How to Add an External Link Icon on Your WordPress Site

Do you want to add an external link icon to your WordPress site?

By clearly marking your external URLs, you can keep people on your site for longer, and make it clear that clicking on a particular link will open a new window or tab.

In this article, we will show you how you can add an external link icon to WordPress.

Why Add an External Link Icon on Your WordPress Site?

An external link icon is a small picture that appears next to a link that will take the user to a different website.

For example, you can scroll to the bottom of any Wikipedia post and see that most links in the References section have an external link icon.

By using external link icons on your WordPress blog, your visitors will easily be able to tell the difference between outbound links and internal links. Many sites also use external link icons to make it clear that the link will open in a new window or tab.

These icons can keep visitors on your site for longer and increase your pageviews since there’s less risk of them clicking on an external link and leaving your website by accident.

With that being said, let’s see how you can add an external link icon to your WordPress site.

How to Add an External Link Icon on Your WordPress Site

The easiest way to add an external link icon to your website is by using WP External Links.

You can use this plugin to add different images, Dashicons, and Font Awesome icons to your external links automatically.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the

WP External Links plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After that, just click on the new WP External Links setting in the left-hand menu.

If you get a popup asking you to upgrade, then you can simply click anywhere outside the popup to close it.

As you can see, the plugin can do a lot more than just add an external link icon to your site. For example, it can automatically add nofollow to all external links in WordPress.

WP External Links can also keep people on your site by opening all external links in a new window or tab. We recommend enabling this feature since many users assume links with an external link icon will open in a new window or tab, anyway.

To open all external URLs in a new window or tab, open the ‘Open external links’ dropdown and click on ‘each in a separate new window or tab.’

By default, WP External Links will apply this rule to every new external link that you create.

However, it can also scan your site and change any external URLs that you’ve previously added to your website. This will provide a more consistent experience for your users, so it’s a good idea to go ahead and click on the ‘Overwrite existing values’ box.

Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to create an icon for your external links. To start, scroll to the ‘Choose icon type’ section.

Now you can click where it says ‘no icon’ to open the dropdown.

Your options are Image, Font Awesome, or Dashicon.

Both Font Awesome and Dashicon come with a single box-with-arrow icon that you can use as your external link icon. This icon will always appear blue on your site, as you can see in the following image.

This is the exact icon that many websites use for their external links, so most visitors will understand what the box-with-arrow icon means.

However, ‘Image’ lets you choose between several box-with-arrow icons including some that have a slightly different style and color.

In the following image, you can see an example of how a colorful box-with-arrow icon will look on your WordPress website.

If you want to add a colorful icon to your site, then you’ll need to select ‘Image’ from the ‘Choose icon type’ dropdown.

You can then click on the one that you want to use for your external links.

Once you’ve done that, open the ‘Icon position’ dropdown.

Here, choose whether the icon will appear on the ‘Right side of the link’ or the ‘Left side of the link.’ Most websites show the external icon to the right of the link.

Do you want to use the standard blue box-with-arrow icon instead?

Then you can open the ‘Choose icon type’ dropdown and click on either ‘Font Awesome’ or ‘Dashicon’ instead.

Next, open the dropdown menu beside ‘Choose Dashicon’ or ‘Choose FA,’ and then click on the box-with-arrow icon.

Note: Both Font Awesome and Dashicons give you access to dozens of other icons. However, we recommend using the box-with-arrow icon as more people will recognize this as an external link icon.

After clicking on the Font Awesome or Dashicon that you want to use, you can specify whether it should appear to the right or left of the link following the exact same process described above.

When you’re happy with the external link icon you’ve chosen, simply click on ‘Save changes.’

The plugin will then add the icon to all the external URLs on your site automatically.

We hope this article helped you learn how to add an external link icon to your WordPress site. You can also go through our guide on proven ways to make money online blogging and how to track website visitors to your WordPress site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Add an External Link Icon on Your WordPress Site first appeared on WPBeginner.

September 06, 2022 at 02:14PM

120+ Marketing Statistics, Trends, and Facts (Updated for 2022)

Are you looking for the latest marketing statistics and trends? 

