SEO Toolbox For Content Writers – Top SEO Tools & Features

SEO Toolbox For Content Writers – Top SEO Tools & Features

Having a set of efficient SEO tools at hand as a blogger and copywriter can help you get better results and higher rankings, not only for your website but also for those of your clients.

In my course “How to create SEO-friendly content” I cover and share some of the SEO tools I use, including how I use them in order to strategically add relevant keywords that I have researched. You can also watch how Fernando and I find the best keywords to embed in an article so it ranks quickly and effectively:

 

In this article, I want to help you identify an SEO tool that will work for you. Try a search for an online tool that can help you perform search engine optimization. You’ll find too many to count, literally. Don’t let the overload of choices weigh you down.

I’ve done the hard yards and can save you hundreds of hours of search, trial, and frustration.

The first step I took was to make a list of the functions that I need my SEO tools to perform. After that, I went on to choose the tools for my SEO toolbox as I already had a clear idea of what kinds of SEO tools and features I wanted.

Checking Your SEO Needs

Be it a professional website, a blog, or an e-commerce site, there are some basic functions that the tools in your SEO toolbox must be able to perform. These include:

  • Analyze the performance and functionality status of your website.
  • Ensure that content is optimized for better web visibility
  • Compare the site performance with competing sites.
  • Track visibility on social media and platforms to monitor the web traffic.
  • Check backlinks and plan link building.

My SEO Toolbox – What’s in it?

You don’t need complex and time-consuming software. Simple and small tools can easily perform SEO as well as their complex and often expensive counterparts.

Have a look at what I’ve included in my SEO toolbox. The listed SEO tools allow me to perform required optimization whenever I need to, without burning a hole in my pocket.

Because if you’re just starting out as content or copywriter for the web, you won’t be in a position to pay for expensive tools yet. But you still want to create content that is popular on search engines like Google.

So the below SEO tools may not be completely free, but some offer certain features for free or they are at the lower end of the scale and many offer free trials to test them as well.

SEO Site Checkup

You can choose from more than a dozen free tests on SEO Site Checkup to check your site’s current performance metrics. Use this to analyze your shortcomings.

A few of the free tests include:

  • Google Search Results Preview Test – To see how your page appears in Google Searches.
  • Most Common Keywords Test – To see keywords and topics that crawlers associate with your page.
  • Competitor Domain Test – To check what sites are your competitors and research terms they’re ranking for.
  • Social Media Test – To check whether your site connects to social media platforms.

After analyzing your site’s problem areas with these tests, think about how you can improve them. Make a strategic plan for certain pages or posts to achieve higher ranks.

Google Trends

Google Trends is a very handy tool that enables you to create better and more relevant content. By analyzing the popularity of a topic over the months, it provides crucial insight on whether your chosen topic is a relevant one or if it’s no longer interesting to your target audience.

Use this tool to avoid wasting your time covering topics that your potential readers don’t care about. Analyze seasonal fluctuations in topic popularities to make sure you provide the right content at the right time of the year, especially if your website/blog focuses on trends.

WooRank

This tool provides a comprehensive website analysis and SEO audit, as well as suggestions for improvement. You can use it to check your site’s performance, usability, mobile-friendliness, social media presence, and more. WooRank also offers a Chrome extension that lets you analyze any webpage with one click.

CanIRank

If you want an answer to the question: “Can I rank for this keyword?” then this tool helps you by analyzing your site’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the competition level and opportunities for each keyword. You can also get actionable recommendations on how to improve your ranking potential and target the right keywords for your niche with CanIRank.

Screaming Frog

As a desktop-based website crawler that scans your site for SEO issues, such as broken links, duplicate content, missing tags, redirects, and more Screaming Frog is quite powerful. You can use it to audit your site’s SEO health, identify errors and warnings, and export reports for further analysis, which comes in handy when pages have been deindexed for example.

Answer The Public

This tool analyses and provides you with the most trending searches from a list of Google’s auto prompt suggestions. It is very useful as it provides you with the latest topics and queries from web users.

ATP allows you to explore an untapped mine of content ideas. You can use these topics for content creation on your website to increase website popularity and improve your site rankings. By identifying your target audience and their interests, you can narrow down titles for your posts containing relevant and popular search terms. The free version allows up to two searches a day. It is part of Neil Patel’s UberSuggest, which is also listed here and you can probably combine both for different purposes.

UberSuggest

Ubersuggest is a complete package tool that analyses your competitor’s SEO strategies for content and digital marketing so that you can utilize them for your website.

Created by the ultimate SEO guru, Neil Patel, this tool’s many features include domain overview of competitors, top SEO pages reports, and backlink data analysis. Use the knowledge to know what is trending in your target market and to improve upon your competition’s strategies and get better search visibility. Not all features are free to test it and if you really like it, you can choose a plan.

BuzzSumo

One of the highest-rated SEO tools on the market, BuzzSumo allows you to analyze content popularity and keyword performance on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Reddit.

You can track comments and trends to produce relevant content. It also allows identification of trending social media influencers so that you can advertise and popularise content by partnering with them. Many use commenting on blog posts or social media posts as ways to gain exposure for their web presence. Amongst bloggers, it is also common practice to exchange articles or publish guest articles to gain more traffic and grow the backlinking profile.

Google Analytics

I mainly use this tool to analyse Google data and as a website owner, you will have free access to Google Analytics once your website is submitted and indexed. I also use it via the seekahost.app to check all my blogs hosted there and their analytics.

It’s a very comprehensive SEO tool that lets you find out many insights into your website performance such as daily, weekly and monthly traffic, top-performing pages and posts, where your traffic comes from, how it varies and fluctuates, and much more.

It’s not necessarily ideal for keyword research, but it can provide great insights into how your written content performs. By comparing different time periods, you can see how the traffic changes when you optimize a page or post or how your visitor is led to other pages and posts through your internal links in the content. I find its use very easy and straight-forward compared to other SEO tools and the data is very accurate and detailed. However, it only covers Google searches, not other search engines like Bing.

AIO SEO

This tool is a WordPress plugin that helps you optimize your site for search engines, so it can only be used by WordPress webmasters via the backend. I use it for all my blog posts and so do all of the SeekaHost and ClickDo teams hence why we have created a tutorial and a whole AIO SEO course:

Some of the features of AIO SEO include:
– Smart XML sitemaps that automatically update and submit to Google and other search engines.
– Social media integration that lets you control how your content looks when shared on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
– SEO monitoring and optimisation for your content and meta data.
– WooCommerce SEO that optimizes your online store and products for better conversions and sales.

Start Building Your SEO Toolbox

Now that you’ve seen what my toolbox looks like, why don’t you get on with putting together your toolbox with the SEO tools that suit your needs best?

Remember, first prioritize the functionalities you need and the budget you have available. Then, test the SEO tools I have introduced here to find out which works best for your requirements. You can obviously research more tools, and I have compared a few link analysis tools as well, to make your SEO content writing journey as successful as possible. And if you’re trying to land your first content writing jobs, check out my previous article about copywriter job platforms.

