You’ve been spending time building your website, creating amazing content and driving visitors through social media. But you’re not making a lot of money. What gives? What are all your visitors up to?

So you fire up google analytics to take a look and you see something like this in the audience tab.

That explains why all that traffic isn’t getting you any revenue. So what do you do about it?

Do you actually have a high bounce rate

Bounce rates vary greatly by what kind of site you’re running. The average website sees about 40% bounce rate.

That’s still pretty high and we’ve worked with a number of websites who have a bounce rate in single digits. So if you’d like to do something about your bounce rate, read on.

What causes a high bounce rate

Spam Traffic

The bounce not be from the traffic you’ve been driving. Your website is frequently crawled by bots - automated computer programs. These can come from a lot of places. Google’s bots crawls your site to read your content and decide where to rank you. Some other bot, made by spammy website owners, are looking for content to scrape. A lot of this bot activity is picked up by Google analytics and can skew your numbers. That’s because a bot can scan your website in less than a second, so it looks like a bounce.

In the example below, you can see that certain sources have a very high bounce rate. These are not real visitors and the high numbers have skewed the site average.

The Fix

To get to the real data you’ll need to identify and filter out the spam traffic.

Broken links

If you’ve been around for a while, chances are you’ve got a few outdated links that no longer work. You might have posted these links somewhere, such as other blogs or in old emails and these links might still be driving traffic.

Since this link is not connected to a page, the visitors will see a 404 page.

There’s nothing on that page so the visitor has no need to stick around. They’ll leave almost right away and you’ll see that as a bounce. It’s common if you’ve moved to a new domain or did an overhaul of the site.

This kind of issue can occur if you moved your website to a new domain or did an overhaul of the site that included changing some of your URLs

The Fix

First, you’ll need to retain visitors who land on a 404 page. Start by customizing the 404 page and making it more in line with your brand. Here’s a great example from Lego

Next add a search bar and some links to pages that visitors are most likely to visit, such as your home page or store.

The ultimate goal though is to remove the broken links altogether. You can use  Broken Link Check need to find the broken links on your website.

The real challenge though is finding broken external links – links from other places that lead to your site, on a page that’s no longer active. To do that, setup Google Search Console to get a list of links that Google experienced errors with on their crawls.

You can then either contact the website owner and ask them to setup the correct link, or setup a 301 redirect that takes the incorrect URL to the right page. Visitors end up on the page they’re looking for without ever knowing the difference.

Slow loading times

If your website is slow people will leave. It’s really that simple. Wherever they came from, whatever they’re after, your visitors know there’s probably an alternative somewhere on a faster website.

Most people won’t wait longer than 2 seconds for your site to load.

The Fix

You’ll need to speed up your website. The fastest way is to get a better hosting provider.

You can get a little more speed out of your host by eliminating big images and other large files, but at the end of the day the speed of your website depends on how fast the server is.

We offer a really fast hosting package that only costs $1 a month.

Too many pop-ups and ads

We get it. You need these to generate revenue. We use them too. BUT you might want tone it down a little.  68% of people say they’d gladly block a site from search for having pop-ups and the ad technique has a 73% disapproval rating in surveys. People just won’t spend a lot of time on a site where they keep getting bombarded by ads.

This doesn’t mean you have to remove all your ads, just make them less intrusive and don’t distract visitors from the real reason they’re on the website. Google is also taking steps against websites with intrusive ads by affecting their search rankings, and will be building an adblocker into chrome soon.

The Fix

You need to find new ways of displaying your ads and popups. Do some A/B tests to see what people respond to best.

Autoplay videos

Similar to ads, autoplay videos are just obnoxious. It’s far easier to close to page entirely than try to find a way to shut the video off. 82% of users will close a page because of an autoplay video. They’re intrusive and they contribute to a bad user experience.

