April Tech News & Trends

As usual, the past few weeks have seen a lot of big tech news hit the press, some of which suggests some real changes to come in the tech and business worlds. For busy business people who have a hard time staying on top of new tech stories on their own, we have our monthly roundup of tech news to be aware of this month.

1. Facebook Faces Scandal

Facebook has faced scandals and criticism before, but the recent news that Facebook data on 50 million user profiles had been harvested and exploited by the marketing firm Cambridge Analytica may be the biggest scandal yet. The firm used the company’s data to create targeted political advertising campaigns that may have helped sway the last U.S. presidential election and the UK’s Brexit vote.  And internal documents suggest that Facebook was aware of the breadth of the data breach and did little at the time it was discovered. This scandal combines people’s worries about fake news with their cyber security fears. The outrage has inspired #deletefacebook to trend on Twitter (although with minimal follow through) and Zuckerberg is set to testify in front of Congress about the scandal. This probably isn’t the end of Facebook, but it’s definitely got a lot of users thinking twice about how they interact with the platform.  

2. Snap Has an Even Worse Month

Last month we reported that Snap was having a rocky month between a new design that customers hated and a negative tweet from Kylie Jenner. Well soon after that things went from bad to worse when the platform approved an offensive ad that made a callous joke about Chris Brown’s famous domestic abuse offense against Rihanna.

Is it just me, or is this ad that popped up on my Snapchat extremely tone deaf? Like what were they thinking with this? pic.twitter.com/7kP9RHcgNG

— Royce Mann (@TheRoyceMann) March 12, 2018

Rihanna was not having it. Even after Snap pulled the ad and attempted an apology, she publicly took them to task on Instagram, saying: “I’d love to call it ignorance, but I know you ain’t that dumb! You spent money to animate something that would intentionally bring shame to DV victims and made a joke of it!!!! This isn’t about my personal feelings, cause I don’t have much of them...but all the women, children, and men that have been victims of DV in the past and especially the ones who haven’t made it out yet....you let us down! Shame on you. Throw the whole app-oligy away.” The company’s stock value plummeted in response, losing more than $800 million. Hopefully other brands will learn from Snap to avoid making light of domestic violence or crossing Rihanna.  

3. Hackers Disrupt Atlanta’s City Government

The city of Atlanta had to halt a number of city services and operations last month due to a ransomware attack made by hackers. The hackers demanded a ransom of $51,000 in bitcoin to remove the threat to the city’s digital systems. Atlanta has managed to regain some of its systems, but the attack is a reminder of how much power someone with hacking skills can have over the functions of government.  

4. Zscaler, Dropbox, Spotify, and DocuSign Go Public

It’s a big month for tech IPOs.

• To start, Zscaler, the cloud security company had a strong start when it went public last month, making $192 million and watching stocks go up 75% on the first day of trading.
• Dropbox followed suit with a similarly strong offering, going up 49% in its first two days on the market.
• Just a couple of days ago , Spotify launched their IPO, which put their initial valuation at $29.5 billion.
• And sorry, you won’t get time to catch your breath, because DocuSign has also just filed for IPO with the goal of going public later this month.

There’s just something about the stock market in the spring, it seems.  

5. Self-Driving Vehicles Forced to Slow Down

Usually the talk around self-driving cars is excited and often brings a feeling of rushing – the companies behind them, the people working on them, and the consumers that want them all seem to be in a hurry for the tech to be ready and available. But last month, a woman was hit and killed by a self-driving Uber, forcing the company to take a step back and slow things down for a bit. The company pulled all its self-driving vehicles from public roads for the time being while they investigate the cause of the crash.  

