Best Shared Hosting Companies

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Do you want to skip the read and get right to my top pick? The best shared hosting provider for most people is Hostinger.

If you are starting a new website from scratch, shared hosting will be the best option 99% of the time.

There are other types of hosting for bigger sites with tons of traffic. But if you are just getting off the ground, shared hosting is going to be the best price with the least amount of maintenance on your end.

I’ve reviewed my top six recommendations for shared hosting. These are dependable options from well-known providers. You’re not going to get scammed or wind up with a super slow site.

After the reviews, I’ve included a short buyers guide to help you select the best option for your specific needs.

#1 – Hostinger Review — The Lowest Price for Shared Hosting

Hostinger strikes the balance between price and performance–it’s the lowest amount you can spend and still get good hosting.

For $1.39 per month, Hostinger will set you up with one site good for up to 10,000 visitors each month. You also get 30 GB of storage, which is a hefty amount for the price.

If you’re starting out on a tight budget, this is more than enough to get your site online.

Of course you have to put the full amount down for a four-year hosting plan to get the best deal. Let’s do the math: 48 months at $1.39 per month is $66.72.

That means you are paying less than $70 for four years of hosting.

There’s simply no way to drive the price lower. You might be able to scratch out a better deal, but it’s probably not going to be with such a reputable host.

Hostinger includes 24/7/365 live chat customer service with every plan. They don’t hang you out to dry. In fact the company offers a 99.99% uptime guarantee.

There’s also a surprising amount of services and features bundled into the most affordable hosting package:

1 free email account
Weekly backups
Free SSL certificate
100+ one-click install apps
WordPress starter kit

A free email account is one less thing to buy, courtesy weekly backups are a comforting, zero-effort insurance plan.

I’m still talking about Hostinger’s entry-level plan. Literally everything I’ve mentioned up to this point is included for $1.39 per month.

If you need to create additional websites, Hostinger jumps to a whopping $2.59 per month for up to 100 sites.

Need more than 100k visitors a month? You can stick with Hostinger, but be ready to pay a tad more, at $3.99 per month, for Business Shared Hosting.

Yes, the price is going to jump upon renewal like any other host. The thing is, Hostinger’s renewal rate stays lower if you sign up for longer. With the 4-year Single Shared Deal, for example, your renewal rate is $2.99. If you only sign up for a year, the rate is $5.99.

So, you either get a really great or an incredible deal.

I recommend Hostinger for folks who know they need hosting and want the cheapest price out there.

You get better than expected performance from a web host that’s charging you less than the price of an oil change to host your site for four years.

Current high school freshmen will have their diploma in hand before you have to pay for hosting again.

Get in touch with Hostinger and see how little you need to spend.

#2 – Bluehost Review — The Best Way to Launch Your WordPress Site Today

Looking for a one-stop-shop to get your WordPress up and running in no time flat?

Go with Bluehost for a turnkey solution absolutely anyone can use.

Normally you have to get hosting, a domain, and download WordPress. It’s not rocket science, but for a first-timer there are a lot of places to get tripped up.

With Bluehost, you can get everything in a single place for one low price.

The entire step-by-step process, from signing up to publishing your first page, is as easy as possible. There’s guidance at every turn, and should you encounter difficulties of any kind, you can reach out to customer service.

Don’t take my word for it. Bluehost has been officially recommended by WordPress since 2005. When you make contact with a service agent, you’re getting assistance from someone that resolves WordPress issues all the time.

Building a website incredibly straight-forward. There’s no code to write or hours spent Googling answers. This is true if you have never designed a website before in your life.

Choose a template to start your site and then you are off and running.

Find something that aligns with your brand or goals, and customize from there. Bluehost actually gives you custom WordPress themes that you can make your own. Use fonts, colors, and a layout that speaks to your purpose.

In addition to WordPress tools, Bluehost includes a number of features that make your site faster and more secure, with little to no work on your part:

Automatic WordPress updates
Google Business verification
Free CDN
Free SSL certificate
Domain manager

Most people aren’t thinking about getting an SSL certificate when they launch a site. But it’s the only way to make sure that visitors know your site is safe. With Bluehost, you can enable a free SSL certificate across your whole site simply by turning it on.

Same with the CDN, which you can enable with one-click to get a faster site. Both of these features are important, but not things you want to have to mess around with. Bluehost makes it effortless to get the benefits with zero work on your end.

If you need more than just WordPress on your sites, go with standard shared hosting through Bluehost.

It’s a great deal, but if you know you are going to use only WordPress, I recommend going with one of Bluehost’s WordPress hosting plans. They are basically the same as shared hosting price-wise, but there’s better speed and security.

The difference with shared WordPress hosting is that the servers are optimized for just that. No other type of sites run on those servers, so the performance is better and it’s easier to secure.

Bluehost shared WordPress hosting is available in 3 different plans:

The Basic plan is going to work fine if you are just getting your site off the ground. 50 GB storage is more than enough for most small sites. Upgrading to Plus gives you unlimited storage, and Choice Plus comes with free automated backups.

You’ll notice that Bluehost doesn’t offer monthly pricing. You can sign up for one, two, or three-year plans. The longer your plan, the deeper the discount.

That means you are getting three years of hosting at $2.95 per month. There are enough services and resources bundled with your hosting plan to avoid having to pay for much more.

Compared to hosts that only offer discounts during your first year, Bluehost is a great way to save more money over time.

Everything you need to get started is right there. Hosting plus free domain plus WordPress. Step-by-step instructions and 24/7 guidance. If you aren’t happy with the experience, Bluehost offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Jumpstart your WordPress today with Bluehost.

#3 – A2 Hosting Review — The Best Way to Escape a Nightmare Host

I have migrated sites from one host to another, and there’s nothing fun about it. Not going to name names, but I have experienced customer service airballs and been price-gouged to the point where I needed a new host that day.

If you find yourself needing to transfer your site away from a nightmare situation, A2 Hosting is your safe haven from further issues.

First things first, A2 will transfer your site for free. This is a big deal because there are a lot of little things that have to be done right in order for the process to go smooth.

A2 has a dedicated team of site migration experts that will help you make sure everything gets moved over safely. A lot of companies will give you some tools to make the process go faster, but it still amounts to a DIY migration. A2 actually does it for you.

And once you are set up, you’ll find that A2’s customer support is definitely a step up from whatever you had before. Even the cheapest plan you can get comes with 24/7 support by phone, email, and live chat.

The customer service team has an excellent reputation for resolving technical questions quickly. No more uncertainty and confusion when something goes wrong.

Your site speed will also likely improve, as A2 is constantly upgrading to the newest technologies. LiteSpeed web servers (available with Turbo plans) deliver 6-11 times faster performance than others.

A2 Hosting has been around for a long time and the platform already works with the popular tools everyone uses. There are one-click installs for WordPress, WooCommerce, Joomla, Drupal, and more.

It’s also got bundled benefits your old host never dreamed of providing for free, like:

100 GB storage
Unlimited email
Unlimited subdomains and parked domains
Site staging
Free SSL certificate
Malware and virus scanning

Unlimited email for free with an entry-level plan is very uncommon. Usually you have to pay extra. Site staging, too, is very rare to get with shared hosting. This allows you to test out new features on your site in a development area before pushing them live.

And 100 GB storage space? That’s two or three times as much as you are going to get for such a low price.

I like A2 for shared hosting because of the great service, generous resources, and useful bundled features.

You’ll notice that the renewal rates are good, not great. Here’s the thing. A2 has 5-star reviews from people who stick with it for years, and they all mention the high quality of the customer service. Some have even reported switching hosts upon renewal, only to run back to A2 because they didn’t know how good they had it.

This is a really good option for people who’s sites are starting to hit resource limits with their current provider. Maybe you’re running out of storage space or maybe your site is just too slow with your other host.

Solve this by moving over to A2 hosting. You’ll get a great price and A2 will move your site over for free.

A2 is the final host you’ll ever need. No more migrations. No more run-arounds from customer service. Just top speed and assistance the moment you need it.

Let A2 rescue you from subpar hosting today.

#4 – DreamHost Review — The Best Way to Avoid an Annual Pricing Plan

If you want a website without the commitment of a long contract, DreamHost is going to give you the best price.

The company does offer very competitive rates if you are willing to sign up long-term, but unlike most competitors, DreamHost will give you a great deal month-to-month.

It works for people who just need dependable hosting, not a long-term relationship with yet another provider.

Shared hosting starts at $4.95 per month. That’s all you have to put down to get started.

There are no hard and fast limits on bandwidth or storage, so you don’t have to worry about overage fees.

Obviously your site can’t take more than its fair share of resources from the shared server, so if you are planning on running a lot of high-caliber website elements or an online store, you might want to spring for a Shared Unlimited plan. That’s only $8.95 per month to start, still no long-term commitment necessary.