Feel free to contact me with regards to my SEO copywriting course or any other questions you may have about this topic via manuela@clickdo.co.uk or the contact form here.

How To Make Money Online In Germany (9 Best Ways)

How To Make Money Online In Germany (9 Best Ways)

The concept of work from home or remote work was nearly unimaginable even a decade back and many couldn’t imagine doing online jobs in Germany. Now it is considered the new normal, especially since the lockdown due to the global pandemic.
The internet has opened up new vistas and working online means no more long commutes followed by longer working hours. I have decided to start the UK Education Blog in 2018 as a side hustle while working full-time as a teacher. It has enabled me to now work as a blogger and online media strategist for ClickDo Ltd. full-time while living a digital nomad lifestyle. And yes, I love it! Read all about my first digitally inspired summer in 2018.

Earning-money-as-a-blogger-and-content-writer-while-working-remotely

You could start a profitable career from your kitchen table, work when you want, enjoy your free time, and make an impact. You could potentially become a digital nomad or digital entrepreneur even. It is easier than ever as long as you have gained some digital skills like SEO, digital marketing or simply how to use Microsoft Office and a web browser.
You can learn such easily with thousands of YouTube tutorials or the SeekaHost University where I teach a course about SEO copywriting. I will also soon release my first German course where I cover everything you need to know about WordPress Blogging.

What is the Best Online Job in Germany?

I have been working online from home as a copywriter and blogger for a few years now. I have written many guides about earning money online as you can see in this article.

48 Home Business Ideas Guide

And because I am German, I have compiled some research about the German online job and work market, so that you can see how easy it is to earn money online in Germany. Let me guide you through your options to inspire you if you live or intend to live in Germany, a country full of many online job opportunities.

Best Work From Home & Online Jobs in Germany

1. TranslatorForeign languages translation concept, online translator

This is the perfect job if you are well versed in English and German or any other languages in combination with German. Translation has become a vital task as global trade has grown. Almost all business documents, deeds, affidavits, memorandums need translation into English for circulation among international clients. It helps if you have a diploma or degree in the English language or target language, but it is not mandatory. Of course, without certification, you would need to prove your grasp of English or the target language for translation in the first few bottom dollar projects. If your work is good enough, then with experience, a great case study portfolio, and positive client reviews, the need for certification fades. Some online job websites and search engines also give you the option to show your skills through tests they provide. This can increase trustworthiness.

Of utmost importance is understanding that a translator translates not only words but also the spirit of the content and message a company or client wants to convey. Your web content, for example, must be more than the sum of the different content parts and reflect the sentiment of the original, but with a matching cultural angle. German translation services accommodate various sectors, such as law, health care, and finance, which you will need to research more on if you want to specialize in your translation skills. The mentioned industries above will require you to undergo training that’s tailored to the field you will specialize in before you can apply as a certified or sworn German translator to start a career in these industries. With over 130 million language speakers and about six countries considering German as their official language, you rest assured knowing that as a translator, there will always be a demand for your services. You can listen to the interview I conducted with my close friend Alexandra Bekavac, who is a sworn translator in Germany, to understand more about her journey and how she earns a living from translating:

Let me tell you that British and German humour is very different so if a client website were telling a joke or a funny slogan, your job would be to make it sound funny in both languages. When I helped translate contents and documents for a Swiss-German educational website called Bambino Learncare into English, it was challenging due to the differences in the national and regional public and political systems influencing education. So, translating from German means you don’t just speak for Germans, but also Austrians or Swiss in some cases, which is exciting and may open up many more online work opportunities.

2. BloggerBlogger - Work From Home Jobs

Creating your own domain and blog is exceptionally satisfying and can pay committed bloggers handsomely. The first step is to learn how to start a blog, just like I did through WordPress and I explain how you can get started in just a day with the new Blog Hosting Control Panel the SeekaHost App offers:

How To Start A Blog In 2023 And Make Money Blogging (5 Step Guide)

If you have a passion for something, share it with the world and get paid when others visit your blog. If you want to learn more about how to monetise a blog then read my extensive blogging monetization guide here:

20 Ways on How to Make Money Blogging for Beginners

Of course, it goes without saying that your blog posts must attract many readers to be engaging, easy to read, relatable, and show that you have adequate domain knowledge. You’ll also need to have some professional SEO and Blogging skills to get it ranked high on search engines so that people find it. You can take SeekaHost University online courses to get on top of that and I have been using WordPress Hosting to achieve fast loading speeds and a control panel that allows me to track and analyse my websites stats here with this blog, which now attracts over 1000 visitors monthly. Check my analysis out here:

Once you have built your blog successfully, which can take months including customizing it (tip: find many useful WordPress, SEO and blogging tutorials on the SeekaHost YouTube Channel), it is time to promote it through SEO, social media marketing und guest posting. This will ensure you attract enough readers so that your blog can be monetized in several ways. Affiliate marketing, selling ad space, e-courses, eBooks and many more avenues make this a lucrative field, which I explain in more depth in the Make Money Online ClickDo guide.

Alexandra Lapp and Leonie Hanne are two well-known German Bloggers who have turned fashion blogging into a multimillion-dollar enterprise, and you can also find out how the top 100 UK bloggers and influencers like Joe Wicks earn money with their blogs and social media channels. You will discover that blogging offers multiple avenues as many are also successful vloggers on YouTube and earn an income through various online sources.

3. Data EntryData Entry - Work From Home Jobs

The task itself is quite simple. You are required to input a large number of data into a prescribed format, usually from excel to a database website. There are two caveats:

  • You need enormous speed, at least 60 WPM (words per minute) though 90 is preferable.
  • Accuracy has to be 97.5% at 22500 keystrokes per hour.

The best way to prepare is to learn to type using any of the dozens of free typing software available online. Also, learn to use an ergonomic keyboard for better quality work. Otherwise, you would burn out in a year. This field also has a considerable number of fly-by-night operators who do not pay. Cater to a small and dependable clientele who regularly provide you with work. I provide more tips on highly rated online job sites in the Make Money Online Kindle Book, where I mainly cover international job sites many Germans also use such as Fiverr, Upwork and more.

4. Online SurveysOnline Surveys - Work From Home Jobs

It is the most straightforward work from home jobs and also pays the least. Opinion polls and surveys help companies better understand the customer’s needs. The questions might be about buyer psychology (e.g., your feelings when purchasing/unboxing), taste (colour, material), or financial (what is too expensive/affordable) in nature. The information is rarely personally identifiable but rather an insight into a typical person’s mind from a marketer’s perspective. Several platforms offer surveys, and there is very little labour involved in filling up questionnaires.

This is one of the best WFH hustles while working full-time in your main job.  Doing online surveys however, does not lead to a skillset that would enable you to build on for a career. Better options therefore are side hustles like working as a virtual assistant as it can be done in an hour while you earn some extra cash rather than rewards or tokens while you hone skills like admin tasks or email or social media marketing.