6. Cryptocurrency Controversies

The city of Plattsburgh, NY made news last month by banning cryptomining. The practice, a way of gaining bitcoin, uses up a considerable amount of electricity and was taxing the city’s electric system. Because the city was using more than it was able to produce and had to buy electricity from outside sources, residents were stuck with much higher electric bills than usual. In response, the city government went ahead and banned the practice altogether. On top of that, Twitter joins a number of other social media networks in banning all ads for cryptocurrency. The move is a way to try to reduce fraud on the site, especially as “crypto twitter” is known for being generally shady. Even with these minor setbacks, bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies remain a notable part of our modern economy.  

7. MyFitnessPal App Hacked

The data breach of the month (at least so far) is MyFitnessPal. The app, owned by Under Armour, was hacked, compromising 150 million profiles. They’ve alerted their members and are requiring everyone that uses the app to change their password. It seems like every month brings at least one new data breach. It’s a good reminder to keep your passwords secure and change them periodically for better protection.  

8. U.S. Considers Requiring Social Media Info for All Visa Applicants

The U.S. state department has announced a desire to begin requiring all visa applicants to the country to provide details of their social media accounts. If the department moves forward with this plan, nearly 15 million people will be required to provide this information as part of their application – a requirement many feel is a serious invasion of their privacy. While the administration claims this requirement is a way to combat terrorism, many are skeptical that it would make a meaningful difference while also concerned that it oversteps reasonable boundaries of privacy. Before a final decision is made, the public has a couple of months to provide comments on the proposal.  

9. Collision Conference

Meeting from April 30-May 3 in New Orleans, the Collision Conference brings together over 25,000 attendees to network, view tech exhibits, and discuss and learn about topics ranging from AI to cryptocurrency to brand activism. For anyone looking for a good opportunity to learn more and meet like minds, it’s the best tech conference this month to consider.  

Happy April!

Like most months, April is a busy one for the tech world. Check back next month to see what tech trends to look forward to in May.

Review This Checklist Before Choosing Your New Web Hosting Provider

Whether you’re launching a new website or thinking about switching to a new plan for the one you already have, browsing web hosting packages can be overwhelming. There are so many different types of packages and features that it’s hard to truly understand what makes them all different and pinpoint which one makes the most sense for you. To help you navigate the process of choosing a web hosting provider, we’ve compiled a list of the main questions you should ask and things you need to know.

10 Questions to Ask to Understand Your Needs

Before we get into the specifics of what different web hosting packages offer, you should take some time to define your particular needs.   1. How big is my website? Websites can vary from a few simple pages to huge sites with hundreds of pages and a complicated infrastructure to keep it all organized. Larger, more complicated websites will have different hosting needs than smaller, simpler ones. Think carefully about how large and involved your website is now, and what reasonable expectations you have for growth in the coming years.   2. How secure does it need to be? You don’t want to get hacked; so all websites will need some security. But any website that collects information from visitors needs to be extra secure, especially if you plan to make sales through the site. If customers will be trusting you with credit card information, you need to earn that trust by making sure your website provides adequate security.   3. Will I be selling products through the website? An e-commerce website needs to include the functionality for people to select products and make purchases. If achieving sales will be a goal of your website, then look for a web hosting provider that provides the right level of functionality and security to accomplish that, and that’s compatible with the e-commerce software you intend to use.   4. How much traffic do I expect to get? While guessing at potential traffic isn’t an exact science, you can probably make some informed assumptions. If you’re building an entirely new website, then you should expect to only get a little bit of traffic early on, unless you have a sizeable brand reputation already. If you have an already existing website, then you can look at your analytics so far to make an educated guess at what to expect moving forward.   5. How fast do I want it to load? Visitors expect websites to load fast. If they have to wait to see what you have to offer, they probably won’t bother. For that reason, you’ll want web hosting that enables your website to work quickly. Larger websites that receive more traffic will need a different level of hosting power to provide that than new websites with a limited audience.   6. How experienced am I at running a website? Are you figuring it out as you go along, or have you been building and running websites for years? If you’ll need a lot of help and handholding, then a web hosting company with strong customer support and beginner’s resources will be worth it. If you know the ropes already, then you may want to prioritize factors like software compatibility, customization options, and scalability over ease of use and support.   7. Will I be hiring a designer or putting it together myself? If you’re throwing together a basic site on your own, then you’ll be glad to have access to templates or a website builder to make the process easier. If you’ll be hiring a professional designer to put the website together for you, then you’ll want to check with them about any compatibility issues to be aware of when choosing your web hosting platform.   8. Will I have a blog? If your website will include a blog, or primarily consist of a blog, then you’ll want to consider which blogging platform you want to go with and make sure your hosting package is well suited to work with it.   9. How much customization do I want? With many more affordable shared plans, there are some limitations on what you can do with your website. For most website owners, it won’t be anything that affects what you want to be able to create and accomplish, but for some who want to be able to do website development entirely on their own terms (and have the skills to do so), considering VPS plans or a dedicated server will make that possible.   10. Will I need more than one domain? A lot of website owners have an array of business or website ideas they want to explore at some point. If that sounds like you, then getting a web hosting plan that covers more than one domain will pay off. In addition, if you want to make sure your register all the domains someone looking for your brand name might try (so you can direct them all back to your website), you’ll need a plan that allows multiple parked domains (all HostGator Baby and Business plans come with unlimited domains, by the way).  