You might think that performance or customer service would suffer if you’re not kicking a ton of money in on day one. With DreamHost, though, you get a 100% uptime guarantee. The company will actually refund you if your site goes down.

It’s a win/win scenario. DreamHost rarely if ever has to pay people because the sites never go down.

Another nice perk of DreamHost is that customer service is never outsourced. You can reach out any time of day by email. You can also get in touch with live chat during business hours (5:30AM–9:30PM PT), which more than covers the entire continental U.S.

DreamHost is also an officially recommended WP provider. I’d go with DreamHost for WordPress sites if you don’t want to put a lot of money down today. Bluehost is phenomenal, but you have to sign up for a year or more.

There’s also a lot of bundled services that will save you time and money, including:

One-click installs for Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) and Google Analytics
Automated WP migrations
Automated WP backups
200 WP templates
SSL Certificate
Free domain privacy and protection

I want to call out the free domain privacy and protection, which is free forever with DreamHost. This keeps your personal or business information out of the public record (which I recommend doing), and can cost $10-15 per year with other providers.

DreamHost will include a domain for free, but only if you sign up for a year or more. Alternatively, you can purchase a domain directly through DreamHost at a very reasonable price.

Either way it’s a good deal, but I want to focus on DreamHost’s monthly pricing plans for shared hosting. These are just much better than if you try to go month-to-month with other hosts.

The Shared Starter plan is less than $5 to get started today. No long-term commitment or large upfront cost. After three months, the price jumps up a few bucks to the new current rate, which happens to be $7.99.

This is still not a lot for hosting, considering the unlimited resources and highly available customer service.

One could forgive DreamHost for being less flexible on their refund policy, given that you don’t have to sign anything, but the reverse is in fact true.

DreamHost offers a 97-day refund, which is months longer than most. Cancel whenever you like. There’s no fight to get your money back.

No contract? No problem with DreamHost.

#5 – GreenGeeks Review Review — The Best for Socially-Conscious Companies

GreenGeeks is a solid all-around hosting company with a lot of actually useful bundled benefits. I mean it. You get fast sites and customer service that’s a cut above what you get most other places.

But if you want an eco-friendly hosting solution, this is definitely your number one pick.

Every web host has giant server farms sucking up energy to deliver their service. There’s no way around it–the internet causes pollution. GreenGeeks matches every bit of energy it takes for hosting with three times the amount in renewable energy.

This is what GreenGeeks means by a “300% green hosting platform.” By choosing them as your host, you’re more than offsetting your carbon footprint. You’ll actually be reducing it, putting more power back into the system than you took out.

As noble as all of this is, I wouldn’t be recommending GreenGeeks if the company didn’t deliver the hosting goods.

It does. Big time. Any plan you choose comes with some of the best performance in the shared web hosting space.

The price is extremely competitive and you get a long list of useful services that improve your website speed, save you money, and allow you to spend less time thinking about hosting. For less than $2.50 per month, you get:

Nightly backups
50 email accounts
Unlimited bandwidth
50GB of storage
SSL Certificate
Domain for the first year
CDN
Website builder

With a lot of other hosts, you have to pay extra for a site builder and email. GreenGeeks includes both for free. There’s less stuff to set up, and moving forward, less maintenance on your end with courtesy nightly backups.

You also get a free domain name for the first year, which saves another $10-15 bucks right there.

Customer service is always available. You can reach out by phone, email tickets, or chat. The company has an excellent service reputation. GreenGeeks is also one of the few hosts with dedicated specialists that will help you transfer your old site for free.

I give Bluehost the edge for starting a WordPress site, though GreenGeeks makes the process very easy as well. If you’re not planning on WordPress, GreenGeeks is a good choice for Drupal and Joomla, two other popular content management systems. GreenGeeks gives you one-click installs and automatic updates for those apps and more.

GreenGeeks offers three shared hosting plans.

The Lite plan includes everything that I have mentioned so far. If you are just starting out, this is going to be all you need and more for a single site.

The Pro and Premium plans let you build an unlimited number of sites and offer more resources to help your site handle more traffic as it grows.

Regardless of the plan you choose, virtually everything you need to start running your site is bundled in. You can manage everything from a single dashboard.

The renewal rates are priced about average for the shared hosting space. Nothing great to call out there.

But don’t forget. Every year you host with GreenGeeks is another year where you are putting in more energy than you are taking out.

Turn over a new leaf with GreenGeeks today.

#6 – WP Engine Review — The Best for High-Traffic WordPress Sites

The person behind the scenes of an amazing WordPress website knows just how much attention and maintenance went into it.

That person doesn’t have to be you.

With WP Engine, you create great content, and your hosting provider takes over the technical side. This is really important if you have a high-traffic WordPress site, especially if you need to support interactive features and lots of media.

You can rest assured that everything will work and your site will be fast. That’s because WP Engine offers managed WordPress hosting plans. You still save money by sharing the server space with other WP Engine tenants, but you get much better performance and customer service because it’s a managed plan.

If you have a basic WordPress site or blog, Bluehost is going to be just fine. But once you reach a certain size, WordPress maintenance starts to become a lot more involved. With WP Engine, you don’t have to worry about the backend legwork–your sites are always blazing fast.

Think about the impression this makes on visitors. You have the latest plugins, video features, and intuitive shopping carts. Everything works in perfect harmony as potential customers make their way around your site.

This creates a positive, professional online identity for your business. And you don’t have to hire a developer to babysit your site or worry about the configuration and tedious maintenance yourself.

Even though WP Engine manages a lot of the technical stuff, there is no loss of control. In fact, you will have more tools to build out your site than any other platform. Some of the highlights of WP Engine hosting include:

30+ premium WordPress themes
Staging site
Daily backups
Threat detection and blocking
CDN
Automated WP migrations

The premium themes alone are worth more than $2,000 if you were to purchase them individually.

But the real value comes from being able to create a site that stands out from the rest. With millions of WordPress sites already using the same free themes, WP Engine gives you more freedom to create something different with the more powerful premium themes.

Stand out from the crowd. Test new ideas with complete freedom as WP Engine provides an easy staging area for you to try new plugins and themes before going live.

Whether you are building sites for yourself or your customers, the staging area streamlines safe development.

And when you run into issues, you get the best WordPress customer service in the business. WP Engine customers rave about how fast and comprehensive the support is. They are more than happy to pay extra for the peace of mind.

The cost of signing up with WP Engine is higher than most other shared hosting plans, but that’s because you get a lot more. Everything from themes to support is truly premium.

And, if you sign up using my promo code, you’ll save an extra 20% off your first payment.

If you are focused on getting the most value from every dollar you spend, WP Engine is worth it. Your site just works, and you don’t have to invest additional time and resources into it.

Bear in mind that WP Engine does not increase upon renewal. You can get two months for free if you sign an annual plan, but the price never changes.

So while WP Engine is significantly more than the introductory rates from other web hosts, over time it’s a lot closer.

WP Engine offers additional managed hosting plans beyond the ones I’ve pictured here. You can get managed hosting plus, which helps with keeping plugins updated, as well as plans for ecommerce hosting.

One thing to be aware of is that WP Engine only does WordPress hosting. If you are trying to host multiple types of sites on the same host, this is not for you. Bluehost can help with whatever type of site you want, and offers managed WordPress plans if you need more than basic shared hosting.

But if you want a top-of-the-line WordPress experience, WP Engine is your best option. You’ll be able to take your sites to the next level with minimal work on your end.Grow your site and your business, not your maintenance schedule.

Get in touch with WP Engine today.

What I Looked at to Find the Best Shared Hosting Company

If you are looking at shared hosting, it’s because you’re looking for a good price with low maintenance.

Consider it entry-level hosting, a fine option for new and small sites that aren’t expecting a ton of visitors.

Other types of hosting–like VPS, cloud, and dedicated hosting–let you handle hundreds of thousands of visitors each month. The trade off is more upkeep and responsibility on your end. Plus these are going to cost five, ten, twenty times as much each month.

Still you want a fast site that’s always up and secure. You’re sharing space on a server, but you don’t want to compromise on the fundamentals.

Done.

All of my picks are dependable web hosts with a long track record of excellence with regards to site performance and security. This is as good as shared hosting gets.

That said, the way that each web host parcels out their services is different.

Let’s get into the fine print and nitty-gritty to make sure that you are finding the best deal on what you really need.

Today’s Price vs Renewal Rate

Shared hosting is definitely the best way to get a low price on hosting, but you want to get something that works within your budget today, tomorrow, and next year.

Typically, to get the cheapest price on most hosting plans, you have to sign on to a multi-year contract. If you have to pay everything up front, it may wind up being several hundred dollars, even if it’s only a few bucks a month.

Is that going to work? You don’t want to get to the end of the registration process only to discover that the “cheap” plan is way more than you want to put down today.

