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Link building isn’t rocket science. There’s no secret club where only an elite few get taught how to build links. Anyone can do it. 

The fundamental process is as follows:

1. Create something worthy of a link.
2. Find people who might be interested in linking to you.
3. Persuade those people to do precisely that.

The problem? Step #1 takes a lot of time, and skill, and knowledge of your industry.

But here’s the thing:

Most businesses, products, and services are already worthy of links.

You don’t have to spend countless hours creating an all-singing-all-dancing interactive infographic to get backlinks. You can build links using what you already have on your website and speed up the process—dramatically.

Want proof? Here’s a link we got to ahrefs.com without creating any new content:

In this post, you’ll learn seven link building tactics you can use without creating new content. Here are the link building tactics:

1. Piggyback off competitors’ resource page links
2. Get links from the companies with whom you have existing relationships
3. Convert “unlinked mentions” to links
4. Get listed on relevant best x in y lists
5. Look for pages that mention multiple competitors… but not you
6. Get forum links (yes, really)
7. Steal links from less-deserving content (and businesses)

Here’s what a resource page looks like:

Example of a “resource page”. Note that this previously useful page no longer exists.

You can see that it does what it says on the tin—it lists and links to “resources.”

Getting links from resource pages like this is one of the oldest tactics in the book. But you can’t get resource page links unless you have a worthwhile resource to pitch, right? Right.

An important point here is that when we talk about resources in this context, we’re not necessarily talking about lengthy blog posts or interactive infographics.

Your business is a resource in itself.

To illustrate what I mean by that, take a closer look at the resource page above.

You’ll notice that it links out to a lot of useful companies homepages—printing companies, illustrators, etc. That’s because they all offer products or services that are useful for designers.

Here’s the process most SEO professionals use to find and land links from resource pages:

1. Use Google search operators to find niche-relevant resource pages (e.g., intitle:fitness inurl:resources)
2. Scrape them.
3. Pursue the worthwhile ones.

This approach does work. But there are two problems:

Problem #1: Scraping Google is time-consuming and requires some degree of skill. You have to use tens or hundreds of search operators, scrape the results for all of them, then merge and dedupe your list in Excel or Google Sheets. That can take hours.

Problem #2: You almost always end up scraping a lot of irrelevant and junk pages, such as those that only link to internal resources like this one:

Those are no use to us. So what’s the solution?

Piggyback off your competitors’ resource page links. In other words, find the resource page links that your direct competitors have, then replicate them.

For example, let’s say we were trying to build links to discountstickerprinting.co.uk. One competitor might be vistaprint.co.uk.

Paste that domain into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer. Then navigate to the Backlinks report and add a “Dofollow” filter.

Site Explorer > enter competing domain > Backlinks > add “dofollow” filter

Type “resources” into the search box. You should see something like this:

Most of the results are resource pages from which the competitor has links. So we can be sure that they’re relevant targets.

But don’t stop there.

If you find a resource page from which a competitor has a backlink, take a look at that page and see if there are any other similar businesses listed there. If there are, paste those into Site Explorer too, then rinse and repeat the process above to find even more resource pages.

Finally, reach out the owners of the resource pages and ask them to add your business.

But don’t just ask. Give them a compelling reason why they should spend time adding you to their page. Think about how having your business listed on that page would be valuable to their visitors.

Here are a few potential reasons:

• Better than the competitor also listed on the page.
• Local/family-run business (people love to support local businesses);
• Specialize in a particular area (e.g., perhaps your competitor prints all manner of things, whereas you specialize in poster printing);
• New or alternative option to a competing product or service.

Not sure how to find these folks’ email addresses or “pitch” them? Read this and this.

Learn more about resource page link building in this video:

Look at this page:

It’s from a vegetarians snacks brand. It lists and links to all of their stockists. These “suppliers” pages are quite common. So if you happen to stock or sell any third-party products, these are prime link targets.

But what if you don’t stock and sell other brands’ products?

Simple. Look for similar pages from your “suppliers,” like this one that lists their clients/customers…

… or this one that features customer testimonials…

I’m not necessarily talking about suppliers of raw materials here. It could be any business that’s affiliated with your business: accountant, financial advisor, print or graphic design company, etc.

Sidenote.

You can find a good list of business types to considerhere.

So what’s the process for getting links from these people?

To start, you need to make two lists:

1. Brands you stock (if applicable)
2. Your suppliers—i.e., the businesses/services/products you use

Here’s what that would look like for a hypothetical coffee shop:

You then need to tackle each of these two lists independently.

For stockists, search for them one-by-one in Google using the following operator: site:brand.com intitle:”stockists” OR intitle:”where to buy”

If they have a relevant page, you should see a result like this:

Sidenote.

It’s worth manually vetting the page before reaching out. Not all “stockists” pages link to their stockists. Some only list them.

For the businesses whose services and products you use, do the same thing but with this operator instead: site:supplier.com intitle:”our customers” OR intitle:”our clients”

Here’s an example of a relevant result:

You can then reach out and request to be added to these pages.

Not finding any such pages from the companies with whom you’re affiliated? Look for testimonials pages using site:supplier.com testimonial. If they have one, all you need to do is to get in touch and send them your testimonial.

Here’s one that Tim sent to Canny—the customer feedback app we use and love:

Not only is there a link to ahrefs.com here, but this is also a standalone page dedicated entirely to us. Our testimonial/story is also quite in-depth, which brings me to another crucial point:

Never fake testimonials to get a link. That’s shady and unethical.

You should only supply companies with testimonials if you genuinely love what they do.

People will sometimes mention your business but fail to link to you.

This happens more often than you might think.

Here’s an example:

Unlinked mention of Ahrefs

And another one:

Unlinked mention of Ahrefs Content Explorer

But it isn’t only big companies like Ahrefs that this happens to.

Here’s an unlinked mention for a small coffee shop in Toronto, Canada:

You can see that this blogger mentions Dineen Coffee. Yet there’s no link.

Disappointing? Definitely. But unlinked mentions are one of the best link building opportunities you’re likely to find.

That’s because these people are already fans of your business. They know what you do. They like what you do. They even mentioned you. So getting them to link is an easy sell.

You only have to reach out and kindly ask that they “make the mention clickable.”

The question is, how do you find unlinked mentions in the first place?

One way is to search in Google for something like: intext:[your brand name] -yourdomain.com -twitter.com -facebook.com -pinterest.com -youtube.com. This will show most of the places on the web that mention your brand.

You can then manually sift through the results looking for unlinked mentions.

Just view the source code for each page, hit CMD+F—CTRL+F on Windows—and search for yourdomain.com. If the search returns no results, then it’s an unlinked mention.

The issue here is that this process is extremely time-consuming. So here’s a quicker and easier way:

Content Explorer > search for your brand name

Think of Content Explorer as a mini search engine. It searches a database of over a billion web pages for those mentioning any keyword or phrase. In this case, that’s your brand name.

The next step is to check these pages for unlinked mentions.

To automate that process, you can export the full report from Content Explorer and use the custom search feature functionality in Screaming Frog to check whether each page links to your website. You can learn how to do that in this video (or in our full guide to unlinked mentions):

But as we’re focussing on efficiency and speed here, a shortcut is to use the “highlight unlinked domains” feature in Content Explorer to literally highlight results from websites that have never linked to you before.

Note that this checks for links at the domain level, not the web page level. That means it won’t highlight every page that has an unlinked mention.

But there are two reasons why this works well:

1. It’s quick. No need to export the report and scrape data using third-party tools.
2. It prioritizes the best opportunities. Links from new referring domains (i.e., websites that haven’t yet linked to you) and generally considered to be worth more than additional links from sites that have already linked to you. That’s what you see in Content Explorer.

Finally, export these web pages to CSV.

Export > Full export > tick the “Only highlighted unlinked domains” checkbox

You now have a CSV full of unlinked mentions.

Find their email addresses. Then reach out and request the link.

Here’s an outreach email we’ve used successfully to do this successfully in the past…

… and here’s the response to that email:

IMPORTANT. Don’t copy that outreach email word for word. Customize it for your particular needs.

Which brings me to an interesting point:

It’s not just unlinked mentions of your brand name that you should look out for. You can also look for unlinked mentions of:

• Your branded products (e.g., iPhone, Apple Watch, iMac, etc.)
• Company representatives (e.g., Tim Cook, Jony Ive, etc.)
• Anything else related to your business (e.g., branded events such as WWDC)

Learn more: A Simple Guide to Turning (Unlinked) Brand Mentions into Links

Here’s one of the posts we found in Content Explorer using the previous tactic:

This post already m
entions Dineen Coffee. But this one doesn’t:

Or this one:

Where am I going with this?

Best x in y lists exist for all kinds of businesses in all sorts of locations. There are guaranteed to be similar lists in your niche or local area.

So if you’re not already featured, why not reach out and see if you they’ll add you?

Here’s why this makes sense:

1. You know they’re already interested in what your business does. So much so, that they’ve written a blog post about it.
2. You know that they either don’t know about your business or forgot about you when creating that post.

That’s what makes it an easy sell to ask for inclusion.

So go to Google and search for something like:

Best BUSINESS TYPE -“YOUR BUSINESS NAME”

This will return “best x” posts that don’t already mention you.

