By Lars Lofgren Creating a website used to be a massive project. And expensive too. Everything had to be built by hand and businesses needed to work with an online marketing agency that would charge them tens of thousands of dollars to build the site. If you wanted a professional-looking site, that was your only…

By Lars Lofgren WordPress is the most popular content management system. Period. If you have a WordPress site — which you should if your site is a content site — you know how many plugins are available on this platform. There are thousands, literally thousands. I did a search today to see how many WordPress…

By Lars Lofgren You wouldn’t buy a brick and mortar business without getting a lock for the front door, right? I imagine you’d probably even get an alarm system and install some cameras. These security measures are taken to prevent break-ins, from losing money, sustaining property damage, or putting sensitive information at risk. Your internet…

By Lars Lofgren How fast is your website? You might think your website is fast — but how fast is fast enough? You may be surprised that 47% of Internet users expect web pages to load in two seconds or less and they mean it: 40% of people will abandon websites that don’t load within…

By Lars Lofgren How can your website visitors contact you? It’s a simple question, yet I see so many sites with complex solutions. Take a moment to put yourself into the shoes of a user navigating your website. For one reason or another, they have decided they want to reach you. This person shouldn’t be…

By Lars Lofgren Imagine waking up one morning only to discover an error with your WordPress administrative dashboard. You contact your web hosting company, and they inform you that the website crashed — the handiwork of a hacker. In addition to missing out on website traffic and sales, you also lost your databases and website…

By Lars Lofgren I have a major disclaimer before we begin. A good part of my career has been working for some of the folks in this list. In fact, I was personally responsible for setting annual revenue goals and hitting those goals while I was the Senior Director of Growth and Product at I…

By Lars Lofgren I started my first blog to avoid getting a job. I’m completely serious. I was coming to the end of my undergraduate degree in international affairs and the thought of getting a job at the state department or in journalism sounded like a horrible idea. So I learned how to start a…

By Corry Cummings When it comes to creating your own blog, you have two options. There are pre-built platforms like Medium, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc. These can be considered blogging platforms, and with them you can get started right away. There are obviously cons to these, but one pro is that these platforms come with…

By Lars Lofgren If you search for “gallery” on the WordPress plugins page, you’ll see nearly 3,000 results to choose from. To say that number is overwhelming is an understatement. Who has time to go through all of those plugins to determine which one is the best? Fortunately, you don’t have to. I’ve narrowed down…

By Quick Sprout Editorial Are you trying to create the perfect blog design? You know, one that encourages people to read your content and share it on the social web and, most importantly, gets high rankings in the search engines? If you are trying to create a popular blog, here are the 11 essential elements…

By Lars Lofgren Without a doubt, Shopify is our recommended ecommerce tool. But what if you’re already on another ecommerce tool and want to make the switch? I put together this guide to help you transfer your store to Shopify in 4 easy steps. In mapping out these steps below, I’ve assumed a few things:…

By Lars Lofgren If you’re building a site that’s 100% focused on content or 100% focused on ecommerce, the best choice on how to build your site is very clear. What WordPress does best = Content WordPress is now a decade old and is still the reigning champ for managing sites with a ton of…

By Lars Lofgren We’ve covered the high-level strategy of building an online store that makes real money here. But how do we create the ecommerce website itself? Below, you’ll find the 9 steps you need to take to create an ecommerce site. In this guide, we cover: The one and only ecommerce tool that we…

By Lars Lofgren There’s a bunch of steps that go into starting an online store. What tool do you build your store with? What do you name your company and how do you get a domain? Do you dropship or not? How do you deal with taxes? All of these are important decisions. For now,…

By Quick Sprout Editorial In 2019, websites can no longer afford to ignore search engine optimization. Nearly all internet activity starts with search: 93% of all Internet experiences start with a search engine and 39% of ecommerce traffic across the world comes from search. Most businesses have recognized this and adapted accordingly — 61% of…

