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10 Best WordPress Blogging Themes to Make Your Blog Stand Out in 2019

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This is a guest post by Nannie Nova. If you’d like to contribute to our blog, feel free to get in touch with us.

Do you want to create a blog? WordPress, undoubtedly the best choice for creating a blog, powering 27% of the Internet, is the perfect platform to help you get started. However, making the blog popular is a whole different ballgame. If you want your WordPress blog to be successful, you need an excellent WordPress blog template, which will be the basis for creating a blog. Even if you create incredibly exciting content and process each post for hours perfectly, a poorly crafted website can harm the chances of creating a good impression.

Is a theme that important?

The look and feel of your site have more impact than you think. If your site is distracting or you are using an unreadable font, your users will not stop reading what you have written. Therefore, you need to pick the perfect WordPress themes for your blog that’ll help you grow your audience and build your brand. WordPress is one of the most preferred blogging platforms for its flexibility and powerful features. A distinctive feature of WordPress is blog themes that are easy to customize. It allows you to create a blog for free according to your preference. If you are not an experienced programmer or know only the basics of HTML and CSS, then the ideal WordPress theme for a blog is essential to your site.

Free or Premium?

Although there are WordPress themes for a blog that you can use for free, do not exclude premium WordPress themes too. You can find a theme for every type of content. If you need a blog theme, there is no need to pick a template, that has only pages and features for a blog. Almost any website can be a blog. For example, WordPress portfolio themes often have ready pages for a blog. Moreover, the theme can include online chats, calendar, online shop or a gallery.

Lots of wonderful things can make your blog more exciting and unique for your readers. Perhaps, some of the features you add in the future might define your unique style.

Creating a website has become much easier than it was years ago. So, don’t be afraid to experiment outside the lines.

What Should the Template Be?

Although you want to pick the best WordPress templates for a blog, and not for an online store or some other type of business, many factors stay the same here. However, there are still a few differences:
  • Design — is the first thing we pay attention to, it should be modern, stylish and beautiful. Originality is always welcome;
  • SEO — theme optimization is very important. Your theme should have basic optimization possibility and other functions to promote your blog;
  • Speed — website pages should load very quickly. This depends on two factors – the size and number of files that need to be loaded to form the page. The fewer files you have — the faster the theme will work;
  • Settings — everyone needs to personalize their theme, customize it for yourself. The more changes you can make through the theme interface, the less time you have to spend on editing the code.

How to choose a WordPress Theme? – Useful tips

Picking a theme from 100s can be a daunting task. However, these simple steps can ease the process:

1. List the requirements for the template

You might have repeatedly imagined your future blog. What should it be? What topic should you choose to cover? What content should you plan to place on it? To make it easier, make a plan or draw a site map on a regular sheet of paper. It is much easier to find a topic, basing on clear requirements. Many details of a theme can be selected using a filter in the marketplace, where you can mark the necessary features.

2. Pay attention to the area for content

The more the number of sites, the more the people look for quality. Search engines can now identify hastily made sites with poor navigation and ill-placed content. To avoid this, choose a theme based on your subject. You can find out how pages, articles, galleries look like in the structure of the template by viewing the demo version on the developer’s website.

3. Determine the theme functionality

This tip echoes the first one partially. A beginner might find it difficult to determine the functionality of the theme immediately. Design and placement are visible to everyone, but the functions become known later, when, for example, it turns out that there is no link to social networking pages. Such “utility” can be implemented with plugins, but the developers often add them to premium versions. For a beginner, it is better to choose a paid theme with built-in functionality. It is important not to overdo it. The overloaded site with all sorts of effects will alienate visitors and make the site slow. Also, search engines, as you know, love fast sites.

4. Feel free to contact the developers 

WordPress themes do not appear randomly. Programmers create them. And this is a fraction of their earnings. Each developer wants to have more customers. Therefore, the developers offer assistance in customizing the template. This should not be neglected. Even if the theme is free, a good professional will always give you some information, and sometimes for a small amount of money will help you set the theme up. The main thing is for you to understand clearly how your site will look like or you should have a clear site scheme.

5. Reviews and Ratings

Reviews can also help you find a good theme for your blog. The most important here is not to give in to emotions and to evaluate information critically. Quality templates may have negative feedback from beginners who do not understand how the theme works. Some reviewers misunderstand theme capabilities and think of limitations as defects. It’s important to read reviews from trusted sources and people.

10 Best WordPress Themes for your Blog

Premium WordPress themes give you more options for customization than free ones, which is usually simpler. Remember: your website design should help you stand out among other sites, and also make a positive impression on your visitors. A well-structured WordPress blog theme also helps your website acquire a good position in search results — this is useful, especially if you want to get more traffic to your site. Here’s a list of 10 best WordPress Blog themes you can check out.

24.Storycle – Multipurpose News Portal Elementor WordPress Theme

The first theme on this list is a multipurpose one. This is a basic full-featured theme that can be used to create any blog and website you want. You can use various theme settings to customize its design. You can create attractive headers and footers, work with the look of the sliders, build your menus, choose the layouts of your posts and a whole lot more with this great theme. This theme is extra light, which allows your site to load very fast. Also, it is SEO-friendly and a great choice if you want to extend your blog to an online store. 24 Storycle will provide you all you need for any your ideas.

Main features:

  • 15 One-click Demos at any taste;
  • Elementor Drag-n-drop Builder;
  • Header and Footer Builder;
  • JetMenu, JetTabs, and JetBlog;
  • 10 Single Post Layouts;
  • JetReviews and JetTricks;
  • Extended Posts Functionality;
  • 7 Blog Layouts and 3 Site Layouts;
  • 24/7 friendly Support;
  • Full responsive design and Retina ready;

WorldMap – Travel Photo Blog Elementor WordPress Theme

world-map-theme

Who does not like to travel? Who does not like to discover various corners of the world? Many of those people who like to visit new places, look forward to writing their own experiences. Their blog can become a source of information about the place for other people who wish to visit it and can help make someone’s vacation a memorable one. Do you like to travel, take photos and share your impressions with Internet users? In this case, you do not need to go past WorldMap WordPress theme. The theme’s wonderful design and excellent visual editor allows you to build a site, even without knowledge of the code. A four blog layout will allow you to submit posts in the form that will look most attractive to readers.