Here are the results for best coffee in toronto -dineen:

Look through the results and make sure you’re not already listed. Reach out to the relevant folks.

Here’s an excellent opportunity I found for Dineen Coffee in ~30 seconds:

You can see that the post lists 23 coffee shops, none of which are Dineen Coffee.

Furthermore, Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar reports that this page is on a DR56 domain and that the URL gets at least some organic search traffic. Perfect.

But here’s the real icing on the cake: the list was recently-updated. It says so at the bottom of the page. And it even tells us who is responsible for updating it.

Bingo! Now we can reach out.

Another trick is to look for website’s that have reviewed competing businesses.

Here’s a search operator you can use for that:

COMPETING BUSINESS NAME intitle:review -”YOUR BUSINESS NAME”

Or you can paste the competing website’s domain into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, then look for reviews in the Backlinks report.

The thinking here is that if they’ve reviewed a similar business, they may also be interested in reviewing yours. Or at least trying out your products or services.

Take a look at this post:

It talks about the cheapest email marketing services in 2018.

Now I know from experience that MailChimp is quite a low-cost email marketing service. Yet MailChimp isn’t mentioned in this post. Nor is MailerLite or MoonMail—two free email marketing tools.

Here’s what I’m getting at…

If you can find websites that mention multiple competitors (but not you), it may make sense to reach out and introduce them to your brand. In doing so, you may even be able to convince them to add your business to that page.

So how do you find relevant pages?

To begin, make a list of 3–5 biggest competitors.

Here’s what that might look like for an email marketing service:

1. ActiveCampaign
2. ConvertKit
3. Drip
4. Aweber

Now type this into Google:

(“COMPETITOR1” AND COMPETITOR2) -intext:”YOUR BRAND” -site:competitor1.com -site:competitor2.com -intitle:competitor1 -intitle:competitor2

You should see something like this:

There are hundreds of pages that mention ActiveCampaign and ConvertKit but not MailChimp.

Sidenote.

You’ll need to run multiple searches for all the various combinations of competitors. E.g., replace competitors 1+2 with competitors 3+4, etc.

You’ll need then to export the search results to CSV. For that, you can use Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar.

That will download the results alongside Ahrefs SEO metrics like organic traffic, UR, etc. You can then easily sort and filter by those metrics to prioritize the best link opportunities.

However, the downside of using Google is that you can only export a hundred results at a time.

So another alternative is to use Ahrefs Content Explorer instead. Just search for:

(“COMPETITOR1” AND COMPETITOR2) -”YOUR BRAND” -site:competitor1.com -site:competitor2.com -title:competitor1 -title:competitor2

You should see something like this:

Here, 90 web pages mention ActiveCampaign and ConvertKit but not MailChimp.

You can sort and filter the results in Content Explorer without exporting.

Whichever tool you use, the final thing to do is to sift through the results. Try to understand why they mentioned your competitor but not you. This will usually be for one of these reasons:

1. They’re not familiar with your business or brand.
2. They prefer a competing product or service.
3. They’re listing companies that do what you do (but neglected to mention your business)
4. They’re referencing something your competitor did (e.g., newsworthy event, linkbait, etc.)

Because this guide focusses on building backlinks fast, your best bet is to look for articles where your business could be added quickly and easily, such as relevant listicles…

… and guides:

You can then reach out with something like this:

“Hey [NAME],

Josh here from Ahrefs.

Is there any reason you mention both [Competitor 1] and [Competitor 2] on your [insert post topic here] but not [your business]?

Just curious Whatever the reason, I’m actually kind of excited you didn’t list us because it gives me a chance to tell you about our awesome product/brand/company which I think you’ll love, because it’s [Why it’s good].

Any chance you could add us to that post?

Cheers,

Josh”

Don’t copy this word for word. That’s lazy. Always add your own unique spin to outreach emails.

Here’s what a forum link looks like:

These are easy to get. You sign up for a forum, find relevant threads, and leave a valuable comment on the thread. It’s the same story with Q&A sites like Quora.

The problem? These are almost always “nofollow” links which don’t pass PageRank.

So let me introduce you to a quick trick:

Site Explorer > enter a competing domain > Backlinks > filter for “dofollow” links > filter for links from “message boards”

This shows you all your competitors “dofollow” links from forums.

Register with those same forums. Find a relevant thread. Leave a valuable comment.

Two important things to note about this:

1. Such links are few and far between: Most forums “nofollow” all of their links by default. Your competitors may not have many of these links for you to replicate.
2. Such links are often spammy: Be very careful with this. Don’t replicate every one without first doing due diligence. If the forum or thread looks spammy (which is common), forget it.

Still, throw enough competitors into Site Explorer, and you should end up with at least a handful of easily replicable links that you can build today. But what about once you’ve exhausted those opportunities?

I’m afraid it’s back to the “nofollow” opportunities.

Contrary to popular belief, such links aren’t bad. If you want backlinks fast, you shouldn’t neglect them.

But here’s the thing:

It takes roughly the same amount of time to leave a thoughtful comment on any relevant thread. So why not prioritize leaving comments on threads that get high amounts of traffic?

Not only does that make logical business sense (more eyeballs = more business), but it also makes sense from a link building perspective because more eyeballs often lead to more links.

Think of it like this:

If a web page gets zero visitors per month: Nobody can link to you. Nobody even knows your page exists.

If a web page gets 1,000 visitors per month: Maybe 10 of those people have websites and may link to you.

If a web page gets 100,000 visitors per month: Even if only 0.1% of those people link to you, that’s 100 new backlinks per month.

Posting on relevant forum threads with decent traffic gets your business in front of people that may have the power to link to you from elsewhere—places like blogs that don’t ”nofollow” tags to their links.

So how do you find relevant forum threads with traffic?

Use this Google search operator to find relevant Quora threads…

site:quora.com + TOPIC

… then download the results using Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar or the Scraper Chrome extension.

NOTE. Here’s the XPath syntax if you’re using Scraper: //div[@class=”srg”]/div/div/div/div/a/@href

If you used Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar to scrape the results, then the resulting CSV will include estimated organic traffic metrics for each page. Sort by this column and go after the most trafficked pages first.

Sidenote.

You can change the website in that operator from Quora to any other forum. It’ll work just as well.

This works. But it’s not particularly efficient, especially if the forum you’re interested is big. There’ll be thousands of search results, and it’ll be impossible to scrape them all.

So here’s another method:

Paste a relevant forum (e.g., Quora) into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer. Go to the Top Pages report. Search for a keyword related to your niche.

You will then see all relevant pages, sorted by their estimated monthly organic search from (low to high). Sift through them. Get involved with relevant threads. Include your link (where relevant —don’t force it!)

Do this, and you’re guaranteed some fast backlinks.

You can even use this same process to find good blog comment opportunities.

Just enter a relevant blog into Site Explorer, go to the Top Pages report. Look for relevant high-traffic pages.

If they allow comments, get involved in the conversation.

Have you heard of the “skyscraper” technique?

Here’s what it involves:

1. Find a relevant piece of content with tons of backlinks;
2. Create something even better;
3. Ask those linking to the now inferior content to link to your piece instead.

Makes sense. But there’s one big problem:

Creating industry-leading 10X content takes time—a lot of time.

That makes it pretty useless if you have less time and resources than your competitors.

But what if you could cut out steps #1 + #2 and start from step #3? That would make things easier.

Here’s the simple way to do that:

Rather than creating something new, utilize what you already have.

In other words, take your best asset—be it an excellent product, an epic piece of content, some research, etc.—and hustle to promote it by piggybacking off other similar or inferior stuff.

Here’s an example:

This protective iPhone X case has links from 75 referring domains. However, when CNET tested the durability of 12 such cases, this was one of the first to fail.

Supcase’s Unicorn Beetle Pro iPhone X case, on the other hand, fared extremely well—it was one of the few cases to survive all four rounds of testing. It was also one of the cheapest of the bunch at $19.95.

Translation: this product is better (and cheaper) than the one that has amassed many links.

So if you were the creator of this product, you could reach out to anyone linking to the “inferior” product and explain that they may instead want to recommend (and link to) your product.

Here’s what that might look like:

“Hey [NAME],

Josh here from Supcase.

I just came across your Device Case Buyer’s Guide and saw that you recommended the Rhinoshield Crashguard.

Did you know that when CNET tested 12 iPhone X cases, this was one of the first to fail?

I’m not sure if you’ve personally tried our Unicorn Beetle Pro case, but this was one of the few to survive CNET’s rigorous testing. Not only that, but it’s actually ~$5 cheaper than the Rhinoshield Crashguard—one of the cases you currently recommend.

Just thought I’d give you a heads up in case (no pun intended!) you wanted to swap out the recommendation.

Cheers,

[YOUR NAME]”

Make sense?

This does take a bit of research. You need to figure out what makes your product or service better than a competing one. Nobody will swap out a link without a compelling reason to do so.

You can also do much the same thing for other content you have—blog posts, guides, etc.

For example, let’s say you’re a graphic design company. Perhaps you’ve got a guide to color theory on your website, like this one:

Is this a “10X” guide? Not really. But it’s still pretty decent—long, detailed and well-written.