DreamHost is a great option for people that want a low monthly rate, as some hosts won’t let you sign up for less than a year.

The other major price factor to watch out for is the renewal rate. All web hosts offer introductory deals to get you to sign up, but that honeymoon pricing only lasts for so long.

Be smart about this. Signing up for a four-year Hostinger deal locks in the lowest rate for that entire period. Yes, it’s a chunk of change upfront, but over time it’s definitely the cheapest option out there.

Resource Limits Don’t Box You In

As I mentioned, I only picked shared web hosts who offered best-in-class performance for their clients’ websites.

That said, each provider allocates server resources differently–if you start to max out these limits, performance is going to suffer even if you’re with a solid host.

You don’t want to get stuck choosing your content or site design based on resource limits.

Start with how much storage you need. A wedding photographer with thousands of high-res pictures and video is going to blow through storage quicker than a blogger who includes an image with each post.

A2 Hosting offers exceptionally generous storage with their entry-level plan: 100 GB for less than $3 per month. All of A2’s other plans come with unlimited storage.

You’ll see unlimited storage for a lot of upgraded shared hosting plans, and just know that it only counts toward what you use for your site. In other words, you can’t store seasons of your favorite show.

The other major resource to think about is bandwidth, which is basically the amount of data that can pass between your site and visitors. The amount you have is going to impact how fast your site is and how much lag there is between visitors arriving and page elements loading.

Everyone likes fast sites and they rank higher, but how much bandwidth do you need?

Some providers, like WP Engine, make it easy to figure out what to expect, because they list bandwidth along with an approximate number of monthly visitors on the pricing page:

New website owners especially will find this helpful. 25,000 visits a month is an easy number to wrap your head around. Some web hosts only give the bandwidth, which leaves you trying to pencil out how many visitors you can support.

When you see web hosts advertising “unlimited bandwidth,” what they mean is that there are no hard limits on what you can use. Bear in mind that it’s a shared server with finite resources, so if your site (or other people’s on that server) are using more than their fair share, it’s going to impact site performance.

For people with a basic site or blog, site resources aren’t a huge concern. You probably won’t have thousands of visitors each day, and each one will be consuming relatively little bandwidth.

But if you start adding interactive features, WordPress plugins, and other resource-intensive features on your site, I’d pay very close attention to what you get, and how much it’s going to cost if you need more.

Bundled Services You Actually Need

A lot of providers throw in more than just hosting when you sign up. These package deals that include a lot of other services that may save you time and money.

Or you wind up paying for a bunch of stuff that you don’t need.

Here’s a short list of bundled services that are actual plusses for most users:

Domain name: To get a site online, you have to have a domain name, which is your web address (mine’s neilpatel.com).
Site Backups: This is what it sounds like and means you don’t have to download a third-party app or manage site backups yourself.
SSL certificates: A secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate encrypts traffic when people fill out forms or enter payment info. This is important because Chrome, Safari, and other browsers will tell visitors your site is unsafe if you don’t have an SSL certificate.
Website builder: With a good website builder, you won’t have to write a line of code to get your site looking the way you want it. Simply drag, drop, and edit page elements visually.
CDN: A content delivery network (CDN) stores your sites on a network of servers across the country or world. This makes your sites load faster for visitors.
Domain privacy: When you register your domain name, your company’s information becomes public unless you have domain privacy enabled. Some hosts charge for this, others include it for free. I recommend getting it to avoid spam.
Email: You want an email address associated with your domain (info@exampledomain.com), so it’s convenient if hosts include this for free.

If this is your first site, all of this is going to be helpful.

A free domain name saves $10-15 and the time it takes you to signup with a domain registrar and point to your new host. Bluehost includes a domain name free for the first year, and you can get set up in a few steps without having to hunt down a domain registrar.

And even experienced folks will appreciate stuff like automated site backups. WP Engine takes care of that completely, which saves you from having to pay for and set up a system on your own.

Something like a website builder may be important if you want to customize the look of your site. Hostinger has an affordable site builder, but it’s an extra cost. GreenGeeks, which is a little more expensive per month, includes a site builder for free.

If you are going to run a WordPress site on Bluehost, you don’t need a separate website builder. You get templates and custom themes as part of the hosting package, so you are all set to build a sharp WordPress site immediately.

Alternatively, it may be the case that you already have a business email and use Cloudflare for free CDN. In that case, some of these services are just going to be distractions.

Support You Can Count On

Customer service is very important when it comes to hosting. What happens when your site goes down? What happens when you can’t figure out what’s wrong?

Every minute your site is down or broken sends potential visitors to your competitor’s sites.

Customer service is a big factor in my decision to recommend this specific lineup of shared hosting providers. You can get in touch with any of them at any time day or night. I consider 24/7 support essential.

Some offer a greater range of support channels than others. A2 and GreenGeeks include phone, live chat, and email ticket support with every single plan they offer. Others only include phone service with premium tier plans.

But the number of support channels doesn’t tell the whole story. WP Engine only offers live chat with their lowest tier plan, but the company has incredible customer service reviews. People are very happy with the live chat support, because they are always talking with someone with expertise in WordPress.

Reading reviews only gets you so far, though. To get real evidence, take advantage of the free trial period. Every host I chose offers some risk-free period to try them out.

During that time, submit a bunch of customer service requests: calls, tickets, chats. Try out every avenue. It should be easy to get answers in a timely fashion. If it’s not, I’d consider that a red flag.

For people who already have a website, try to find a web host that will help you transfer your old site. That can get messy real quick. A2 and GreenGeeks will migrate your site for free, so I’d recommend looking at those two if you have a site already.

Conclusion

If you’re starting a new site from scratch or currently running a small website, shared hosting will be the best option for you. As your site grows, you can upgrade your hosting if need be, but it’s going to be more than good enough for now.

Let’s review my recommendations for the best shared hosting:

Hostinger — Lowest possible price for shared hosting
Bluehost — Best way to launch your WordPress site today
A2 Hosting — Best way to escape a nightmare host
DreamHost — Best way to avoid an annual pricing plan
GreenGeeks — Best for socially-conscious companies
WP Engine — Best for high-traffic WordPress sites

Hostinger is my top pick because it has the lowest price and comes with everything a new site needs to flourish.

For getting a new WordPress site off the ground, go with Bluehost. There’s no easier way to get started.

The other options are good, too, and may work even better than Hostinger or Bluehost, depending on what you are trying to do.

Say you need to leave your old host now. A2 is my top pick for you because they offer a free site transfer. This guarantees that the transition will be smooth and you won’t have to migrate everything over yourself.

Those of you looking to spend the smallest amount on day one will like DreamHost. Without signing a contract, you can get top-tier shared hosting at an affordable price.

Choose GreenGeeks if you want your hosting plan to improve the environment. Rest assured that every dollar you spend on hosting goes toward renewable energy.

If you are planning on a high-traffic WordPress site, for example, it might behoove you to go with WP Engine. While it’s overkill for small sites, it’s going to work much better for complex sites with a lot of visitors.

What’s your go-to provider for shared hosting?

How to Get Funding for Women Owned Companies

Women owned companies are exploding onto the scene. In fact, you may be surprised to learn that companies such as Cisco, Liquid Paper, The Body Shop, Spanx, and Proactive are all owned by women.

What Women Owned Companies Need to Succeed

Women owned companies are definitely becoming a force in the entrepreneurial world. According to Fundera, 40% of US businesses are owned by women. If you are ready to join the ranks, here is what you need to know.

Women Owned Companies: Start Off On the Right Foot

All businesses, including women owned companies, need strong fundability. This starts with how your business is set up. The first part of this is separating the business from yourself. This starts with having separate contact information, meaning you do not use your personal address or telephone number as your business address or telephone number.

That sounds easy enough. However, many entrepreneurs, especially women, choose to start their business from their residence. It makes sense. In theory, a female business owner could better manage a home and children if running a business from home. Even a woman, or a man for that matter, without a family could find benefit in the flexibility of running their own business from home. There is no commute, you cut the cost of buying lunch out, and you can work in your pajamas.

Foundation of Fundability

While some would argue these things are not all they’re cracked up to be, one thing is for sure. It is definitely tempting to use your personal contact information as your business information if you work from home. There are two things you need to know about this.

What frustrates you the most about funding your business? Check out how our free guide can help.

Contact Information

First, regardless of where you run your business from, you do not need to use your personal contact information as your business contact information. Second, you can still run your business from your home and still have separate contact information for your business.

The phone number part is easy. You could get a separate phone, but it isn’t necessary. It is easy enough to get a number that works through the internet. You can then forward it to your regular phone, and whenever someone calls your business number it will ring to your personal phone.

An address is a little trickier, but not impossible. Whatever you do, don’t use a P.O. Box or an UPS box. Many types of funding will not accept this type of address. They want to see a physical address.