Main Features:

  • Fully responsive design;
  • JetElements;
  • SEO-friendly;
  • Retina Ready;
  • Mega Menu;
  • WordPress Live Customizer;
  • Outstanding plugins and much more;

Love Life – Responsive Personal Blog WordPress Theme

love-life-theme

Traveling, fashion and blogs are different niches, but they follow the same concept. So, if you own one such blog, or if you are thinking of starting one, try Love Life Responsive personal WordPress theme. It will allow you to express yourself, like never before, with footer layouts, dozens of different display options and first-class coding that can make your website soaring upwards through SEO ratings. Great concept! People who choose such options want to give maximum attention to the content, be it photos, personal notes, illustrations, small texts, etc. This template leaves you with a pleasant feeling due to the light, non-tense design, in terms of functionality it is very well-built. Here you can find a lot of graphics and information blocks. Some may even doubt its “simplicity”, but on the other side, you are not forced to use absolutely all the features at once.

Main features:

  • Elementor page builder;
  • Mega menu;
  • 4 Blog Layouts;
  • Retina Ready;
  • Fully Responsive design;
  • JetElements;
  • WordPress live customizer and so on;

Mafiaso – Blog WordPress Theme

This is a WordPress theme that is designed to present your portfolio and blog with various options and layouts for theme design. In addition, it includes an excellent content designer. You can create your own blog or portfolio from scratch, and it only takes a few minutes. Mafiaso is easily translated using the multilingual WPML plugin. Now users from all over the world can enjoy your great content. Besides, visitors can view your page from the phone with convenience.

Main features:

  • Bootstrap;
  • Easy Installation;
  • WMPL ready;
  • Visual Editor;
  • Fully responsive design;
  • Sample data installer.

Henry Stoun – Personal Website WordPress Theme

Henry Stoun personal website WordPress theme is a flexible platform that is perfect for designers, architects, and photographers because it brings together such themed websites. Creative webmasters will feel at home using this theme. Intuitive tools will allow you to create attractive portfolios, without touching the code. Henry Stoun is an excellent theme to give your online representation a completely new look. The theme combines amazing modern features with convenience and ease of use. A particularly important factor when considering this theme is that you practically do not need to know anything about coding in order to get the most out of its use. Six ready pages will be useful for all occasions. Drag-n-drop builder will help you to build your website how you see it. And your visitors will be able to see your website from every screen thanks to the mobile first option. If you have any questions, feel free to ask the theme’s support, as we mentioned before.

Main features:

  • Elementor page builder;
  • Retina Ready;
  • SEO-friendly;
  • Mega Menu;
  • Cherry Projects and PopUps;
  • WordPress Social login;
  • Lots of headers, footers, and layouts;
  • Bonus images and many more.

Sprout – Personal Blog WordPress Theme

sprout-theme
Sprout is a simple and beautiful WordPress theme completely designed for romantic people. Photo artists, designers, illustrators, and travelers are ideal users of this template. You will have a theme focused mainly on images with a small amount of content. Sprout has a minimalist and clean layout, comes with four listing layouts variations. Widget-ready sidebars, trending posts slider and featured posts block on a homepage, make the site interactive and dynamic for users. Sprout has a user-friendly interface with flexible and intuitive theme settings. The subject comes with a short message generator for which coding skills are not required at all. You get a convenient theme with an adaptive layout for the screens of various user devices. Sprout is perfectly compatible with 800+ Google Fonts. The theme package also includes Instagram feed integration. The documentation is developed and understood, you can also ask questions to technical support without hesitation, individual support is provided. You just need to focus on understanding how to make your project attractive, Sprout theme will do the rest.

Main features:

  • Responsive layout;
  • Featured post widget;
  • Social widget;
  • Easy installation;
  • Widget-ready sidebars;
  • Social profile and sharing integration;
  • Child theme support;
  • Cross-browser compatibility;
  • Jetpacks;
  • Unlimited colors and so on.

Lily – Clean & Elegant Blog WordPress Theme

lily-blog
Lily is a clean, responsive and well-crafted WordPress theme, created specifically for creative people and bloggers. This theme is compatible with WordPress 4+ and it is built on Bootstrap technology for easier development and customization of the website. The theme is equipped with a very flexible layout that automatically adapts and it is ideal for displaying different types of mobile devices on screens. In addition, its minimalist and simple approach to design allows your content to stand out and attract the attention of your potential users. Lily theme is strongly connected to social networks so that you and your users can easily share their content with the Internet community. Besides, the theme is optimized for SEO, ready to be translated and offers the import of demo version content with one click.

Main features:

  • Easy-to-use theme;
  • Sticky navigation;
  • Friendly support 24/7;
  • MailChimp for WP;
  • Sidebar control;
  • Cross-browser compatibility;
  • Translation ready;
  • Featured slider and promo boxes.

WordPress Fashion Blog Theme

The name completely corresponds to the essence – this is a fashionable blog about clothes, style, trends. The elegant, simple design allows you to focus on specific models and accessories, as well as to place any amount of information — from a brief reference to full-fledged long read. This theme is very easy to install and it takes only 5 minutes. Also, you can make an online store in your blog just with a few clicks. If you want to display your content more creatively, Social media widgets, slider, more than 500 Google fonts, and post carousel will help you. Moreover, theme Fusion has such a magic tool as Cherry Framework 4. Check out this collection of videos, about what you can do with the help of Cherry Framework 4.

Main features:

  • Ecwid ready;
  • Custom widgets;
  • Live customizer;
  • Fully responsive design;
  • SEO-friendly;
  • 24/7 effective and friendly support;
  • Cherry Framework 4.

EightyDays – Travel Blog WordPress Theme

eighty-days-theme
Eighty days is a great WordPress theme that perfectly focuses readers’ attention on the content of your website. This theme will beautifully and stylishly display your content and create an intuitive site for the user with the help of well-placed blocks of text and Instagram images footer. Eighty days theme is lightweight and loads very fast, which is always an advantage. This multi-targeted, flexible theme will look great on any device. In addition, Eighty days theme will breathe life into any of your ideas and it is perfect for blogs about travel, active leisure, hitchhiking, tourism, travel agency sites, as well as for information portals on various subjects, news sites, etc.

Main features:

  • Fully responsive design;
  • Infinite scroll;
  • Easy customization;
  • 1-click demo import;
  • Instagram Footer;
  • Related posts;
  • Tiled gallery.