5 Things Any Web Hosting Plan You Consider Should Offer

No matter what your unique needs are, there are five things every website owner should insist on in a web hosting package.   1. A reliable server You want to know with confidence that anytime someone tries to navigate to your website, they’ll see the site you designed. Otherwise, what are you paying for? Good web hosting providers promise high levels of uptime (the amount of time your website is live). If a provider you’re considering doesn’t promise at least 99% uptime, then you’ll be better off looking elsewhere. Note: All HostGator plans provide 99.9% uptime – even independent reviewers have confirmed how consistent the performance is. If you want to make sure people see your site every time they go looking for it, our plans are worth a look.   2. Compatibility with your web design needs Whether you need an easy way to design a website yourself, or your developer is pushing for something that works with WordPress, PHP, Ruby on Rails, or some other specific website software, your web hosting package needs to work with what you’re using.   3. Ability to handle the amount of traffic you receive For most new websites, this part isn’t hard – it takes some time to build up traffic and shared hosting accounts can manage in the realm of 30,000-40,000 monthly visitors without much issue. But if you anticipate more traffic than that, you’ll need to consider splurging for a higher-level plan that can accommodate those higher numbers.   4. Cost you can afford You can only invest in what you can afford. Have a general idea of your budget going into your search. Shared hosting plans are good enough for a lot of website needs and are typically very affordable – just a few bucks a month. More expensive plans offer more features, more customization options, or better bandwidth and speed for higher levels of traffic. There’s no need to pay for all that if you don’t need it, but if you do, the extra cost will be worth it. You can keep an eye out for good signup deals, but make sure you know what the ongoing costs will be. You must be able to afford the monthly or yearly fee once the signup deal has worn off.   5. Quality, accessible customer service Whether you’re a newbie who could use the help of a human to walk you through the basic processes of setting up your website or you’re a veteran web designer who just needs to be able to get someone on the phone immediately when there’s a problem, you want to know the customer support will be there when you need it. No matter the type of website you launch or hosting package you go with, research the reputation the provider has for customer service.  

Match Your Needs to Your Options

Now that you’ve identified some of the main things you should look for in a web hosting package, here’s a basic rundown of some of your main options to help you match what you need to what’s out there.  