The marketing industry is always evolving. It’s important for your business to be up-to-date so you can stay competitive.

In this article, we’ve gathered tons of digital marketing statistics for you, all in one place. With this data, you can see what’s missing from your marketing strategy.

The Ultimate List of Digital Marketing Statistics (2022)

We’ve divided these marketing statistics into several different categories. You can jump straight to the section you’re most interested in using the links below. 

• Content Marketing Statistics
• Search Engine Optimization Statistics
• Email Marketing Stats
• Social Media Marketing Statistics
• Video Marketing Statistics
• Lead Generation Statistics
• Conversion Rate Optimization Statistics
• Advertising Statistics
• Affiliate Marketing Stats
• Marketing Technology Statistics

Content Marketing Statistics 

• 82% of companies report using content marketing. 
• 48% of companies that have a content marketing strategy use blogging. 
• The most popular blog content formats are how-to articles (77%), followed by news and trends (49%), and guides and eBooks (47%). 
• B2B blogs with educational content get 52% more organic traffic than B2B blogs with company-focused content.
• The leading content marketing types used by B2C marketers are blog posts/short articles (83%), email newsletters (74%), and pre-produced videos (62%). 
• For B2B marketers, webinars, online courses, and virtual events were the content types that produced the best content marketing results in 2022.
• 80% of marketers who produce audio content and podcasts planned to invest the same amount or more in 2022. 
• Only 16% of marketers say they’ve invested in audio chat rooms like Twitter Spaces and Clubhouse. 
• 38% of marketers planned to include infographics in their content creation for the first time in 2022.
• 60% of marketers report that content marketing generates demand/leads. 
• 70% of marketers say that content marketing helps to educate the audience. 
• 60% of marketers say that it helps build loyalty with existing clients/customers. 
• 76% of content marketers use organic traffic as a key metric for measuring content success. Only 22% use backlinks.

The purpose of content marketing is to create and share relevant information to attract and engage a target audience that’s interested in your product or service.

Blogging has been a staple of content marketing for a long time. What’s important to note here is that the most popular blog format is how-to articles. Blogs with educational content get 52% more organic traffic than blogs with company-focused content. 

This shows how important it is to provide valuable content that solves the pain points of your target audience, instead of just promoting your company.  

The global pandemic also encouraged marketers to try new strategies. As we shifted away from in-person events, smart marketing teams used virtual events like webinars and online courses to attract and engage their audience. 

Search Engine Optimization Statistics

• Google currently has 83.84% of the search engine market share. 
• Google receives over 105,191 searches per second. 
• 53% of shoppers say they always do research using a search engine before deciding to purchase a product. 
• 50% of search queries are 4 words or more. 
• Around 8% of search queries are phrased as questions.
• 67% of clicks go to the first 5 results displayed in search engines. 
• The #1 result in Google gets about 32% of all clicks. 
• Only 3.4% of clicks on Google search results go to AdWords or paid listings. 
• 90% of web pages get zero organic traffic from Google. 
• Google uses over 200 factors in its algorithm for ranking websites including keywords, content length, page speed, image optimization, mobile usability, and more. 
• Organic search results that rank on page 1 of Google contain an average of 1,447 words. 
• 71% of marketers say using strategic keywords was their number one strategy for SEO. 
• According to a HubSpot survey, over 50% of respondents say keyword rankings and organic traffic are the top ways they measure the success of their SEO strategies.
• 49% of marketers report that organic search has the best ROI of any marketing channel. 

By looking at these stats, it’s easy to see why SEO is so important. With proper WordPress SEO, you can get more visitors to your website via search results. And 49% of marketers say that organic search has the best return on investment (ROI). 

The fact that 90% of web pages get zero traffic from Google could be because they’re not properly optimized. 

To optimize your site and improve your search engine rankings, we recommend using All in One SEO (AIOSEO). It’s the best SEO plugin and toolkit on the market. 