5. Content Writer/CopywriterContent writer - Work From Home Jobs

It is a writing job similar to a blogger. But apart from that, they share very little in common. As a copywriter you are not going to write about your passion but what your client wants and needs. It could be a sales letter, a website’s About Us page, a blog post with specific keywords inserted brilliantly into the text, and a myriad of the more similar tasks, which I describe in more detail in my portfolio section and my blog posts here about content writing jobs and business ideas. What is needed is a good grasp of language, extensive vocabulary, ability to research quickly, formulate thoughts, and pen them down in simple, lucid sentences that appeal to a reader. Besides, you would need innate curiosity because the topics you may write about could be as varied as travel to Serengeti to the best ten DSLR cameras under Euro 1000.

Read some of my articles about working online as a copywriter here:

How a Side Hustle from Home can Turn into a Content Writing UK Business

Why SeekaHost is the perfect starting point for an online business from home

Or check out some of my case studies in my portfolio to get an idea of how diverse web content writing can be. To see how popular this role is and how many job opportunities you may find, check out the 4 Most Popular Copywriter Jobs And Content Writer Jobs Platforms For Freelance Writers.

6. SEOSEO - Work From Home Jobs

SEO means search engine optimization. It is how a website climbs up the search engine page ranking algorithm. Several distinct tasks are performed by the SEO industry. Some of these include keywords analytics, traffic measurement, backlink monitoring, etc. No formal training is required, but an SEO certification or even a free MOOC course would help you understand the industry better. You obviously cannot handle the whole SEO process at first, and it is best to start off as an assistant who works from home. The sky is literally the limit for earning as your skills improve. SEO is a vital skill for many online jobs and if you want to be successful online in Germany, you will have to learn important keywords and how to implement them in your texts so that it attracts the right audience. This is why at SeekaHost University I and my ClickDo colleagues share their SEO skills and wisdom, which can be applied in any language with the right SEO tools. Fernando Raymond, the #1 SEO consultant at ClickDo, who is also a course instructor at SeekaHost University, shares many SEO tips on his blog. And you should read his latest guide about PBN SEO to understand the promising SEO strategies he uses to rank hundreds of websites.

7. Virtual AssistantVirtual Assistant - Work From Home Jobs

Virtual assistants offer online administrative support to firms worldwide. With so many start-ups, there is a need for someone to maintain their books of accounts, prepare payroll, attend to the nitty-gritty of running an office. A virtual assistant works full-time for a company or part-time for several and assists with the management of all office tasks. From writing emails to drafting circulars and proofreading press releases – it is all in a day’s work for a virtual assistant and you can advertise your services in German or English via freelance platforms like Fiverr, Upwork or job sites like Indeed.

8. Social Media AnalystSocial Media Analyst - Work From Home Jobs

If you cannot stay away from Instagram or Facebook, this is the perfect job for you. A significant part of marketing has moved online and into social media. There is a constant need to monitor the publishing calendar and find the perfect platform that offers high ROI for the marketing investment. It requires a degree of comfort with figures and statistics and the ability to objectively analyse and prepare a report based on which the company can tweak its marketing strategy.

You will be required to understand how to run paid ads on social media channels and how to gain more likes and shares for any social media campaign you manage. This will also involve a certain level of creative and converting social media copy and image or even video design to make each social media post as effective as possible. Many German businesses will look for assistance with their social media activities for perhaps just a few hours a week as they might already use marketing automation tools that just require some human input for post and ad creation and scheduling. It’s best to check online job platforms like Fiverr, Upwork and co. to see what the current expectations are for such gigs.

9. Video Gamer

Online gaming is another big money generator and in Germany video games like Minecraft attract a huge following on YouTube for example. For Minecraft fanatics there are many ways to cash in on their gaming passion and skill. If you want to start earning through online gaming, you need to have a Minecraft game server first. You need to invest time, skill and effort to maintain and build the server, a unique Minecraft world and a dedicated community for other Minecraft players. Beginners can buy a Minecraft server from a reliable hosting provider like SeekaHost and they can read more about how to get started with the SeekaHost Minecraft Server Guide. Try these money-generating avenues once your Minecraft server is up and running:earn-money-with-Minecraft-gaming-and-running-a-game-server-for-players

  • Earn by streaming your Minecraft gaming experience: Build a YouTube channel and add a variety of content related to your gaming like expert tips, behind the scenes, etc. You can earn a decent income through the YouTube monetization scheme which is covered in more detail in the above mentioned ClickDo Make Money Online Guide .
  • Charge players for using your server: Once you advertise your server and attract people to it, you can begin to charge players for the use of your server. You can charge a decent amount for an awesome world with great visual impact, expansions, mods and more. If users like your Minecraft world, you can charge membership fees, where you could offer different packages depending on the play duration, features etc.
  • Create a “task-based” virtual currency program for players: Set up your Minecraft server so that players use a virtual currency to play games. You can allocate a specific amount of virtual currency based on the tasks they complete. These tasks could be linked to your business affiliate schemes and advertising arrangements, encouraging players to download their products such as applications. You could also get your players to watch your advertiser’s latest ads or subscribing to their email lists for example.

There are more advanced ways to earn with Minecraft, which you can find out about in the SeekaHost Make Money With Minecraft Guide.

Final Thoughts…

The advantage of work from home jobs is that you could try out a few to find which suit your personality and needs most. If you want to be a blogger (and perhaps run a YouTube channel as well) you need full-time commitment. Jobs such as data entry and online surveys require less upfront commitment of time, energy, and creativity, but also pay less in the long run. One thing is for sure – that the trend is here to stay.

By getting in early and establishing yourself in the field, you surely have an unbeatable advantage in the German and international online job market. I also highly recommend starting a blog, which you can either use as a professional online presence and portfolio as I do here, or to share your passion, expertise and knowledge in your industry, as I do with some of these blogs:

News of the Hour Guide to Earn Online From Home UK Education Blog Guide to Becoming a Blogger as a Student Entrepreneurtoolkit Blog Guide to Earning Money Online with Writing

You can publish content in various languages, but if you want to target the German market then you’d need to blog in perfect German. Any kind of online platform that resonates with your target audience can bring you the internet attention you need to build an online career. Watch the video below where I explain how you can create yourself online through several blogs, social media profiles and more so you establish your own unique online presence that represents you in your own way:

 

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8 Best Ways to Make Money Online in Germany

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Successful SEO Copywriting Techniques For Guest Posts On Popular Blogs

Successful SEO Copywriting Techniques For Guest Posts On Popular Blogs

Want to know the one word that makes humans powerful? It’s – networking.

Guest blogging is as close as it comes to networking online for copywriters and digital marketers and at ClickDo Ltd. we use it constantly to grow our blogs and websites and rank them higher on search engines.

However, it’s not easy to get your guest content published on reputed platforms and often people write poor copy, stick a backlink in and think that’s off-page SEO done and dusted to boost their domain authority and search engine ranks.

But it’s not just about the link building here, it’s also about being strategic with your guest content and applying proven SEO copywriting techniques effectively.

What is the Power of Guest Blogging?

If you manage to land a guest post on a high-profile website or even established magazine or newspaper, it can truly give your author profile and website a massive boost on search engines. See some examples of guest posts I have curated that increased our ranks here:

Edu Gorilla Magazine: Top 7 Ways to be in control of your kids online safety

Careers Help Magazine: Why Choose a Career Path with Digital Skills?

