GreenGeeks Review – Pros, Cons, and Pricing

If working with a company that puts the environment at the forefront of all it does is a priority, then GreenGeeks is the hosting provider for you. It puts three times the energy its servers use back into the grid.

The company also plants a tree for every new hosting account–it doesn’t get greener than that. Other providers have started to follow suit, but GreenGeeks were the first and are doing the most to offset their impact. Using a hosting provider like this is a great idea for businesses, web stores, and other organizations that promote going green as part of their brand values.

GreenGeeks company logo. GreenGeeks company logo.

How GreenGeeks Stacks Up to Other Web Hosts

GreenGeeks is excellent for eco-conscious brands who prefer to work with companies that align with their values. From planting trees and adding renewal energy into the grid, there’s no doubt they do their part. But it’s not the easiest host we’ve ever used, nor is it the most scalable option.

So, if ease of use and scalability are at the top of your priority list, a different provider might be a better fit.

Our favorite web hosting services include:

Where GreenGeeks Stands Out

Aside from its focus on being the greenest website hosting company, GreenGeek delivers a top-notch experience in several ways.

Ease of Use (the good)

GreenGeeks offers three shared hosting plans and lays out the key features of each in a clear, understandable way. You can quickly find the right plan for your needs.

When it comes to paying for your hosting services, GreenGeeks only accepts credit cards. You’ll need a Visa, MasterCard, Discover Card, or American Express to complete your transaction. A minor…

Continue reading

A2 Hosting Review – Pros, Cons, and Pricing

Site speed is talked about a lot, especially when it comes to affordable web hosting providers. The reality is that there’s not a lot a host can do for you until you get into the more expensive types of hosting, like managed WordPress, VPS, or even dedicated servers. At the shared hosting level, companies have thousands of customers on one server that they have to keep happy. So, they really can’t do much to optimize it for a small group of users.

However, A2 Hosting is the one exception to this–it’s one of the only affordable hosting companies that focuses heavily on performance, from the cheapest plan all the way to the most expensive.

A2 Hosting company logo. A2 Hosting company logo.

How A2 Hosting Stacks Up to Other Web Hosts

To optimize your site for performance, higher-end hosting is where you’ll really start to see a significant improvement. However, A2 Hosting does everything they can to help shared hosting customers keep their sites fast and lightweight. With that said, it’s definitely geared more towards experienced users.

If you’re brand new to hosting and want something easier to use, one of our other top web hosting picks may be a better fit:

Where A2 Hosting Stands Out

First and foremost, A2 stands out in terms of site performance—more specifically speed. You can tell just by looking at the shared hosting plans and what is included in each. While site speed usually doesn’t matter much when you’re just starting out, it’s clear A2 Hosting wants to help even those with tight budgets achieve maximum performance.

Ease of Use (the good)

A2 Hosting starts strong from moment one. Signing up…

Continue reading

HostGator Review – Pros, Cons, and Pricing

HostGator is all about scalability. It’s the first thing you see on its website, and the range of hosting services it offers backs up that claim. Whether you’ve run out of room to grow with your current provider or prefer hosting you can stick with for the long term, it’s suitable for everyone with flexibility and growth on the their mind.

From brand new blogs to large, complex websites with nonstop traffic, HostGator can handle whatever you throw at it.

HostGator company logo. HostGator company logo.

How HostGator Stacks Up to Other Web Hosts

HostGator’s our top recommendation if you want to ensure you never outgrow your host. With dozens of hosting plans to choose from, there’s no host with more variety and opportunity for growth.

But that doesn’t come without a few drawbacks–HostGator’s support isn’t as good as it could be, the website builder costs extra, and the checkout process feels convoluted. Plus, it can end up being more expensive than other options because of the sheer number of add-ons you may need to pay for.

If you’re looking for something easier to use and with better customer service, you may find a better fit with one our other top web hosting picks:

Where HostGator Stands Out

First things first, the alligator’s name is Snappy. Essential information to know? Probably not. But he’s everywhere, and it’s nice to put a name to the face.

Also few website hosting companies leverage the power of a mascot, so this makes HostGator a bit unique. But, this provider stands out for other (more important) reasons, too.

Ease of Use (the good)

The signup process is easy to work though, although you will…

Continue reading

How to Get Backlinks: The Complete Guide

Do you want to learn how to get backlinks? Here are 21 ways to get links in 2023. It takes hard work and persistence.

It’s always good to get more quality backlinks—the ones that are natural because you have content worth linking to. You can build these backlinks using a few tactics.

Some SEOs engage in risky blackhat tactics, but unless you can operate on a large scale and are fine with getting penalized later on, it’s not particularly profitable.

The other main strategy is to earn backlinks by creating great content and getting it in front of the right people.

Although there haven’t been any new tactics for link-building in a while, some proved to be more effective than others in 2023. Plus, you can always find ways to improve each of the tactics.

If you want to get backlinks, you’ll need an SEO tool. Here are the best options.