The Different Types of Hosting

[caption id="attachment_17043" align="alignright" width="193"] Want to share our web hosting infographic? Click to enlarge.[/caption] You can get a more detailed explanation of how different web hosting plans work here, but here are the main categories to be aware of and who they’re usually for.   Shared Hosting Shared hosting is the best option for new website owners that are just starting out. If you want an easy, affordable plan that will work for a smaller website with moderate traffic, shared hosting will do the trick. And if you choose a web hosting provider that offers some of the other types of plans on the list, upgrading down the line if or when your website grows will be easy.   Cloud Hosting Cloud hosting is another affordable option, but one that offers impressive speed. If you want to be extra sure that people who visit your site will see fast load times – particularly if you have a lot on your site that could slow the load time, like high res images or videos – then this is a good option. The main reason to go with cloud hosting is for affordable speed, but it also offers easier maintenance and better response to sudden spikes in traffic.   VPS Hosting For websites that are getting bigger and growing their visitor numbers, VPS hosting is a step up from shared hosting in terms of the amount of traffic and storage it can handle. You’re not sharing a server with as many other websites, so your website can take advantage of a bigger share of the bandwidth. And for web developers looking for more customization options, VPS puts those possibilities into your hands.   WordPress Hosting Many websites that include blogs are built on WordPress, as the platform is designed specifically for blogging and has an intuitive back-end that makes it easy for website owners of all skill levels to make changes. For any website built on WordPress, a managed WordPress hosting plan can supply you with all the features you need for your website to run smoothly.   Dedicated Server For websites that anticipate having lots of traffic and needing a significant amount of storage space, your safest bet is to go with a dedicated server. This option ensures your website will keep going strong no matter how many unique visitors you get or how many gigabytes of storage you load to the site. It also allows for any customization options your developer could need. It does cost the most, but it also offers the most.  

Additional Features To Consider

Deciding on the type of hosting you need is a big step, but there are a number of additional features to consider based on the needs you defined:

• Website builder – Some web hosting packages either include a website builder as part of the package, or as an extra add-on you can buy. If you’re building your first website and want to save money on hiring a designer, this offers an easy way to do it yourself without having to learn to code.
• E-commerce features – If you’ll be selling products on your website, then you’ll need the functionality to allow people to add items to a shopping cart, check out, and ensure the whole process is secure. You need a web hosting platform that offers e-commerce features or is compatible with e-commerce software that does.
• Software compatibility – In general, you need to make sure that any web hosting package you consider will be compatible with the software you’ll be using for web design and e-commerce.
• SSL – E-commerce websites or any other type of site that will collect personal information from visitors should have SSL for protection. This feature encrypts all sensitive information you share through your website. It comes with many web hosting packages and can be bought as an add-on for many others.
• Easy migration – If you’re moving your website from one provider to another, you want the process to be simple. Web hosting providers that make the migration process easy and offer any support you need to get it done will make your life easier.
• Tutorials and other educational materials – If you’re new to running a website, access to educational resources will make a big difference to finding your way around the process. Many web hosting platforms will offer helpful tutorials and articles as well as customer support to help you get set up.
• Easy to use control panel – While those resources are good to have, not needing them is even better. An intuitive control panel can cut down on how much you need to learn in order to work with your website effectively.
•  Site backup – Nobody wants to lose everything they’ve worked on in a moment. Just like you backup your work, you should backup your website. Some web hosting packages include automatic backups so you never have to worry about losing everything. Others let you purchase automatic backup services on top of the cost of your plan. This option can give you peace of mind and save you in a pinch.

 

Conclusion

There’s a lot to consider when choosing your web hosting plan. Knowing the basics of what to look for will make your selection easier. If you could still use more information to help you make a decision, our hosting experts are on hand to answer any questions.

Take a Deeper Dive into Search Engine Optimization

What’s the point in having a website nobody can find? If you want people to actually see the website you’ve put so much work into, SEO’s an important part of getting it in front of them. But you probably already knew that much. You’re not a total newbie. If you’ve had a website for any length of time and have done at least basic research on online marketing, you’ve probably read enough to have the SEO basics covered (especially if you read our first ebook on the ABCs of SEO). But in learning all the SEO 101 stuff, you also figured out that SEO is competitive and you’ve got more to learn. That’s where our advanced ebook on SEO 2.0: Advanced SEO Tips for Non-Beginners comes in. In this ebook, you’ll learn all about important ranking factors to be aware of and online marketing techniques that will make your SEO efforts stronger. To give you a taste of what to look forward to in the ebook, here’s a sampling of what you’ll get if you download.