Entrepreneur.com Magazine: 5 Strategies to Build an Online Portfolio for Business Performance Success

Many of these guest posts along with infographic submissions have enabled me to rank this blog, manuelawillbold.com as well as other websites and blogs, like the UK Education Blog, in top positions on search engines like Google (snapshot was taken 04/10/20):There are two types of guest bloggers

But guest posts and press releases or success stories have other benefits too apart from influencing a website’s SEO.

They can also drive direct traffic to your website you have interlinked or mentioned in your post, which enables you to reach a wider readership you may not get exposed to otherwise. See how on the day that the Digital Entrepreneurship Story I wrote and submitted to Home Business Magazine, which has over 100k monthly traffic worldwide, drove double the amount of visitors and tripled my pageviews I normally get to my blog (screenshot from my SeekaHost App Hosting Control Panel):

seekahost-app-tracking-site-overview-MW-blog-traffic-february-to-april

You can clearly see the impact in this example.

Another aspect I want to mention is that through guest blogging you increase the chances of other bloggers or writers referencing you as well as they may come across your information more frequently or from sources they refer to more often. My article about Geography Apps was mentioned in a list post on this website for example, without me asking for it:https://bestappsfinder.com/best-geography-app.

So, if you create high-value content that is SEO optimised and share it across the web, you will certainly see the rewards as people find it on search engines and reference it.

How to go about successful Guest Blogging & SEO Copywriting?

How do I get my guest posts published? Read on and you’ll find out.

There are two types of guest bloggers:

  1. those who aimlessly use the same pitch for every blog offering guest posts, and
  2. those who send out a personalized pitch depending on the blog.

Don’t be the former.

Doing your research first is key. As you can see in my examples above, I check out relevant guest posting sites first via SEO analytics tools to find out their domain authority (DA), domain rating (DR) and their monthly traffic worldwide or country-specifically, depending on what my goal is for the guest post.

To see an impact, I would recommend going for sites with a DA of at least 20+, ideally between 30-60, where you may get free publications. For sites with higher DA’s you will likely have to pay a publication fee, but it can be a worthy investment, if you get the content, the link placements and the media materials right.

Once you get the approval for your email guest post pitch (tip: make it short and sweet and relevant for the guest posting site’s audience), you should follow their editorial guidelines and craft your article carefully. Check out this ClickDo guide on all the secrets for a successful outreach campaign:

How to Create A Perfect Pitch & Test Your Guest Post or Press Release Outreach Campaigns?

Your diligence while writing a guest post for a blog will ensure a flow of opportunities from similar high traffic sites. This, in turn, will increase the viewership on your website but only if you follow these SEO copywriting techniques compiled to put you in the running with the rest of the successful bloggers.

If you consider these, you should be able to get your guest posts published with the ultimate SEO advantages.

1. Understand the Blog’s Unique Voice

Understand the blog's unique voiceYou would have obviously found blogs related to your niche, but have you noticed the unique voice of different blogs? Understanding this is your best bet for creating high-quality content. That’s how you make the editorial team of the blog like you.

Take some time to read through the recent blogs posted on the website and pay attention to the tone. Check if it is friendly and creative or straightforward and to the point.

Once you’ve understood the voice of the blog, begin writing, and you’ll have multiplied your prospects of being published. Websites with heavy traffic also get a number of guest posts and their filtering process is primarily based on what’s best for their blog.

Give them what they resonate with and try to find the person in charge and email them directly with a concise pitch that is relevant for them.

2. Submission Guidelines are your Cheat Sheet

Submission guidelines are your cheat sheetIf you’ve been blogging for a while, you’d know that blogs that accept guest posts have a set of submission guidelines and reading through it will make all the difference.

Check out HubSpot’s submission guidelines or the London Business News guidelines to understand the expectations the editorial team has from guest bloggers. The guidelines will give you an idea of the prerequisites and standards for guest posting on that particular blog.

Ensure your writing reflects every guideline listed by the blog and when placing your backlinks, be considerate and strategic according to your blogging link building strategy. Most publications ask to avoid so called “link stuffing” and will only allow maybe 2-3 links, which should be relevant for what you cover. You should also research your anchor text (the text you use to add your hyperlink), which should contain relevant keywords you want to rank the page or article you interlink with for. Otherwise you are wasting this opportunity especially with regards to SEO.

See one example here from the Career Path article mentioned earlier:

link-building-with-guest-blogging-examples

The link circled in green is a reference link so readers can check the study mentioned, the highlighted link in yellow is a relevant ClickDo article with a similar title and the link circled in red is a backlink to this page on the UK Education Blog that I want to rank higher on search engines: https://education.clickdo.co.uk/work-online-in-education/. The backlinks you add need to provide value and should provide additional information.

3. Write for the Blog’s Readership

Write for the blog's readershipThis is one of the most important points, so pay close attention.

The blog you hope to guest post for will have a specific audience and catering to them must be your priority. Most guest post guidelines insist you must write for your readers first but if your writing fails to intrigue the main readership then your effort will circle down the drain.

It is wise to remember that a guest post is first read by the blog’s viewers, so mould your writing to appeal not just to your readers but the blog’s as well. Bear in mind that they do not know you nor your expertise and showcase this in your guest article in a way that will be of interest to them.

If you get them hooked, they are more likely to check out your website and follow you on social media for example.

4. A List Blog gets the most Attention

Readers are only after quick information that they can skim through without delving too much into the details. This is why list posts are a real money maker in the blogging industry. If you need a better idea of how list posts work, give Listverse a read.

Your secret to SEO copywriting success is in the form of short sentences with valid information in bullet points, using relevant keywords repeatedly, but in different ways. This is what makes most readers stick around until the end of the blog. If you’ve paid attention to the first three techniques, then curating a list post will not only be easy but also help you stand out from the rest.

At ClickDo we also use list posts successfully on the blogs I manage or as guest post submissions as you can see here:

Top 20 Co-Living Places in London for great Networking

Top 35 Canary Wharf Restaurants: Best Places to Eat & Drink After Work

27 Best Eco-friendly Products And Gifts In The UK In 2022

Such posts are more likely to achieve higher ranks on search engines as they cover many keywords in a very structured manner. They will also attract more enquiries to have a mention added in them from businesses or agencies. Because if the post is like a review and ranks well in SERPs that will benefit them, they may offer you a guest post or mention on their site in return.

5. Quality and Quantity go hand in hand

Quality and Quantity go hand in handYou may have noticed websites stressing on the need for quantity when it comes to guest posting but the quality is what will ensure their shelf life.

Guest posting is known to be the best way of gaining viewers and your motto should be quality with quantity. To begin with quality, you must strike a balance between what you want to talk about and what your viewers want to learn.

Once you manage to produce purely relevant content that gets a wide viewership you can move on to quantity. On average you should be able to put out a minimum of 2 to 3 posts every week with a word count of at least 800+. Writing strong pieces of content on a regular basis will help you stay on top of your game.