Personal Profile Page WordPress Theme

Max Paxton is the perfect theme for a personal copywriter blog or portfolio. Even a beginner will adore this clear interface based on drag-and-drop. You can talk about your services, give examples of work, start a blog and share contact information with this template. With Max Paxton, you can create a very modern website. Especially for self-employed or freelancers such as authors or journalists fits this suitable responsive theme. Installing this theme, you don’t need anymore to think about creating a website — all you need it to create good content for your visitors.

Main features:

  • Cherry plugins;
  • Clean code;
  • 24/7 support;
  • SEO-friendly;
  • Documentation;
  • Live customizer;
  • 7 header layouts;
  • Google Fonts integration;
  • Fully responsive;
  • Ecwid ready;
  • 5 minutes for installation.

Final words

This collection of ready-made solutions should at least slightly facilitate the selection of the most suitable template for your future site. In fact, now everything depends only on what business niche needs to be presented on the Internet space. But, in any case, you can be sure that any of the above topics will bring long-awaited success. Of course, there are thousands of topics to choose from, but these are just some of the best. We hope that you will find among them what you like! And if you think that we missed some truly amazing theme that is ideal for freelancers or bloggers, leave a message in the comments below. We hope that we managed to help somehow with this difficult choice of template. Thanks for reading!

10+ Design Predictions for WordPress Themes in 2019

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This is a guest post by Henry Rise. If you’d like to contribute to our blog, feel free to get in touch with us.

Web design trends matter especially if you are in the web design and development business. And in this post, we are going to discuss the coming trends for WordPress themes. Trends keep evolving and the companies should align their priorities and goals according to them; search engines update their algorithms, plugins update, features get upgraded – it’s up to you to stay on par. If you want your site to rank high, convert well, and be a success, you’ll have to adopt leading trends to impress the masses. This 2019, we’ve sifted through all the leading design trends to come up with our list of 10+ design predictions for WordPress themes, to help you pick out the ones that might work the best for your business. You need to remember the following – these trends are not supposed to work altogether. Therefore, mix and match them, or pick the right one, based on your business and personal style. Enjoy!

#1. Don’t be afraid to break grid layout

Everybody knows that a grid brings order and organization to website design. It helps create good-looking layouts by keeping all elements aligned. In other words, a grid helps keep each element where it should be. A broken grid does quite the opposite. It lets you mess the page up using floating elements like text or images and place them almost wherever you wish.

Example: Great Lotus – Buddhist Temple WordPress Theme

great-lotus-themerex Some designers like this trend and some don’t. Let me explain. A broken grid layout looks fun and is unique. But many sites just don’t seem ready to handle it. If you are just starting out and decide to use this trend, you may simply lack the knowledge to make it work in your favor. Let’s suppose you’ve chosen a WordPress theme featuring a broken grid layout. You need to make sure your page loads quickly and you need to take care of it functioning properly on a mobile site. When not used properly or overused, the broken grid makes the page structure and content difficult to comprehend. If you are not sure that you are skillful enough, just leave the broken grid to professionals. But if you want to use it no matter what, try to get an extra pair of eyes to take a look at your website’s experience.

#2. Minimalism, again

Minimalism is not a new trend. It has been around for a while. The trend is well-known especially when it comes to website design. With more and more new complicated features coming in, sometimes it’s a great solution to keep things simple.

Example: eLumine – The Learning Experience Theme

elumine-wl

Thus, making your site minimal is one of the website design trends for 2019. Each and every element of your website needs to have a clear purpose. The text must be legible and easy to read. You may use a few images or not use them at all. This trend is for daring designers/site owners because it’s not that easy to keep your site minimal, yet bold and effective at the same time. You need to clearly understand what is your brand’s message and what you are aiming at with your site.

#3. Go bright

If minimalism is not for you, opt for another outstanding trend. Catch the eye of the user with bright colors!

Example: Sounder – Online Radio WordPress Theme

sounder-themerex Just a thought, you can combine minimalism and bright colors to make your website absolutely marvelous. Using bright, brand-aligned colors is a great way to draw the attention, deliver your message, and make people remember you. But it’s important to remember that your colors of choice should be elegant and should reflect your brand. You must have a plan on how they will match together because the worst thing to do is combine all the colors randomly. As a rule, it is not recommended to use more than 3 colors on one site. But if you know what you are doing, this number can be increased (Google, anybody?!). You should also understand that the trend doesn’t work similarly for each and every site. Sometimes websites look better, sometimes not. For instance, if you have a portfolio site, bright colors will help you express yourself, show your creativity; whereas for a blog, they can be distractive, bright colors might lead the reader away from the important content.

#4. Use illustrations

It’s a wonderful idea to use sleek and modern illustrations.

Example: Gutentype – A Trendy Gutenberg WordPress Theme

If you manage to create unique, brand-aligned icons/illustrations, your site will definitely differ from any competitors. This is an excellent way to stand out and an effective method to create an easy to understand layout with a great user-friendly interface. If you are going to follow this trend, make sure not to use stock icons/illustrations. They will make your site look cheap and boring. It’s not easy to find a theme with ready to use illustrations, but we don’t say that it’s impossible. Just be picky while doing your research.

#5. Big & bold typography

Use great typography as another way to tell your audience your specific story in a unique manner.

Example: Twenty øne Piløts – Banditø

Sometimes your choice is limited to a bunch of basic fonts by theme creators. That is why it’s important to research a theme and a platform that’ll power it. Unique fonts come along with minimalism and boldness. Though, they need to be brand aligned, easy to read, and responsive. We should say it once again – don’t overdo with the bold typography. Use it for headlines and other accents on the page you would like to highlight. Less is more here. The point is that unique typography will lose its effectiveness if you overuse it.

#6. Tell your story with the help of a video header

You must’ve surely noticed that video is becoming more and more popular on various social media. The same tendency continues to evolve in website design.

Example: Corn Studio

When following this trend there are some things you need to keep in mind. Adding a video header could make a huge effect on your site but might limit its usability. First of all, if you are using a video, it must be of high quality. It also must be relevant and professionally created. Adding a video just because you think it might look cool is not the best idea unless you have a strong brand strategy related to this media. You should also make sure your site doesn’t slow down. With a video, the site load time could increase, or it might even crash for some users, say, for the ones who don’t have the necessary browser features to view the video. But if implemented correctly, a video can add a personal touch, and spark an instant willingness in your users to know more about your company or even make a purchase.