AIOSEO will analyze your entire website and identify any critical errors that could be harming your rankings, and provide actionable tips for improvement. Plus, the TruSEO on-page analysis makes it easy to optimize your posts and pages for your focus keywords. 

For step by step instructions, you can follow our guide on how to set up All in One SEO for WordPress. 

Email Marketing Statistics

• 99% of email users check their email daily, with some checking up to 20 times per day. 
• 51% of consumers prefer to be contacted by brands through email. Email is preferred over social media, mail, text, or phone. 
• 49% of consumers say they would like to receive promotional emails from their favorite brands on a weekly basis.
• 41% of email views come from mobile devices, followed by desktops at 39%. 
• The industry average email click-through rate (CTR) is 2.13%.
• For every $1 spent on email marketing, $44 is made in return. That’s an ROI of 4400%. 
• 77% of ROI comes from segmented, targeted, and triggered campaigns.
• Automation is used in email marketing to send triggered emails, drip campaigns, and segmented emails.  
• Testing your emails leads to a 28% higher ROI. 
• 47% of marketers say they test alternate subject lines to optimize email performance.
• 47% of emails are opened or discarded based solely on their subject line. 
• Personalized subject lines are 22% more likely to be opened.
• Subject lines with a sense of urgency and exclusivity get a 22% higher open rate.
• Adding a popup on your blog can increase your email list by list by 1.375%. 
• 15.8% of all emails go missing or have been caught by popular spam filters.

These statistics show that email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to communicate with your audience. A marketing ROI of 4400% is amazing!

But, it’s important to remember that 77% of ROI comes from using email automation to send segmented, targeted, and triggered email campaigns. When campaigns are personalized to a user’s preferences or actions they’ve taken on your site, they’re more likely to convert. 

If you’re interested in using email automation to boost conversions and improve ROI, check out our picks of the best email marketing services. 

Another interesting stat is that 15.8% of all emails go missing.

To prevent any of your important messages from being sent to the spam folder, we recommend using one of these SMTP service providers. STMP service providers are specially configured to make sure your emails reach users’ inboxes. 

Social Media Marketing Statistics

• The average social media user has accounts on more than 8 social media platforms.
• Users spend on average around 2 hours and 29 minutes on social media every day.
• 43% of people use social media to make purchasing decisions.
• Facebook is still the most popular social media platform, with 2.9 billion monthly active users. YouTube is in second place with 2.2 billion monthly active users.  
• Other social networks that land in the list of the top 10 include Instagram (2 billion monthly active users), TikTok (1 billion monthly active users), Pinterest (444 million monthly active users), and Twitter (217 million monthly active users). 
• Over 90% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for organic social marketing.
• 98.3% of Facebook users access the app on mobile phones.
• The majority of marketers say they post on most social media platforms 4 to 6 times a week.
• 84% of marketers target Millennials as part of their social media strategy. This makes sense because 44% of Millennials use social media on a daily basis. 
• Marketers report that the number one goal for their social media marketing efforts is to advertise their products or services, followed by increasing brand awareness. 
• 27% of marketers say that the biggest challenge they face on social media is creating engaging content. 
• 82% of marketers say they repurpose content across social media channels.
• 80% of marketers say funny content is the most effective on social media.
• 68% of marketers’ companies work with influencers on social media.
• 64% of marketers say they invest in building social media communities.

With billions of people on social media, it’s no surprise that businesses integrate their marketing strategies with these popular platforms.

But, the biggest challenge marketers face is creating social media content that’s engaging for internet users. Content that’s too focused on promoting your product or service likely won’t get the engagement you’re looking for.

That’s why marketers use strategies like repurposing helpful blog content, sharing funny memes, and working with influencers.

You can also create a social media community, which is an easy way to build a highly engaged audience around your brand. We created our own Facebook group called WPBeginner Engage which currently has nearly 90,000 active members.