The more you write, the more you will be read but only if your content maintains a high standard.

6. Use an Article Closing Strategy

Use an Article Closing StrategyThe main agenda towards guest posting is to gain referral traffic and many rely on their bios for that which is a huge mistake. A marketing strategist Gregory Ciotti recognized ‘byline blindness’ as a common issue among readers of popular blogs.

The Internet is filled with guest posts which have led to readers overlooking who has written the blog. Even you must have read a dozen blogs without even noticing the name of the author.

The main danger here is that you might not get any traffic your way, making the guest post worthless. Ciotti formulated a 3-step article closing strategy to overcome this problem.

He advises three elements that you should include in your guest post namely:

  • closing subheadings

  • questioning the readers, and

  • using a call to action.

Your first step is closing subheadings, which means you need to make your conclusion obvious. This can be done by using phrases like ‘Now it’s your turn’ or ‘The ball is in your court’. The next thing is to interact with your readers and ask them questions related to your post. Your final step is to place a CTA (call of action) to ensure your readers make their way to your site.

All you have to do is keep at it, the more content you send out, the more views will come your way. If you’re a blogger in the education niche, then you can reach out to some selected education blogs accepting guest posts you can find here:

Top 15 Education and Student Blogs accepting your Guest Post

If you’re a student blogger or finance/frugal lifestyle blogger, check these blogs out for possible guest blogging gigs:

15 Top Student Finance Blogs in the UK

I want to help bloggers with their guest blogging and am in the process of building blogger communities where guest posts with valuable blogging tips or success stories can be shared:

The Bloggers Exchange Blog

Blogger Tipps und Tricks Blog

You can talk to me about guest blogging and online directory websites for setting up additional blogger profiles with links – I am more than happy to help any blogger out there and offer guest posting opportunities and advice.

How a WordPress Blog Can Empower & Enrich a Woman’s Life?

How a WordPress Blog Can Empower & Enrich a Woman’s Life?

Reading and writing has always been empowerment for me. I remember how, as a 5-year-old, I couldn’t wait to finally read the TV newspaper to be able to plan what I was watching and when.

In primary school, we wrote poetry albums of friends and I started keeping a diary. When I look at these written testimonies many years later, I feel proud. Proud of the young woman I was then and proud of the woman I am today who still has some of these friends in her life. The diary and the albums documented this journey with images, colourings, photos, comments from friends, teachers and relatives and any other memories such as tickets to unforgettable events, for example.

A blog can do this and much more in a flexible online format.

A Blog – an Online Presence for Self-Presentation and Realization

In the 21st century, the Internet allows us to use new media or implement old methods in new ways. In my opinion, a blog is a kind of online diary, but it offers much more than a traditional diary. A blog offers versatile design options such as

  • written design through websites with text, articles with text, images with text
  • visual design through images, graphics, any artistic illustration, video
  • auditory design through videos, podcasts, music clips, musical accompaniment, etc.
  • Links to other media, posts, channels, etc.

Due to this incredible wealth of design options, it is essential to define the purpose and motivation behind a blog in advance. There are now millions of blogs and basically you can divide them all into 2 main categories:

  1. Niche blogs – A niche blog focuses on a specific topic. Usually, the blog articles and content are aimed at a specific target group, such as families, professionals in different professional groups, sports fans, etc. Blog topics can thus cover everything from the minimalist blog to the financial blog. Niche blogs are therefore also mostly represented in the business world and companies use blogs to inform and entertain about their products or services.
  2. Personal blogs – A personal blog focuses on a person and their topics. Bloggers can document their lives from different angles such as the information aspect or the entertainment aspect. Many bloggers share with their readers where and how they travel, what they eat and cook, what they do for a living or how they live out and realize their hobbies. A personal blog can be designed relatively freely, as long as no generally applicable laws are violated.

In this article, I will focus mainly on a personal blog, but show ways in which it can also be used professionally as a CV or portfolio for example, with the main goal of presenting the potential of a blog.

What can a WordPress Blog do for a Superwoman?

superwoman-blog-to-fulfil-potentialIn the digital age, most people search for information via the Internet, more precisely, through search engines such as Google or Bing. In 2020, 81% of global internet users have searched online for products or services, according to SmartInsights.com. Whether this is done with the smartphone, the tablet or the computer, it is the fastest, easiest and often cheapest way to get information and answers fast.

If you want to reach people as a private or public person, a blog offers an ideal platform to make your voice heard, since a blog:

  • is easy to create and manage (I explain this step by step in my article “How To Start A Blog” and at the SeekaHost University, which I co-manage and where you can find  blogging online courses with short tutorials).
  • can be created and used cost-effectively.
  • offers endless design possibilities.
  • is a relatively independent mouthpiece that can be built up and designed creatively and on your own.

WordPress is the most popular CMS (content management system) among all blog platforms, as it is open-source and freely available to everyone, offering the greatest freedom of design. Compared to other blogging platforms like SquareSpace or Wix, which are used by about 1% of all bloggers, WordPress is used by about 35% of all bloggers worldwide in 2020, according to W3Techs.com.

For my personal blog, manuelawillbold.com, I use WordPress, as well as for all the other blogs I manage like the UK Education Blog or the Green Living Blog. To show how differently I have built and designed these 3 blogs, I share the homepage of each one here:

My personal blog manuelawillbold.com:

personal-blog-for-exposure-as-expert

My UK Education Blog:

wordpress-blog-about-uk-education-and-edtech

WordPress blog about UK educations and edtech

 My Green Living Blog:

lifestyle-or-better-living-blog-for-inspiration

I think one thing becomes clear here: A blog can convey at first glance what it is about through its presentation and content – the message is loud, powerful, and clear visually.

And in my opinion, this is the great potential for every female blogger and their empowerment.

Self-presentation of many Aspects of a Superwoman through Blogging

Based on my three blog examples, it will hopefully be clear that a strong woman blogger is not only one-dimensional, and therefore should not present herself only one-sided online.

With my blogs I present my passions: writing/blogging, education, and the environment.

Through my personal blog under my own name, I present myself as a private and professional person, blogger and digital nomad. The blog offers me the opportunity:

  • to present myself as a person and my personality through photos, videos and articles
  • to present and convey my interests and skills creatively
  • to share my knowledge, talents, tips and experiences and thus help others
  • to position myself with regards to trending topics and current affairs that are relevant

Through my UK Education Blog, I share my professional expertise and present myself as an education expert. The blog offers me the opportunity:

  • to present and share my experience of many years in early childhood and school education
  • to share my knowledge, expertise, emerging scientific facts, news and developments in education
  • to share advice, insights and tips in education on relevant topics

Through my Green Living blog, I share my private passion for environmental protection. Here I have the opportunity:

  • to convey my own findings and concerns on the subject of environmental protection
  • to make my contribution to environmental protection through information and education
  • To educate myself through writing and researching

What hopefully meets the eye is that I represent parts of myself as a woman through all three online presences. I expand my own awareness, knowledge, know-how and competence and at the same time realize my hobbies, passions, and main interests.