Other Setup Information

This is not the only issue with setting up your business to be fundable. But it is the first step. After that you need an EIN, you need to incorporate, and you absolutely must get a D-U-N-S number. You also have to open a dedicated business bank account.

The whole point in setting up your business to be fundable is so that you can get funding for your business. There is a huge catch 22 here, as if you are already running a business and are not yet set up to be fundable, you may need money before you can get it done. The set up is only one piece of the fundability puzzle. There are over 100 different fundability factors that lenders consider. Building business fundability takes time.

Best Funding for Women Owned Companies Right Now

The problem is, the longer you wait, the hard it gets to build fundability. Not only that, you need money now, right? How do women owned companies get the funds they need to grow and thrive, or just survive, in the meantime? We have a few suggestions.

Credit Line Hybrid

The credit line hybrid is unsecured business financing. It is available to pretty much anyone for any type of business expense. You can use it for real estate, equipment, working capital, and even startup expenses. Not only that, but there is no security required. Furthermore, there is no down payment, and you do not have to provide income documentation. It is completely no-doc financing.

You do need to have personal credit of 680 or above. Also, there cannot be any late payments in the past 12 months, there can be no open collections or bankruptcies, and there should be less than 4 inquiries in the past 6 months on your consumer credit report. There also has to be at least 2 open credit cards with a $2,000 limit or higher with 2 years of good payment history.

If you do not meet these requirements, you can take on a credit partner that does meet them. The payments will still be reported on the business’s credit report, so business credit will build whether you get the financing yourself or through a credit partner.

You can get up to $150,000, and often interest rates are as low as 0% for the first 6 to 18 months.

Business Revenue Lending

If your business has consistent revenue of $120,000 per year or more, you may qualify for this type of funding. Lenders verify revenue using bank statements. There can be no recent bankruptcies, but the minimum credit score to qualify is as low as 500.

A business must also be in operation for a year or more, and they must do over 5 small transactions each month to get business revenue financing.

What frustrates you the most about funding your business? Check out how our free guide can help.

Merchant Cash Advance

If your business accepts credit card payments and you have at least a 500 FICO, you could get up to $750,000 in a merchant cash advance. Credit rates are usually lower compared to traditional financing as well.

Your business must bring in $100,000 or more per year in credit card sales, and typically you can get approval equal to one months credit card financing volume.

Account Receivable Financing

Outstanding account receivables can also be a source of funding for your business. Get as much as 80% of receivables advanced in less than 24 hours. You get the rest of the accounts receivable amount once you collect full payment for the invoice. Closing takes 2 weeks or less.

Receivables should be with the government or another business. Getting financing with receivables from individuals is not as easy. If you also have purchase orders, then you can get financing to have those filled. You won’t need to use your cash flow to do so.

Equipment Financing

You can secure this type of financing by using existing equipment or new equipment you want to purchase as collateral. Funding is available up to $10 million. Terms range from 5 to 60 months, and you need a minimum 550 FICO.

The equipment must be new, and most types of equipment are acceptable, including software.

You’ll need to provide details on the equipment to be financed and, depending on the loan amount and certain risk factors, you may need to show 2 years corporate and personal tax returns.

Enterprise SBA Loans

For these loans you have to have collateral worth up to at least 50% of the loan amount, but you only need a FICO of 620. There also can be no bankruptcies in the past 4 years. Only for profit companies qualify, and they must have positive trends in sales growth. Generally amounts are available of up to $12 million with terms up to 25-years.

What frustrates you the most about funding your business? Check out how our free guide can help.

Women Owned Companies Can Get the Funding They Need

While there are some women business grant opportunities out there, they are highly competitive and rarely enough to fully fund business needs. These funding options are great for immediate cash needs, and you can work on building your fundability in the meantime. Once your business has strong fundability, you can have pretty much any business funding you need.

The absolute best way to build fundability is with the help of a business credit expert. They can walk you through the complicated web of the many factors that affect fundability, including helping you find accounts that will report to your business credit profile. That is the only way to build a business credit score.

The post How to Get Funding for Women Owned Companies appeared first on Credit Suite.

How to Get Funding for Women Owned Companies

Women owned companies are exploding onto the scene. In fact, you may be surprised to learn that companies such as Cisco, Liquid Paper, The Body Shop, Spanx, and Proactive are all owned by women.

What Women Owned Companies Need to Succeed

Women Owned Companies: Start Off On the Right Foot

Foundation of Fundability

What frustrates you the most about funding your business? Check out how our free guide can help.

Contact Information

Other Setup Information

Best Funding for Women Owned Companies Right Now

Credit Line Hybrid

You can get up to $150,000, and often interest rates are as low as 0% for the first 6 to 18 months.

Business Revenue Lending

A business must also be in operation for a year or more, and they must do over 5 small transactions each month to get business revenue financing.

What frustrates you the most about funding your business? Check out how our free guide can help.

Merchant Cash Advance

Your business must bring in $100,000 or more per year in credit card sales, and typically you can get approval equal to one months credit card financing volume.

Account Receivable Financing

Equipment Financing

The equipment must be new, and most types of equipment are acceptable, including software.

You’ll need to provide details on the equipment to be financed and, depending on the loan amount and certain risk factors, you may need to show 2 years corporate and personal tax returns.

Enterprise SBA Loans

What frustrates you the most about funding your business? Check out how our free guide can help.

Women Owned Companies Can Get the Funding They Need

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Best Shared Hosting Companies

Disclosure: This content is reader-supported, which means if you click on some of our links that we may earn a commission. Do you want to skip the read and get right to my top pick? The best shared hosting provider for most people is Hostinger. For those of you starting a new website from scratch, …

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How to Recognize Predatory Practices in Business Loan Companies, and How to Get Help

The world of business loan companies is full of predatory lenders. If you are desperate for business funding, it can be easy to take the bait and fall into their trap. You need to know how to tell predators from legit creditors, especially if you need to veer away from traditional financing. You may think you know what to look for, but there are some predatory secrets that a lot of business owners are not privy to.

How to Avoid Predatory Lenders When Looking for Business Loan Companies

It can be helpful to work with a business credit expert. Not only can they steer you toward responsible lenders, but they can also help you choose the type of funding that will work best for your needs. A good one will help you build business credit at the same time.

Still, you need to know the signs of a predatory lender for yourself. If you do not, you will not even be able to tell if you are working with a good business credit expert, or not.

Signs of a Predatory Lender

Can you tell the difference between legit creditors and predatory lenders?

According to Investopedia:

“Predatory lending benefits the lender and ignores or hinders the borrower’s ability to repay a debt. These lending tactics often try to take advantage of a borrower’s lack of understanding concerning loans, terms, or financial literacy.”

Predatory lending when it comes to business loans is becoming an increasingly prevalent problem

How do you keep yourself from wading off into shark infested waters?

Find out why so many companies use our proven methods to get business loans.

Avoid Business Loan Companies That Focus on Monthly Payment Rather Than Actual Loan Amount

They may insist on one large payment at the end of the term with only interest payments being made each month until that point. This is known as a balloon payment. In business lending, this can be useful if you are waiting on large sums of money at the end of the contract to repay the loan, so it isn’t necessarily a deal breaker. However, you do need to know that your payments are only paying interest and not reducing principal.

Recognize if this is really the type of loan that you need. Lenders should always be willing to disclose your total loan amount and terms. You should not have to beg for this or search for it. Lenders that focus only on the payment may be sketchy.

There are many things they can do to make a monthly payment lower, like extending the loan period, adding a large payment at the end (a balloon payment), or making adjustments to loan terms. All of these things can make your monthly payments look low, while in reality you are getting stuck with a bad loan.

Note that while a balloon payment should be an automatic deal breaker, insistence on a balloon payment is an extra red flag.

Good Business Loan Companies Will Not Add Unnecessary Extras Without Your Knowledge

Another common practice of predatory lenders is adding extras onto the loan. These are usually things the borrower does not need. Furthermore, the borrower will not even know they are there. The most common “extra” seems to be insurance products that do not offer any benefit.

Business Loan Companies and Confessions of Judgement

New York plays a unique role in the world of predatory lending. Understanding this can help you understand if you are about to become the prey. It all comes down to a confession of judgement. If a borrower signs a confession of judgement, they are basically agreeing to lose in a court battle if there is a dispute about repayment. Many cash-advance companies, which make up a large faction of predatory lenders, have their borrowers sign one of these.

New York state law is friendly to this type of contract. Regardless of where a loan takes place, it may include a “New York confession of judgement.”

This could also mean you are agreeing that any lawsuits will be handled in New York state. That could greatly increase expenses if you do not live near there. If you see one of these in your loan documents, do not sign it. It is of no benefit to you. It only benefits the lender.

Find out why so many companies use our proven methods to get business loans.