Video Marketing Statistics

• The current average viewer spends 100 minutes per day watching digital videos.
• 86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool.
• Video is expected to be the most invested in B2B marketing channel in 2022.
• 34.4% of marketers create new videos monthly, while 33% create new videos every week. 
• The most commonly created types of video are explainer videos (74%). 
• Other top video types are social media videos, presentation videos, video testimonials, video ads, sales videos, and product demos. 
• 96% of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service.
• Videos less than one minute long receive the highest average engagement rate at 50%. 
• 87% of marketers say video has helped them increase traffic.
• 82% of marketers say video has helped them increase dwell time.
• 94% of marketers say video has helped them increase their audience’s understanding of a product or service.
• 86% of marketers say video has helped them generate leads.
• 81% of marketers say video has helped them directly increase sales.
• 49% of marketers say video has helped them reduce support calls.

Over 80% of marketers agree that video can help your business generate more traffic, leads, and sales.

The best part is that adding video to your marketing strategy is easy and affordable. Anyone with a smartphone and the internet can produce quality video content.

Plus, you can upload your videos to YouTube and automatically display them on your WordPress site using a plugin like Smash Balloon.

Smash Balloon’s YouTube Feed Pro lets you easily display customizable YouTube feeds on your website. This is the perfect way to showcase social proof and boost user engagement on your WordPress site.

Read this tutorial on how to show the latest videos from your YouTube channel in WordPress for step by step instructions.

Lead Generation Statistics

• 50% of marketers consider lead generation a top priority in their marketing campaigns. 
• 61% of marketers consider generating traffic and leads to be their biggest challenge.
• 3% of your target audience is actively buying, 56% aren’t ready, and 40% are getting ready to begin.
• Content marketing is 3X more effective at generating leads than traditional marketing. It also costs 62% less.
• B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads than those that don’t. 
• 74% of companies use web forms for lead generation, with 49.7% stating their online forms are their highest converting lead generation tool.

• More than half (53%) of marketers say webinars are the top-of-the-funnel format that generates the most high-quality leads. 
• 53% of marketers say email has been the most effective channel for early-stage lead generation. 
• Increasing your number of landing pages from 10 to 15 increases leads by 55%. 
• Websites with 40+ landing pages generate 1200% the number of leads than those with just one. 
• 53% of content marketers use interactive content in their lead generation efforts.
• 79% of top-performing businesses have been using marketing automation to generate leads for three or more years.

Lead generation is the process of getting people interested in your business and gradually moving them through your sales funnel. 

At WPBeginner, we recommend creating a landing page for each of your lead generation campaigns. This helps your website visitors to focus on the offer in front of them with no distractions, making them more likely to convert.

The fact that websites with 40+ landing pages generate 1200% more leads proves just how effective landing pages are. 

The easiest way to create high-converting landing pages is with SeedProd. It’s the best drag and drop page builder for WordPress. Plus, it comes with hundreds of customizable landing page templates to get you started quickly.

See this tutorial to learn how to create a landing page in WordPress, step by step.

Conversion Rate Optimization Statistics

• According to marketing spend stats, on average, for every $92 spent on acquiring a customer, just $1 is spent on trying to convert them.
• 68% of small businesses don’t have a structured or documented conversion rate optimization (CRO) strategy.
• Only about 22% of businesses are satisfied with their conversion rates.
• The average landing page conversion rate is 2.35%.
• The best websites have conversion rates of 11.45% on average. 
• Using visual content like videos on landing pages can improve conversions by 86%.
• The mean conversion rate for online forms sits at approximately 21.5%. Although, this number varies depending on the industry.
• Multi-step forms in WordPress can lead to 300% more conversions.
• 50% of marketers who use lead magnets to encourage signups report higher conversion rates.
• eBooks are the most popular lead magnet amongst subscribers, with 27.7% of marketers using them.
• Personalized calls to action (CTAs) convert 42% more visitors than non-personalized ones.
• 50% of people say that case studies are the accelerant for moving people through their sales funnel.
• A 1-second delay in your site speed can reduce conversions by up to 7%. 
• Asking for a phone number has the worst impact on conversion rates. 
• The average mobile conversion rate is around 1.53% compared to 4.14% on desktop. 
• A/B testing is the most used method of conversion rate optimization.