This is incredibly fulfilling. And when you receive encouragement from acquaintances and strangers and see how the blog grows in popularity, then this is an almost indescribable feeling of satisfaction and happiness. In the following video I explain this in more detail and show how my life has changed based on my blogs:

What is the Potential of a Blog for a Superwoman?

Blogging is often seen as a purely technical or writing process. However, blogging can be an extremely creative, challenging, and fun process. The prerequisite is, of course, a certain level of digital knowledge and skills, such as being able to use Microsoft programs, as well as being familiar with Internet browsers, computer systems and web applications like the web hosting control panel.

For me, running a blog as a strong woman has the following advantages and benefits that can empower every woman:

  • You can teach yourself and others a lot, such as digital skills, research results in specific subject areas, new and innovative concepts, etc.blogging-and-remote-working-for-healthy-work-life-balance
  • You can give free rein to your creativity and write articles and content according to your own ideas and wishes with the use of various media such as images, videos, text, podcasts, etc.
  • You can boost your self-confidence by highlighting and sharing your strengths and talents, using them to help or inspire other people. And by presenting and positioning yourself in a way you feel comfortable.
  • You can establish yourself as a person and combine pleasure with work through your online presence. When a blog is successful and attracts hundreds to thousands of readers monthly, new paths to success open up and a blogger can become a powerful woman influencer.
  • Women who pause their professional careers due to their role as mothers can use a blog as a “break filler” and thus continue to be active in their field of expertise during parental leave. The blog can then also be used as a portfolio or online CV for future applications or as a figurehead for independent work projects.
  • You can network with others and work on collaborations through the blog and through new, exciting projects that arise from the blogging.
  • You can enjoy more freedom and self-governance while working remotely under your own terms.

A skill that is essential if you want to make your blog successful is SEO (search engine optimization). It is learnable via SEO online courses and brings the important visibility via search engines that you need to expand your readership.  SEO content and many guest posts and infographics have allowed me to place the UK Education Blog at the top of Google (snapshot taken on 04/10/20):

How did I do that? In my reader friendly writing article I share tips and tricks and in my SEO copywriting online course as well.

Admittedly, it’s not easy to build a blog for success and it took me almost 3 years to rank my blogs on Google and Bing among certain keywords on the top rankings and thus reach the milestone of almost 1000 monthly visitors after over a year:

BUT I did this on the side while working 40 hours a week as an early years educator at a private school in London’s Notting Hill. This should encourage every powerful woman and at the end I would like to give all women the following message:

If the motivation is big enough and you are on fire for your blog project, then it will be a success, because where there is a will, there is a way!

I would like to help every woman to build an online presence via blogs and answer any questions about blogging and digital marketing at any time via my email: manuela@seekahost.org.

 

 

How to Create a Blog Post Google Will Send Many Readers to?

How to Create a Blog Post Google Will Send Many Readers to?

In today’s digital world, it has become challenging to write blog articles that make it to the top on search engines.

Blogging consistently and writing an engaging post that not only ranks on search engines but attracts huge traffic is a hard nut to crack.

According to research, blogs where posts are consistently going up, are 13% more likely to rank higher in the search results than the websites that update blogs once or twice a month. And you can find 100 prime examples of famous UK bloggers that have managed to reach the top with not just one but many articles.

So, how can you become a Top Blogger ranking at the Top of Google?

How to Write a Blog PostWhat are some exclusive blog writing techniques that can help you take your site to the top of the search engines?

If you are searching for the answers, you have come to the right place! In this post, we’ll discuss the ways you can boost your organic traffic and search engine rankings by writing a compelling and exceptional blog. Read on.

  • Optimize your Site for Search Engines

This is no longer an era where you can write a blog post on any topic, insert keywords, upload images, and expect your content to get great exposure. If you want your blog to get ranked on the first page of search engines, you need to do some hard work.

Today, people often employ two major strategies for blogging:

  1. On-page Site Optimization
  2. Off-page Optimization

On-page SEO involves:

  • keyword research with reliable SEO tools,
  • meta-description containing rankable keywords,
  • image ALT text containing keyword variations,
  • headers & sub headers containing keyword variations,
  • bullet points/clear paragraphs,
  • and everything that makes your article unique and engaging and relevant for what your potential readers are looking for.

Watch this recording of how the #1 SEO consultant Fernando Raymond and I published a comprehensive guide of nearly 2000 words on the WordPress blog university.seekahost.com, applying all the listed on-page SEO strategies and tips step by step:

This is the most popular yet common way of allowing the search engine’s spiders to crawl your website and index it.

Off-page SEO involves:seo-strategies-and-techniques-for-bloggers-to-reach-top-in-serps

With billions of active blogs on the internet, it gets quite difficult for new bloggers to get their content on top of the search results. Therefore, they start blogging, sweet pitching, guest posting, and cross-promotion techniques to generate quality backlinks from other authority sites.

You can learn more about content marketing techniques like business listings, guest posting opportunities and press release services I offer through SEO consultancy ClickDo in these articles:

Top 10 Blogs UK Businesses should be featured for PR & Marketing

24 Must-Know Link Building Methods for 2022

However, you cannot expect Google to rank your blog in the first ten search results unless you write a compelling and well-written blog post to start with. Content quality and comprehensiveness as well as relevancy are key indicators Google uses to rank websites according to their latest search quality evaluator updates and guidelines.

  • Use the right SEO Writing Strategies

Sure, people use paid advertising techniques to drive more traffic to their pages. But the problem is paid methods don’t encourage organic traffic generation through organic search results.

Research suggests that roughly 70 to 80 percent of bloggers don’t use paid search services at all. They totally rely on the on-page SEO tactics to drive traffic to their website. Fortunately, these strategies work for them. You don’t need any paid ads if you manage to master the on-site SEO optimization. SEO content writing is the only possible way of generating organic traffic and genuine leads. The question is what on-page actually includes?

  • Optimizing your blog for search engines using keywords, meta-data, and multimedia content (such as videos, images, infographics, charts, and etc.).seo-content-writing-for-high-google-ranks
  • Writing a detailed blog on the given topic.
  • Answering as many questions of the audience as possible through your blog post, adding most searched for keywords.
  • Providing your audience with an accurate solution to their problems.
  • Keeping the engagement of your visitors by structuring your content effectively.

That’s it! You don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars to get organic traffic. Instead, a compelling blog post that solves customer’s problems is enough to get your website on the first page of the search results, if you can also get some good backlinks for it with related anchor texts. It is worth to note that SEO friendly web content focuses on visitors rather than search engines and I’d suggest you also test alternative search engines to Google for keywords for your blog post.

Write a detailed and well-structured Blog Post

how to structure a blogA compelling blog post is something that everyone loves to read.

You create a blog, select a theme, add content to it, upload media like images or videos, and carry out the necessary SEO strategies. But you still don’t get the search results you want? The reason can be a boring post that seems way too complicated to be understood.

Through well-structured and compelling blogs, we don’t mean a post that is 100% grammatically correct or sounds professional (even though you should use a grammar and spell checker tool!). But it should be written in a way that your users find it interesting and informative as well as easy to follow.