Click here to download the FREE ebook now!

 

1. A Top SEO Ranking Factor and How to Achieve It

While Google keeps a lot of secrets about how its algorithm works, there are bits and pieces of information they’ve shared publicly to help website owners out. Our ebook will get into one of the most important ranking factors Google has admitted to, why it matters as much as it does, and specific steps that website owners can take to make sure their websites perform well in this area. And a lot of the steps you can take for this one are relatively easy. Most of them can be done within a day. What ranking factor is it? Well, you’ll just have to download the ebook to find out, won’t you?  

2. How to Make Your Site More Intuitive to Users, While Also Improving SEO

A lot of the best practices for good SEO double as best practices that improve your visitors’ user experience. The second chapter of our ebook on advanced SEO practices dives into an important topic that’s all about making sure your website is easy for visitors to find their way around on – while also providing the search engines the information they need to understand what each page on your website is all about. Does that sound vague? Intentionally so! Trust us that this is an important part of the equation for SEO and something that will make your website both easier to manage in the long haul and more useful to your visitors.  

3. The Most Important Ongoing Strategy for SEO Results

To be fair here, different people have different arguments about what the most important strategy for SEO is, but we’ve got a pretty clear idea of where our vote goes and it’s the tactic Chapter 3 is all about. This chapter will make a case for why this type of strategy is so important and provide helpful details on everything you need to do to get started on this path, and what you need to do to keep up with it and get the most out of it over time. At this point, you know we’re not going to give away what that strategy is here in the post. You’ll have to check out the full ebook for that.  

4. What the SERPs Can Tell You About Your SEO Strategy

And finally, the last chapter of the ebook will look at what’s going on in the SERPs (search engine results pages) and why that matters for your overall SEO strategy. You’ll learn detailed steps for doing useful SERP research, understanding what you see there, and using what you find to your advantage to be more competitive in your SEO efforts. Even though this SEO ebook goes deeper in advanced SEO best practices, we’re still providing it to our followers entirely free. Click here for important insights and useful tips to strengthen your SEO strategy. Your website will be better for it.

YouTube is big business – and not just for Google (the company that owns it). Over a billion people use YouTube. That number sounds big enough on its own, but to really it put it into perspective, that’s about a third of the people on the internet. And some of those users are on YouTube just about every day. We can pretty well bet that if you’re reading this, you’re one of the more than a billion people that watch videos on YouTube, so you know that when you watch a video you normally see an ad. Naturally, some of the money for those ads goes to Google. In some cases though, the people who created the video get a cut too. YouTube has paid out $2 billion to content creators and rights holders that have taken the proper steps to claim their part of the earnings.   If you're looking to join their ranks, then read on.  

Who Can Make Money on YouTube?

We already covered the good news: YouTube does pay content creators. The bad news is that most people that load videos to YouTube will never see a dime. And many of those that do actually get paid won’t be making enough to leave their day jobs. For you to earn anything, your videos have to attract not only a lot of viewers, but also viewers that are willing to engage with the ads. That means they have to actually watch a decent portion of the ad before clicking that “skip” button (you know the one, you’ve probably clicked lots of times yourself), or actually click on the link that shows up at the bottom of the screen during the ad. Those who are popular enough can reach the point of earning thousands on the website, but it’s a rare few that reach that point. The platform hosts billions of videos, so your competition is pretty fierce. So don’t quit your job or base all your future hopes on YouTube. But if you like creating videos anyway and you want to see if your hobby can start to pay off, it doesn’t hurt to take the proper steps that make it possible to get paid by YouTube. Note: In early 2018, YouTube made changes to its Partner Program. In order to be eligible for monetization, accounts must have accrued 4,000 hours of watch time in the past year and reach 1,000 subscribers. Follow the steps below to opt-in to the program so once you reach that threshold, you can make money on YouTube!  