#7. Light design

The trend is similar to minimalism but is a bit more versatile. By lightness, we mean using sophisticated simple colors, thin fonts, light images. The style is especially popular among bloggers in the fashion and lifestyle fields.

Example: GlamChic – Beauty Blog & Online Magazine WP Theme

glamchic-themrex Light websites look elegant. No doubt. This style is a good fit for many businesses and if you decided to create a site based on this trend, do make sure that all of its parts are functional and easy to understand. Light sites often use tender, pastel hues as their accent color. It may be light gray or pink, for example. But if you’re thinking an accent color is used to make a call-to-action standout, you wouldn’t be wrong in worrying about all people missing them altogether. The key is to add pastel hues in the right place. Although you won’t find tons of WordPress themes to choose from when it comes to this trend, it can also mean this trend could make you completely unique. While this list above comprises of primary trends, secondary ones include:

#8. Mobile friendly design

Always make sure that the WordPress theme you choose is responsive and works well both on desktop computers & mobile gadgets.

#9. Whitespace

Don’t forget to keep the balance of whitespace. Leave enough of it to make your site easier to read and improve the layout flow.

#10. Users-first design

Your site must meet user’s expectations and queries. So think well about what your users want to see and make sure that your website caters to their needs.

#11. Effective e-mail popups

Email marketing is a part of every site promotion campaign. How are you going to build up your email list? Think about it on the stage of design. Choose the theme that supports the popups that will help you collect your customers’ emails. Just make sure that they are not too annoying.

Over to You

Did you get a portion of inspiration? We hope so. Is there any essential trend/prediction you would like to add to our list? Please feel free to drop us a line in the comments section. Cheers!

Author Bio

Henry Rise is the CEO of ThemeRex, and a ThemeForest Power Elite Author. He loves to help people build their business online. Every business begins with the right choice of a micro-niche WP Theme.

10 Plugins for Elementor Page Builder to Ease Your Work

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When we talk about Elementor Page Builder, the first notion that comes to our mind is power. Yet there are some tricks to make the plugin stronger and highly-functional. You’re right if you’re thinking about WordPress Elementor plugins to add upgrade the page builder extension to a super-power. For the record, Elementor Page Builder is considered to be one of the most popular drag-and-drop builders. It has already won the hearts of various web-developers. It allows breaking all possible limits to help you create a unique design. There is a huge list of advantages that Elementor has. And in this post, we want to focus more attention on plugins that make it even better.

What are the Pros of Various Elementor Plugins?

You do not need to invest lots of efforts to spice your website up. All you need is to visit an incredible Elementor Marketplace. It offers lots of Elementor-based themes and plugins to make your online-project even better. There are different WordPress Elementor plugins that can expand the functionality of this drag-and-drop builder. You do not need to extensively search the Internet to choose the best ones. We’ve made your job a whole lot simpler. We’ve selected 10 easy-to-use (but powerful) add-ons to give your website some additional functionality. Among them, you will find the following options that help you:
  1. discover a wide range of content types and style their look;
  2. create a wonderful menu and apply attractive settings to it;
  3. organize your content in stylish tabs and accordion tabs;
  4. provide your website with a dynamic blog integration;
  5. produce eye-catching WooCommerce product pages.
Without further ado, let us take a look at these stunning add-ons for your future website…

Top 10 Elementor Plugins to Win the Day

Template Name Price Main Features
JetBlog $15
  • totally responsive layout;
  • RTL supported;
  • text ticker.
JetElements $15
  • WooCommerce integrated;
  • contact form;
  • homepage templates.
JetTricks $15
  • sticky elements;
  • animated show more break;
  • element satellite.
JetEngine $15
  • custom fields;
  • custom taxonomies;
  • dynamic terms and image.
JetReviews $15
  • simple and intuitive;
  • typography settings;
  • bright color palette.
JetParallax $15
  • changeable animation speed;
  • multi-layered Parallax;
  • position settings.
JetMenu $15
  • highly-customizable;
  • vertical mega-menu;
  • simple and intuitive.
JetTabs $15
  • easy-to-use and customize;
  • various style settings;
  • vertical and horizontal tabs.
JetWooBuilder $15
  • different powerful widgets;
  • easily-customizable;
  • product page layouts.
JetBlocks $15
  • sticky sections;
  • shopping cart;
  • hamburger panel.

#1 JetBlog – Amazing Blogging Package for Elementor Page Builder WordPress Plugin

jet-blog-elementor-plugin
Details |  Demo
JetBlog is a powerful plugin that will liven up your website with dynamic blog modules. Bring your website maximum content power using this great set of features.
  • a smart modules-set (including list, tiles, video, and ticker);
  • a wonderful video playlist;
  • diverse layouts to get a distinctive design;
  • rich typography settings.

#2 JetElements – Wonderful Addon for Elementor Page Builder WordPress Plugin

jet-elements-elementor-extension
Details |  Demo
There is a wide range of incredible modules that are already waiting for you. Make your Elementor bundle even more functionally-rich using these stylish elements.
  • high-class modules (numerous style options, functional settings, and customizable elements);
  • pre-styled blocks;
  • a greatly advanced carousel, brands, pricing tables, and banner;
  • an impressive images grid, masonry, and justify.

#3 JetTricks – Bright Visual Effects Addon for Elementor WordPress Plugin

jet-tricks-elementor-extension
Details |  Demo
Introduce lots of visual effects to your content together with this unreal add-on. You do need to have expert skills in coding to make use of these eye-catching tricks.
  • a marvelous Parallax element;
  • a useful sticky column;
  • a powerful unfolding functionality to make a good-looking show-up of columns;
  • remarkable hotspot markers and particles.

#4 JetEngine – Modern Adding & Editing Dynamic Content with Elementor WordPress Plugin

jet-engine-elementor-extension
Details |  Demo
JetEngine is an essential plugin specially-crafted for lots of needs and requirements. Create custom post types and many other things with the help of this splendid add-on.
  • an opportunity to create custom taxonomies;
  • a capability to customize post types and taxonomy templates;
  • a wide range of exclusive widgets;
  • different well-organized layouts.

#5 JetReviews – Stylish Reviews Widget for Elementor Page Builder WordPress Plugin

jet-reviews-elementor-extension
Details |  Demo
A top-notch review widget to show off reviews and make them look spectacular. Make a real breakthrough together with this fully-fledged plugin.
  • a fully-responsive appearance for all possible desktops and mobiles;
  • an opportunity to display stars, percents, and other elements;
  • an easy-to-customize appearance;
  • a large number of layouts.