  • SEMRush – Best Overall SEO Software
  • Ahrefs – Best Advanced SEO Software
  • Yoast – Best SEO Plugin for WordPress
  • Screaming Frog – Best SEO Crawling Software
  • Pitchbox – Best Outreach Software

You can read our full reviews of each SEO tool here.

21 Steps to Get Backlinks

Here’s the formula you need to follow to build more backlinks today:

  1. Respond to questions on Quora
  2. Help a report out
  3. Find broken links going to resources or products
  4. Industry forums
  5. Link to relevant sites
  6. Round-up posts
  7. Track your competitors’ links
  8. Invest in a gift for the community
  9. Guest posting
  10. Interview experts
  11. Infographics
  12. Quizzes
  13. Personalized videos
  14. Sponsor an event
  15. Sponsor a non profit
  16. Take some pictures
  17. Create a raving case study
  18. Feature influencers…

Continue reading

Top 6 Best Online Payroll Services

Want to jump straight to the answer? The best online payroll service for most people is Gusto or Paycor.

A great payroll service makes it easy to process accurate payroll every cycle. You can rest easy knowing your tax obligations are calculated properly and filed with the appropriate parties, ensuring you avoid any penalties.

Switching to an online payroll service means you can automate your pay runs and stay compliant. This keeps your employees happy while simultaneously saving time and money.

The 6 Best Online Payroll Services

  • Gusto — Best for dispersed workforces
  • Paycor – Best for consolidating employee management
  • Paychex — Best for experienced payroll teams
  • OnPay — Best for simplifying all things payroll
  • QuickBooks Payroll — Best for solopreneurs and small teams
  • ADP — Best for never outgrowing your payroll provider

How to choose the best online payroll system. Quicksprout.com's Methodology for choosing the best online payroll systems.How to choose the best online payroll system. Quicksprout.com's Methodology for choosing the best online payroll systems.

All six of our top picks will work for common payroll tasks like scheduling, new hire reporting, and security.

Where they differentiate themselves is how they perform in the key categories most users have said are critical. These include ease of administration, employee self-service, reporting, and tax management.

To find out how our recommendations work in the real world, we interviewed active users to understand how and why they chose the software they use. They walked us through the benefits and tradeoffs of using each payroll service, and shared insights you won’t find anywhere else.

Gusto — Best for Dispersed Workforces



Continue reading

Top 7 Best Domain Brokers

Want to jump straight to the answer? The best domain broker for most people is VPN.com or Namecheap.

Buying the domain of your dreams doesn’t have to stay a dream. Neither does selling a valuable domain for a nice profit. With a solid domain broker, you can be well on your way to selling or buying just about any domain you can think of.

The Top 7 Best Domain Brokers

  • VPN.com – Best for buying and selling domains over $100k
  • Namecheap – Best for affordable DIY domain brokerage
  • GoDaddy – Best for a month-long domain outreach plan 
  • Grit Brokerage – Best for securing an on-brand domain
  • MediaOptions – Best for boutique domain name services
  • Brannans – Best for .com domains
  • Domain Holdings – Best for domain valuations and premium transactions

How to choose the best domain broker. Quicksprout.com's methodology for reviewing domain brokers.How to choose the best domain broker. Quicksprout.com's methodology for reviewing domain brokers.

Here’s a closer look at the best domain brokers available today.

VPN.com — Best for Buying and Selling Domains Over $100k

  • No upfront costs
  • Commissions start at 15%
  • Escrow and payment protection
  • Premium domain broker

Get started

VPN.com is a premium domain brokerage service that has facilitated over $65 million in transactions in just under five years. 

This broker helps buyers acquire premium domains—even ones that aren’t listed for sale—and they help sellers get maximum value for premium domains.

Domain search...
<br /> <a href=Continue reading

How to Increase SEO Traffic in 6 Simple Steps

Want to just get started? Click here to sign up for SEMrush and increase SEO traffic today.

We used to laugh at SEO.

Dead serious.

Back when we were running the KISSmetrics blog, which grew to over 1 million visitors per month, people asked us all the time what we did for SEO.

We shrugged and said “not much.”

Then we’d chuckle at how absurd that was.

In the 2008 to 2015 period, we got away with not worrying about it.

We pushed really hard on quality and volume. Tons of quality content posted as fast as possible over a long period of time. That was our whole strategy. And it worked really, really well.

We never did keyword research. We didn’t worry about on-page SEO. We didn’t have a subscription to a single SEO tool.

Here’s the honest truth though: we were lucky.

Content marketing, SEO, and blogs were pretty new back then. We were ahead of the curve.

And when you’re ahead of the curve with a marketing channel, you can get away with being a bit sloppy. We were sloppy.

These days, the SEO game has changed.

Most of us have become jaded with content marketing, SEO, and blogs. And for good reason.

We write and write and write. Endless nights and weekends. Fast forward a year and how much has our traffic grown? Not much. It plateaus.

We talk to so many business owners and marketers that hit this same wall. We’ve hit it plenty of times ourselves.

In the last few years, we’ve completely rethought our search program. Tore it all down and rebuilt it from the ground up.