The structure is the first thing your readers look at via your table of content. It should be so engaging that visitors don’t think twice before checking out other blogs. For more tips on how to structure a WordPress blog post, check out this tutorial:

Here’s how you can achieve a well-structured Blog Post

 

  • Write an eye-catching title

Write a title that makes users more curious to click on your blog’s URL and read the full article. It should be between 50 and 60 characters. Make sure that you don’t stuff keywords unnecessarily in the title. Use it wisely i.e., only if it fits naturally.

  • Write an attractive introduction

The intro should be short and tell your users what exactly they will find in your post. Try to add some questions in your intro to make your visitors more likely to read the full blog and find answers to their problems. For example, “Do you want to increase traffic and leads? We’ll walk you through some interesting and effortless ideas of gaining more visitors to your website”.

  • Include examples and illustrations

People love to know how they can relate to your blog. For example, if your blog is about dieting tips for weight loss, give an example of your customers who lost their extra pounds using your strategies.

  • Make your content engaging

Include bullet points, sub-headings, images, videos, infographics, tables, statistics, and other content that makes your blog easy on the eye. Don’t write long paragraphs or hard-to-read content.

  • Draw a conclusion

Write a conclusion that explains how your blog post can offer solutions to the problem of your visitors. Your visitors search for a query on Google and other search engines so this is where they will find your articles first. They want relevant answers to their problems so you must write a post in a conversational tone since it attracts more visitors. The idea is to keep your visitors engaged, and what’s a better way of doing that than communicating with them through your blog effectively.

These were some blog writing strategies that can help you draw the attention of your audience and generate more traffic. Follow these tips to become an expert content writer.

You can find out more about how I ranked my “how to make money online in Germany” article on top of over 20 search terms on Google in this blog post:

The best Blogging Platform for Writers to Rank and Make Money Online

Or by watching this video:

5 Best cPanel Alternatives for Bloggers to host WordPress Websites (including cPanel)

5 Best cPanel Alternatives for Bloggers to host WordPress Websites (including cPanel)

Are you lost in the world of web hosting control panels?

I feel your pain! When I started out as a blogger and digital nomad, I had no clue about what a hosting control panel is and how it works or what it can/should do. 

So, I thought I will do you a favour and present a selection of the most highly rated domain hosting control panels for bloggers by bloggers that have emerged since the first ever control panel, cPanel, was launched in 1996 and changed web hosting for its users significantly with its interface and automation tools to manage website hosting more easily. 

I have used cPanel before and many web hosts, including SeekaHost where I host my websites, still offer web hosting with cPanel as it remains a market leader. However, many innovative control panels have been developed since 1996 and they offer features that cPanel doesn’t, which is why it is advisable to compare them first before choosing one. 

So, without much further ado, let’s get into the matter. 

What exactly is a Web Hosting Control Panel? 

A web hosting control panel is a web-based graphical user interface tool used by online providers to manage their website and hosting account and their hosting servers. 

Hosting control panels are one of the most effective methods to monitor all hosting services via a web browser or through a particular app based on availability. 

Every hosting company offers different hosting control panels to their clients along with web hosting plans and various other features. The user experience with a domain hosting control panel differs from one brand to another. 

Some control panel tasks include account administration, domain management, email management, server installation, FTP, database management, file management, and schedule back-ups, but each panel may only provide a selection of such features.

Why you need a Web Hosting Control Panel & how it works? 

To host domains and create websites as well as connect your website with web servers you will need to use a hosting control panel, especially if you’re not into coding. 

Web hosting control panels are the platforms that provide you with an interface and tools to interact with your website’s server and they usually come with the hosting you purchase from your hosting provider.

Domain hosting control panels make the website and server management much easier for people without much technological know-how and therefore everyone should use one. There are certain features that all control panels offer and some that are unique, and you should compare them first before choosing one. 

Each control panel should offer at least these 3 variations:

  • Different interface
  • Different design
  • Different tasks management methods

Most web hosting control panels will equip you with the following features which is why you need one:

  • Manage your website and domain 
  • Create and use branded email addresses
  • Access important website and hosting metrics
  • Manage security features like SSL certificates
  • Set up your database and blogging platform
  • Install additional software and apps

Differences in the layout and navigation can impact the user experience significantly and you should therefore test a control panel first or read reviews about it before purchasing it with your web hosting.  

Your choice of choosing the best control panel may be based on the operating system and the features offered by the hosting company. Typically, Linux-based plans and Windows hosting plans are the main OS types available. 

Bloggers will certainly require their chosen hosting control panel to offer the following features for the best blog hosting experience:

  • One-Click CMS Installations supporting WordPress, Joomla! etc.
  • DNS (domain name server) Management
  • One-Click SSL Integration
  • Email Hosting

Because I only use WordPress for my blogs, I will list the top 5 web hosting control panels for WordPress Hosting along with their stand-out features that are a great alternative to cPanel and at the end you will also find cPanel so you can see the difference.

Top 5 most highly rated Web Hosting Control Panels by Bloggers for WordPress (plus cPanel at the end)

1. SeekaPanel

Website: https://www.seekahost.app/

Innovative web hosting control panel designed specifically to host WordPress websites in a few seconds – the fastest performance out there. You can host your PBNs with the best private blog network control panel on multiple IP addresses of class A, B, C. Learn more here about PBNs and PBN hosting to understand the difference between WordPress Hosting. 

SeekaPanel is easy to handle, even beginners can host their sites without facing any technical difficulty with the SeekaHost App’s interface. Host your private blog networks more securely on Class C IP addresses with the SeekaPanel. 

🔎 SeekaPanel is highly recommended by WordPress developers and bloggers, check the reviews below:

Vashishtha Kapoor SeekaPanel Review

Tech Story SeekaPanel Review

Bloggers Ideas SeekaPanel Review

OS: CentOS (Linux)

Top Features of SeekaPanel:

  • Unlimited access to all hosted domains with a single click
  • Easy to monitor website’s performance data in the account
  • Integration of Analytics tools features
  • DNS Management 
  • 1-click SSL certificate, WordPress installation and upgrade or downgrade option for WP and PBN hosting plans
  • One free email hosting account included
  • Free access to WP tutorials and SEO courses offered by SeekaHost University. 
  • Live chat support and ticket support

💰 WP Hosting from $1 and PBN Hosting from $0.95 per month – no additional/hidden fees like set up fees or registration fees, can start with 1 domain. 

2. Plesk

 

Website: https://www.plesk.com/

Plesk is a popular user-friendly web hosting control panel designed for Windows and Linux operating systems. The Plesk administrator model is flexible for dedicated and shared hosting and its focus is on providing strong security for modern website hosting. Plesk is scalable, and secure, and it is suitable for more complex WordPress business websites and e-commerce sites with its features, hence why web developers like to use it. SeekaHost also offers WordPress Hosting with Plesk. 