The Fix

Make a great thumbnail, write a great headline, include an obvious play button and turn off the autoplay. People who want to see your video will hit play themselves, when they feel like it. This way you won’t lose all the people who don’t want to see it before they get a chance to look at anything else on your website.

Content that’s different from what they expected

If people arrived on your website expecting one thing, only to see something else, they’ll leave.

The Fix

Review all your ppc copy and meta tags to make sure it matches with the page.

Bad web design

On average people spend 5 hours a day on their phones. 1/3rd of all shopping is done with mobile devices. If your website is not mobile optimized, you’re creating bad user experience. Bounce rates are 40% higher on mobile than they are on desktop.

The Fix

Get a web developer to give your site a makeover as soon as you can.

Your content’s no good.

Bad spelling? Bad formatting? Bad writing?

For whatever reason, if your visitors don’t like your content, they’ll just leave, and nothing you can do is going to change that. Not short of writing better content that is.

The Fix

Create better content. Take time to edit over everything you’ve created and only publish high quality content that you’re really proud of.

Remember it’s not visitors that make revenue, it’s subscribers. A regular visitor is worth far more than a visitor that came to your site for 5 seconds. Figure out what’s going on and lower your bounce rate today.

This is the fourth part of a series of guides on how to succeed with blogging. This guide was written by the team at FastWebHost.com who have helped thousands of blogs setup and achieve success over the last 10 years.

So far we’ve shown you how to build your blog, how to grow your blog’s followers, and how to  make money from your blog. By now you’ve realized it all comes down to how well you create your content - whether it’s writing words or taking photos or singing songs. That’s what we’re here for today.

To have great content on your website you need to do 2 things on a regular basis:

1. Create stellar content
2. Measure results and do a content audit

Creating Content

1. Understand your readers

You need to understand who your readers are and what they want in life. All good blogs are focused on certain topics or areas of life. That’s why travel blogs may talk about the foods of different localities, but won’t really talk about cooking or foods as a standalone subject.

More importantly, there are probably plenty of blogs on the subject you choose to work with, but your readers come to you for a specific reason. You need to understand that reason, the emotions behind it, and target your content towards those emotions.

Not sure where to start? Ask your readers what general topics they’d like to see more of. Then plug the topics and keywords into google trends and buzzsumo to see what’s trending.

2. Work through lists

Jot down ideas on your phone when inspiration strikes and keep a list of topics you can work on. Don’t worry about how you’ll flesh them out, that’s for later.

Once those ideas have a chance to marinate, you can start working on them. You should always try to take a unique stance on the topic - say something different, or try to say it in a different way.

If you ever run out of ideas, remember that most ideas work well with multiple types of content. Expand on a part of something you’ve written about before, or turn your list article into an infographic.

3. Be consistent

Once you’ve figured out what your audience likes you need to be consistent with it. Deliver what they want on a regular basis, but don’t rush. Remember, there’ at least 10 other people who are doing what you’re doing. Your audience comes to you for your style and quality. It’s perfectly fine if you publish only once every month.

The trick is to stay engaged with your readers in the meantime. Show them sneak peaks or work in progress on social media. You can even let them have a little control over the production process by asking for feedback on Facebook or twitter.

4. Team Up

Invite guest bloggers to contribute to your blog. They can write a complete piece which you can publish. They can collaborate on a piece with you by joining you for an interview or discussion. Or they can simply contribute a few thoughts to a piece you’re working on.

This helps bring more fresh perspectives and unique angles to a post. You can also use this to argue multiple sides of an idea for your readers.

Auditing Content

Once you start, there’s an impulse to just keep moving forward and create new content. But you need to stop once in awhile and go over what’s been done. You should do an audit at least once a year, or more depending on how often you publish.

An audit will show you what worked best, what didn’t and what can be re-purposed. You can also identify old content people are still reading, and update them.

1. Make a List of Your Content

Start by making a list of everything you’ve published. Get them all onto a spreadsheet and categorize them by what they are, what they’re about, and what they’re meant to achieve.