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of increasing the percentage of website visitors who take your desired action, whether it be filling out a form or buying a product.

The statistics above will give you smart ideas that can help you convert more of your website traffic.

For example, you can speed up your website to improve the customer experience and increase conversions by up to 7%.

Or, you can turn lengthy one-page forms into multi-page forms to increase conversions by up to 300%. See this tutorial to learn how to create a multi-page form in WordPress.

Advertising Statistics

• 68% of marketers stated that paid advertising is “very important” or “extremely important” to their overall marketing strategy. 
• Search advertising spending is projected to exceed $137 million by 2022. 
• eMarketer predicts that PPC (pay-per-click) ad spending will reach over $258 billion in 2022.
• The typical cost per click for search ads in 2022 is in the range of $2 to $4.
• Industries with the highest average cost per click are attorneys and legal services, dentists and dental services, and home improvement at $6-8 per click.
• 80% of brands use paid social media advertising. 
• Facebook is the most popular platform for companies to buy social media ads.
• 26% of marketers say that they’re seeing the best direct ROI from ads on Facebook.   
• Ad placement and audience targeting by demographics are the top ways that advertisers drive more demand.
• Mobile advertising has been rapidly growing in the past couple of years but is expected to slow down to about 10.4% by the end of 2022. 
• Video ad spending is expected to show an annual growth rate of 4.9% between 2020 and 2024. 

Paid search ads and social media ads are commonly used by marketers to increase brand awareness, attract customers, and generate revenue.

Facebook is the most popular platform for buying social media ads and 26% of marketers are seeing the best direct ROI from it.

This makes sense because Facebook has the highest monthly active users at 2.9 billion, so it has the highest potential ad reach.

If you want to get started with Facebook ads, check out our guide on how to create a Facebook Ads landing page in WordPress.

Affiliate Marketing Statistics

• Affiliate marketing generates 16% of all online orders in the US and Canada. 
• Affiliate marketing is considered a crucial skill by 40% of online marketers.
• In the United States, the total spending by customers that were referred by an affiliate is expected to reach $8.2 billion in 2022. 
• Over 80% of brands and 84% of publishers run an affiliate program.
• Affiliate marketing is the #2 marketing tactic that publishers use to generate revenue, behind Google AdSense. 
• The top 3 affiliate categories are Fashion, Sports/Outdoors, and Health & Beauty. 
• Marketers use affiliate programs at all stages of the customer journey: 83% targeted consumers during the discovery and awareness phase, 79% during conversion or purchase, and 79% to create ongoing customer engagement.
• Affiliate marketing conversion rates average between 0.5% to 1%.
• Affiliate programs generate between 15% and 30% of revenue for advertisers.
• 40% of US merchants consider affiliate programs to be their best client acquisition channel.

With affiliate marketing, you can get your biggest fans, customers, and other marketers to promote your products for you.

Affiliate marketing programs generate between 15% – 30% of revenue for businesses. It’s clear that this is a marketing strategy you don’t want to ignore.

To get started, follow this tutorial on how to easily add an affiliate program in WooCommerce.

If you’re a blogger, here are the best affiliate marketing tools and plugins. These tools can help you make extra income by promoting your favorite products online.

Marketing Technology Statistics 

• 42% of marketers plan to increase their budget in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).
• 33% of marketers who don’t use automation or artificial intelligence (AI) plan to in 2022.
• 34% of retail customers would be comfortable speaking with customer service through AI chatbots instead of a live customer support representative. 
• 64% of businesses believe that chatbots will allow them to provide a more customized support experience for their customers.
• 93% of marketers love gamification.
• 88% of B2B marketers plan on converting 10 to 30% of their material to interactive content.

Marketers are still interested in experimenting with technology like virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence.

These marketing trends might seem too complicated and expensive for small business marketing budgets.

But, small business owners can easily use live chat software with artificial intelligence chatbots to automate conversations with prospects and customers.

There are also easy ways to add gamification to your website. For example, follow this tutorial to add a ‘Spin to Win’ discount wheel in WordPress and WooCommerce.