#6 JetParallax – Creative Addon for Elementor Page Builder WordPress Plugin

jet-parallax-elementor-extension
Details |  Demo
JetParallax is a first-class plugin made for applying impressive animations to your website. Some smooth effects and your website will play out in fresh colors.
  • mouse move and scroll behavior type;
  • limitless layers with a striking Parallax effect;
  • customizable effects, triggers, and settings;
  • flexible animation speed options.

#7 JetMenu – Helpful Mega Menu for Elementor Page Builder WordPress Plugin

jet-menu-elementor-extension
Details |  Demo
JetMenu is a stunning plugin that has lots of advantages while creating a mega-menu with drop-down items. It will certainly guide your visitors through every online-project.
  • a great selection of content modules;
  • marvelous badges to mark trending items;
  • customizable backgrounds;
  • different customization options to give a website a look according to your vision.

#8 JetTabs – Great Tabs and Accordions for Elementor Page Builder WordPress Plugin

jet-tabs-elementor-extension
Details |  Demo
Do you want to implement amazing tabs and accordions to your website? If you want to do it in the easiest way, take advantage of this powerful add-on.
  • a classic accordion to unfold your content;
  • an impressive image accordion;
  • different vertical and horizontal layouts;
  • a fully-responsive look made for all kinds of devices.

#9 JetWooBuilder – Excellent WooCommerce Page Builder Addon for Elementor WordPress Plugin

jet-woobuilder-elementor-extension
Details |  Demo
JetWooBuilder has everything that you need to create custom WordPress themes. It includes loads of widgets that will assist you in this purpose.
  • a product and categories grid to represent your eCommerce goods;
  • a great products list;
  • powerful taxonomy tiles;
  • an opportunity to create your own single product page layouts.

#10 JetBlocks – Remarkable Elementor Header & Footer Widgets WordPress Plugin

jet-blocks-elementor-extension
Details |  Demo
There are lots of purposes that they excellent add-on covers. You will be impressed with a number of features that it comes together with.
  • a wonderful site logo to add textual and image logo to headers and footers;
  • an easy-to-use search;
  • a wonderful navigation menu;
  • essential breadcrumbs to display the path leading to a website page.

Final Note

You can find out even more add-ons made for Elementor to further help you build your dream website. Just click on the video below to get a general idea about all of them.

As you might have observed, Elementor is one of the best solutions to make use of to build pages on your WordPress website. It has all the necessary options to get a tailor-made website ready. It is possible for everyone to make an online-project even more beautiful. All of these templates mentioned on the top are great variants to take advantage of. Create a stunning online-store, give it the most engaging animation effects, and present reviews on your services, and a whole lot more.

Have fun while using all these extensions and bring out your creativity in style. Thanks for reading!

The Importance of Coming Soon Pages in Your Business Success

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This is a guest post by Praneet Thakur. If you’d like to contribute to our blog, feel free to get in touch with us.

coming-soon-wordpress Believe it or not, in today’s world previews can be a huge deal. A simple preview helps people to understand what a service is about, what a movie is going to be like, and it definitely helps in creating hype. Also, you must be aware of how important it is to create a hype for any kind of business. But the real question is how can a website owner create such a hype and benefit from it? Obviously, the answer would be social media advertising. But do you know that for a fact coming soon pages can do an even better job?! In case you have no idea about how coming soon pages actually make a difference, let me talk about their importance in web design.

Offer Information

Instead of spending money on social promotion which puts a limit on the information you can display in front of people, you can create a coming soon page and talk about your product. You can show images and videos, and add anything you like which might not be available on the social medium of your choice. It will be more engaging as well as helpful for people to get a clear idea of what your website is about.

Add a Launch Date

If a visitor is coming to your website before it’s even launched then there is a special reason behind it. Maybe they are seriously interested in your website or in your product. So it would be better if you do not make them wait for an unknown period of time. Instead, do not hesitate to add a launch date of the website. This will help your website visitors to know about your plans, and they will come back to your site only when it’s launched. When using a WordPress plugin to add a coming soon page, adding a countdown timer is just a click away.

Embed an Email Form

If visitors are coming to your website, then there is a reason for that. So you better help those visitors to stay connected with you. And the best way to do so would be to embed an email form they can subscribe to. Now whenever someone visits your coming soon page, they can simply enter the email and stay connected with the updates. Also, you will be able to create a meaningful relationship with them. Those same emails can also be used for email marketing. Usually, a contact form is another must-have on a coming soon page.

Promote Your Social Media Accounts

You must also be aware of the fact that it is essential to have a massive fan base on social media as it helps you to reach more people without spending a single penny. That is why you should focus on getting fans on social media even before you launch your website. The best way to promote your social media accounts is to embed them on your coming soon page. After that whenever someone visits your coming soon page, they will also find your social media icons and who knows – you may get some page likes on your Facebook page or get followers on Instagram and Twitter.

Introduce Yourself

Using a coming soon page, you will also be able to introduce yourself to your website visitors. This will help you to connect with the website visitors on a personal level. As well as the visitors will feel great to see you and consider your business as a legit one.

Offer A Coupon

If you have an e-commerce website, then coming soon pages are great for getting instant sales. For example, you can hold a special sale on the launch date of the website. And to promote that special sale day you can embed a notice on your website’s coming soon page. After that whenever someone visits your website they will find the sale and may revisit your website again on the sale day. Furthermore, you can also offer a coupon code for email signups. In the end, it’s up to you how you are going to use a coming soon page for getting some sales.

Establish Your Brand

Creating a brand can be hard, and you should do it as soon as possible. In this case, you can also take help from coming soon pages. For example, if your company has a logo then embed it on the website and let people know about your brand. This way people will be able to know what your business is all about. In addition to that, they will be able to separate you from other similar business on the market.

Final Words

So these have been a couple of the important things of coming soon pages in web design. Apart from this, coming soon pages also help with SEO and let search engines know about your website before you even launch it. As a result, you get a fast result while ranking on the SERP. In the end, while creating a coming soon page, you also need to be very creative. Plus, you need to make sure that the page is making people take action. Anyway, if you have any more questions to ask, then do feel free to put your thoughts below in the comment box.