2. Decide on Metrics

Next you decide on what you want to measure. Each of your pieces of content would have a different objective, and so you would probably want to measure a different metric for each. In general though, some metrics tend to be useful for all kinds of content. Things like page views, time on page, bounce rate, goal conversion, and social shares are always useful metrics to have.

3. Review Analytics

We love Google Analytics. It’s free to use and can be used to get both an overview and in-depth look at your content’s performance. You might also want to look at analytics from your social media. If you’re using any other 3rd party analytics, you should record their results in your spreadsheet too.

Once that’s done, you need to divide your content into 3 lists - ones that are doing well, ones that are doing ok and can be improved, and ones that have never done very well.

4. Decide What to Do

For content that’s doing well: See what they have in common. There must be a reason they do better than the others. These audits are a great way to figure out your formula for success. Then figure out how you can make it better either by improving the content itself or finding new ways to reach more people with it. Or example, turn your best videos into info graphics so you can share them on Pinterest. See if there are ideas or points within the content pieces that can be fleshed out into their own posts.

For content that has potential: Figure out why they’re not doing better. Low click rate on social media could mean a poor title or feature image. High bounce rate could mean the opening paragraphs aren’t entertaining enough. Or it just might not be the right fit for your audience. Once you figure it out you can improve them.

For content that’s no good: You’ve got two choices here. You can try improving them, or you could just remove them altogether. It might feel wasteful to remove content you worked hard on, but in some cases it’s the best choice. Maybe the post is no longer accurate, or your views have changed and you no longer support this idea. Let it go and move on.

5. Create a Plan for Future Content

All of this should help you figure out what works better and what doesn’t. It should help you figure out your formula for creating better content. At this final stage of the audit you reflect on what you’ve seen and condense it into a clear plan and guidelines for future content, so that next year’s audit goes smoothly.

So that’s that. Now you know how to write better content, and that means you’ll be able to get more readers and more revenue from those readers. If you don’t have a blog yet, there’s no time like the present to start. Get over to our WordPress page and pick a domain name and you’re good to go.

This is the first part of a series of guides on how to succeed with blogging. This guide was written by the team at FastWebHost.com who have helped thousands of blogs setup and achieve success over the last 10 years.

Why Start a Blog

If you’re reading this then it’s safe to assume that you have an end goal - a reason why you want to start your blog.

Identity: Domain and hosting

Some of you love to write and love it just as much if people could read your writing. Some of you have heard tales of people raking in millions with their blogs and want to try your hand at the game. Some of you need to establish yourself as a thought leader, to help your other brands grow.

We wrote this guide with the goal of helping all of you.

What is Success

Before we begin, we’d like to go over what a successful blog looks like. For the purpose of this guide we’re defining success as one or more of the following measurable results:

• A lot of readers with positive sentiment
• A lot of subscribers who read your work regularly
• A lot of people who follow your advice or recommendations (such as clicking your links)

For this guide, we won’t be treating facebook likes and youtube subscribers as success. That, grasshopper, is a guide for another time.

Now let’s get started.

How To Make A Blog

Here’s a checklist:

1. Pick a platform
2. Get your name and space on the internet
3. Design your blog
4. Configure your functions
5. Write, shoot, record
6. Repeat

Structure: Blogging Platforms

There are plenty of platforms you can start blogging on - medium, tumblr, Wordpress, Blogger… the list goes on. We won’t debate the pros and cons of every one of them here. Instead we’ll just show you this:

The long and short of it is 72 million people, more than half of all bloggers use Wordpress because:

• It’s free, including a huge number of addons you’ll need (more on this later)
• It’s really easy
• It’s secure
• It’s highly customizable

So that’s what your blog is built with. Now we look at where.

Identity: Domain and hosting

You need to self host. Forget all about free blogging platforms. You need to OWN your own blogging space.

Just imagine if Huffington Post ($14,000,000 in revenue per month) started as huffingtonpost.freeblogs.com instead of huffingtonpost.com.

