It’s very easy to see your bounce rate skyrocket with a blog. Maybe you haven’t published anything in quite some time or you just don’t have the right design. There are many reasons why your bounce rate may be too high.

If your visitors are only averaging a little over one page view per session and the bounce rate is very high, you may need to do a few things to fix this. Even if you’re attracting thousands of visitors, a high bounce rate basically means your visitors don’t care about your blog. Here are a few ways you can lower your WordPress website bounce rate quickly and easily.

Use a Responsive Design

Within WordPress, you have a few options for providing a better mobile experience for users. You can use a theme with a responsive design or you can install a plugin to give you a mobile version of your website. Regardless of how you go about it, you need a mobile-friendly website.

With over half of the searchers on Google using their mobile device to access your website, this could be the reason for your high bounce rate. If they cannot properly view your website on their device, they will move on.

If you use the Google Webmaster Tools, you can easily find out where people are viewing your site. You can use these tools to see whether they are using mobile devices or personal computers, along with far more. This makes it easy to see whether or not a mobile-friendly website would benefit you, which for most, it will in more ways than just one.

Add Fixed Navigation

With fixed navigation, you get a feature that keeps your top navigation bar fixed when the user scrolls. This means, it won’t disappear as they scroll to read more content on your website. It may seem like a small change, and it is, but fixed navigation can really help with mobile users and non-mobile users.

Since it keeps the scroll bar fixed, it’s easier for users to navigate to the next thing when they are done reading. It can be implemented easily with the right WordPress theme or plugin. The easiest way is with one of the many free plugins including Sticky Header from Themato Soup (https://wordpress.org/plugins/sticky-header/).

Add Floating Social Buttons

Sometimes, the social buttons disappear as somebody scrolls through your content. Just like the fixed navigation floating social buttons allow your social share buttons to remain seen no matter where the user goes. This can help draw more visitors to your site and keep your bounce rate lower as the user doesn’t have to leave your site to share the content.

Write Better Content

One of the major reasons visitors leave a website is due to poor quality content. This is a huge issue and may be the reason for your high bounce rate.

In order to fix this issue, you need to provide high quality, usable content your audience will want to devour, share and come back for more. The content should leave them searching your site for more good information, which will help reduce your bounce rate.

Your bounce rate is very important to both SEO and your conversions. Make sure you implement these tips and other strategies to keep your bounce rate to a minimum. There are so many other things you can do to ensure it remains lower, such as looking at your load times, switching to a better hosting company or changing your overall design. Look into all the possibilities and work hard to reduce your bounce rate.

You’re probably involved in social media platforms that help build your blog like Facebook and Pinterest. Have you considered expanding to some of the unusual social media platforms as well? Some of the lesser known platforms like InfoBarrel, Scoop.It, MyBlogU, and Quibb are probably unfamiliar to you but they are actually quite powerful.

Bloggers should take the time to look into these platforms because they are not oversaturated and they offer different techniques that your typical social media platforms don’t specialize in. whether you want to network through BizSugar or allow people to vote on your content through Kingged, here is a look at some unusual social networks that are powerful tools for bloggers.

DeviantART

This social network is great for promoting your content in which you can gain “watchers” through your journal entries and polls. Promote short stories by posting excerpts and linking it back to your website for readers to find the full story. Then, watch traffic comment on your story.

Kingged

This is handy site for any blogging niche because you can promote your posts across the community. It’s a content-based network for writing and promoting your content right on the platform. Then, people can comment, discuss, and share on bloggers’ content. Plus, they can vote on content so if you have great votes, you’ll start gaining respect and authority for your blogging abilities. Be sure to lead them back to your blog for even more of your work.

GNU Social

Check out GNU Social for a Twitter-style platform. Join a community or self-host. Run an account on the federated network of choice, promote your blog posts, and you’ll be seen on the entire community over several federated networks.

Scoop.It

Check out this unique social network that specializes in being a content curation tool. It’s a great way to share your blog posts, look for places to suggest it, and network. You suggest your content and hope to be “scooped” like a Pinterest board is “pinned.”

InfoBarrel

Check out this one if you want to try to share your content and earn a passive income. It should help you boost your income because you’ll be networking and getting people to discuss your content. It’s a great way to grow your network of other blogger contacts too.