List of Sources

WPForms, OptinMonster, MonsterInsights, Statista, HubSpot, IsItWP, Internet Live Stats, Google, Smash Balloon, Search Engine Journal, Wyzowl, Wistia, Zenith, Moz, Campaign Monitor, Content Marketing Institute, SEMRush, Demand Metric, Backlinko, UNCTAD, Rakuten, AffiliateWP, eMarketer

That’s a wrap! We hope this list of marketing statistics, trends, and facts will help you set benchmarks and develop a marketing strategy that works best for your business. You may also want to check out our guide on how to set up eCommerce tracking in WordPress and our picks for the best marketing automation tools for small businesses. 

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 120+ Marketing Statistics, Trends, and Facts (Updated for 2022) first appeared on WPBeginner.

September 05, 2022 at 04:14PM

How to Monitor Your WordPress Website Server Uptime (Easy Way)

Do you want to monitor the server uptime for your WordPress site?

You want your website to be available whenever your customers come to visit, so you need to make sure it stays online. When you monitor server uptime, you’ll be alerted if your website goes down so you can get it fixed quickly.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily monitor server uptime in WordPress. We’ll share multiple uptime monitoring solutions, and you can choose one that works best for you.

Why Monitor Your WordPress Website Server Uptime?

The servers used by poor-quality hosting companies go down frequently and stay down for minutes or even hours. While many WordPress hosting companies promise 99.9% server uptime, they don’t always live up to their promise.

Whether you run a blog, online store, or any other kind of site, downtime can affect your business, website reputation, and user experience:

1. More Downtime Means Losing Money: If your website remains inaccessible for a long period of time, then you will inevitably lose revenue.
2. User Experience and Brand Reputation: Having your website down is like closing your door in a visitor’s face, even if you’re not doing it intentionally. It creates a bad impression and you may lose potential customers.
3. Search Engine Influence: If your website is frequently down, then search engines might assume that your website is too unreliable to recommend. Often they penalize those websites that fail to maintain 24/7 uptime.

You can monitor your server’s actual uptime to track outages on your WordPress website. You use tools that will notify you immediately by email or SMS if something goes wrong with your site. This will allow you to get it fixed as soon as possible.

With that being said, let’s take a look at some of the best tools for monitoring server uptime for your website. You can use the list below to jump to the tool you are most interested in:

• Monitoring Server Uptime Using UptimeRobot
• Monitoring Server Uptime Using Pingdom
• Checking Whether Your Website Is Up or Down
• What to Do When Your Website is Down

Monitoring Server Uptime Using UptimeRobot

UptimeRobot is a website monitoring tool that offers both a free plan that checks your website every 5 minutes and a Pro plan that checks every 60 seconds.

Pro pricing starts at $7.00 per month and includes SMS, voice call, email, and other alerts.

The first thing you need to do is visit the UptimeRobot website. Once there, you should click the ‘Register for FREE’ button at the top of the screen.

Next, you create a free UptimeRobot account.

Simply fill in your personal details and a password, and then click the ‘Register Now’ button.

A message will be displayed asking you to go to your email inbox to proceed.

You should find an email with the subject ‘UptimeRobot – Account Activation.’ It will contain a link you need to click to activate your account.

This will take you back to the UptimeRobot website. You can click on the ‘Upgrade now’ button to get a discount on the Pro plan, or the ‘Maybe later’ link to choose the free plan.

In this tutorial, we’ll use the free plan.

You should now see your UptimeRobot Account Dashboard. From here, you need to click the ‘Add New Monitor’ button.

This will bring up a popup where you can configure the monitor.

You should select ‘HTTP(s)’ for the monitor type and then add the name and URL of your website. Make sure you set the monitoring interval to 5 minutes if you have the free plan, or 1 minute if you are a Pro user.

As you scroll down the popup you need to check the box next to your email address so you are notified when your site goes down.

Clicking the gear icon reveals additional optional controls for your notifications.

Pro users can select maintenance windows that allow you to automatically disable monitoring for predefined periods, such as when you perform maintenance on your site.