Here’s another blog post about the same topic:

It doesn’t take a genius to see that this is a much lower-quality guide. It’s out of date and nowhere near as thorough.

Yet it has 756 links from 117 referring domains!

Translation: 117 potential link opportunities!

Here’s how you might choose to tackle this one:

“Hey [NAME],

Josh here from 99designs.

I just came across your post about some essential website planning tools and noticed you recommended this guide to color theory: [LINK]

Having read through it myself, it looks to be a bit out of date and also not particularly thorough. For instance, there’s no mention of hue, shade, tint, and tone—a concept that is paramount to understanding color theory, in my opinion.

So, a quick heads up—we recently put together what we believe to be a much more thorough and in-depth guide to color theory. You can see
that here: [LINK]

Perhaps it may be worth adding this to your list of tools? Or maybe it’d make sense to swap out Creativbloq’s out of date guide in favor of ours to keep your post up to date?

Cheers,

[YOUR NAME]”

You get the idea.

The question is: how do you find relevant opportunities like this?

Here’s the manual way:

1. Find a decent piece of content on your site;
2. Search in Google for other similar content;
3. Pluck out the inferior pages.
4. Paste them into a tool like Ahrefs’ Site Explorer to see how many backlinks they have.

That works. It’s just time-consuming. You’ll also often struggle to find similar content that has enough backlinks to make this worth your while.

So here’s a better—and smarter—way:

Use Content Explorer to find for similar pieces of content that have backlinks.

Just search for a keyword related to the content to which you wish to build links. E.g., if we wanted to build links to the color theory guide mentioned above, we could search for something like “color theory.”

Next, use the inbuilt filters to narrow down the results to weak or thin pages with lots of referring domains (I usually go for around 50). You can use the word count filter to identify weak pages.

Finally, check out the Backlinks report in Site Explorer for any relevant results you find. Just hit the caret on any Content Explorer result and hit “Backlinks” to do this.

Sift through these manually (note: I usually add a “dofollow” filter here) and reach out to any relevant sites.

Backlinks aren’t everything—don’t underestimate the power of internal links

Internal links point to other pages and posts on the same website, like this.

Most SEOs know about internal links. But many neglect them as they don’t believe in their ranking power. That’s a bad idea. In this case study, Ninja Outreach used internal linking to boost their traffic by 40%.

Furthermore, Google’s John Mueller noted that the anchor text of internal links provides Google with additional context as to the subject nature of linked content in this tweet.

Long story short, a smart internal linking strategy is likely to have a positive effect on rankings.

How do you do it? Simple

1. Find a page you want to boost.
2. Find other topically-relevant and strong pages on your site.
3. Link from those pages to the target page.

Let me give you an example:

We have a landing page for our Site Explorer tool.

This is a page that we want to rank for the term “site explorer.”

Unfortunately, building links to landing pages and “commercial” content like this is difficult. It’s much easier to get links to blog posts and other non-commercial content.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at the Ahrefs blog in Site Explorer’s Best by Links report:

You can see that some of our posts have backlinks from hundreds of referring domains.

In other words, they’re strong pages in Google’s eyes and hold a lot of “link equity.”

So what we can do is to add internal links from the powerful blog posts to our Site Explorer landing page. That will help to strengthen the target page and perhaps, even be enough to boost its rankings for relevant keywords.

How can you find relevant pages from which to add internal links?

Type this into Google:

site:yourdomain.com “relevant keyword”

Replace the domain with your own. Replace the “relevant keyword” with something topically-related to the page to which you want to build internal links.

Here’s what ours would look like for this example:

site:ahrefs.com/blog “site explorer”

That returns the pages on our blog that mention “Site Explorer.” I.e., excellent places from which to add internal links to our landing page.

Next step—download the search results with Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar (or the Scraper extension).

Open the results in Excel or Google Sheets and sort by URL Rating (UR) in descending order.

Paste each of these pages into your browser. View the source code (right click > view page source). Search for the URL of the page to which you want to build internal links.

If the search returns one or more results (as is the case above), then that page already links to your target page. Move on to the next page in your spreadsheet.

Should any of the pages return no re
sults, it means that your target keyword is mentioned on that page yet doesn’t link to the relevant internal page. This is your opportunity to add an internal link, like so:

Final thoughts

Link building isn’t as hard as most people think. Most businesses can build some great links without having to invest in new content.

My advice? Give these tactics a shot and see which work best for your site. Even if you only have an hour or so per day, you should still be able to make some progress and build some decent links.

Of course, you can outsource some of the workload to a VA or another member of your team if you want to move faster.

Further reading

Source

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Why do you need WordPress for your small business website?
How to use WordPress themes to build a website
How to start selling on WordPress with WooCommerce

WordPress Websites Frequently Asked Questions

What’s WordPress?

WordPress® is a blog- and web-publishing platform that’s not only easy to use but recognized the world over as the standard in website creation. With its focus on aesthetics, web standards and usability, WordPress is an open-source platform that lets you manage everything from a small personal blog to a large commercial site with hundreds of pages.

What is a WordPress websites plan?

For an easier, automated WordPress experience, we modify our servers specifically for WordPress. We give you a level of speed and security you can’t get from a standard web hosting plan. More than just an auto-install, WordPress is seamlessly integrated. That means the moment you log in, you’re able to build, edit and manage your site. And of course, our award-winning support is available 24×7 to help with any questions you may have. There’s no easier way to build and manage a fast, secure, reliable WordPress website or blog.

How does your version of WordPress differ from other installations?

The WordPress is the same. The stuff that makes it easier and more automated is unique to GoDaddy. We start you out with the latest version of WordPress, the same one you’d download from WordPress.org. And anytime there’s an update, we install it for you automatically. You never have to hassle with installing another update or worry about running an outdated or compromised version of WordPress.

Do I need to set up my WordPress database?

No. With WordPress websites, we take care of everything, so the process is as easy as possible for you. Once you’ve purchased your plan, you can immediately create your website or start blogging.

Which versions of PHP does WordPress websites support?

GoDaddy WordPress websites supports PHP 5.6 through the latest version.

If I have a WordPress site hosted somewhere else, can I move it to GoDaddy?

Yes. You can migrate your site over to GoDaddy in just one click. Either move it to your domain name or put it on a temporary domain, the just do a quick review and you’re ready to publish.

After I purchase WordPress websites, how do I get started?

Your chosen plan is seamlessly connected to the latest version of WordPress, all you need to do is log in and you can start building a site directly from your control panel.

If you ever have questions, contact our award-winning 24/7 support team. Our in-house WordPress experts can guide you through creating, updating or even promoting your website or blog.

How do I log in to my WordPress website or blog?

Log in to My Account and choose Managed WordPress. Type in your domain name, and that will take you directly to the Admin login screen. For more help, contact us.

*Disclaimers

Third-party logos and marks are registered trademarks of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

Disclaimers

* Third-party logos and marks are registered trademarks of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

Annual discounts available on new purchases only.

Products will automatically renew until cancelled. You may turn off the auto-renewal feature by visiting your GoDaddy account.

Special introductory pr
icing valid for the initial purchase term only. Product renewal pricing subject to change. Requires annual/multi-year purchase paid in advance.

SSL certificate is included for free as part of your managed WordPress product. Annual plan purchase required. If you cancel the managed WordPress product, you will lose the associated SSL certificate as well. Find the SSL certificate(s) in your My Account dashboard.

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What is WordPress? At its core, WordPress is the simplest, most popular way to create your own website or blog. In fact, WordPress powers over 35.2% of all the websites on the Internet. Yes – more than one in four websites that you visit are likely powered by WordPress.

On a slightly more technical level, WordPress is an open-source content management system licensed under GPLv2, which means that anyone can use or modify the WordPress software for free. A content management system is basically a tool that makes it easy to manage important aspects of your website – like content – without needing to know anything about programming.

The end result is that WordPress makes building a website accessible to anyone – even people who aren’t developers.

What is #WordPress? Simply put, it’s the best way to build a website. Click to Tweet

What Kinds Of Websites Can WordPress Make?

Many years ago, WordPress was primarily a tool to create a blog, rather than more traditional websites. That hasn’t been true for a long time, though. Nowadays, thanks to changes to the core code, as well as WordPress’ massive ecosystem of plugins and themes, you can create any type of website with WordPress.

For example, not only does WordPress power a huge number of business sites and blogs, it’s also the most popular way to create an eCommerce store as well! With WordPress, you can create:

• Business websites
• eCommerce stores
• Blogs
• Portfolios
• Resumes
• Forums
• Social networks
• Membership sites
• …pretty much anything else you can dream up.

Here’s how to install a WordPress theme.

What’s The Difference Between WordPress.org and WordPress.com?

The self-hosted WordPress.org homepage

We’ve covered the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com in a lot more detail, but here’s the short version:

• WordPress.org, often called self-hosted WordPress, is the free, open-source WordPress software that you can install on your own web host to create a website that’s 100% your own.
• WordPress.com is a for-profit, paid service that is powered by the WordPress.org software. It’s simple to use, but you lose much of the flexibility of the self-hosted WordPress.

Most of the time, when people say “WordPress”, they mean the self-hosted WordPress available at WordPress.org. If you want to truly own your website, self-hosted WordPress.org is almost always the best option.