Quibb

Check out Quibb for blogs on specific niches and industries that handle problems with analytical data. Grow your blog community through this social network if you’re in the tech world because it’s a great resource with helpful people. The members-only platform requires approval of an application first.

MyBlogU

You’ll love MyBlogU’s blogger network for chatting with others, finding jobs through contacts, and participating in friendly competitions. Rather than sharing and promoting your blog, you are asking for opinions, sharing ideas, and communicating. Share your projects, brainstorming ideas, and media while you make friends and network.

BizSugar

BizSugar is a great choice for business bloggers that need to build the traffic up. You can connect and network with bloggers in the same niche or industry.

Along with these great networks, you can always use the typical Google+, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and more to continue building your blog. Just remember that sometimes the lesser known sources can have the most impact on your success.

You may be surprised to hear that small businesses missed out on huge dollar amounts last year. In fact, half of small businesses missed out on a potential $250 billion last year simply for not having a website. How could a lack of a website account for this massive of a number?

There are over 28 million small businesses and those with a website brought in over $250 billion in the first three quarters of 2015 due to having a website. This is shown through the fact that ecommerce sales in the US last year came out to this dollar amount which means businesses without a website couldn’t sell e-commerce products.

If you don’t want to miss out on profits like these again this year, make sure you get your piece of the pie by finally setting up that company website. With all of the time you spend online, you may as well use some of that representing your company on a website and social media. Take a look at how this could affect profits for 2016.

How websites are making small businesses money

While websites are great for e-commerce efforts, websites can also make company’s extra money by functioning as a marketing tool for new customers, helping to retain clients through blogging, and can increase sales by offering special promotions or online-only offers.

Setting up your products online for selling as e-commerce isn’t hard to do and it beats selling your items on auction sites or sites like Etsy. You can choose the design of the website, feature the best products first, and customize the whole experience for the buyers.

Why you may have avoided a website in the past

It’s important to look at why you may have skipped out on having a website in the past. Was it because you thought it was going to be too hard to set up or you didn’t really know how to run it? Perhaps you were concerned about the expense behind it.

Luckily, it’s not only easy to start and run, but it doesn’t cost much of anything. You’ll need to put in the time and energy, plus a small cost for things like domain names and hosting, but the return would be huge. Today’s technology allows you to use sites like WordPress to give you free themes, user support, and tons of great features to choose what you need depending on your industry.

When you run a blog on your website, you can share your content with your social media followers, giving your brand an online presence and a higher chance of finding new customers. Your current customers will remember you better and look at you as an industry authority, wanting to purchase from you in the future.

Packages for new websites

When you join a site that you will use as a blogging and website platform, you can get packages that make it really simple to get started. First, you’ll get your domain name which you need to create to make sense to your brand and to be easy to remember. You’ll need to buy website hosting and many packages may include this.

You’ll usually get website building software and support. You can get a customized email address too. Once you’ve done all of this setup, you can start working on adding different sections, like the “contact,” “about us,” and “FAQs” to make sure your customers can find everything they need. Update your blog posts once or twice per week and set up social media accounts to share them with followers.

You don’t want to miss out on potential profits this year just from neglecting to start a website. Set it up and once you get it done, you can start maintaining it by marketing to your target audience, writing great blog posts, and sharing with the world what your company is working on. Feature your new products and promotions and get the word out there so that your target customer base can find you. Before you know it, you’ll be improving your brand’s image, increasing sales, and gaining a larger customer base.

As the leading CMS that allows individuals to create and publish content seamlessly and conveniently, WordPress is getting better and bigger each year. Through its wide range of tools and applications, WordPress has become a community of thousands of developers and designers, which is why it has become the foremost choice for businesses and individuals looking for quality, versatility, and support.

It offers an array of design and creative features that can be integrated into the content to make it more appealing for the readers as well as for the search engines. Themes are perhaps the most important contributor to the look and feel of your content. Changing your theme every now and then can be a good way of keeping your site visitors engaged and updated. Although there are themes that have to be purchased, there are many that users can enjoy without paying a penny.

A multitude of new free WP themes are added on a daily basis. So, instead of scavenging through thousands of options, take a look at our list of the five best free WordPress themes of 2016. Before you add any of these themes, make sure to backup your WordPress first. Check our article on WP backups here.