No, you need your own name (domain) and your own space (hosting). Start by picking out a hosting package from http://fastwebhost.com/web-hosting.html, and you can get the domain at the same time. Most domains go for $2 to $15 per year, while hosting starts at $1/month.

Alright, now we design your blog

Design: Themes and Customization

First install Wordpress. The easiest way is with the Softalicious installer. Here’s a detailed, step by step guide on how to use it :https://www.fastwebhost.com/tutorials/knowledge-base/Wordpress-softaculous-installation/ 

Alright, you’ve got Wordpress. Now we need to design it.

Once installed, you’ll get an email with an that shares an admin url (typically www.yourdomainname.com/wp-admin) and login information.  Start by logging in. You’ll see a dashboard or admin panel that looks something like this:

The core design of your website is based on the “theme” it’s running. So to change your design you change the theme. Here’s how: https://www.fastwebhost.com/tutorials/knowledge-base/install-Wordpress-themes/ 

Visit your blog once you’ve installed and activated your theme and you’ll see the new design in place.

You can further customize it to match your needs. Start by uploading your logo or setting your blog’s name from the customize tab under appearance. You can also find a large number of settings in the customize tab including widgets and menu items. We’ve gone over a few here: https://www.fastwebhost.com/tutorials/knowledge-base/customize-Wordpress-themes/ 

Functionality: Plugins

In some cases you might need more functionality, like a calendar of live events or a way for people to sign up to your RSS. The easiest solution is to install a “plugin”, a program that adds this functionality to your site. You can learn more about how to do this here: https://www.fastwebhost.com/tutorials/knowledge-base/install-Wordpress-plugins/ 

Content: Posts and pages

Pages are static “one-off” content such as your about page, privacy policy, etc. Posts are where you publish most of your content. They’re the entries for your blog. They are also different in a few functional ways

• Posts are timely, they get archived in a chronological order. Pages are timeless, they get archived in whatever order you specify.
• Posts can be categorized by subject areas. Pages are hierarchical.
• Posts are included in RSS feed; Pages are not.
• Pages can have different structures and templates; all posts have the same structure

Now let’s show you how to add and edit these posts and pages.

• Create a WordPress Post
• Add images, videos or other multimedia to WordPress Posts
• Categorize posts 
• Display posts from a single (or more) category on a particular page
• Manage comments on your blog

And Again

That’s it. Now you have a blog, on your own domain name, and know how to create content. Now you start publishing.

Next up on the How to Succeed with Blogging series: How to Grow Your Blog’s Readership.

The world you have known is there no more. Thankfully, the new world has more exciting opportunities stored in it, if you know the right doors to knock. This also means that those on the other side of these chosen doors have the right abilities and energies that you are looking for.

Setting up a catering business? Need to promote your photography skills? A freelance policy consultant up for hire by the hours? No matter which industry you belong to, giving a face to your work requires a strong online presence for others to discover and access.

First thing first, you need to have a website to showcase all your brilliance. Setting up a website requires technical expertise; hence, it is imperative to have on-board the right kind of people who can assist you with the relevant know-hows and ongoing maintenance.

You need a reliable web host provider.

A group of highly skilled life-savers who will store your website's files on its servers and deliver them to your readers' and customers' browsers. Web hosting companies offer a diverse mix of services such as, monthly data transfers, storage, email, etc. Even payment systems can be different (monthly, annual, mixed packages, etc.). So how do you decide who to buy your hosting from?

A credible company is embedded with the following core principles:

Lower costs: It is not about whether you have the ability to splurge on your budget. It’s about investing in a host provider who works in the interest of both parties efficiently to acquire a satisfactory returns on your investments.

Higher bandwidth: It’s all about how easily accessible your website is to your catered customers/beneficiaries. A credible web host provider will enable the aspect of speedy loaded pages, plugins and features given that it has rock-solid coding built in.

