the hundreds of different web hosting providers, how do you choose? How do you know you’re picking the right one? Here are a few factors to take into consideration.

Price

This is where most people start when they’re deciding on a hosting provider. But while it’s a good place to start, it shouldn’t be the deciding factor.  It’s important to remember: you get what you pay for. More often than not, the cheapest option isn’t always the best. Take a look at the fundamental needs of your site and compare hosting options that satisfy those needs first. Otherwise you will likely end up spending more in the long run in terms of money, time, and even frustration.

Technical Specifications

Not all web hosts are created equal. Many hosts make similar claims, but there are often big differences “under the hood” that translate into significantly different hosting experiences. And as most websites these days feature a lot of content, it’s more important than ever to find hosting providers with the hardware to back up their claims. First off, find a hosting provider that builds and operates their own hardware. Find a host with enough RAM, processing power, and disk storage space for your website’s needs. Finally, look for information about reliability and server up time. This is important so as to ensure your website is always up and running when visitors come.

Support

This is a big one. If your site ever experiences problems you can’t fix, the fastest way to get things up and running is usually to speak with a real person who knows what they’re doing. Make sure your host provides great customer service. See what contact options are available when you need help (i.e. toll-free phone number, email, chat, etc.) Also consider when are they available and whether their support is in-house or outsourced.

Interface (Control Panel)

Make sure your hosting provider has an interface that is easy to understand and use. If you can’t figure out what you’re working with, it’ll make building a website much more confusing then it needs to be. Tasks such as installing WordPress, setting up email, configuring FTP accounts, etc… should be easy to find. Some hosting providers let you play with a demo hosting account, so take advantage of the opportunity to test their platform before you sign up.

Features

Finally, consider what makes your top hosting choices special. Do they offer extra features if you decided to host with them such as regular backups, a free domain name, etc. Are their tools up to date and easy to use? Do they offer upgrades and add-ons in-house to make it easy to expand your hosting account when you need to?

These are just some of the important factors to consider when selecting your web host.  As you outline your website, you’ll start to understand more about what should matter most to you. We hope you find these tips useful. Let us know if you have any additional questions in the comments below.

Tiffany
Bluehost

p.s. Want to learn more or to see if Bluehost is a fit for you? Give us a call at (888) 401-4678. We’re happy to answer any questions you might have.

While there are several things you’ll need to help get your site online, nothing is more important than first clearly defining your goals. Doing so, more than anything else, reveals which requirements are most important for your website so you can make a comprehensive plan that will take you successfully across the finish line. So what are key factors to consider?

As when starting a business, launching your business website should begin with a plan. Determining key information early on informs the entire site building process and inevitably saves you a lot of time, energy, and resources. While each business is a little different, we’ve listed three key points that everyone should consider when preparing to create a business website.

1. Determine your Goals. 

Before you can begin to solve a problem, it helps to know what the problem is. Ask yourself questions to identify what your website is intended to accomplish. For example: What kind of website do I want? Should the website serve principally to present information? Does this information need to change regularly? Will my website sell a product online?

Also consider what changes may happen over time. Ask yourself what future plans exist for your business. Answering questions like these is the first step toward outlining the type of website you should build.

2. Understand your message and your audience.

Your website will present a message to each and ever visitor, so it is important to think about what you want to communicate. The message you craft will help you not only identify your target audience, but will affects your website’s look and feel, design, content, presentation, etc… So it’s important to determine it as soon as possible. Make sure your messaging is clear, concise and easy to understand.

And remember, nothing should influence your messaging more than the audience to which it is intended, i.e. your future website visitors. Think about both who will visit your site as well as who you want to reach. Will existing customers visit your website? Potential customers? What is the goal of your messaging?

TIP: A good technique to get new ideas is to study websites of competitors or other businesses striving to achieve similar goals as you. Visit these sites and ask yourself questions like: What is the purpose of this website? What are they selling? Is the message clear? Did it compel me to learn more? A good website should be able to answer these important questions immediately.