All you need to do to get started with self-hosted WordPress is purchase web hosting and a domain name.

Who Made WordPress And How Long Has It Been Around?

WordPress was created as a standalone project all the way back in 2003, originating as an offshoot of a previous project called b2/cafelog.

WordPress is open-source software, so nowadays it’s made by a huge community of contributors. But if we were to trace WordPress’ origins back to its roots, its original creation was a collaboration between Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little.

Since then, Matt Mullenweg has largely become the face of WordPress. And he’s also the founder of Automattic, which is the company behind the for-profit WordPress.com service.

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The history of WordPress between its founding as a blog platform back in 2003 and today is a long one…

But suffice it to say, WordPress has pushed forward and, thanks to its contributors and huge community, developed into the most popular solution to create any type of website.

Who Uses WordPress?

WordPress is used by individuals, big businesses, and everyone in between! On an immediate note, we use WordPress! So the very site that you’re looking at right now is powered by WordPress. Lots of other well-known entities use WordPress as well. Here are some of our favorite examples:

Whitehouse.gov

The official Whitehouse.gov website is powered by WordPress:

Whitehouse.gov is powered by WordPress

Microsoft

Microsoft uses WordPress to power its official blog. It also uses WordPress to power blogs for specific products like Windows and Skype:

The Rolling Stones

Even famous bands love WordPress! The Rolling Stones’ website is powered entirely by WordPress:

The Rolling Stones band website uses WordPress

Why Should You Use WordPress?

Ok, so over 35.2% of all the websites on t
he Internet are using WordPress, including well-known entities like the White House and Microsoft.

But what about you? Why should you use WordPress?

Well, no matter what type of website you want to create, there are plenty of reasons to use WordPress. Here are some of the biggest:

WordPress Is Free And Open Source

One of the biggest benefits of WordPress is that it’s free, open-source software. While you will need to pay a little bit for hosting, you will never have to pay just to use the WordPress software, which isn’t the case with alternatives like Squarespace.

Beyond that, you can also find lots of open-source plugins and themes to change how your website looks and functions. Speaking of….

WordPress Is Extensible

Even if you aren’t a developer, you can easily modify your website thanks to WordPress’ huge ecosystem of themes and plugins:

• Themes – these primarily change how your website looks.
• Plugins – these primarily change how your website functions. Plugins can be something small, like a contact form, or huge, like creating an eCommerce store.

Currently, there are over 50,000 free WordPress plugins and 5,000 free WordPress themes, as well as tons of premium options. That to say – you have plenty of choices! Here is a hand-picked list of the best WordPress plugins.

WordPress Is Easy To Install

Think you need to be a tech genius to create your own website? Think again! If you can click a few buttons, you can install WordPress on your site.

Nowadays, most web hosts either:

• Offer to preinstall WordPress for you so that your site is ready to go right away.
• Give you dedicated tools that make the install process very beginner-friendly.

Add new WordPress site at Kinsta

WordPress Is Flexible

We’ve touched on this already, but WordPress is great because it lets you create pretty much any type of website. Better yet, your website can also evolve with you.

Want to add a forum to your existing WordPress site? No problem – just install the bbPress plugin! Want to add a social network? No worries! Just use the BuddyPress plugin.

You’re never locked into a specific set of functions – you can always adapt and evolve.

It’s Easy To Find WordPress Help

Because WordPress is so popular, it’s easy to find help if you ever run into any issues. There are heaps of…

• Blogs
• Tutorials
• Forums
• Facebook Groups
• Developers

…that you can turn to for free and paid help if needed.

Need More Convincing?

Still not convinced that WordPress is the best way to build a website? Read this post for a deeper look at ten of the best reasons to use WordPress.

So What Is WordPress? It’s The Best Way To Build A Website

WordPress is the most popular way to build a website for a reason. If you want to build any type of website, from a blog to an eCommerce store, WordPress is a great option.

Just remember that self-hosted WordPress.org and WordPress.com are not the same thing. And, in most situations, self-hosted WordPress.org is what you want to build a website. Self-hosted WordPress.org gives you more ownership as well as access to all the perks and benefits of the WordPress community.

So how will you use WordPress? We can’t wait to find out!

If you enjoyed this tutorial, then you’ll love our support. All Kinsta’s hosting plans include 24/7 support from our veteran WordPress developers and engineers. Chat with the same team that backs our Fortune 500 clients. Check out our plans

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Answers to commonly asked questions from the experts on Thumbtack.

Why should you hire a web designer?

Your website is often the first thing your customers see when they’re searching for a business or service on the web. As the face of your organization, your website needs to be attractive and functional, offering the latest features that users now expect. To plan and design a site that both reflects your company’s mission and values and appeals to customers takes a professional web designer. While free online services can help people set up websites, web designers can provide a unique solution made specifically to meet customers’ personal or business needs.

Most web designers offer a wide variety of services to make your website aesthetically pleasing and easy to use. Modern web design must be mobile-friendly and scalable, capable of expanding to include a blog, social media sites, and even video streaming; web designers are experts at integrating various web technologies. They can build the site, add functionality, test it, launch it on a live server, and track and maintain its performance.

In addition to web design and graphic design, some web design providers also offer development and security services, including search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing and management, logo design, site maintenance, domain registration and hosting, protection against malware, and digital marketing and content services.

What do you look for in a web design company?

The web design company you choose must be able to interpret your company’s mission and identity and turn it into an appealing website that connects with potential customers. They must help you reach your target audience and meet your business goals. A web design agency should have on staff both talented web designers, with fresh ideas and extensive technical and creative skills, and a marketing team that knows how to drive traffic to your site, encourage visitor engagement, and convert visitors into customers. Web designers should be able to build in search optimization and integrate your site with a content management system and e-commerce tools. Look, too, for a website design company that understands responsive design and can optimize your website for mobile devices and desktop browsers. The right web design company understand current design and website trends, has experience building sites in a variety of industries (not just yours), and has an expansive portfolio of live websites. Finally, don’t simply hire the cheapest bidder — in web design, as in all things, you get what you pay for.

How do you hire a web designer?

You’ve determined that the best way to create a professional, modern, mobile-friendly new website is to hire a professional web designer to build it. To hire the best person for the job — and to get the web design that best fits your company’s identity — it’s important to ask a few key questions:

• What’s the scope of the work? Will the website be basic with just a few pages about your company, its services, and contact information? Or will it also have an e-commerce section for online shopping, a blog, or content for visitors to download? Before you hire a web designer, make sure you have a thorough, specific list of the components you must have the designer include in the web design.
• What do you want your website to look like? Consider websites that are similar to the one you’d like to build, ideally in the same industry or serving similar types of customers. Build a set of examples of types of pages, design aspects, and website features that you can hand off to the web designer — the person you hire should have experience creating websites with the features you want. If they don’t have the right skill set, they’re not the right pro for you.
• What’s the web designer’s start-to-finish process? What will the final deliverable be? Before you hire someone, make sure their availability works with your timeline and that their process meets your expectations. Most important is finding a web designer who will work collaboratively with you to create a successful online presence.

How much do web designers charge?

The average cost for hiring a web designer varies greatly depending on the scope of the work, which may range from building a site from scratch to rebranding an existing one, as well as the amount of content and graphics the designer will create. In general, the more complex the project, the more time the design agency will have to spend. Because web designers often work on an hourly basis, the longer the project, the higher the costs; you can count on the web designer spending at minimum 10 hours to create a very basic website with just a handful of pages with few elements. Prices also depend on the designer’s skill set, the process, and the company’s rates. In general, the national average cost for a basic website package starts at $500, but a customized website can cost as much as $2,000 or more. Here are typical average hourly rates, broken out by the complexity of the work:

• Basic layout and user interface: $15-$40 per hour
• Content management system design: $20-$50 per hour
• Custom website design with custom code: $45-$75 per hour

What should you look for in a website designer?

A professional web designer creates the look and feel of your website, collaborating with you to choose colors, creating logos and other branding materials, establishing page layouts, and creating sample pages. An important part of web design is making sure the site is functional, meets your goals, and is easy for users to navigate. When you’re looking to hire a web designer, start by reviewing the person’s portfolio. Look for samples of work that match what you envision for your website, including experience building the types of pages or features you want. Make sure the web designer is familiar with your industry and understands both industry trends and web design trends — an old-fashioned or out-of-touch site will turn customers away rather than intrigue them.

Because web designers tend to work as freelancers on a project basis, they must be excellent communicators, willing to manage their own work, and available on your schedule. Some critical skills, such as working collaboratively and responding enthusiastically to feedback, aren’t core to good web design, but make working with a web designer much easier. Finally, look for a web designer who has cross-functional knowledge, such as understanding marketing and conversion rate optimization in addition to web design.

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Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is one of the most effective ways to grow your business and reach new customers.

While it’s critical you employ organic strategies to attract traffic over the long-term, sometimes, you can’t properly compete on the SERPs without putting money behind it — and that’s where SEM comes into play.

For instance, consider what happens when I type “summer shoes” into Google:

Zappos clearly has an effective SEO strategy, since its “Summer shoes” page ranks first organically. However, their paid “Summer Shoes” ad, circled above, ranks as the first search result overall.