By Quick Sprout Editorial In order for your website to be live on the Internet, it needs to be hosted. If you’re creating a website for the first time, move “set up hosting” to the top of your to do list, if it’s not already there. Already own and operate a website? Did you rush…

By Quick Sprout Editorial When it comes to getting your website ranked, you need to take advantage of as many SEO hacks as possible. Creating a sitemap is one technique that will definitely help improve your SEO strategy. What is a sitemap? Some of you may be more familiar with this than others. I’ll give…

By Quick Sprout Editorial Organic search remains an important way to generate traffic for your blog. It’s an essential part of blog marketing and in the following post we’ll show you the steps and tools you need to optimize your posts to help rank your blog. Let’s get started. 1. SEO friendly blog design Did…

By Quick Sprout Editorial There are so many components to a killer website design. But all too often I see people overlook minor details, like typography. I know what some of you might be thinking. How important can a website’s font really be? Believe it or not, something as simple as choosing the right font…

By Quick Sprout Editorial Understand the price of web hosting and what to expect as you grow Creating a website is exciting. In many cases, it means you’re starting or expanding your own business. But in order for your website to be live on the Internet, it needs to be hosted. In short, web hosting…

By Quick Sprout Every business needs a website. But for those of you who have never created a website before, this can seem a bit intimidating. It doesn’t matter if you’re just launching a new startup company, if you’ve been in business for a decade, or fall somewhere in between. You need to have a…

By Corry Cummings Everything you should know about website planning Save yourself a lot of time and headache: before you dive into building your new website, think through a high-level website plan. This planning process doesn’t need to be complicated or time intensive. It’s more or less about taking the time to answer some important…

By Corry Cummings The emphasis here is on first. This guide is meant to help you get your first dirty brand identity out the door. It’s meant to be functional and good enough for now. There are two options I recommend for developing your first brand identity: Do it yourself Use 99designs Both options will…

By Lars Lofgren I personally love data and analytics tools. But here’s the straight truth: you need a lot less than the analytics industry wants you to believe. Most experts will try to convince you that you need an analytics tool for everything. More data is always a good thing, right? I used to believe…

By Quick Sprout There’s a lot to take into consideration when you’re designing a website: there’s the layout, the architecture, the CTAs, picking your domain name, setting up a host, configuring the backend, picking a theme, perfecting the wording of your value proposition, and deciding which visuals to use. The list goes on and on….

By Quick Sprout A website without images will look plain, boring, and borderline unprofessional. Think about it for a moment: When was the last time you visited a website that didn’t have any photos? If you actually encountered this rarity, you probably left the site fairly quickly for fear of spam, phishing, or malware. Simply…

By Quick Sprout A website without images will look plain, boring, and borderline unprofessional. Think about it for a moment: When was the last time you visited a website that didn’t have any photos? If you actually encountered this rarity, you probably left the site fairly quickly for fear of spam, phishing, or malware. Simply…

By Quick Sprout The Internet makes it possible for you to sell products to virtually anyone in the world. Let that sink in for a moment. You have a huge opportunity, yet, your competition is fiercer than ever. Every other business has the same opportunities as you. As a marketer, you need to create an…

By Quick Sprout Every business needs an active social media presence. This statement holds true whether you have a small, medium, or large company. In fact, it’s more important for smaller businesses than large ones. Big brands like Apple and Nike are already household names. If they stop using social media right now, they’ll probably…

By Quick Sprout Email marketing is alive and thriving more than ever. 80% of marketing professionals name email as the top driving factor of customer acquisition and customer retention. And it’s got a great ROI: For every $1 spent on email, you can expect an average of $38 in return. It doesn’t matter if you’re…

By Quick Sprout Every business needs to strive for growth. This isn’t a secret. However, many business owners hear growth and they jump to customer acquisition strategies, new product launches, and ways to increase their conversion rates. All of these tactics are great for your company growth. But, they’re not the only way to boost…