All You need to know about WordCamp Mumbai 2018

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wc-2018 If you love WordPress then you know what a big deal WordCamp is. This year, WordCamp Mumbai was held on the 17th and 18th of March. The two-day event was filled with educational presentations, networking, and everything WordPress. To add icing to the cake, WisdmLabs was one of the proud sponsors of WordCamp Mumbai. Here’s a quick rundown of the events that followed. WordCamps are informal, community-organized events that are put together by WordPress users. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate, share ideas, and get to know each other. As WisdmLabs also develops WordPress solutions, we were pretty excited about the event and were bound to learn a lot.

The Event

The venue for WordCamp was the serene campus of IIT Bombay. The theme of the event was focused on Mumbai’s Dabbawalas who have achieved the prestigious Six Sigma level of efficiency. All the volunteers were wearing the signature caps of Dabbawalas which was a bit different from other WordCamps. wc-mumbai Our very own Wisdmite, Aniket, was a proud volunteer at the event. He was given the responsibility to look after the registration process. It was a great opportunity to learn a lesson in teamwork and communication. They also got valuable insights from the speakers. Aniket now has an organizer badge on his WordPress profile. The aura at the venue was delighting, with new Personalised IDs for each participant. volunteers-wc The event was flagged off by Alexander Gounder and we were super-psyched to listen to speakers from all around the globe share their experiences with us. Alexander-Gounder

Sessions

Speaker sessions are the most exciting events of WordCamp. Some of the sessions were: ‘How WordPress can change your lives’  by Suyogya Shukla suyogya-session ‘Managing WordPress from the command line’ by Ulrich Pogson ulrich-session ‘Playing well with others: writing solid code in large community projects’ by Dennis Snell snell-session ‘In search of the Best WordPress Theme’ by Nirav Mehta nirav-session ‘Are you Ready for Gutenberg?’ by Hardeep Asrani The Gutenberg editor is a major feature that will be rolled out with WordPress 5.0. It features a heavily revamped blog posting module and was the hot topic of discussion. Hardeep Asrani gave an illuminating talk about the editor, explaining its features and what kind of impact it would make. The best thing about the sessions was the openness, interactiveness, and semi-Q&A character. People were asked to ask questions whenever they had any, and so everyone left the room quite a bit smarter than before.

Networking

meetups-wc The crux of WordCamp lies in networking. We enjoyed mingling with fellow WordPress enthusiasts and discussing the sessions that occurred. For two days, we met different people across the globe and had animated brainstorming, photo-ops, and chats over breakfast and lunch.

Goodies

Ah, the most awaited part of WordCamp 😛 When companies, in their stalls, start giving out their merchandise, one does not stop to think twice. We flocked towards each stall, collecting as well as knowing more about the plethora of companies that have helped shape WordPress.

EndNote

endnote-wc Two fruitful days of WordCamp Mumbai 2018 now came to a conclusion. Needless to say, the two days ended in a flash! We cannot wait for the next occurrence of WordCamp and hope you all participate in large numbers next time!

7 Best WordPress Podcasting Plugins You Must Know

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This is a guest post by Sunny Chawla. If you’d like to contribute to our blog, feel free to get in touch with us.

best-wp-podcasting-plugin Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past couple of years, you must’ve noticed an out of the ordinary rise in the popularity of podcasting. You should know that in 2013, the number of podcast subscribers exceeded a record one billion, which means 1 out of 7 people are subscribed to one podcast or another. If you’re serious about growing your business, you should surely be ready to wade into the popularity and grab the chance that to host your own podcasts. As an active WordPress user and owner, you’d be glad to know that podcasting and WordPress go hand in hand. To save you the effort of hosting podcasts on your WordPress website or blog, we’ve rounded up 7 most popular podcasting plugins to consider. By the end of this blog post, you will surely get to know the solution that suits your needs. But before we go deep into the list, here’s a bit of history!

A Brief Introduction of Podcasting

The history of podcasting goes back further than blogging. Albeit, its roots lie in the year of 1980, the contemporary format become popular in the year 2004 through platforms like Odeo. Developers, as well as radio enthusiasts, were on the lookout for a particular way to quickly and easily stream their programs to devices. Along with this Apple’s 2005 dominant integration of podcasts in iTunes created a wave in the podcasting space. Since then, podcasts have been built by each and every conceivable media outlet, to metaphorically give a voice to many people. Including your podcast on a WordPress website is a smart way of promoting as well as sharing your voice, opinion or services. Let’s move on now to look at some of the most dependable WordPress plugins for podcasting.

1. Libsyn Podcast Plugin

lisbyn-podcasting-plugin This is one of the best plugins for WordPress podcasting, which enables you to post the latest podcast episodes to your Libsyn account, directly from WordPress. Your RSS feed on WordPress would automatically up-to-date as well as post your files to the Libsyn servers along with your website. This plugin is ideal for podcasters using Libsyn looking to extend to other audience through WordPress.

2. PowerPress by Blubrry

blubrry-podcasting-plugin This plugin not only helps you generate the podcast feed needed to subscribe but also generates RSS2, iTunes, ATOM as well as Bit Torrent RSS versions at the same time. It is a multi-dimensional plugin, that is to say, it supports many platforms. This plugin hence proves to be a major time saver. You can also integrate the HTML5 Media Player, which not only allows listeners to enjoy your episodes directly but also from your WordPress website at the same time. The differentiating factor for this plugin is the SEO fields that are included, to help make your podcasts search ready.

3. Seriously Simple Podcasting

seriously-simple-podcasting-plugin For people, who are not comfortable managing advanced podcast settings or just need basic features and functions, this plugin is the way to go. It’s perfect for beginners and offers simple settings. The setup is short and quick, and the interface is simple to understand.

4. Smart Podcast Player

Smart Podcast Player aka SPP is a premium solution, rather the best premium solution, when it comes to podcasting plugins on WordPress. This plugin is suitable for large and professional podcasts. It gives you an amazing full-featured player that is good to display on your WordPress website sans much effort and time. The highlight of this plugin is the premium features included – library display settings, playback slowing, direct downloads, and more. Also, the numerous design customization options give it a boost above the rest.

5. Podlove

Along with the really good plugins we’ve mentioned above or the ones you must’ve explored on your own, Podlove is one of the best no doubt. It offers a simple solution to add each and every podcast episode to your WordPress blog as well. A differentiating factor Podlove offers is detailed customization. You can access every piece of code related to your podcast data, and modify it as needed.