7 Steps to YouTube Monetization

If you want at least a chance at making money on YouTube, here’s what you need to do.  

Step 1: Set up your YouTube channel.

If you already have a Google account, as most people do, then use that to login to YouTube. If you don’t yet have a Google account, start by creating one here, and then go ahead and log in to YouTube. Once you’re logged in, click the Upload button in the top right of the screen and you’ll receive a prompt to create a channel. Click “Create Channel” and you’re done.  

Step 2: Create your video plan.

Now you need to make some decisions about the videos you’re going to upload. If you really want to gain subscribers and encourage engagement, then your goal should be to build a following of people that like your videos enough to subscribe to your channel and return again and again. A good video plan therefore needs to do a few things:

• Make sure you understand the audience you want to reach.
• Brainstorm a list of topics for videos that will appeal to that audience.
• Create a schedule for your videos. You’re more likely to gain and attract followers if you upload consistently at regular intervals.

You might want to spend some time during this step perusing some of the most popular videos in your space to see what people respond to. You don’t want to do the same thing that other content creators are doing, but you can glean some insights into what works best to apply to your own videos. Your plan doesn’t have to be set in stone, but having a plan in place to guide you will help ensure you stick with it and approach your YouTube channel in a strategic way that's more likely to pay off.  

Step 3: Enable monetization.

Now click on the Account icon in the top right corner of the screen and then click on the Creator Studio button that appears. On the menu on the left side of the screen click on Channel, then choose Status and Features in the submenu that opens up under it. Now you’ll see the option to enable monetization. (Note: You may have to provide Google with your country before the enable button shows up, simply follow the instructions the screen provides to do so).  

Step 4: Sign up for Google AdSense.

Once you’ve enabled monetization, clicking the Monetization option in the menu will take you to a page where you can start the process of setting up your Google AdSense account, or connecting an account you already have to your channel. Simply select “Next” and follow the instructions to create your account.  

Step 5: Start loading (good) videos.

Now the basic stuff is covered and you’ve reached the hard part.  Create the videos you decided on in your plan and start uploading them to the channel. We already established that your videos have to be pretty darn good and appeal to a large audience for you to make any money, so spend some real time working to make sure your videos are especially educational, entertaining, or unique so that they’ll gain attention in a crowded space.  

Step 6: Promote your videos.

Even if your videos are awesome, people won’t automatically know to come looking for you. Research the best practices for optimizing your YouTube videos for search so it’s easier for people to find you that way. Share your videos on social media. Talk them up to friends and family members that may be interested. If people love them, eventually you’ll reach a tipping point where your subscribers start to do some of the promotion for you. In the meantime, you need to put some real effort into getting your videos in front of people.  

Step 7: Keep an eye on your analytics.

At first, your analytics won’t tell you all that much. As you get more and more viewers though, you’ll be able to use your YouTube Analytics to figure out which types of videos or topics get the best results – both in terms of views and engagement. You’ll also be able to figure out a little bit about who your audience is and how they’re finding their way to your videos so you can refine your promotion efforts based on what’s working. Use that information to continually improve your video plan. The better your videos perform, the more you’ll be able to make in the long run. Don’t be surprised if you don’t make much headway with making money on YouTube. If you have fun creating your videos, then you won’t be wasting your time even if you never reach a payday. Keep your expectations realistic and stick with making videos of a type that you know you’ll enjoy creating, so the possibility of making money will simply be a nice bonus if or when you achieve it. Have you had success monetizing your YouTube videos? Share your channel in the comments!