Don’t Accept Punishment for Early Payment

Prepayment penalties should definitely be a red flag. Early payment is good, period. Even though the lender may lose some interest, they should not be too opposed to early repayment. By itself, it should not be the reason you do not take a loan. But it should make you continue with caution and look for other red flags.

Good Business Loan Companies Do Not Have to Seek the Weak

Business loan companies that specifically seek out underserved populations, such as minorities and immigrants, and those with bad credit should be considered carefully. This may include contacting business owners that fit into these types of categories directly, or targeting them with marketing campaigns designed for them specifically. If the focus is meant to make them think they are getting a great deal because they are in an underserved market, it could be sketchy. While there are programs designed to help serve underserved populations, if something seems too good to be true, it likely is.

In fact, those that fall into these categories are more likely than others to fall prey, according to a 2015 Center for Responsible Lending Report.

A Good Business Loan Company Will Not Start With a Bad Deal

Some predatory lenders will try to earn trust by admitting they are offering a bad deal, then promising to fix it in the future. They claim they will allow for a refinance that will be a better option. Don’t fall for it. A bad deal is a bad deal. Just walk away.

Loan Flipping is a Classic Move for Predatory Business Loan Companies

This is not the same as house flipping. Flipping a house can be very profitable. Loan flipping is actually a classic predatory lending tactic. When a predatory lender sees that you are struggling, they will offer a refinance. However, you end up paying points and fees again. As a result, before it is over, you end up owing more than your original loan. Sometimes you may end up owing even more than your collateral is worth. It is a vicious cycle, and it can bury you quickly.

Find out why so many companies use our proven methods to get business loans.

The Responsible Business Lending Coalition

This is a network of nonprofit and for-profit lenders, investors, and small business advocates. They have a common commitment to innovation in the small business lending industry. They also have serious concerns about the increase of irresponsible small business lending.

In 2015 they drafted the Small Business Owners Bill of Rights. When searching for a small business lender, look for those that have signed this. There are many members of the Small Business Lending Coalition.

Here are a few examples:

What is the Easiest Way to Avoid Predatory Business Loan Companies?

Look for help when you can find it. Working with a company that specializes in helping small businesses find the funds they need can help you avoid predatory lenders. For example, Credit Suite works only with reputable lenders. With our Credit Line Hybrid and many other products, we connect businesses with lenders that we know to be safe to work with. Not only that, but we help you assess your fundablity at the same time, and work with you to figure out how to best fill in your business’s fundability weaknesses. If business credit is an issue, we can help you build that too! The time to take action is now, before you look for business loan companies. Don’t take the chance of falling prey.

The post How to Recognize Predatory Practices in Business Loan Companies, and How to Get Help appeared first on Credit Suite.

Think Outside the Box When Choosing Business Funding Companies

When you think of business funding companies, you are probably thinking about traditional financing institutions. Large banks, community banks, credit unions and such definitely do offer business loans. However, if you are a small business, you may need to think outside of the traditional funding box a bit.

Business Funding Companies Come in Many Forms

There are many different options when it comes to funding your business. There are private lenders, which you may have heard referred to as alternative lenders. There are cash advance options which are bad news on all fronts, but especially for funding a business. What you probably haven’t heard of however, is the small niche of business funding companies that do more than just offer business financing. In addition, they offer help improving fundability. This may include consultation, coaching, educational opportunities, and more.

These companies not only help you find the financing you need now, but they can also help you improve business credit and fundability so that you qualify for more and better funding throughout the life of your business.

Find out why so many companies use our proven methods to get business loans.

Business Funding Companies: Credit Suite

This is exactly what Credit Suite does. A business credit expert will consult with you to help determine where you currently stand in regards to fundability. Then, they can not only help you find the best business funding for you now, but they can help you improve your fundability to ensure you qualify for even more funding, with better terms!

A business credit expert can help you in ways you probably do not even realize. They have an inside track to what lenders are actually looking for. They can also help you steer clear of predatory lenders, which are all too prevalent in the world of business funding companies. These experts are also aware of which lenders report to business credit reports to help build business credit, which ones do not require a person credit check or guarantee, and more.

Working with a business credit expert will save you time, and in the long-term, money. The cost far outweighs the benefit, and you definitely get a bigger bank for your buck.

Business Funding Companies: Alternative (Private) Lenders

The vast sea of alternative lenders is hard to swim in. It is full of sharks that are searching for easy prey in the form of small businesses that need money. If you aren’t careful, you will get swallowed up quickly. Unfortunately, the industry is wrought with predatory lending practices.

The key is to find a legitimate business funding company that fits your current needs. A business credit expert is the best way to do this, but here are some good options from U.S. News and World Report to give you an idea of what is out there.

As with all loans, rate, fees, minimums, maximums, terms, and other details can change without notice Be sure to check with the lender directly for the most up to date information.

BlueVine

Loans are available from BlueVine up to $100,000. Annual revenue must be $120,000 or more and the borrower must be in business for at least 6 months. Your personal credit score has to be 600 or above. It is important to note also, that BlueVine does not offer a line of credit in all states.

Funding Circle

At Funding Circle, borrow up to$500,000. Decisions come in as little as 24 hours, and you can get funding in as little as 5 days. Repay on terms from 6 months to 5 years.

Funding Circle’s rates start at 4.99% per year. There are no prepayment penalties, there are also relatively fast decisions and funding.

They do have a ton of fees, including for origination, missing payments, and insufficient funds. Also, some maximum rates are high!

OnDeck

Obtaining financing from OnDeck is quick and easy. First, you apply online and receive your decision once application processing is complete. If you receive approval, your loan funds will go directly to your bank account. The minimum loan can be up to $500,000.

Find out why so many companies use our proven methods to get business loans.

Just like any other online lender, they do have certain requirements to qualify for a loan. For example, a personal credit score of 600 or more. Also, you must be in business for at least one year. Annual revenue must be at or exceed $100,000. In addition, there can be no bankruptcy on file in the past 2 years and no unresolved liens or judgements.

Rapid Finance

Rapid Finance offers a couple of different options. Which one is right for you will depend on a number of variables.

Small Business Term Loans

These range up to $1 million in funding, with terms from 3 to 60 months. Your business needs to be generating revenue to qualify.

You will need to supply a government-issued ID (like a driver’s license), a void check from your business banking account, and the last three statements from your business bank account.

Merchant Cash Advances

You can get up to $500,000 in funding. In a merchant cash advance. This is funding based on your average daily credit card sales.

You will need to supply a government-issued ID (like a driver’s license), a void check from your business banking account, your last three credit card processing statements, and the last three statements from your business bank account to apply for this.

Bad credit is no problem with this type of funding because typically, repayment is taken directly from credit card sales.

Credit Line Hybrid: Out of the Box Business Funding

In addition to the lines of credit, merchant cash advances, and invoice funding that many alternative lenders offer, you might also try a credit line hybrid. This is unsecured business financing. It is also no-doc financing. That means you need no collateral and you do not have to turn in any financial statement documents like bank statements or check stubs to qualify.

Find out why so many companies use our proven methods to get business loans.

You do need a 680+ credit score and there are a few other requirements. However, if you don’t meet them all you can choose to use a credit partner. This could be a friend, family member, or partner that does meet the requirements. You can use their good credit to apply for the credit line hybrid, but the payments would still be reported in the name of the business thus building business credit.

Business Funding Companies Are Not Always What You Think

It’s not always about a bank or a credit union. You may need to think outside the box for a number of reasons. Maybe you want an option without collateral. Maybe you want to use non-traditional types of collateral such as invoices. Perhaps you do not qualify for a loan at a traditional bank.

Whatever the reason, there are a number of options, and sometimes alternative lenders are the answer. However, this industry has a fair share of predatory lenders. The best ways to avoid the sharks is to work with one of the business funding companies that can help with more than funding.

The business credit experts at a company like this offer not only help finding the perfect funding for your needs right now, but also can help assess and improve business credit and overall fundability.

The post Think Outside the Box When Choosing Business Funding Companies appeared first on Credit Suite.

The 4 Best Technical SEO Companies of 2020

No matter how great the content on your website is, your hard work could amount to nothing without proper technical SEO.

Technical SEO gives your site structure, makes it super easy for search engine bots to crawl and index, and helps Google understand what each page is about.

URL structuring, robots.txt, redirect codes, canonical tags, .htaccess files, load time, and many others. It all matters.

Do all those things sound unfamiliar to you? No?

Well, you don’t need to.

Tons of companies already know this stuff and it’s really easy to work with them.

That’s where this guide comes in.

Our team at Neil Patel Digital researched, reviewed, and listed the top technical SEO companies on four criteria:

Outstanding customer reviews.
Awards, impressive clientele, and a long history of delivering stellar technical SEO work.
Thought-leadership—consistently publishing of insightful articles and trends on the topic.
A strong reputation amongst other SEO professionals.