With 35% of product searches starting on Google, and the average Google search lasting only a minute, it’s critical your business’s product or service appear at the top of a SERP when a user is searching for it. This isn’t always possible organically, particularly when other businesses are paying to ensure their products appear above yours. When this is the case, it’s critical you invest in a SEM strategy.

What is SEM?

SEM, or search engine marketing, is using paid advertising to ensure that your business’s products or services are visible in search engine results pages (SERPs). When a user types in a certain keyword, SEM enables your business to appear as a result for that search query.

To ensure you’re able to use SEM to properly advertise your products or services on the SERPs, we’ve cultivated a list of the best SEM tools, as well as the components of a SEM Ad Auction.

Best SEM tools

1. SEMRush
2. Google Trends
3. Keywordtool.Io
4. Google Ads Keyword Planner
5. SpyFu

1. SEMRush

SEMRush allows you to conduct extensive keyword research, keyword rank tracking, site audits, traffic analysis, and more. SEMRush is a fantastic tool for finding opportunities to rank for long-tail keywords organically, but additionally, you can use the tool for various SEM efforts. For instance, you can use SEMRush to figure out where your competitors are concentrating their marketing efforts, and analyze their regional presence, to figure out how much money you want to put behind certain keywords.

Additionally, SEMRush enables you to discover your main paid search competitors, figure out which keywords they’re bidding on, and study the composition of their ads. This is vital information when you’re cultivating your own paid strategy and are unsure how to out-rank other businesses on the SERPs.

2. Google Trends

Google Trends allows you to track search volume for a particular keyword across a specific region, language, or time frame — which can enable you to identify which search terms are trending, and which ones aren’t. Since you don’t want to put money behind a keyword that’s decreasing in popularity, this is an incredibly useful tool for your SEM efforts.

Additionally, particularly if you work for an ecommerce business, the ability to gauge interest in your product or service in a certain geographical area is undoubtedly powerful for ensuring you tailor your paid efforts to specific locations, saving you money in the long-run.

3. Keywordtool.Io

One of the most helpful features of Keywordtool.Io is its ability to tap into Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon, Instagram, Twitter, and the App Store, so that you’re able to segment your keyword research through various channels and better target your efforts. Additionally, the tool takes your base keyword and provides you with variations of words and phrases, which allows you to cultivate a more extensive list of possible keywords you might want to include in a paid ad.

Using Google Autocomplete to provide relevant keywords for you, the free version of Keywordtool.Io lets you generate up to 750 long-tail keywords and keyword suggestions for every search term. Plus, you can use the tool to analyze search trends on Google, to ensure your desired keywords are increasing in popularity and will continue to serve you well over the long-term.

4. Google Ads Keyword Planner

Since Google is likely where you want your ads to appear, it makes sense to consider using Google Ads Keyword Planner to research relevant keywords for your business, and keep track of how searches for certain keywords change over time. The Keyword Planner will help you narrow down a list of possible keywords to ensure you’re choosing the most effective ones for your business.

Additionally, Keyword Planner will give you suggested bid estimates for each keyword, so you can determine which keywords work with your advertising budget. Best of all, once you’ve found your ideal keywords and are ready to launch an ad campaign, you can do it all from within the tool.

5. SpyFu

Ever wish you could see which keywords your competitors are buying on Google, or check out which ad tests they’ve run? With SpyFu, you’re able to do just that — simply search a domain, and you’ll see every keyword that business has bought on Adwords, every organic keyword for which they’ve ranked, and every ad variation they’ve had in the last 12 years. Plus, you can monitor your own paid and SEO rankings on Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

How an Ad Auction Works

Once you’re ready to invest in SEM, you’ll need to enter into an ad auction — for our purposes, we’ll focus on the ad auction in Google Adwords.

In simple terms, every Google ad you see goes through an ad auction before appearing in the SERPs. To enter into an ad auction, you’ll first need to identify the keywords you want to bid on, and clarify how much you’re willing to spend per click on each of those keywords.

Once Google determines the keywords you bid on are contained within a user’s search query, you’re entered into the ad auction.

Not every ad will appear on every search related to that keyword. Some keywords don’t have enough commercial intent to justify incorporating ads into the page — for instance, when I type “What is Marketing?” into Google, I don’t see any ads appear.

Additionally, even if your keyword is a good fit for an ad, it doesn’t mean you’ll “win” the bidding. The ad auction considers two main factors when determining which ads to place on the SERP — your maximum bid, and your ads Quality Score.

A Quality Score is an estimate of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages. You can find your Quality Score, which is reported on a 1-10 scale, in your keywords’ “Status” column in your Google Adwords account. The more relevant your ad is to a user, as well as how likely a user is to click through and have an enjoyable landing page experience, all factor into your overall Quality Score.

Originally published Apr 4, 2019 7:00:00 AM, updated February 18 2020

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Software developers invent the technologies we sometimes take for granted. For instance, that app that rings, sings or buzzes you out of a deep sleep every morning? A software developer helped design that. And when you roll into the office and turn on your computer, clicking and scrolling through social media, music and your personal calendar – software developers had a big hand in shaping those, too.

You might spend your lunch shopping, and before you make that big purchase, you check your bank account balance using your phone. Later, you’re cooking a new recipe from that great app your friend told you about. As you look over the course of your day, you come to see that software developers are the masterminds behind the technologies you now can’t imagine living without.

The best software developers are creative and have the technical expertise to carry out innovative ideas. You might expect software developers to sit at their desks designing programs all day – and they do, but their job involves many more responsibilities. They could spend their days working on a client project from scratch and writing new code. But they could also be tasked with maintaining or improving the code for programs that are already up and running.

Software developers also check for bugs in software. And although the job does involve extreme concentration and chunks of uninterrupted time, software developers have to collaborate with others, including fellow developers, managers or clients. Developers are often natural problem solvers who possess strong analytical skills and the ability to think outside the box.

Software developers are employed in a range of industries, including computer systems design, manufacturing and finance. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 25.6 percent employment growth for software developers between 2018 and 2028. In that period, an estimated 241,500 jobs should open up.

READ MORE 

8.2

• 8Salary

• 8Job Market

• 8Future Growth

• 6Stress

• 8Work Life Balance

How We Rank Jobs

Software Developers made a median salary of $103,620 in 2018. The best-paid 25 percent made $130,460 that year, while the lowest-paid 25 percent made $79,340.

See current salary offers for jobs in your field.

See Full Salary Details »

You can take several different paths to build a career in software development. Here’s how many developers get started:

1. Earn your bachelor’s degree. Software developers often pursue a degree in computer science, where they’ll study computers and programming.
2. Gain hands-on experience. Employers are often drawn to applicants with practical experience. Many students complete an internship or seek out experience beyond the classroom to prepare themselves for a career in software development.
3. Pursue a master’s degree. Though not required, some employers prefer developers with an advanced degree.

“It’s super important to understand CS fundamentals like big O notation, common algorithms, standard languages and technical approaches. You can learn this from school or from apprenticeship, but you need to learn it somehow,” Sam Schillace writes in an email. Schillace is the vice president of engineering for industry solutions at Google. Before that, he co-founded Writely, which he later sold to Google, where it was used to create Google Docs.

So, yes, a bachelor’s degree in computer science is a good idea, but a degree alone won’t help you snag that dream job. “We look at track records as much as school – someone from a great school with no outside coding projects or interesting technical accomplishments is definitely less interesting, and someone who is a rock star coder with no degree but a huge list of achievements would be an easy hire,” Schillace explains.

Average Americans work well into their 60s, so workers might as well have a job that’s enjoyable and a career that’s fulfilling. A job with a low stress level, good work-life balance and solid prospects to improve, get promoted and earn a higher salary would make many employees happy. Here’s how Software Developers job satisfaction is rated in terms of upward mobility, stress level and flexibility.

Upward Mobility

High

Stress Level

Average

Flexibility

Above Average

Advice From Real Software Developers »

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Next: Salary

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A server is a computer designed to process requests and deliver data to another computer over the internet or a local network. A well-known type of server is a web server where web pages can be accessed over the internet through a client like a web browser. However, there are several types of servers, including local ones like file servers that store data within an intranet network.

Although any computer running the necessary software can function as a server, the most typical use of the word references the enormous, high-powered machines that push and pull data from the internet.

Most computer networks support one or more servers that handle specialized tasks. As a rule, the larger the network in terms of clients that connect to it or the amount of data that it moves, the more likely it is that several servers play a role, each dedicated to a specific purpose.

The server is the software that handles a specific task. However, the powerful hardware that supports this software is also called a server. This is because the server software that coordinates a network of hundreds or thousands of clients requires hardware that’s more robust than computers for consumer use.

While some dedicated servers focus on one function, such as a print server or database server, some implementations use one server for multiple purposes.

A large, general-purpose network that supports a medium-sized company likely deploys several types of servers, including:

• Web server: A web server show pages and runs apps through web browsers. The server your browser is connected to now is a web server that delivers this page and the images on it. The client program, in this case, is a browser like Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, or Safari. Web servers are used for many tasks in addition to delivering simple text and images, such as uploading and backing up files online through a cloud storage service or online backup service.
• Email server: Email servers send and receive email messages. If you have an email client on your computer, the software connects to an IMAP or POP server to download your messages to your computer, and an SMTP server to send messages back through the email server.
• FTP server: FTP servers move files through File Transfer Protocol tools. FTP servers are accessible remotely using FTP client programs, which connect to the file share on the server, either through the server’s built-in FTP capabilities or with a dedicated FTP server program.
• Identity Server: Identity servers support logins and security roles for authorized users.