12 Popular Types of Websites You Can Create

The web is vast. As of now, there are billions of websites online, all competing for some share of the attention people give to their online browsing each day. When you’re starting a new website, it can be overwhelming to think about all the other websites out there. But it’s helpful to remember that within that huge number of websites, you have a lot of different categories of types of websites trying to accomplish different things. As you consider how best to build your own website, carefully consider what type of website you want it to be. When you can narrow down the goals and setup you have in mind, you can more easily identify the other websites in your category to look to for inspiration. Here are twelve of the most popular types of websites you’ll see around the web. While there’s some overlap between the different categories, in general each type of website has certain goals to achieve and its own set of best practices. Which one will your website be?  

1. E-commerce Website

An e-commerce website is a website people can directly buy products from. You’ve probably used a number of e-commerce websites before, most big brands and plenty of smaller ones have one. Any website that includes a shopping cart and a way for you to provide credit card information to make a purchase falls into this category. If you’re setting up a website for your business and plan to sell your products through the site, then this is the type of website you need to build. There are some specific steps you have to be sure to include when building an ecommerce website, like investing in ecommerce software and getting your SSL certificate to ensure your customers can pay securely. And you’ll want to make sure your web design and copy are all crafted with the site’s main goal in mind: making sales. Ecommerce websites can be an extension of a business you already have, or become something you build a new business around.  

2. Business Website

A business website is any website that’s devoted to representing a specific business. It should be branded like the business (the same logo and positioning) and communicate the types of products and/or services the business offers. By now, every business out there should have a website. It’s a widespread expectation. Every potential customer you encounter will just assume that if they Google your business looking for more information, they’ll find a website. And if they don’t, it makes the business look less professional or legitimate. E-commerce websites are business websites, but it’s also possible to have business websites that don’t sell anything directly, but rather encourage visitors to get in contact for more information (a lead generation website) or come to a storefront if they’re interested in becoming customers.

3. Entertainment Website

If you think about your internet browsing habits, you can probably think of a few websites that you visit purely for entertainment purposes. They could be humor websites like The Onion, webcomics like xkcd, or just websites with fun or interesting content like Buzzfeed. Most of these websites do aim to make money like business and e-commerce websites do, but usually through the advertisements that show up on the page rather than through selling specific products or services. If you want to start an entertainment website, you’ve got a lot of options for formats that can take. You could make funny or informative videos, write entertaining blog posts, draw comics, or create fun quizzes. Since there are so many entertainment websites out there, you should anticipate it taking some time and work to find an audience that connects with you (and even more time and work to start making money, if that’s your ultimate goal), but if you’ve got ideas for content to create that you think people will find entertaining, an entertainment website is one of the best ways to get that content out into the world.  

4. Portfolio Website

Portfolio websites are sites devoted to showing examples of past work. Service providers who want to show potential clients the quality of the work they provide can use a portfolio website to collect some of the best samples of past work they’ve done. This type of website is simpler to build than a business website and more focused on a particular task: collecting work samples. This type of website is most common for creative professionals and freelancers that are hired based on demonstrated skill and can be a more efficient alternative to a business website that serves a similar focus.  

5. Media Website

Media websites collect news stories or other reporting. There’s some overlap here with entertainment websites, but media websites are more likely to include reported pieces in addition to or instead of content meant purely for entertainment. This category includes sites like the Washington Post website, Slate, and Inc. Media websites generally make money through either advertisements that show up on the site, subscription models, or some combination of the two. Many media websites are the online branch of media properties that often exist in other forms, like TV channels or print magazines and newspapers, but some are online only.  

6. Brochure Website

Brochure websites are a simplified form of business websites. For businesses that know they need an online presence, but don’t want to invest a lot into it (maybe you’re confident you’ll continue to get most of your business from other sources), a simple brochure site that includes just a few pages that lay out the basics of what you do and provide contact information may be enough for you. Brochure sites were more common in the earlier days of the internet when businesses knew they needed a website, but also expected not to be dependent on it for success. Now that the internet is such a big part of how people research and find just about every product and service they need, most businesses recognize that they need something more competitive. If you have a business and know you don’t need your website to be a marketing tool that brings in new business, you just need something more like an online business card, then a brochure website may do the trick.  