3. Time and budget.

It’s great to have a vision of the perfect website, but remember to factor in real-world constraints. Be realistic about your budget and the amount of time you have to invest in building your website. Will you be building the website yourself? Will your site feature an e-commerce feature? Don’t forget to factor in the cost of web hosting, domain names, and advertising. We recommend writing everything down and adjusting different factors based on your allotted budget. Some areas may have more flexibility then others depending on your priorities.

There are several more factors to consider as you delve into building your website, but these are some great places at which to start the process. With a strong understanding of these three considerations, you’ll be better equipped to craft a strong plan. And remember, the more detailed your plan, the less likely you will run into snags as you proceed.

Tiffany
Bluehost

With over 2.2 billion people online, the internet has revolutionized how we find and share information. The online world is moving at a rapid pace and doesn’t show any signs of slowing. For businesses, a web presence has become a fundamental part of success. But why is a presence on the web so important? How significant is the impact of being online? We’re glad you asked.

After several years with Fidelity Investments, in 1996 Richard Sexton decided to step away from the corporate world and follow his passion by opening Himal Home Gallery, a local home furnishings store in his hometown of North Carolina.

“I didn’t have any experience in running a retail operation. [The] learning curve had its fair share of mistakes,” Sexton said. “Going online early and choosing to use Google products were some of the better moves.”

During the ‘90s, no one knew for certain if there was a place for small businesses online or if they could find success there. But Sexton took the chance and launched a website for Himal Home Gallery.  The online presence gave Sexton’s small business a great deal of attention and the small shop took off. In 2000, Sexton relaunched the furniture store as Carolina Rustica, focusing primarily on wrought-iron furniture, their best selling item.

“We started with a small 500 square-foot booth in an antique mall and now our gallery is almost 20,000 square feet,” Sexton said. “Through the web, we could reach a much larger audience, and we began to invest in marketing activities that could connect us with us potential customers. I am very happy with the results. Our sales have increased 50% year on year.”

Carolina Rustica is just one of the many small businesses that found great success establishing an online presence.  But can their model apply to other business types? Can business that don’t sell products online still find a success with a website? Is having a business website really that important?

Yes, absolutely.

Never before has the world been able to connect across the globe and interact so easily. Think about the last time you needed to know something, anything — chances are you went to look it up online. The Internet has completely changed the way we live and how we gather information. Not only is it now our primary source of information, but it has revolutionized the way businesses operate and communicate with customers.

Websites and the online tools that promote them should be the focal point of all advertising and marketing for all businesses, big or small. Here’s why:

Because people are online. If you’re looking for an audience, more customers, or people to influence, the web is where your business needs to be. With over 78% of adult Americans using the Internet and an astounding 2.2 billion people online worldwide, it’s no surprise that small businesses with websites experience an average of 39% greater revenue per year than those without websites, according to the Small Business Administration.

But what if my consumers aren’t online? At Bluehost, we get asked this question all the time.  For example, sometimes our clients refer to their consumers from an older demographic. We always tell them that they would be surprised at the amount of adults over 50 using the Internet.

When Roy Williams (business guru and New York Times bestselling author of “Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads”) was giving the keynote at a trades conference in Las Vegas, the chairman of the organization asked him to avoid mentioning the Internet because nearly all their 1,600 members were over the age of 55. Surprised by his request, Williams decided to start the talk by asking the crowd, “How many of you have used a search engine within the past seven days to research a product or service you were considering purchasing?” Almost instantly, over 95 percent of the members raised their hands.

A personal example: My gramps is an old-fashioned man who frankly didn’t care for computers until after he retired in 2002. But now at 70, he can’t get enough of his iPad or sharing vacation pictures with his friends on Facebook. (Yes, that’s right, my gramps is on Facebook with his friends). When I asked him why he changed his mind about the Internet, he simply said, “It’s convenient. That’s where everybody and everything is. It’s the fastest way to do or find or share anything.”

Your consumers are online, trust us.