From these criteria, we found technical SEO companies you can trust and what they’re good for:

The 4 Top Technical SEO Companies in The World

Neil Patel Digital – Best for Technical Content Structuring
Webris – Best for Technical SEO Audits
Salt.agency – Best for Enterprise Technical SEO
Orainti – Best for Ecommerce Brands

Without further ado, let’s dive into what makes us trust and bet our reputation on these companies.

1. Neil Patel Digital – Best For Technical Content Structuring

It’s been touted over and again that content is king. While there’s truth in this, what most people never take into consideration is content structuring.

Neil Patel Digital is the go-to SEO company for excellent content structuring.

Well, don’t take my word for it. Let me show you why.

From our years of extensive search engine optimization experience, we found that for content marketing to work and power long-term SEO strategy, it must have the right structure.

This is a key piece of our comprehensive SEO program.

And what have we to show for doing this, you ask?

The result of doing this speaks for itself:

Over 3 million visitors per month on this blog. All built from scratch.

Content was a huge part of this but the site wouldn’t be nearly as large without the right structure and technical SEO.

You can get access to this vast technical SEO expertise by working with the Neil Patel Digital team.

Today, we’ve developed a content marketing program with content structuring (in the form of content clusters) to help clients get technical SEO right from day one.

2. Webris – Best for Technical SEO Audits

Almost all great endeavors begin with taking in-depth audits of what’s already existing.

Technical SEO is no exception.

You won’t achieve much in your effort to optimize your site for search engine bots’ crawling and indexing without first doing a proper audit of your site’s structure.

And Webris is the company we recommend for technical SEO audits.

If you a do quick Google search for “technical SEO audit,” you’ll find this excellent content piece by Webris:

Ranking on Google’s top spot for this search term is another way of saying that earned its stripes on this list.

No company can earn that by accident.

This proves that Webris walks the talk when it comes to technical SEO audits and is a reliable option if you’re just getting started.

Founded by Ryan Stewart, the core strengths of Webris is technical SEO audits and conversion-focused UX. This company boasts of an incredibly talented team of advanced technical SEO consultants.

Major brands like Shopify and Accenture trust Webris and have worked with them.

3. Salt.agency – Best for Enterprise Technical SEO

Salt.agency prides itself on “Technical Excellence” and that’s for a good reason. This company breathes technical SEO before anything else:

Massive enterprise sites can have all sort of crazy technical problems.

If you’re running one of these sites, you need a team that’s worked with that type of complexity before.

In this case, Salt.agency is the best option.

With offices in Boston, Leeds, and London, Salt.agency’s clients include Cloudflare, Hartley Botanic, Brex, Travel Supermarket, and many others.

4. Orainti – Best for Ecommerce Brands

Orainti specializes in providing technical and strategic SEO services for brands in competitive industries.

This company approaches digital marketing and search engine optimization with a technical mindset, which justifies its inclusion in this highly-vetted list.

And they work mostly with ecommerce brands selling internationally.

International ecommerce businesses have tons of unique challenges like dealing with multilingual sites, getting product and category pages ranked properly, and avoiding duplicate content.

Orainti comes highly recommended for this.

Aleyda Solis is the Founder of Orainti. She is a veteran SEO practitioner, speaker, and author who has earned recognition and awards for her technical SEO expertise by organizations such as Forbes and European Search Awards.

Orainti boasts an impressive portfolio of top brands, including Zillow, Under Armour, Sage, Eventbrite, and others.

5 Characteristics That Make a Great Technical SEO Company

What separates the good technical SEO shops from the great ones? What would you specifically look for when choosing someone to work with?

Here’s what I look for.

1. A Complete Implementation Process that Includes Technical SEO

Technical SEO brings structure to your site. It helps search engine bots crawl, index, and rank your website correctly, which is essential for driving traffic.

Also, it helps to boost your site’s load time.

However, this doesn’t mean that once you have an excellent technical SEO, everything search engine optimization will fall in place automatically.

The best technical SEO companies have a complete SEO program including manual site review, technical SEO implementation, content strategy, and others.

If you’re really good at SEO already and just need a quick SEO audit to double check everything, you could get value at working with a specialist. But for everyone else, I recommend working with someone that understands the complete SEO strategy. It’s the only way to build a site with tons of traffic.

2. Thought leadership

It takes lots of experimentation to implement technical SEO strategies that move the needle. Companies that embark on this kind of excruciating work always like to document their experience and findings.

Working with SEO thought leaders increases the odds of a successful project.

After all, if someone can successfully teach technical SEO, they can also help your business directly.

Publishing cutting-edge content about technical SEO is a great sign that they’ll deliver amazing results.

3. An Impressive Client Portfolio

An excellent way to see if the expertise and processes used by a technical SEO company works is by looking at its client portfolio.

There is nuance here.

Having a ton of major brands is great. But that doesn’t mean that you can get help with your exact situation.

Ideally, the technical SEO company has worked with similar companies like your own.

4. Real Life Results

The nice thing about technical SEO is that it’s extremely practical. Technical problems come up that tanks traffic. Then technical SEO experts fix those problems.

It’s cut and dry.

Any great technical SEO company should have plenty of case studies where they turned around a site after it got hit. The more obscure the technical problem, the more likely they’ll be able to find weird problems on your own site.

Sometimes, these case studies are published on their site. But a lot of companies don’t like sharing the best stories. So ask their team as you talk to them. They should be able to give you plenty of examples during a call.

5. A Diversified Team

Covering every last technical SEO requirement is way too big of a task for a single person. You’ll need a fully-staffed team to do it all. Especially on major sites.

Go through the company’s team pages and LinkedIn employees, then look for lots of depth and expertise across the entire team.

What to Expect from a Great Technical SEO Company

If you’re like most people who only realize the need for technical SEO late on, you’ll probably be wondering what you should expect from one.

The most significant things to expect are what follows.

1. A discovery session

After you reach out to a technical SEO company, they’ll want to get on a call to understand what you’re looking for.

It’s the only way to understand the goals that you have for your site.

If a technical SEO company wants to jump straight into an audit without even getting on the phone, it’s a sign they’re running an “audit mill” and aren’t going to spend much time on your project.

Find a company that wants to go really deep and understand the full picture.

2. A one-time audit proposal

Most technically SEO companies will perform a one-time audit for a flat fee.

Since this is a standard part of their practice, they can usually jump into this right away.

Assuming their fee works with your budget, you could have someone get started within a week. That’s how easy it is to get going.

Before starting the audit, ask them for everything that they’ll check. It should include everything like canonical problems, indexing issues, duplicate content, other Google Search Console errors, everything.

If the list doesn’t feel extremely comprehensive, get a few quotes from other companies.

3. Completing the audit

Once you’ve agreed to move forward with an audit, the company will get started.

These usually take a few weeks to complete, depending on the size of your site.

Of course, you’ll need to give them access to your Google Analytics, Google Search Console, WordPress account, and possibly your web host.

During the audit, there shouldn’t be much work for you or your team. The company performing the audit may have questions but they can do the vast majority of the work on their own.

4. Implementation proposal

Most technical SEO audits only include the discovery of site issues. The project doesn’t usually include the work that’s required to fix any problems.

This is because most problems don’t have easy fixes.

For example, if your site has terrible site speed that’s impacting your rankings, you’ll need to do a ton of front-end work in order to fix it. That will also involve your marketing team and possibly other agencies.

So once the audit is complete, expect to see a proposal that includes implementing any solutions.

Something to watch for here: a great technical SEO company will know the limits of it’s expertise. When they find problems outside their capabilities, they’ll tell you and advise you to work with someone else on fixing them. Site rebuilds and content marketing are good examples of this.

If a technical SEO agency tells you that it can fix every single problem, double check and make sure they truly have real expertise in those areas.

Should I take Technical SEO Seriously?

Yes!

Technical SEO is like the frame of your house. Only with good bones can your content and marketing drive traffic to your site.

But, as things add up, and you have hundreds or thousands of pages on your site, something is going to break.

Search engines have a harder time crawling your site, content isn’t indexed, and your site speed slows way down.

Even if you start with a great foundation, you need a healthy rebuild every few years.

If you haven’t done a deep technical SEO audit recently, now’s the time.

The post The 4 Best Technical SEO Companies of 2020 appeared first on Neil Patel.

The 5 Best Email Marketing Companies of 2020

Almost everyone uses email.

But here’s the sweet part.

The people you’re trying to reach or retain already have active email addresses. Heck, most of them used or would use one to sign-up for your service or product.

If you can get into (and stay) in people’s inbox, you can make a ton of money. Data shows companies can generate $38 for every $1 email investment.

Unfortunately, getting into an inbox is not a stroll in the park.

Now that’s where the best email marketing companies come in.

These companies will help you to strategize, collect relevant email addresses, create, and manage email marketing campaigns that drive business growth.