7. Nonprofit Website

In the same way that businesses need websites to be their online presence, nonprofits do as well. A nonprofit website is the easiest way for many potential donors to make donations and will be the first place many people look to learn more about a nonprofit and determine if they want to support it. If you have or are considering starting a nonprofit, then building a website for your organization is a crucial step in proving your legitimacy and reaching more people. You can use it to promote the projects your organization tackles, encourage followers to take action, and for accepting donations. Note: To take donations through the website, you’ll have to take some of the same steps that the owners of ecommerce sites do. In particular, make sure you get an SSL certificate to make sure all payments are secure, and set up a merchant account so that you can accept credit card payments.  

8. Educational Website

The websites of educational institutions and those offering online courses fall into the category of educational websites. These websites have the primary goal of either providing educational materials to visitors, or providing information on an educational institution to them. Some educational websites will have advertisements like entertainment and media websites do. Some offer subscription models or educational products for purchase. And some serve as the online presence for an existing institution.

9. Infopreneur Website

Infopreneur websites overlap a bit with business and ecommerce websites, but they represent a unique type of online business. Infopreneurs create and sell information products. That could be in the form of courses, tutorials, videos or ebooks. Whatever form it takes, infopreneurs need their website to do the hard work of building up a knowledge brand – convincing visitors that they know enough to make their educational products worth buying – and the work of selling those products. To sell information products securely, they’ll need some of the same tools of an ecommerce website, including an SSL certificate and a merchant account. Those with a lot of knowledge products should also invest in ecommerce software to make it easier for visitors to select and purchase the ones they’re interested in. Infopreneurs normally create a mix of valuable free content and premium content they charge for. The infopreneur’s website serves as the central location for both things – the free content which serves as a marketing tool to get people onto the site, and the paid products that account for their profits. Building a good website is therefore crucial for this type of business model.

10. Personal Website

Not all websites exist to make money in some way or another. Many people find value in creating personal websites to put their own thoughts out into the world. This category includes personal blogs, vlogs, and photo diaries people share with the world. Sometimes these websites can evolve into something that makes money if they become popular enough and the person who started them wants to make that shift, but they primarily exist as a way to share your feelings, insights, and art with any friends and strangers that might be interested. Building a personal website is easier than most of the other websites on the list since the goal has lower stakes. You just want to make it look like you want, rather than worrying about driving sales or making ad money. Some simple templates or an easy-to-use website builder should be all it takes to get something up that satisfies your desire to share.  

11. Web Portal

Web portals are often websites designed for internal purposes at a business, organization, or institution. They collect information in different formats from different sources into one place to make all relevant information accessible to the people who need to see it. They often involve a login and personalized views for different users that ensure the information that’s accessible is most useful to their particular needs. Web portals will generally involve more complicated programming and design than most of the other websites described on this list, so make the most sense for skilled and experienced web programmers to consider.  

12. Wiki or Community Forum Website

Most people are familiar with wikis through the most famous example of one out there: Wikipedia. But wikis can be created on pretty much any subject you can imagine. A wiki is any website where various users are able to collaborate on content and all make their own tweaks and changes as they see fit. There are wikis for fan communities, for business resources, and for collecting valuable information sources. Starting a wiki can be fairly simple, especially if you choose to use an existing software or wiki site builder rather than trying to create the website from scratch. This option makes the most sense if you need to organize available information and resources into a central space that you want others to have access to.  

What Type of Website Will You Create?

Whatever type of website you choose to create, it’s important to think through what you want from it and make sure you design it based on the particular goals you have in mind. And one of the first things you’ll need to figure out before your website goes live is where to host it. HostGator has a number of affordable web hosting plans that are right for all kinds of types of websites. For more information, review the options on our website or get in touch with any questions you have. Building a website does require some work, but the benefits of having one are usually well worth the effort.