Because it establishes credibility. When consumers can’t find a company online it raises a red flag. Does this company really exist? Can I trust them? Are they trying to scam me? People are more skeptical than ever.  Even when consumers don’t purchase online, they research and look online before they buy. In fact, 58 percent of global online consumers said they more likely to trust a company with “owned media,” such as a company with a website, versus one who doesn’t (Nielsen Advertising Survey, 2012).

When you have a good website, it gives people a peace of mind about your business. Whether you’re selling a product or service, or simply providing information, it’s important for your business to have a web presence in order to establish credibility.

Because it’s a great way to build your brand. A website lets you brand your business like never before. Websites give you unlimited freedom to determine how your business looks to your customers. Websites are flexible and can grow as yours business evolves, and they also allow your business to be available around the clock, even during off business hours. Add to this that websites are one of the most cost-effective tools available and it’s obvious why so many businesses now leverage a website.

Business branding through the web will help you develop a stronger reputation to millions around the world. Potential customers will be able to research your business and find good reviews about the product or service you provide. In fact, consumers say they trust online consumer reviews second from personal recommendations (Nielsen Advertising Survey, 2012). Think of your website as an extension of your sales staff, helping you nurture and generate leads by educating people on your products or services.

Because it is the best way to engage with prospective customers. Word of mouth has and always will be the most trusted form of advertisement. 92 percent of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as word-of-mouth and recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising (Nielsen Advertising Survey 2012).

With a website, you make it easy for consumers to share your business. With a simple link, they can instantly access all your business information. And with social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, it’s now even easier for people the to share things they love or recommend. When you have a website, you give these recommendations a place to go. Websites serves as central place for potential customers to learn more about why your business is so great.

We’re here to help you be successful. A website is the foundation for a web presence, which is the first step to making your business successful. The task may seem a bit daunting, but we’re here to help guide you through the entire process.  At Bluehost, we want you to be successful, so we work hard to give you all the tools you need. Throughout the next couple months, we’ll be going over, step-by-step, the entire process of building a website and establishing a strong web presence for your business. From layout to design, creating content, measuring analytics, to learning about different promotional tools, etc., we’re here to help you every step of the way!

Tiffany
Bluehost

To best address your needs, Bluehost provides various SSL certificates featuring different levels of protection. Protect your visitors and give them confidence that your website is secure. Learn more about Bluehost’s SSL certificate options by visiting the “Upgrades” tab in your Bluehost control panel.

Here at Bluehost, we are dedicated to providing our customers with the best, most powerful tools available. To that end, we’ve recently teamed up with CloudFlare to help you enhance your website’s speed and security. And the best part? You can enable CloudFlare for FREE with every Bluehost account!

CloudFlare is an advanced content delivery network (CDN) that provides optimal performance and security to your website. With over 14 data centers around the world, their CDN automatically caches your static website files. While dynamic content remains on your Bluehost web server, static files are physically closer to visitors. CloudFlare then uses a technology called Anycast to route your visitors to their nearest data center, helping your website load faster for visitors, regardless of where they’re located. On average, websites using CloudFlare has 65% fewer requests and uses 60% less bandwidth.

Using their intelligent global network, CloudFlare also blocks threats and limits abusive bots and crawlers from wasting bandwidth and sever sources.

We integrated CloudFlare into our Bluehost systems so that it’s easy for you to install and start using in minutes. Simply log into your Bluehost control panel (cPanel) and click on the “Upgrades” tab. From there, you can decide which CloudFlare plan is best for your site(s) and then click “Install” to get started.

CloudFlare comes in two plans: Basic and Pro. The basic CloudFlare plan is absolutely FREE and includes faster site performance, broad security protection, and basic reporting.

If you’re looking for maximum optimization, CloudFlare also offers a pro plan for $14.99, which includes real time statistic reporting, mobile optimization, advanced site security, advanced reporting, and even greater site performance improvements.

We’re excited to be working with CloudFlare to make your website, even better! If you have any questions regarding CloudFlare or how to get started, leave a comment below or call us anytime, 24/7, at 888-401-4678.