Once you are done, make sure you click the ‘Create Monitor’ button to save your changes.

UptimeRobot will now start monitoring your server uptime.

You’ll see detailed stats on your UptimeRobot account dashboard and receive alerts when your website is down.

Monitoring Server Uptime Using Pingdom

Pingdom is a popular performance monitoring tool that allows you to set up server uptime monitoring for your website. It is a paid service with plans starting from $10 per month.

Pingdom is a more robust platform offering a real-time uptime monitoring service. They offer detailed stats, logs, monitoring from various geographic locations, and more.

First, you need to visit the Pingdom website and click on one of the green buttons to start your free trial.

You’ll be asked to provide some personal details to create an account. These include your name, email address, password, and country.

When you’re ready, click the ‘Start Free Trial’ button.

Next, you will be asked to fill in some additional account information, including your state and time zone.

You should carefully check the phone number and email address because that is how you will be notified if your site goes down.

Finally, add the URL of your website so that Pingdom can monitor it.

As soon as you click the ‘Start using Pingdom’ button, Pingdom will automatically set up monitoring. You will receive a test alert to your email address and cell phone.

That’s all. You have successfully set up uptime monitoring for your website using Pingdom.

You can set multiple alerts and track for various locations. Pingdom documentation and support can help you set that up, but their interface is fairly straightforward.

Pingdom also keeps your uptime history so you can evaluate your web hosting company’s performance over time.

If you like the service, you can keep using it without interruption, starting at $10 per month.

Checking Whether Your Website Is Currently Up or Down

When you have difficulty accessing your website, you won’t know whether the site is really down or you’re simply facing internet issues. You can quickly check using IsItWP’s free uptime checker tool.

Simply visit the Website Uptime Status Checker website, then enter the URL of your own site.

The Uptime Uptime Status Checker tool will quickly check your website and let you know if it is up or down.

What to Do When Your Website is Down

If your website is down and you need to figure out what to do next, then here are the step-by-step instructions you should follow.

You should start by checking your site with IsitWP’s Uptime Checker tool. This will let you know if your website is down for everyone, or just for you.

What to Do if Your Website Is Down for Just You

If your website is up but you’re unable to access it, then you should first clear your browser cache and DNS cache. After that, you should try reloading the website.

If that doesn’t work, then see if you can access your website from a different IP address. You can do so by using a VPN service or even just using your mobile phone’s internet.

If you can access your website this way, then this means that either your internet service provider or your hosting company has accidentally blocked your IP address. You can contact both service providers to resolve the issue.

If you recently changed your domain name‘s DNS settings, then this could also mean that the DNS has not been updated in your particular geographic location.

All you can do is wait until the DNS changes are propagated around the world. This may take a few hours to a day.

What to Do if Your Website Is Down for Everyone

If you have verified that your website is down for everyone, then you need to immediately reach out to your hosting provider. They may be having issues with their server and can provide you with more details.

Most hosting companies are quick to respond to such issues, and your website should be back up again soon.

However, if your website is down frequently, or you don’t get a satisfactory answer from the support team, then you should switch to a better hosting provider.

What to Do if You Need a Better Hosting Provider

Due to tough competition in the hosting industry, some less reputable companies have cut costs by using outdated technologies, unskilled staff, and inadequate customer service.

If your website is frequently down, then you need to move to a better hosting provider.

Here’s our list of reliable WordPress hosting providers:

• Bluehost
• SiteGround
• DreamHost
• Hostinger
• HostGator

For more options, see our list of the best WordPress hosting companies.

Next, you’ll need to transfer your website to the new host. We have a complete step-by-step tutorial on how to move your website to a new hosting provider without losing SEO and without any downtime.

Some providers, like SiteGround, offer free website migration services. You just need to ask for their support.

We hope this article helped you learn how to monitor server uptime in WordPress. You may also want to learn how to keep your WordPress site secure, or check out our list of common WordPress errors and how to fix them.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Monitor Your WordPress Website Server Uptime (Easy Way) first appeared on WPBeginner.

September 03, 2022 at 04:00PM