How do I know this?

Our team at Neil Patel Digital vetted hundreds of email marketing companies based on their brand reputation, client portfolio, ratings, and their areas of expertise.

The result?

The very top email agencies you can trust. Not only would they get you into the inbox of your ideal customers, but these companies can keep you in there till you turn prospects into brand advocates.

The 5 Top Email Marketing Companies in The World

Neil Patel Digital – Best for email content
Inbox Army – Best for full-service email management
Fix My Churn – Best for SaaS onboarding email and churn
Action Rocket – Best for custom HTML & CSS enterprise email
SmartMail – Best for ecommerce email marketing

I’m confident the best email marketing companies listed above and reviewed below are reliable because of their proven track records.

Hire any of them, according to your needs, and they’ll help you to turn email marketing into a growth channel for your business.

Without further ado, let’s explore each of these companies and see for yourself why we consider them the very best.

#1 Neil Patel Digital – Best For Email Content

Email marketing is effective, no doubt. But it has its downside too.

According to two different studies, between 0.19% and 0.52% of your email subscribers would unsubscribe per email you send.

Now, guess what was one of the top three reasons found Jilt, an email marketing software, responsible for why people unsubscribe from emails?

Bad content!

In other words, irrespective of how excellent your email marketing strategy is, writing killer emails that resonate with your prospects and keeps you in their inbox requires excellent content.

And that’s where we, Neil Patel Digital, come in. It is also why clients, from startups to enterprise brands, love working with us.

Email is also an excellent channel for content distribution.

However, he quality of content has to be amazing. If not, your unsubscribes will tank the ROI of your email campaigns.

Again, this is one area we stand out from the crowd.

At Neil Patel Digital, our email content service starts by producing engaging content your customers and prospects will love.

Then, we use email marketing as one of the channels to promote it:

You can check out Neil Patel Digital’s content services here.

#2 InboxArmy – best for full-service email management

For in-house teams looking for rapid email marketing turn around, InboxArmy comes highly recommended.

As a full-service email management company, InboxArmy offers a spectrum of services, including email templates’ design, custom coding, and 360-degree email marketing management:

This agency offers volume-based pricing for companies and white label services for fellow digital marketing agencies, which goes to prove their experience.

And they serve clients from government agencies like Texas Health Resources, to companies such as LandCentral, Airbnb, Jockey, and several others.

#3 Fix My Churn – best for SaaS onboarding email and churn

When it comes to email marketing, Software as a Service (SaaS) brands have special needs.

First, when new trial users sign-up, they need excellent email onboarding sequences to convert them into happy, paying customers.

And if an existing customer stops using your product or wants to churn, you can retain them with relevant churn email.

Fix My Churn specializes in these two areas:

Fix My Churn collaborates with tech companies with a monthly subscription business model.

The company applies top-notch SaaS copywriting skills to craft relationship-based email sequences to keep customers happy.

#4 Action Rocket – best for custom HTML & CSS enterprise email

Action Rocket needs no introduction in the enterprise email marketing sector.

This company even partners with the top email marketing software brands like MailChimp, Litmus, and Campaign Monitor to drive innovation in the email space.

Action Rocket has years of experience strategizing and executing custom HTML and CSS email and CRM development programs for enterprise companies:

Founded in 2011, the company works with a knit-team of experienced developers who are excellent at strategy, design, and coding of complex and customized email programs.

And their clientele speaks for themselves, including the BBC, Marks & Spencer, Global Radio, and many others.

#5 SmartMail – Best for eCommerce email marketing

SmartMail is the Done For You (DFY) email marketing company that comes highly recommended by ecommerce businesses.

This company handles everything ecommerce email marketing for online stores. And excel most at launching campaigns based on automated triggers.

Across the customer lifetime cycle, SmartMail is exceptional at strategizing and executing optimized email marketing campaigns for ecommerce businesses.

And they have a track record and excellent results to show.

SmartMail has generated over $187 million in revenues for ecommerce brands via email, sent billions of emails, and serve over 87 businesses, including Skechers, French Connection, Cotton:On, and others.

5 Characteristics That Make a Great Email Marketing Company

What characteristics make an email marketing company great?

They are as follows.

1. Well-versed in content creation

Most companies get buried in strategizing and outlining plans for email marketing.

What they wrongly relegate to the backseat?

Content creation!

The quality of your email’s content goes a long way in determining how effective your email marketing campaigns would be.

A fundamental characteristic of the top email marketing company is to focus on creating engaging content to power your email campaigns.

And a world-class email company will help you blent top-tier content with amazing promotions to also get the conversions that you need. Great companies blend the two seamlessly.

2. An Impressive Portfolio

An email marketing company that claims to be among the best must have something to back that claim up.

One of such things is their client portfolio.

Who have they implemented a series of email marketing campaigns for? Were those campaigns successful?

Anyway, you don’t even need to ask a top email marketing company those questions, as you’ll find the answers in their clients’ portfolio.

And looking out for this portfolio-displaying characteristic in top email marketing also does you good.

It helps you to see who they have helped and to decide if they’ll be a good fit for your company.

At Neil Patel Digital, we have a clients you may recognize.

3. Thought Leadership

In its 40 years of existence, email marketing has evolved tremendously.

What worked yesterday may not work today. And even if it does work, it may require a different approach.

Due to the always-evolving nature of trends and modern strategies applicable to email marketing, top companies must keep pace with these changes to deliver the best work.

Thought-leadership is how the top email marketing brands keep such needed pace with the industry.

And they do this by sharing new learnings, experiments, emerging strategies, and tactics publicly to retain brand reputation among other professionals.

So, you should do some research and look out for this characteristic, as it is an excellent way to spot a top email marketing company.

4. Real Life Testimonials

Anyone can claim to be the best, but it is what others say about them shows their competence most.

In the business setting, you’ll find how past and existing clients feel and say of a company’s work in the testimonials they leave behind.

The truth is executing a successful email campaign that drives growth for a company is hard.

A notable characteristic of the top email marketing company is the real-life testimonials they receive from clients for their work publicly.

5. A Diversified Team of Experts

A lot of thought goes into a successful email marketing campaign.

From strategy to the acquisition of email addresses, selection of email marketing software, email copywriting, and campaign management, they all require some different kind of expertise.

Established email marketing brands are never a one-person show. It is usually a team of experts, collaborating to drive results.

And that’s one characteristic of top email marketing companies: Displaying the entire team that works to plan, execute, manage, and optimize email campaigns:

What to Expect from a Great Email Marketing Company

Ultimately, an exceptional email marketing company to help you turn email into a real business growth channel that:

Nurture prospects into customers
Facilitates customer relationship management
Turns email marketing into a reliable content medium.

But to get to these benefits, there are steps to expect before you start working with one. Some of the most notable ones are what follows.

1. A discovery session

As you saw in the review and categorization of the best email marketing companies based on their areas of expertise above, not all can serve all clients across all industries.

To determine if they can solve your specific problems, excellent email marketing companies start by getting to fill an inquiry form.

Filling this inquiry form allows you to share your challenges and business goals related to email marketing.

After filling this form, expect a discovery session where an expert would talk one-on-one with you to understand your needs better.

2. Research & strategy recommendations

A discovery call allows the company to gain more clarity and context about your business needs relevant to email. But, don’t expect them to propose a solution right off the bat.

Top email marketing brands would typically use what you shared with them to delve into research.

From there, they can make sense of how to tackle your challenges and identify the best possible strategies they can deploy to work with you.

Expect to receive a summary of their research and recommendations via email or another call, which usually ends with deciding if you’re fit to work together.

3. A contract with project deliverables

If everything goes well up to this point, and you like their recommendations, expect a contract that outlines what a top email marketing company would do, and what it’ll cost to work with you.

This contract also outlines project timelines and deliverables, legal requirements to work together, and your expected investment.

4. Client onboarding

If the contract, project scope, deliverables, pricing, and others look good, exceptional email marketing companies would have a custom onboarding process to initiate the process of working with your company.

This onboarding process will help you and the company to establish an understanding of how to manage your product, and any other thing necessary for a smooth working relationship.

Start Email Marketing from Day One

Don’t make the mistake of starting email marketing later on.

Most businesses recognize the need for social media, SEO, content marketing, and others early on, but they leave emails to the backseat because it is not trending.

Well, you shouldn’t.

A few reasons to take start email marketing from day one are:

Marketers who used email marketing to segment their audience said they saw a 760% increase in revenue.

That’s unreal.

Whether you do email yourself and get help from one of the top email companies, get started today.

The post The 5 Best Email Marketing Companies of 2020 appeared first on Neil Patel.

The 5 Best Link Building Companies of 2020

What are backlinks to search engine optimization? Short version: They’re signals Google uses to determine if your website is a reputable resource worthy of citation. The long and sweet version? The more quality backlinks pointing to your website, the higher your chances of ranking for profitable keywords and competitive search queries that drive sales. You’ll …

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The 5 Best Link Building Companies of 2020

What are backlinks to search engine optimization?