Our entire SEO program is now built around one core philosophy: go after guaranteed streams of traffic. Then stack those streams of traffic one…

Continue reading

BrandCrowd Review – What Makes BrandCrowd Great and Where BrandCrowd Falls Short

BrandCrowd is an online marketplace for creative designs you can use for making logos, business cards, digital assets, letterheads, and much more. For businesses on a budget, BrandCrowd is an affordable way to get a customized, branded asset in minutes. 

Continue on to read my full review of BrandCrowd, where I’ll cover what it’s great at, where it could stand to improve, how much it will cost you to use, and an overview of what you can do with this service. 

BrandCrowd logo for Quick Sprout BrandCrowd review. BrandCrowd logo for Quick Sprout BrandCrowd review.

BrandCrowd Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Free logos
  • Instant downloads
  • Cheap subscriptions
  • Over 150,000 designs
  • Helpful free tools and resources

Cons

  • Lack of transparent pricing
  • Some basic and generic designs
  • Account creation required for free downloads

About BrandCrowd

BrandCrowd provides businesses with affordable logo and digital design solutions. You can use the platform to build your own logo starting from a template or browse the thousands of premium, prebuilt logos for sale in its marketplace. Beyond logo designs, BrandCrowd also provides templates and ready-made designs for business cards, Facebook page covers, YouTube banners, Zoom backgrounds, email signatures, menus, and a lot more. 

It’s mostly built for startups, entrepreneurs, and small businesses that need easy and cheap access to creative brand assets. Rather than hiring a designer, you can use BrandCrowd to get logos and other elements for less than $10 per month. If you don’t care about customizing the design or making edits, you can even get some logos from BrandCrowd for free. 

BrandCrowd Health and Stability

Founded in 2008, BrandCrowd has gone through a few minor name changes and structure adjustments since its initial launch….

Continue reading

Booknetic Review – What Makes Booknetic Great and Where Booknetic Falls Short

Booknetic is an appointment booking plugin for WordPress sites that delivers a simple way for businesses across a wide range of industries to add appointment scheduling functionality. Simplify online bookings for your customers by deploying Booknetic’s seamless experience for scheduling appointments online. 

The plugin helps automate the booking process by eliminating the need for customers to call the office for appointments. It can also be used to collect deposits, send reminders, set recurring appointments, and more. 

Booknetic logo for Quick Sprout Booknetic review. Booknetic logo for Quick Sprout Booknetic review.

Booknetic Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Unlimited appointments
  • One-time payment for lifetime access
  • Customized and automated bookings
  • Simple installation and administration
  • Intuitive booking experience for customers 

Cons

  • Lots of paid add-ons
  • Only compatible with WordPress
  • Limited support
  • No mobile app for booking management

About Booknetic

Booknetic is an online appointment scheduling plugin for WordPress websites. It’s an ideal solution for a wide range of industries and use cases, from fitness instructors and salons to repair centers, professional services, and many more. The plugin can even accommodate bookings for physicians and healthcare organizations. 

If you run a business that currently takes appointments over the phone or via email, Booknetic can massively simplify your scheduling process. The software helps you save time, save money, and improve the customer experience all at once. Your customers can book appointments online in just a few clicks, and you can reduce no-shows by collecting deposits and sending automated reminders through Booknetic. 

Booknetic Health and Stability

Booknetic is a relatively new brand and software, founded in 2019. There isn’t much information on the web about this privately-owned company, nor any About Us page on their website providing details…

Continue reading

Setupad Review – How does Setupad stack up?

Setupad is a header bidding and monetization platform for website owners with a monthly traffic volume of over 100,000.

When Setupad is implemented in line with recommendations, clients usually see a minimum of 30% increase in revenue compared to their previous monetization solution. Some users have even seen increases of up to 300%. 

Although header bidding is a relatively complicated concept, Setupad takes the stress out of the process and makes implementation super easy–no source code manipulation is required. 

Below, we’ll take a deep dive into how Setupad can help you monetize your website, what kind of features it has to offer, and the payment model. 

Setupad logo for Quick Sprout Setupad review. Setupad logo for Quick Sprout Setupad review.

Setupad Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Easy to implement
  • Always up to date with industry standards
  • 30-300% increase in revenue
  • Supports multiple banner types
  • Mobile-friendly ads
  • Native advertising
  • Reliable customer support and personal account manager
  • Partnered with 30 industry-leading SSPs

Cons

  • 100,000 minimum monthly traffic requirement
  • Minimum payout of 100 Euro
  • Lack of notifications relating to ads.txt updates
  • Account manager must create ad placement code on the user’s behalf

Setupdd landing page screenshot. Setupdd landing page screenshot. Maximize your ad revenue with Setupad’s premium solutions.

Setupad Features

Understanding the pros and cons of a solution is a quick way to determine whether or not it could be a great fit for your needs. But to truly understand whether Setupad is the right solution for you, you’ll need to dive deeper into some of its key features. 

Header Bidding Wrapper

Header bidding is also known as advance bidding or pre-bidding. In a nutshell, header bidding allows…

Continue reading