6. Cincopa

cincopa-podcasting-plugin This plugin is a best for enterprises or bloggers with occasional audio and or video posts. It equips your website with a subscription RSS feed for your visitors without being a hindrance, and without the need to manage additional features. Cincopa is not merely a podcasting plugin, it also allows for the creation of videos, slideshows, images, which gives it an added advantage over other plugins.

7. Simple Podcast Press

Simple Podcast Press is a simple to configure podcasting plugin. It’s quick to setup, offering you sync with iTunes or SoundCloud URL. The plugin creates a unique page for each episode you create. What’s even better is that it adds a mobile-friendly player on to your WordPress website.

To Conclude

In the world of WordPress, specifically WordPress plugins, you’re spoilt for choice. But don’t be overwhelmed; we hope we’ve simplified your search a bit using our top 7 list. For you, the difficult part should be creating engaging episodes for your listeners. So, what’re you waiting for- pick a plugin and record away! The stage – albeit virtual – is yours! 🙂

About the Author

Sunny Chawla is a Marketing Manager at AIS Technolabs– a web-design and development company that helps global businesses grow online. In his free time, Sunny likes to share thoughts on WordPress development  and digital marketing.

How to Track a WordPress Form Lead with Google Tag Manager

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This is a guest post by Jon Zimmerman. If you’d like to contribute to our blog, feel free to get in touch with us.

For many businesses, your website serves as your storefront, sales rep, and cashier – all-in-one. Tracking sales from your website can be a complex task, but many e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce can make this a bit easier with built-in integrations. For B2B websites that don’t leverage their website for e-commerce, it is still very important to know how customers are interacting with your site and where your leads are ultimately coming from. With the help of Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics, you can integrate contact form tracking to know which customers are completing the lead form.

Install Tag Manager and Analytics

These free Google products are simple to install and can work together seamlessly, but first let’s understand what they do. Google Analytics (GA) is a free analytics platform that tracks your web traffic and allows you to splice, dice, and analyze it using any number of built-in and custom reporting tools. Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a free tag management tool that allows users to deploy scripts on a website by adding only a one-time single snippet of JavaScript to the code. Once you add the GTM script to your site, you can fire almost any other tags through it without adding any additional bulky code to the site. To add both GA and GTM to your site, first, add the GTM script to every page of the site. Then you can deploy the GA script within the Google Tag Manager container. If this sounds Greek to you, here is some additional information from Google on how this works.

Event Tracking with Google Tag Manager

There are many features of GTM, but for now, we are going to focus on auto event tracking. This will allow us to define an event that we want to track, and then send data to Google Analytics when that event is completed by a user. To do this we are taking a three-step approach:
  1. Define what we want to track, in this case, we want to track when a user completes a contact form.
  2. Configure the Event tracking in Google Tag Manager
  3. Configure the Goal to be tracked in Google Analytics

Step 1: Define what we want to track

For contact forms there are three main ways to trigger an event when a user submits a contact form:
  • Count the Event when they click the submit button
  • Count the Event when the form is submitted
  • Count an event when the user hits a “thank you page”
We will focus on thank you page event tracking for now, as this is the most straightforward method, but all three methods of tracking can be set up in GTM. To configure this thank you page tracking, you will need to know the URL of your thank you page, i.e. “www.domain.com/thank-you” or something similar.

Step 2: Configure the Event Tracking in Google Tag Manager

Now for the tricky part. Tag Manager uses tags, triggers, and variables to define how you want to deploy tags on your site. For now, we will work with tags and triggers. A tag is where you define the information that you want to be sent to Google Analytics. A trigger is where you define the user interaction that will “trigger” the tag information to be sent.

First, let’s create the tag:

Image 1_tag manager example Tag Type: Universal Analytics Since our ultimate goal is to send event data to Google Analytics, the first thing we are going to do is choose “Universal Analytics” as our tag type. Track Type: Event Event Tracking Parameters – use the category, action, and label fields to name the event data that is sent to Google Analytics. Here we have defined ‘category’ as “Form Submission” and ‘action’ as “Form Submit Thank You Page,” but you can name these anything you want as long as it is unique and recognizable to you. Tracking ID: place your Google Analytics property ID here. This is how GTM knows which analytics property to send the data to.

Now, you will create the trigger that will define what user interaction will fire the tag.

Image 2_tag manager example Trigger Type: Page View. When a user views the “thank you” page, we want our tag to fire. This trigger fires on: Some Page Views. Since our GTM script is on every page of our site, we have to narrow down the specific page that we want to trigger our tag. In this case, we only want the tag to fire when a user views the thank you page. Conditions: Page URL: equals: http://www.domain.com/thank-you Now publish the trigger and tag you just created by clicking the “Submit” button in the top right corner of the GTM interface.

Step 3: Create a Goal in Google Analytics

With your published tag, GTM will now send event data to GA every time a user completes a contact form and hits the “thank you” page. The final step is to create a goal in Google Analytics that will count and record each time the Form Submission event data is sent to GA. To begin, navigate to the admin section in GA and select Goals under the correct analytics view you want to use. Now we will use the event data that GTM is sending to GA to create a goal. Image 3_analytics example Goal Setup: Custom Goal Name: Form Submission Goal Type: Event Goal Details: set the Category, Action, and Label fields to match exactly how you defined your tag in GTM. Event Value: select “yes” if you want one goal completion to record one goal. Otherwise, you can define a custom value for each goal completion.

Tracking with Contact Form 7

Many WordPress users utilize the Contact Form 7 plugin and there is a specific GTM trick to track these form submissions. Instead of tracking when a user hits the “thank you” page, we can leverage an integration that tracks the actual form submission action. In the contact form’s edit screen, select Additional Settings, and add the below script to the field: on_sent_ok: “dataLayer.push({‘event’: ‘gtm4wp.contactForm7Submitted’});” Image 4_Contact Form 7 This will push an event into the dataLayer once a form is successfully submitted. You will then need to configure a custom event in GTM to listen for this dataLayer variable and send event completion data to Google Analytics.