🔎 Not many bloggers have reviewed Plesk as it appears to be mainly used by web developers and software engineers. They share the benefits of the complex features:

Software Suggest Plesk Review

Website Planet Plesk Review

OS: Windows, Linux

Features of Plesk: 

  • Easily host and manage multiple websites in one single dashboard.
  • One platform to install, remove and manage the plugins, themes, and backup features for websites. 
  • Provides high server security. 
  • Manage several email accounts for all hosted domains. 
  • DNS Management
  • SSL Integration
  • Dedicated customer support

💰 Dedicated Hosting and VPS Hosting from $9 per month – minimum 10 domains to host and fees may change after trial period.  However, many web hosts will offer more affordable hosting options with Plesk such as SeekaHost’s WordPress Hosting starting at $3 for one site. 

3. DirectAdmin

Website: https://directadmin.com/

Direct Admin is an established web hosting control panel offering advanced GUI features and administration tools for DNS and email management, backups, integrated file management and multi-server setup, including advanced features like custom web server configuration.

Due to the feature of a multilingual interface, you can easily manage it in all languages. Its graphical web-based interface makes the administration process easier.

🔎 Reviews in comparison with other control panels can be found by experts and writers highlighting the pros and cons:

Web Master Directadmin review

EuropVPS Directadmin review

OS: Linux, FreeBSD, Ubuntu

Features of DirectAdmin:

  • Provides effective email administration 
  • Softaculous allows to auto-install web applications with a single click
  • Password protection for directories
  • Manage all users by using an integrated administrative token system
  • Resellers can provide customized nameservers for their clients
  • SSL activation featured

💰 DirectAdmin offers a free trial version for one account and a licence to manage 10 domains costs $2 per month. You should check for web hosts offering hosting with DirectAdmin, like Flaunt 7, if you want to test this panel. But check the hosting plans carefully as often they will be free initially and then go up. 

4. Virtualmin

Website: https://www.virtualmin.com/

Virtualmin is an effective and flexible hosting control panel to host and manage multiple domains with a complex interface and it is integrated with Webmin, another control panel. Virtualmin is the most popular alternative to cPanel and Plesk, probably because the professional version (paid option) allows users to set up or update some of the most popular content management systems like WordPress, Joomla and Magento. The Virtualmin panel is designed to manage websites, mailbox users, databases, and web applications at both the user and admin end.

🔎 Not many independent reviews can be found but here are some emphasising the free version and features:

Make Tech Easier Virtualmin Review

G2 Virtualmin Review

OS: Linux, open-source version. 

Features of Virtualmin: 

  • Powerful and flexible hosting control panel
  • Good alternative to cPanel and Plesk
  • Single web interface to manage multiple systems
  • Options for spam and virus filtering 
  • Improved UI and enabled mobile access
  • Email hosting included with paid version
  • Dedicated customer support with paid version

💰 Free GPL open-source version is available, but not easy to use/install for beginners. Paid version starts from $6/month or $60/year for up to 10 websites. Other web hosts offer Virtualmin like Logic Web – they offer the Webmin integration, which is linked with Virtualmin and the hosting starts at $15 per month for one site. 

5. Interworx

Website: https://www.interworx.com/

Interworx is a secure web hosting control panel for hosting providers, resellers, and website owners. It runs on a VPS system and is also a dedicated server, which allows to expand from a single server into a complete, load-balanced cluster. It supports mobile devices and is classified into two modules: Nodeworx for managing the servers and Siteworx for managing the websites and domains.

🔎 Software developer reviews are available for your reference but are a few years old and it appears that the reviews highlight the complexity of the panel:

Liquid Web Interworx Review

VPS Board Interworx Review

OS: RedHat Enterprise Linux, CentOS

Features of Interworx: 

  • Simple and centralized hosting management
  • 1-click installations through Softaculous
  • Clustering multiple servers 
  • Having advanced features of domain key signing, remote email delivery system, and domain management
  • Easy to schedule backups
  • Email hosting included
  • SSL activation available

💰 Licences start at $20 per month for unlimited domains and bulk licences for $5, but it is not clear if it is monthly or per licence. They also offer a free test version. Web host Monovm offer VPS hosting with Interworx starting at $30 per month.  

Now that you are familiar with the cPanel alternatives, you should also check what cPanel offers so you can compare them. 

6. cPanel

Website: https://cpanel.net/

It provides a Linux-based graphical interface and automation tools to make the website hosting process straightforward. cPanel is a third-party web-based application, and it allows you to publish your websites, manage domains, web files, email accounts, and so on. cPanel is recommended mainly for developers & IT experts, corporations with IT departments and web designers. 

🔎 cPanel reviews can also mainly be found by web developers and IT experts, emphasising the specifications and cost:

Tom’s cPanel Hosting Panel Review

Software Advice cPanel Review

OS: Linux 

Features of cPanel:

  • cPanel supports virtual machines like VMware, Hyper-V, KVM, and VirtualBox. 
  • Simple mail configuration and provides spam detection features in mail communication.
  • cPanel comes with built-in security mechanisms including high-end password protection, SSL/TLS, and firewall protection. 
  • Efficient file manager to monitor the storage space for creating backups. 
  • DNS Management
  • 1-click WordPress installation

💰 Web hosting for one account from $15 per month, but for bulk accounts per-month pricing for partners is $0.175 each. However, many web hosts will offer more affordable hosting options with Plesk such as SeekaHost’s WordPress Hosting starting at $3 for one site. 

Final Verdict for the best cPanel Alternatives

All the above-mentioned hosting control panels have different and similar advanced features as you may have noticed. Hence why it is advisable to chose one that suits your preferences most. 

The listed control panels will mostly affect the individual user experience and organization and as you saw, not all web hosts offer all control panels. It is therefore important to choose the best web hosting in combination with the most suitable control panel for your requirements. 

So, whether you are an IT expert, web developers or designers looking for more technically advanced configurations in a control panel for optimal website management or you are a blogging beginner looking for a simple and basic web hosting and management experience, your needs will determine your ultimate choice. 

Go for…

    • A complex but comprehensive control panel like cPanel, if you’re after specific customizations such as tools for managing several servers, branding opportunities for resellers and if you can afford to pay a much higher price. 
    • A control panel with various features like Plesk that allows the clients to be more in control, reducing the administrator’s workload by structuring its databases better for customers, if you’re a reseller.
    • An extremely affordable and sleek control panel like the SeekaHost’s SeekaPanel offering an easy interface for digital novices that have never used web hosting or a control panel before, if you’re looking for a simple yet professional solution. SeekaHost also offers web hosting plans with cPanel and Plesk too so you can compare each. See my video about the advantages of the SeekaPanel below:

cPanel is the most famous control panel as it was the first one in the market and a market leader for years, but many other control panels have emerged ever since that offer website owners a wide variety of options that cPanel does not.

Choose the web hosting control panel that will give you the best long-term experience with your ideal web hosting service so that you will be happy to host and manage all your websites with it also in terms of your budget. 

Moving or transferring domains is not easy and you should make sure that the control panel and web hosting of your choice offers you easily accessible customer support. 

But the most important factor is that you like the look and feel of it and that you enjoy using it. So, get online with the best web host and web hosting control panel to ensure that your online presence is in the best of hands. 

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