Hundreds of specialized server types support computer networks. Apart from the common corporate types, home users often interface with online game servers, chat servers, and audio and video streaming servers, among others.

Some servers exist for a specific purpose but aren’t necessarily interacted with in any meaningful way. DNS servers and proxy servers are some examples.

Many networks on the internet employ a client-server networking model that integrates websites and communication services.

An alternative model, called peer-to-peer networking, allows all the devices on a network to function as either a server or client on an as-needed basis. Peer networks offer a greater degree of privacy because communication between computers is narrowly targeted. However, due in part to bandwidth limitations, most implementations of peer-to-peer networking aren’t robust enough to support large traffic spikes.

The word cluster is used broadly in computer networking to refer to an implementation of shared computing resources. Typically, a cluster integrates the resources of two or more computing devices that could otherwise function separately for some common purpose (often a workstation or server device).

Lifewire

A web server farm is a collection of networked web servers, each with access to content on the same site. These servers function as a cluster conceptually. However, purists debate the technical classification of a server farm as a cluster, depending on the details of the hardware and software configuration.

Because servers are software, people can run servers at home, accessible either to devices attached to their home network or devices outside the network. For example, some network-aware hard drives use the Network Attached Storage server protocol to allow different PCs on a home network to access a shared set of files.

Lifewire

Plex media server software helps users view digital media on TVs and entertainment devices regardless of whether the data exists in the cloud or on a local PC.

The Ins-and-Outs of Media Server Software Solutions

If your network is set up to allow port forwards, you can accept incoming requests from outside your network to make your home server act as a server from a big company like Facebook or Google (where anyone can access your resources).

However, not all home computers and internet connections are suitable for lots of tra
ffic. Bandwidth, storage, RAM, and other system resources are factors that affect how large of a home server you can support. Most home operating systems are also void of server-related features.

Since uptime is critically important for most servers, servers aren’t designed to shut down but instead run 24/7. However, servers sometimes go down intentionally for scheduled maintenance, which is why some websites and services notify users of scheduled downtime or scheduled maintenance. Servers might also go down unintentionally during something like a DDoS attack.

A web server that reports an error due to downtime—whether intentional or not—might do so using a standard HTTP status code.

When a web server takes down information permanently, or even temporarily, you might still be able to access those files if a third-party service archived it. Wayback Machine is one example of a web archiver that stores snapshots of web pages and files stored on web servers.

Large businesses that have multiple servers don’t typically access these servers locally, like with a keyboard and mouse, but instead by remote access. These servers are also sometimes virtual machines, meaning that one storage device can host multiple servers, which saves physical space and money.

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The explosion of “computer-to-computer” communication in the twenty-first century is triggering a growth phase for IT consultants. Harvard Business School professor Richard Nolan and HBS Interactive Senior Vice President Larry Bennigson trace the evolution of IT management consulting.

Johnston: Your research refers to the PC in the 80’s and the Internet in the 90’s as triggers of explosive growth for the IT consulting industry. Have you identified a third trigger for this decade?

Nolan and Bennigson: The trigger in this decade underlying autonomous computing is “computer-to-computer” communication. By the end of the decade, more than 60 percent of the computer communications will be computer-to-computer. Computer-to-computer vastly speeds up the pace of business. For example, end-to-end supply chains can be automatically adjusted by point-of-sale computers directly communicating with warehouse computers, which in turn directly communicate with manufacturer computers, and, again in the chain, manufacturers’ computers directly communicate with their supplier computers. In addition, computer-to-computer communications can track demand and adjust logistic systems to automatically direct product to geographical points of demand.

Q: Can you describe some of the enablers and drivers behind the growth of the IT consulting industry? How has globalization impacted this growth?

A: The enablers and drivers of growth of the IT (see working paper) consulting industry have been several. First, innovation in frameworks and methodologies along with trained professionals have provided value-added services uniquely available from the consulting firm. For example, the Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey innovated unique conceptual frameworks for assisting management in sorting out action plans for their various lines of business.

By the end of the decade, more than 60 percent of the computer communications will be computer-to-computer.
— Nolan and Bennigson

Newness and complexity have been a second driver. Andersen Consulting, now Accenture, has provided expertise in designing and coding complex computer applications. SAP and Seibel have developed unique package software, and have provided specialized consulting services to assist in the implementation of the package software.

A third driver has been the building to critical mass high levels of expertise not economical to maintain in a particular company. For example, computer security consulting requires a high level of expertise, which few firms can economically maintain in-house. By providing these kinds of services to many firms, critical mass can be maintained in the practice group, as well as ensure that the group stays on the leading edge of the subject matter.

Related to this third driver is the focus that a separate consulting firm can maintain in managing a highly talented group of knowledge workers. The management and incentive systems are quite different in a consulting firm than in, say, a product firm. Consequently, a product firm may not be attractive to various knowledge workers who prefer to work in the consulting environment.

A fourth driver is the demand for process and behavior change that IT implementation puts on most organizations. IT was not just a new technology. To capture the value IT represented, organizations had to address change in structure, culture, people, process, and leadership. Many organizations turned to the consulting industry for help in understanding and managing these significant changes.

Finally, the IT consulting industry enjoyed an unprecedented frenzy of convergence of 1) adoption of systems such as ERP and CRM; 2) management improvements such as BPRE; 3) problems to solve such as Y2K; and 4) new territory to pioneer such as e-business.

Q: Who are the current players who have successfully adapted to the changing IT environment? What is the key to their success?

A: In our working paper, we state that more than 50 percent of today’s capital budgeting expenditures involve computing in one form or another. As a result of the pervasiveness of IT, literally all consulting firms have had to integrate IT expertise. Indeed, with the hyper growth during the 1990’s, consulting is still in restructure mode.

A high degree of industry adaptation in the IT consulting industry will be required in the future.
— Nolan and Bennigson

Within this context, Accenture has continued to broaden their consulting service scope. Accenture has built an impressive education and training facility called St. Charles, outside of Chicago, which focuses on maintaining currency in the skill levels of their professionals, as well as providing a leading tool for equipping their professionals with the new skill required with emerging IT.

Another type of example is the IT product firms that incorporate certification and training for their own consultants, independent consultants, and customer professionals. Microsoft, Sun, and Novell are examples of these kinds of companies.

Q: What are your predictions for the future of IT management consulting?

A: We believe that the recent restructuring in the IT management consulting industry is a point of industry transition. That transition coincides with the emergence of new drivers of IT management consulting growth. While the transition is still being played out, we can see some of these new drivers taking shape.

Until recently, there had been an IBM de facto industry standard for the operating system, and a de facto standard in the use of COBOL for applications development. By the late 1990’s, new applications development had become almost exclusively supplanted by package implementation. In addition, networking and the Internet moved the IT infrastructure for the IBM standard to an emerging environment characterized by open standards.

Accordingly, the IT infrastructure became simpler and more complex at the same time through the innovation of layers and API’s (Application Programming Interfaces). The implication for IT management consulting is a rather complex demand to provide both strategic perspective along with implementation savvy on managing the considerable risks of not being able to realize the strategic competitive advantages of computing because of failures to effectively manage implementation challenges.

Further, within the context of the management challenges of balancing strategic opportunities with implementation capabilities, there are dampening forces on industry growth. For example, the wave of ERP installations and BPRE projects is now beyond its peak. While outsourcing is still an established practice, companies have gained experience and can now do much more for themselves that they have looked to outsiders to do in the past. Managers know more about IT, more about the business and organizational potential and implications of IT and more about designing their own backbone and architecture.

We think it is important that it is tempting but risky to completely turn over IT initiatives to IT consulting firms.
— Nolan and Bennigson

And, there are forces that will drive new demand. Security is fast becoming a ubiquitous issue. The Internet will experience dramatic growth in Asia and Europe. New applications such as bioinformatics and telematics create new consulting segments. And the adoption of Internet2 will eventually have broad impact.

IT consulting, as much as any product or service, creates its own demand. A high degree of industry adaptation in the IT consulting industry will be required in the future. By introducing innovations and educating the market about the competitive benefits of those innovations, IT consulting
invents and “earns” its opportunities for growth. This ability of IT consulting to lead and to adapt is a key to its robust development.

Q: What lessons can operations managers take away from your research?

A: There are a number of lessons we think are important for operations managers:

Many functional and business leaders have become conversant about IT and many IT specialists have become knowledgeable about the strategic and business benefits of IT. Companies that encourage and incorporate this integrated and more sophisticated capability within their organizations will have an edge over those that have to rely on outsiders for the integrated view.

The rate of change in IT capabilities is a companion to the rate of change most companies experience in other technologies, markets, and initiatives of competitors. We have noted that the successful IT consulting firm must be able to anticipate, sense, and nimbly respond to change. This is equally true for operations. Operations managers face the daunting task of implementing new IT capabilities while ensuring they are also prepared for the next version or generation.