1)    Upright

Upright is a fantastic theme that is focused on offering a magazine style look to your content. This theme is ideal for bringing life to large imagery or content that uses lot of pictures.  If you are a blogger, Upright will be a great way of making it easier for visitors to keep track of all of your blog posts, and by integrating images into your content, your site will appear much more vivid and eye-catching.

2)    Fashionista

Fashionista is also another theme that is best suited for blogs or content that required to be showcased as a magazine. Offering a slightly more aesthetic and edgy look to your site, you can hope to keep your visitors engaged and therefore increase traffic. Its large headlines and news-like layout will be pleasing on the eyes and easy to navigate on desktop and mobile devices alike.

3)    Future Lite

The Future Lite theme provides a clean and image-rich feel to your website. Because of this reason, the theme is best suited for those who have creative portfolios, such as designers and brand teams, or freelance photographers. As soon as visitors are directed to your landing page, they will be greeted with the high-resolution imagery that can leave a lasting impression on their minds.

4)    Moesia

Moesia is the go-to theme for giving your business the kind of first-impression you desire for it. With the option of parallax background imagery, you can easily set the tone of your website that can be a strong cue to your business values and brand image. The header comes with the option to put a high resolution image, so make sure you utilize it to instantly grab attention.

5)    Glider

Many of you may want to keep things simple and not necessarily require grabbing the attention of visitors using hi-res imagery. This is where Glider is useful. As a text-focused theme, Glider is excellent for giving visitors what they need to see most urgently, text. This makes it ideal for writers or bloggers that share articles or blogs without the excessive need to delve into imagery.

So, these were our favorites for the year but bear in mind that the definition of the best theme may vary from business to business. Feel free to share the ones that have worked wonders for you or get in touch with us to learn more about the best managed WP hosting solutions for your WordPress themes.

You might have noticed how you need to put an extra ‘s’ next to ‘http’ of a URL to access it. The extra ‘s’ is referred to as Secure Sockets Layer or SSL. This is important for accessing websites that are encrypted to prevent abuse from hackers.

However, there is more to SSL than simply adding a letter in the URL. In fact, it offers many advantages for ecommerce websites that can be of use to your online business. In this post, we offer all there is to know about SSL.

What Is SSL?

According to SSL.com,
“SSL is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browser remains private.“

Put simply, SSL is an advanced level of encryption technology that makes use of key algorithms to provide a safe and secure web browsing experience. The way SSL works is that the encryption technology is activated as soon as the connection is made between the algorithms. So every time a user logs onto a website, all website data is encrypted and shielded from third party access.

Why Is It Used?

SSL serves a crucial role in maintaining the confidentiality of sensitive information and shielding it from third parties. All details pertaining to account login details, such as passwords and usernames, as well as credit card details. Without SSL certificates, the data would be shared on any device or computer, increasing security risks.

SSL certificates are particularly important and relevant for today, owing to an aggressively expanding cyber security industry to curb the influence and dangers of hackers. Several large and established companies have experienced leaked customer and employee accounts and other important information that has discredited their reputation and credibility.

Why It Is Important For Your Ecommerce Website?

Due to the aforementioned reasons, SSL certificates provide excellent resources for safeguarding your ecommerce business from the risk of leaked or corrupted data. Building safe and secure ecommerce transaction platforms are not only crucial for your business, but also impart trust and reliability to customers that they can purchase good and service without worrying of credit card fraud and theft.

For example, PayPal’s visible green symbol that reflects their SSL certificate gives customers great confidence and trust that they are making a secure financial transaction. Such a trust is vital to building your online business and for marketing your brand across thousands of customers.

The other advantage of SSL is authentication. This means that you can be 100 percent sure that you are sending sensitive information to the correct server and not to a hacker who will exploit your details. SSL, thus, enables you to operate in a safe and secure zone through which you can order supplies and equipment for your online business without any qualms.

It is also now required to have SSL certificates for complying with PCI (Payment Card Industry) standards. In other words, having a secure and high level SSL certificate is necessary to operate your e-commerce website.

We at FastWebHost provide FREE SSL for our customers on certain plans. SSL as an add-on can also be purchased. Read more here.