By Quick Sprout Traditional marketing is slowly becoming obsolete. Brands need to prioritize digital marketing strategies to stay relevant and successful in 2019. To approach this properly, you’ll need to start producing more video content. When it comes to video, YouTube is king. The platform has more than 1.9 billion monthly active users, and 180…

By Quick Sprout I write a ton of blog posts. By the end of 2018, I’ll have published over 150 posts on Quick Sprout alone. Once you factor in the posts on my other websites and my guest posts, that number roughly doubles. People ask me all the time how I manage to produce such…

By Quick Sprout Videos are a crucial component of your content marketing strategy. Once your videos are created, you need to distribute them on as many channels as possible. With more than 2.2 billion monthly active users, it’s only logical for Facebook to be one of those distribution platforms. Overall, this should be a winning…

By Quick Sprout What’s your company’s return policy? I’m sure you’ve been asked this question before by both current and prospective customers. But think about when this question gets asked. It’s not just when someone wants to return an item. Customers want to know what your return policy is before they buy. This holds true…

By Quick Sprout Mistakes happen. If you’ve been in business for a while, you know by now that mistakes are just part of the process. New businesses and startup companies are slowly learning this. Nobody is perfect, but some mistakes happen on a larger scale than others. But here’s the thing, lots of these mistakes…

By Corry Cummings Your domain name is very important. It would be a mistake to gloss over the process of coming up with a name. If you take your project seriously, then you need to start off on the right foot with your name. After all, it’s going to be with you for the lifetime…

By Quick Sprout Every business needs to be active on social media to be relevant in today’s digital world. So if your company is on social media, it’s a safe bet that you’re uploading photos to your profile on a regular basis. Pictures and other visual elements will improve your marketing strategy. But it can…

By Quick Sprout As we close out 2018 and enter a new year, it’s time to look toward the future. Many of you might be making some new year’s resolutions such as diet changes, workout routines, and quitting bad habits. But outside of your personal goals, you also need to keep an eye on your…

By Quick Sprout With online shopping growing in popularity, retailers need to come up with new ways to keep their customers engaged to drive sales. Retail stores are no longer just competing with other neighboring shops. Consumers can shop for virtually anything from the comfort of their own homes or even on the go from…

By Quick Sprout With online shopping growing in popularity, retailers need to come up with new ways to keep their customers engaged to drive sales. Retail stores are no longer just competing with other neighboring shops. Consumers can shop for virtually anything from the comfort of their own homes or even on the go from…

By Quick Sprout Editorial Quick Sprout is reader-supported. That means we use affiliate links. When you click, we sometimes earn a commission. Learn more. Pretty much every single web host out there can run WordPress, and run it just fine. But the very best web hosting for WordPress will be from a fully managed WordPress…

By Neil Patel Chargebacks have become a growing problem for ecommerce companies. In fact, credit card chargebacks are rising at a rate of 20% each year. Statistics show 40% of consumers who file chargebacks will do so again within 60 days. And 50% of those people will file another one within 90 days. Banks and…

By Quicksprout Editorial Quicksprout is reader-supported. That means we use affiliate links. When you click, we sometimes earn a commission. Learn more. The best domain registrars make it quick to search and buy a great domain name, then easy to configure it and manage it over time. They will also have excellent customer service (both…

By Quicksprout Editorial Quicksprout is reader-supported. That means we use affiliate links. When you click, we sometimes earn a commission. Learn more. The best domain registrars make it quick to search and buy a great domain name, then easy to configure it and manage it over time. They will also have excellent customer service (both…

By Neil Patel Every website can benefit from signup forms. Depending on your business, these forms may vary greatly in their design and purpose. Some of you are using signup forms to simply collect email addresses for your subscriber lists. Opt-in forms are great for your lead generation strategy. Other companies rely on signup forms…

By Neil Patel Just like most aspects of marketing and technology, search engine optimization has evolved over time. Marketing strategies that were effective for your company five or ten years ago may not be as effective today. The same applies to SEO. Search engines have changed the way they rank websites. If your company hasn’t…