The emerging IT environment is at a level of complexity such that efforts to build IT infrastructure and integrated applications require specialized expertise that is often available only in IT consulting firms. Good operations managers will ensure that their organizations have the ability to work effectively with and integrate the value from networks of service providers with a variety of special capabilities.

Finally, we think it is important that it is tempting but risky to completely turn over IT initiatives to IT consulting firms. A significant number of your own IT professionals and users should be included in integrated IT initiatives.

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Here we’ll take a look at the basic things you need to know in regards to search engine optimisation, a discipline that everyone in your organisation should at least be aware of, if not have a decent technical understanding.

One of our most popular articles of all time is a post entitled SEO Basics: 8 Essentials When Optimizing Your Site. It still does the business for us in terms of traffic, however it was first published in April 2013, so you can treat this as its long overdue and expanded update.

What is SEO?

Quite simply, SEO is the umbrella term for all the methods you can use to ensure the visibility of your website and its content on search engine results pages (SERPs).

The methods vary from technical practices you can achieve behind the scenes on your website (we tend to refer to this as ‘on-page SEO’) to all the promotional ’off-page’ approaches you can use to raise your site’s visibility (link-building, social media marketing).

For the purpose of this article, when we talk about visibility, we mean how high up the SERP your website appears for certain search terms in the ‘organic’ results. Organic results refer to those that appear naturally on the page, rather than in the paid-for sections…

Paid search is also a large part of search engine marketing. You can read more about this in our recent beginner’s guide to paid search and PPC.

Why do you need SEO?

Building a strong site architecture and providing clear navigation will help search engines index your site quickly and easily. This will also, more importantly, provide visitors with a good experience of using your site and encourage repeat visits. It’s worth considering that Google is increasingly paying attention to user experience.

When it comes to how much traffic is driven by search engines to your website, the percentage is substantial, and perhaps the clearest indicator of the importance of SEO.

In 2014, Conductor suggested 64% of all web traffic comes from organic search, compared to 2% from social, 6% from paid search, 12% direct and 15% from other referral sources.

This tallies with our own data, with approximately 70-75% of SEW traffic coming from organic.

Resources

Of all organic traffic, in 2015 it was found that Google accounts for more than 90% of global organic search traffic. So obviously you need a strong presence on Google SERPs, but how strong?

Well, according to this study from Advanced Web Ranking (which I’ve trotted out before when discussing how to dominate Google) shows that on the first SERP, the top five results account for 67.60% of all clicks and the results from six to 10 account for only 3.73%.

It’s therefore vital that your site appears in the top five results.

How are you going to achieve this? With the following tips, which I’ve split into two categories: what search engines are looking for and… drum roll… what they’re not looking for.

What are search engines looking for?

1) Relevancy

Search engines try to provide the most relevant results to a searcher’s query, whether it’s a simple answer to the question “how old is Ryan Gosling?” (the answer of which Google will likely provide without you having to leave the SERP) to more complicated queries such as “what is the best steak restaurant nearest to me?”

How search engines provide these results is down to their own internal algorithms, which we’ll probably never truly determine, but there are factors that you can be certain will influence these results and they’re all based around relevancy… For instance: a searcher’s location, their search history, time of day/year, etc.

2) The quality of your content

Do you regularly publish helpful, useful articles, videos or other types of media that are popular and well produced? Do you write for actual human beings rather than the search engine itself? Well, you should. Latest research from Searchmetrics on ranking factors indicates that Google is moving further towards longer-form content that understands a visitor’s intention as a whole, instead of using keywords based on popular search queries to create content.

Basically, stop worrying about keywords and focus on the user experience.

3) User experience

There are many SEO benefits for providing the best possible user experience. You need an easily navigable, clearly searchable site with relevant internal linking and related content. All the stuff that keeps visitors on your webpage and hungry to explore further.

4) Site speed

How quickly your webpages load is increasingly becoming a differentiator for search engines. Google may soon start labelling results that are hosted on Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) so this may possibly be the ‘mobilegeddon’ of 2016. Speaking of which…

5) Cross-device compatibility

Is your website and its content equally optimised for any given screen size or device? Bear in mind that Google has stated that responsive design is its preferred method of mobile optimisation.

6) Internal linking

We’ve talked about the benefits of ensuring your site has clear and easy-to-use navigation, but there’s also a practice that editors and writers can carry out when publishing articles to help push traffic around the site and that may lead to higher trust signal
s for Google: internal linking. (See what we did there.)

Internal linking has many advantages:

• It provides your audience with further reading options. As long as they’re relevant and you use clear anchor text (the clickable highlighted words in any give link). This can help reduce your bounce rates.

• It helps to improve your ranking for certain keywords. If we want this article to rank for the term ’SEO basics’ then we can begin linking to it from other posts using variations of similar anchor text. This tells Google that this post is relevant to people searching for ‘SEO basics’. Some experts recommend varying your anchor text pointing to the same page as Google may see multiple identical uses as ‘suspicious’.

• It helps Google crawl and index your site. Those little Googlebots that are sent out to fetch new information on your site will have a better idea of how useful and trustworthy your content is, the more they crawl your internal links.

7) Authority

An authority website is a site that is trusted by its users, the industry it operates in, other websites and search engines. Traditionally a link from an authority website is very valuable, as it’s seen as a vote of confidence. The more of these you have, and the higher quality content you produce, the more likely your own site will become an authority too.

However as the aforementioned Searchmetrics research suggests, year-on-year correlations between backlinks and rankings are decreasing, so perhaps over time ‘links’ may not be as important to SEO as we once thought.

There’s a good argument raging in the comments to this recent piece on links as a marketing KPI, which offers some diverse views on the subject.

8) Meta descriptions and title tags

Having a meta description won’t necessarily improve your ranking on the SERP, but it is something you should definitely use before publishing an article as it can help increase your chances of a searcher clicking on your result.

The meta description is the short paragraph of text that appears under your page’s URL in the search results, it’s also something you should have complete control of in your CMS.

Here it is in WordPress:

Write succinctly (under 156 characters is good), clearly and make sure it’s relevant to your headline and the content of the article itself.

There is more guidance found here: how to write meta descriptions for SEO.

Title tags are used to tell search engines and visitors what your site is about in the most concise and accurate way possible. The keywords in your title tag show up highlighted in search engine results (if the query uses those keywords), as well as in your browser tab and when sharing your site externally.

You can write your own title tag inside the area of your site’s HTML:

You should use a few accurate keywords describing the page as well as your own brand name. Only use relevant keywords though, and the most important thing to consider is that although you are formatting for search engines, you should write for humans.

There is a lot more practical guidance to be found in our complete guide to title tags.

9) Schema markup

You can make your search results appear more attractive by adding Schema markup to the HTML of your pages. This can help turn your search results into a rich media playground, adding star-ratings, customer ratings, images, and various other bits of helpful info…

Schema is also the preferred method of markup by most search engines including Google, and it’s fairly straightforward to use. For more information, check out our handy guide to Schema.

10) Properly tagged images

Many people forget to include the alt attribute when they upload images to their content, but this is definitely something you shouldn’t overlook because Google cannot ‘see’ your images, but can ‘read’ the alt text.

By describing your image in the alt text as accurately as possible it will increase the chances of your images appearing in Google Image search.

It will also improve the accessibility of your site for people using ‘screen reader’ software.

11) Evergreen content

Instead of peppering the internet with a rash of ‘quick win’ news stories with little insight, why not publish more evergreen content.

More thoughtful, helpful and practical-advice based articles can lead to huge long-term wins in terms of driving traffic and occupying highly visible positions in the SERPs.

Here’s a guide to planning and creating evergreen content.

12) Domain names

You should use sub-directory root domains (searchenginewatch.com/category/seo) instead of sub-domains (searchenginewatch.category.seo.com) as this is better for your overall site architecture.

You should also stay away from hyphens (search-engine-watch.com) and alternative Top-level domain names (.biz .name .info) as these are considered spammy.

Having a ‘keyword rich’ domain name may lead to closer scrutiny from Google. According to Moz, Google has “de-prioritized sites with keyword-rich domains that aren’t otherwise high-quality. Having a keyword in your domain can still be beneficial, but it can also lead to closer scrutiny and a possible negative ranking effect from
search engines—so tread carefully.”

Also you should make sure that if you operate a site without the www. prefix, someone who types in www.example.com will still be redirected to your site. If this isn’t happening, Google may assume these are two different sites and your visibility could be compromised.

13) Headlines and permalinks

The headlines for your articles should be under 55 characters to ensure their complete visibility in SERPs. Make sure they’re snappy, attractive and as descriptive as possible (this is often an impossible balance). Just stay away from clickbait headlines, do not promise something that the content doesn’t deliver.

The permalink (or URL), which you can normally alter in your CMS even after it’s been set automatically, doesn’t necessarily have to match the headline exactly. Google has stated that you can use three to four key words that you should put the most important keywords first.

14) Comments

Do not turn off your comments system. Having a thriving community of regular commenters engaging in dialogue under your posts shows that visitors care enough about your content to either make their own relevant points or to praise it or to ruthlessly eviscerate it. Either way, at least people are reading it.

Just be super-mindful about filtering out spam comments, or immediately removing any that slip through. It’s also worth adding the nofollow value to your comments section so Google ignores any erroneous links that may appear.