Short version: They’re signals Google uses to determine if your website is a reputable resource worthy of citation.

The long and sweet version?

The more quality backlinks pointing to your website, the higher your chances of ranking for profitable keywords and competitive search queries that drive sales.

You’ll generate more targeted traffic, leads, and customers.

TThe SEO research tool, SEMrush, revealed backlinks account for as much as five SEO top 10 ranking factors:

Due to how essential links are to rankings and traffic, you’ll find a host of companies promising to help you generate backlinks at the click of a button.

If only it were that easy!

Acquiring top-quality backlinks isn’t a stroll in the park.

Our team at Neil Patel Digital reviewed and listed the top companies for building links.

The 5 Top Link-Building Companies in the World

Neil Patel Digital – Best for Linkable Content Marketing
FATJOE – Best for Blogger Outreach
Page One Power – Best for Strategic Links
The HOTH – Best for Guest Posting
RhinoRank – Best for Curated Link Building

1. Neil Patel Digital – Best For Linkable Content Marketing

The creation and distribution of linkable assets is the most reliable way to get people linking back to your website.

Called editorial links, Google and other search engines prioritize such links.

The reason for this?

They’re natural, and indeed a vote of confidence other sites show for the content resources on your own website.

Another name for this type of link-building strategy is linkable content marketing.

And Neil Patel Digital excels at this.

I’ve amassed millions of backlinks to this blog:

That’s over 3 million backlinks.

And they came from organic keywords (over 1.7 million), generating more than 3.4 million monthly organic traffic in the process.

The Neil Patel Digital experience spans over five decades to help you get similar results.

And we leveraged this experience and vast expertise to develop a holistic, battle-tested content marketing program that helps our customers generate high-quality backlinks.

It starts with auditing, optimizing, and creating new, high-quality content people would love to link to.

Then, promotion, so even influencers can find and reference them.

This proven program powers us to create and distribute content marketing assets that get high-quality backlinks, higher rankings, and qualified traffic.

In short, this is why our customers, from startup to grow-stage and enterprise companies, love working with Neil Patel Digital.

2. FATJOE – Best for Blogger Outreach

You may have linkable content resources on your site. What if other websites or bloggers don’t know those assets exist? No one would link to them, right?

Yup, that’s a problem.

To make people, especially bloggers, aware of your content, you need what SEOs call blogger outreach.

And this is what FATJOE excels at doing. They’re a reliable blogger outreach service even other agencies rely on for generating backlinks:

The experienced SEO expert, Joe Taylor, founded FATJOE. And they’ve been in business since 2012, helping over 5,000 clients worldwide get backlink placements via blogger outreach.

About 97% of those 5k plus customers rate FATJOE a 4.5/5.

However, FATJOE is best for acquiring links from websites with domain authority between DA10 and DA50. And prices per link placement range from $45 to $465.

3. Page One Power – Best for Strategic Links

Getting backlinks from higher domain websites (DA60+) needs a combination of linkable assets, outreach, and high-level strategy.

Page One Power, although more expensive and not a productized service like FATJOE, excels at this.

Yearly, this company is behind the acquisition of more than 15,000 strategic backlinks on average to its clients from higher domain websites.

And Page One Power achieves this, leveraging its 10 years of experience and 982 active partners:

If you have the budget that starts at $550 per link, with more for a monthly retainer, you should turn to Page One Power for their consistent, strategic link-building expertise.

And can you make this turn, knowing other businesses, such as QuickBooks, Healthline, BOTTSTICH, and several others, trust Page One Power’s strategic link acquisition services, too.

4. The HOTH – Best for Guest Posting

What if you’ve done everything possible, yet people still won’t link to your site?

The HOTH, a company successful for its guest posting services, can help, and they come highly recommended:

The HOTH’s guest post, backlinking service covers everything from manual outreach, securing guest post slots, and creating the guest content piece with links to your site.

Their industry experience and expertise have seen them work with or get mentioned on reputable websites such as Forbes, Inc. 5000 fastest-growing companies, Salesforce’s Dreamforce, and others.

The HOTH is a productized link-building service like FATJOE, allows you to purchase guest posts and backlinks with a few clicks.

With this company, you can get backlinks from websites with domain authority ranging from DA10-DA50. And prices are between $100-$500, depending on the quality of website you want links from.

5. RhinoRank – Best for Curated Link-building

Sometimes, other websites already have published content pieces with info relevant to assets on your own site.

In such a case, reach out to the webmasters of those sites and ask for a link, otherwise called curated link-building.

Based on our review, RhinoRank is the go-to company for this type of link acquisition tactic. They do all the hard labor, reaching out to several webmasters to secure backlinks for its clients in existing content on those webmasters’ domains:

Not only will RhinoRank reach out to webmasters, they’ll take it a step further by ensuring those links are weaved naturally with the right anchor text.

RhinoRank serves over 200 companies and SEO agencies globally.

The price of each curated link generated for customers by RhinoRank starts from $35.

5 Characteristics that Make a Great Link-Building Company

For each link-building strategy and company recommended above, you’ll find hundreds, if not thousands, of others promising the same things.

So, what characteristics make a great link-building company if you wanted to find an ideal company to work with and do your own due diligence?

Let’s look at the most significant ones.

1. A Holistic SEO Implementation Process that Includes Link-Building

Link-building is a crucial part of SEO, but it is not a silver bullet. On its own, it won’t drive traffic and help you generate leads.

You can amass links, but if the search engines don’t trust those links or the content being linked to, those efforts amount to nothing.

Thus, an essential characteristic of great link-building companies is to have a holistic SEO program with all the bolts and nuts, including content creation, promotion, and link acquisition.

2. An Impressive Client Portfolio

An excellent way to judge the processes and expertise of a company is via its client portfolio.

Thus, as other companies with hands-on experience would do, the top link-building companies have the characteristic of displaying their ability to generate backlinks by showing off a portfolio of clients they’ve helped to get backlinks.

3. Thought leadership

The best link-building companies aren’t just great at acquiring backlinks.

They also have the characteristic of sharing all their learnings on their way to helping themselves and other companies generate high-quality backlinks.

You want a team that knows the best strategies and tactics that work today.

For example, if you Google “link-building Neil Patel,” you’ll find my in-depth guides.

4. Real Life Testimonials

A good criterion for determining if a link-building company is among the very best is to look at their customer testimonials.

Thus, a characteristic you’ll find with the top link-building companies in the world are real-life testimonials, highlighting what customers say about working with them.

5. A Diversified Team

One person can write a guest post and send you a few links. But you’ll need a diversified team of experts to execute more strategic and extensive link-building campaigns.

As we’ve shown you, the best link-building companies excel at planning and executing these bigger, more effective link acquisition strategies.

And to do that, they usually work with a team of diversified experts, which you can look up to as one of their characteristics:

What to Expect from a Great Link-Building Company

If you take on the services of a link-building company, you judge them by their ability to get you links. It’s that simple.

However, there’s a wide gap between contacting a company and getting those juicy links.

So, what should you expect if you decide to work with any of the link-building companies reviewed above?

1. A discovery session

Your business needs are different from those of others, and so would your link-building needs. Thus, the link acquisition strategies that worked for one site won’t work for yours automatically.

The best link-building companies have experience generating links for different organizations. Thus, they don’t jump straight into sending you proposals.

Instead, they start the process of helping to customize a strategy for your business by allowing you to share your exact business needs over a discovery session.

2. Research & strategic recommendations

Once you’ve booked and discussed your business needs with a link-building company, the best ones take what you tell them and leverage their experience to conduct in-depth research.

After this research, you should receive a host of strategic link-building recommendations most suited to your business. Most companies would share this with you via email or over another discovery call.

3. A contract with project deliverables

Once everyone decides that the project is a good fit, it’s time to get a contract in place.

Deliverables, deadlines, resources required, and budget should all clearly be outlined in detail.

4. Client onboarding

The next thing to expect from a top link-building is an onboarding process. It sets the stage for working with you to achieve your link acquisition and related business goals.

Depending on your work scope, you’ll need to bring on your in-house staff and share your website, blog, analytics, etc. with the company.

This onboarding process also establishes an understanding of how the company would manage your project.

Link-Building Isn’t a One-Time Activity

Unfortunately, link building isn’t a one-off project. I wish it was.

But links decay, pages decay, and Google’s always looking for freshness.

You’ll need ongoing links to keep your site at the top of the rankings.

This is the main reason why companies try to get help. It’s exhausting trying to do it yourself all the time.

However you decide to do it, treat link-building as an ongoing, long-term activity that’s a core part of your SEO strategy.

Doing this is how you’ll get maximum results.

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