Good security: No point in having a user-friendly website if there’s no decent security system in place. A web host provider will provide not just the set up but also ensure support to tweak and update the security features, from time-to-time.

Rapid support: You also want a web host with 24/7 customer support - by phone, chat, knowledge bases, tutorials (check out how Fast Web Host’s support system is designed to cater to any support of your choice). Easy-to-reach communication and stand-by support from technical experts is essential to get things sorted out quickly as well as for maintenance purposes.

A few additional points to ponder:

• Consider the duration - whether you need hosting support for a short time period or for longer. There are refund options and various financial packages which you should look into for making best use of your budget and timeline.
• Web hosts often provide different offers in starter packages and then expand on their services in advanced tier plans - read everything before finalizing a plan, including features such as domain, website builders, SSL Certificates, email, etc. Having these features integrated will make your operations smoother.
• Before you make a decision, familiarize and do a research of the different web hosting services that are available (such as, shared, virtual private server (VPS), dedicated hosting, Linux Reseller hosting and WordPress hosting plans). Each of these offers different features and packages that you should analyze to decide what best suits you and the service/content you intend to curate.
• Every provider has their unique niche factors - some focus on security more while some offer email marketing and e-commerce tools. Some offers integrated packages while some encourage customized plans.  Be careful to not get carried away. If you know your product/content well, it will be easier to prioritize.
• Read the in-depth customer reviews. Real time experiences provides insight into what the company actually is capable of providing in terms of service and quality (hence, avoiding the trap of false advertising).

As you choose the right web hosting service, you become a part of the bold new world where you get back more than what you give.

From just a buzz in the online world, cloud hosting has developed into a full-fledged marketing strategy which enables your business to enjoy numerous advantages through a host of applications. With constant innovations and improvements, the services are still on their way to enhancement and are becoming relatively better, faster, and securer. For this reason, you need to take a look at some insight analyses of the advantages and applications which cloud hosting/computing brings to you on a commercial level.
 

 
 
To put it simply and precisely, cloud hosting is only the utilization of the world-wide-web in order to fulfill all sorts of computing necessities. Commercial projects, in order to match their ideal requirements, need a mass number of devices offering connectivity to the online world. Cloud hosting and computing offers them tremendous aid in this aspect by providing them applications, software, storage, data, security networking and everything else they require. All of these things are considered ideal and are made easily available for businesses by all reliable cloud service providers.
 
Nowadays you can find a wide variety of cheap cloud hosting and computing services which will are provided on a pay-as-you-go, prepaid, annual fee as well as rental basis. These services are all offering cloud applications which are essential for commercial use, providing businesses with a number of benefits.
 
The list of advantages which cloud hosting and computing services provide businesses don’t just end there. Let’s have a detailed look at all sorts of benefits which cloud computing can provide when it comes to commercial projects and upscale businesses.

Advantages of Cloud Computing for Businesses

The leading benefit which is quick to attract considerable amount of attention is the cost. When it comes to clouds, there is no initial requirement for an investment to build an infrastructure. Furthermore, there are also no requirements for costs of infrastructure, maintenance, license upgrade, software upgrade or paychecks for in-house IT professionals. The cost-effectiveness of this amazing technology expands even further when you realize there is an exceptional range of service packages which are available to cater to all sorts of business’ requirements no matter what sort of budgets they may be following.
 
Another benefit is the unlimited services which can be availed easily. These services may come with their charges which are usually fixed on per head or flat rates but there are no additional costs. Even if there are, they are considerably lower. Nonetheless, they offer some mind-boggling unlimited options when it comes to storage and backup capacity, number of users, user access and almost all other things that you can imagine.
 
Cloud hosting and computing provides easy access of universal data and applications. With the availability of these services any time and any place wherever there is internet, there is no need to fuss over settings and customization as all data and applications can be accessed from any device. With so many top-notch advantages that can facilitate you on a commercial level, there is no reason why you should neglect cloud hosting.