15) Local SEO

Increasingly Google is serving results to users based on their location. This is particularly important to businesses out there in the real world who ned to catch a searcher’s attention just at the right moment, i.e. while walking down the street, on their mobile and looking for somewhere to eat.

You should register with Google My Business and ensure that all of your information is accurate and up-to-date, such as opening times, contact information, customer reviews and that your categorised correctly.

16) Social

The most obvious way that you can raise your site’s visibility through non-technical SEO means is of course through social media marketing.

You need to make sure you’re present on all relevant social channels (wherever your audience may be), and not just broadcasting your content in a faceless manner, but by using it as a customer service channel and genuinely interacting with people in a friendly, helpful and entertaining manner.

The actual correlation between social signals and search rankings is a much argued over subject, but here’s a good overview of the subject.

What are search engines NOT looking for?

There are many ‘black hat’ practices that can bring the full weight of a Google penalty down on your site, so it’s best to avoid doing the following, even if it looks like a brilliant easy win at the time.

17) Keyword stuffing

Overusing keywords on your pages, especially when they obviously affect the readability of your site. It’s debatable whether Google even still uses keywords as a ranking factor anymore.

18) Link buying or excessive link exchanging

Thinking of approaching a link farm? Just don’t do it. It’s not even worth it. The most valuable links to your site are the ones that come from authority sites within your own niche.

19) Annoying ads

Anything overly intrusive that destroys the pleasure of reading your content and slows down your site speed.

20) Mobile app interstitials

If you present mobile visitors with a full-screen advert to download your app, Google will consider you no longer mobile friendly.

21) Duplicated content

If Google finds two identical pieces of content, whether on your own site, or on another you’re not even aware of, it will only index one of those pages. You should be aware of scraper sites, stealing your content automatically and republishing as your own. Here’s Graham Charlton’s thorough investigation on what to if your content ends up working better for somebody else.

22) Hidden text and links

There are a ways to manipulate rankings that a user may not ever see, but Google will probably find and punish you for.

Stay away from using white text on a white background, positioning text off-screen, setting font size to zero or hiding a link in a single character like a comma or a full-stop.

The temptation to put a link in that last full stop was incredibly high.

Right, on that note, I’ll finish up. Clearly this isn’t everything that you can do to help your initial SEO efforts, but it’s a good grounding at least

Please let me know if I’ve missed anything vital or just got something plain wrong…

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HOW TO FIX HARDWARE PROBLEMS OF YOUR PC: 10 STEPS

Here in this blog, you will read about how to fix hardware problems of your pc at home before you need to call an expert. Follow these steps to fix you pc’s hardware issues:

TEST YOUR MALFUNCTIONING DEVICES ON ANOTHER COMPUTER
Sometimes it happens that your pc’s devices are malfunctioning and not your pc. So, you should check you pc first. Use another computer to test your malfunctioning mouse/camera/printer, or just another USB port, to help you work out where the fault lies. If the problem vanishes,it’s not the device itself that’s to blame.

NEW DRIVERS
Head to the manufacturer’s website and hunt down the latest drivers and/or firmware for your device — installing these driver updates will replace damaged files, add the latest bug fixes and improve compatibility with other hardware and software.

OLD DRIVERS
Windows and devices themselves sometimes install new drivers without asking and these occasionally cause problems. To roll back to a previous version, find the hardware in question in Device Manager, right-click and choose Properties and open the Driver tab.

UNINSTALL DRIVERS
Staying in Device Manager — there’s an Uninstall option that will remove all traces of the hardware in question from your system. Reboot and reattach the device to launch the installation process from scratch, which may resolve your issue.

Update, roll back and uninstall drivers from Device Manager.

TEST THE MEMORY
It’s not easy to tell when your memory is failing you and it doesn’t happen often — intermittent system instability and software crashes are the usual signs. A decent memory diagnostics tester like MemTest86+ can help by scanning the installed modules and alerting you to any potential issues.

TEST THE HARD DRIVE
Modern hard drives have something known as SMART (Self Monitoring And Reporting Technology) built into them. It’s a standardised technology the disks use to report their status and general health back to Windows. Plenty of free applications can read and report this SMART data — HDD Health is one example, which also supports SSD drives — and they will display warning signs if you need to buy a replacement drive in the near future.

WINDOWS DISK CHECKING
Windows has its own disk-checking tool that looks for problems on your installed hard drives — right-click on a drive in Windows Explorer, choose Properties and then the Tools tab to find it.

SCREEN ISSUES
Problems with the display can be caused by the graphics card, the monitor itself or the connecting cable (if you’re not using a laptop). Using a spare cable (if available) or switching to on-board graphics (again, if available) can help you work out exactly which link in the chain is the one going wrong. If your monitor or screen is found to be faulty, there’s not much you can do except dig out the warranty or pay a visit to the local repair shop.

OPEN HER UP
You don’t have to be a PC-building expert to take a peek under the case — just make sure you ground yourself to remove any static electricity first, and unplug the computer from the mains. Check for loose connections and screws or an excessive build-up of dust (a can of compressed air can help here). Laptops are less easy to poke around in, but some do allow access to the memory and hard drive, so you can check these connections. You may find more guidance from the manufacturer’s website or the supplied documentation.

BACKUP
Unfortunately, there are times when there’s just nothing you can do, and you have to accept that your hard drive or power supply unit is kaput. It’s vital that you have backups of your important files and folders, and there’s no shortage of services willing to help out — Google Drive, SkyDrive, Dropbox and Backblaze, to name just a few.

We Apologize for the Temporary Access Denial

26. Updates
Has the program you’re struggling with made an update available? Perhaps to support new hardware or operating system features? It’s worth checking via the developer’s website or the built-in update tool that most software has, though the majority of updates now install automatically.

27. Re-install
If problems persist, strip out all traces of the program in question using a third-party uninstaller — Revo Uninstaller will do the job for free — then start the installation process again from scratch with a fresh download or the original discs. Why? It ensures any corrupt or damaged files are replaced and all of the software’s settings are reset.

28. Plug-ins
Bear in mind that the problem may not lie with the software itself but with one of the program’s plug-ins or extensions — try disabling these add-ons one by one to see if the issue is resolved.

Plug-ins and add-ons are at the root of a lot of software problems.

29. Clean up
Many applications will create caches of temporary files that can occasionally interfere with program behaviour — look for an option that will wipe these files. CCleaner is a handy third-party freeware utility that cleans up temporary files for many different applications.

30. Conflicting programs
Is the troublesome application having problems because of another program on the system? This can be particularly common with security tools that try and do the same thing at the same time. Try temporarily disabling other programs that might be causing interference.

Internet problems

31. Find the fault
First step: find where the problem is. Check if you can connect to the web on other computers and devices. Ideally plug a laptop into the router directly and run the router’s built-in testing diagnostics — your ISP may be experiencing issues. If there’s only one PC that can’t get online, there’s likely to be a problem with its network adaptor or settings.

32. Adaptor problems
If you suspect the adaptor is to blame (a wireless USB dongle, for example), check the hardware tips above. Try updating the adaptor’s driver, uninstalling and reinstalling, or simply plugging it in another USB port.

33. Update firmware
It’s possible there’s a firmware update for the router that you’re using, though some ISPs frown on users taking this much control over their network setup. The best place to start looking is the customer forums for your ISP, where you should find details of which free router you’ve been lumbered with and how you can update its firmware.

34. Reboots all round
The reboot process is something of a troubleshooting cliche, but that’s because it often
works — turn the router off for 30-60 seconds to re-establish the connection and reset the router. Reboot your PC for good measure to attempt to connect again.

35. Change channels
Routers typically share the same frequency as other devices, like microwaves and baby monitors, which can slow down your connection — either move other wireless devices away, or change the channel used by your router (see the router settings for help with doing this).

Switching to a different router channel could fix slow broadband speeds.

36. Is it down?
If you’re having issues with a particular site, look it up on www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com — the problem may not be at your end. Note that if something large scale suffers a failure — like Amazon’s S3 storage — it can affect many different sites and services at once.

37. Network management
Delve into the Network and Sharing Centre in Windows to make sure there aren’t multiple programs trying to manage your wireless connection. Laptop manufacturers will often bundle their own network management software with their machines, which is fine as long as these applications aren’t trying to work concurrently with Windows’ own utilities.

38. Browser woes
Switching to an alternative browser is a simple way to test if your Internet-related problems are being caused by your favourite browser. If the browser is to blame, try some of the software tips I mentioned earlier, and take a long hard look at the plug-ins and extensions.

39. Firewall settings
Firewalls can be temperamental and might be blocking the site, service or program you’re trying to use. Consult the incoming and outgoing settings when you’ve found them (if you’re using the Windows Firewall, head to Control Panel). If you’re struggling to get online with a particular game or networking tool, you might find instructions for allowing firewall access in the supplied documentation.

Some networking tools and games will need special firewall permissions.

40. View connections
Head into the Network and Sharing Centre to make sure your PC is trying to connect using the right connection (wireless versus wired, for example). While all of this should configure itself automatically, rogue programs or security tools can make changes they shouldn’t. There are also some troubleshooters built into the Network and Sharing Centre, which are surprisingly useful.

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