Create a Custom Event trigger in GTM

In GTM, create a custom event trigger. This will allow GTM to listen for this specific event in the dataLayer, and when it occurs, we can use this trigger to fire our tag to send data to GA. Trigger type: Custom Event Event Name: gtm4wp.contactForm7Submitted Trigger Fires on: “All Custom Events” Image 5_Contact Form 7 GTM

Create Your Form Completion Tag in GTM

Next, we will create a new tag utilizing the trigger we just created. Tag Type: Universal Analytics Track Type: Event Category, Action, Label: define these as you see fit Tracking ID: place your Google Analytics property ID here. Select the Custom Event trigger you created, as the firing trigger for this tag.

Test Conversion

You can utilize Tag Manager preview mode to run a test conversion to be sure that the tag and trigger you created is working properly.
  1. In the GTM interface, choose “Preview” in the top right corner.
  2. In the same browser, open a new tab and load your website URL. You should now see a GTM preview window at the bottom of the screen showing which tags are firing and which are not.
  3. Submit a contact form and you should see “gtm4wp.contactForm7Submitted” populate on the left side of the preview window. You should simultaneously see your GTM tag appear under “Tags Fired On This Event” in the main preview window.
Congratulations, you are now tracking form completions in Google Analytics! You are on your way to better understanding your web traffic. I highly recommend spending some time poking around Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager to uncover all of the capabilities of these robust platforms. There is a ton of additional free training on these platforms if you just look for it.

About the Author

Jon Zimmerman is the Director of Marketing for WorkWise, the provider of OnContact CRM Software and has over 25 years of experience in customer relationship management.

6 Ways to Improve the Search Experience on Your WordPress Website

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This is a guest post by Subhankar Sarkar. If you’d like to contribute to our blog, feel free to get in touch with us.

Search-WordPress-Websites

“Search” is one of the primary options a visitor employs to discover content on your website.

It’s important to make searching on your website as intuitive as possible, to let users reach the content they are looking for easily. This will drastically increase your chances of conversion by helping users connect with a product or service they are most inclined to purchase.

But what happens, more often than not (unfortunately), is that a lot of thought isn’t spent making the search option user-friendly.

But worry not, there are several options which you could undertake or tweak to improve the search experience on your site.

So, without further ado, let’s discuss!

#1 Clear Placement

Your layout and design come into play here.

The most obvious position for the search option to be placed is in the primary menu. Why is that? Well, it’s quite simple. The primary navigation menu is the first place of interest for a user looking for content on your site. What happens when he doesn’t find what he’s looking for? The next option is obviously to search for the page. Since he is already looking at the primary menu, a search option right there would be the most convenient spot possible. However, if you have a different layout, or have a mobile-first design, the top three locations for the search widget are:
  1. Header (Top or Primary Navigation Menu)
  2. The first widget in the sidebar
  3. Footer

Since ‘search’ is available as a widget in WordPress, it can be easily placed in any of these locations.

#2 Proper Search Input Field

This is an important criterion to consider when designing your website.

It’s quite often observed that when a user has a pretty long query, only a part of the search query is visible in the search field because the field is not wide enough. But this could lead to poor search experience.

You see, not every user can search with a proper keyword or know how to frame a search query. As a ground rule, the length of the search bar should be at least 27 characters or higher. This covers the average query length.

Alternatively, you could look towards creating a more flexible search field (like you can find here on the WisdmLabs website).

#3 Tag Based Searching

Quite a few advanced search options include category or tag based searching. For example, the search field on Amazon. You can first filter by category and then enter a search query to view relevant results.

This helps give users a more clear idea of what he is going to get and how. Alternatively, it could also make users aware of what all your site has to offer.

Of course, to implement such a search technique, you need a complimentary content structure. Suggested Reading: An Advanced Profile Search Functionality for BuddyPress

#4 Sticky Query

Well, “sticky query” might not be the technical term – but let’s go with it!

When a user enters a query, the query should remain in the search field and should not disappear. (Yes, some sites miss out this point)

What happens at times is that a user enters a query and hits enter/clicks search…. and *poof* the search query disappears. The user then has no idea what he had entered – which is okay if he finds what he’s looking for. But what happens when he doesn’t? He might be left guessing. If he has the search query in sight, it’ll be just a matter of tweaking it to get the desired result; he does not need to retype the whole query.

#5 Autosuggest or Autocomplete Queries

Here’s the Google way of searching….. “Did you mean….?” Quite often than not, a user might misspell or mistype a word, or might be in the midst of entering a search query and might not know how exactly to frame it. Here’s when autosuggest or autocomplete options come into play.

Autosuggest or autocomplete options could help users articulate a query in the best way possible or use the most accurate keyword to get the desired result.

#6 Offering Advanced Search Options

With recent advancement in technology, users are often looking for more. It’s time you get on board.

Advanced search options include creating a more personalized search experience, or employing mobile-friendly search techniques like voice search.

Suggested Reading: Customizing WP Jobs Manager: Personalized Search Options

Wrapping Up

Improving the user experience when searching on your website is a part of improving the overall user experience of your site. Surely the WordPress default search option does not suffice. You need to integrate an advanced search plugin, or hire professional help, to make the search personalized for your needs.

Do remember, a website is a virtual representation of your brand – you’d want to leave users feeling positive.

About the Author

Subhankar Sarkar a.k.a. Subha is a passionate blogger and a freelancer.

9 Essential Tips to Give Your WordPress Website that Extra Edge

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This is a guest post by Catherrine Garcia. If you’d like to contribute to our blog, feel free to get in touch with us.

SEO-Ecommerce The WordPress platform is so huge that everybody seems to be fascinated by the way it functions and delivers online results. The popularity is such that almost 74.6 Million websites are built on WordPress. This also means that the competition is mammoth and you, as a site owner or administrator, need to be on your toes for the upkeep and maintenance of the site. If you need that extra edge to stand above your competition, you should be all set to make improvements that take your WordPress site to the next level. These few tips would help give your site a fresh look, or that competitive advantage that’ll keep your visitors engaged. Read on.

#1 Create Visually Powerful Content

When you decide to publish any content on your website, try and include high-quality images and videos along with it. You could even try and include a detailed infographic in order to explain complicated things. This would not only help readers understand things in a better way, but would also add that little extra flair to your blog posts. Videos and Images make things interesting by providing visual stimulation and hence, engage the readers in a much better way.

#2 Make Audience your Priority

To ensure that you have a constant group of visitors who like to read your content, you need to become more interactive. You can do this by replying to their comments on your content, or by engaging with them on social media or via email. By doing so, you’ll be able to create a positive impression by valuing their opinions and appreciating their inputs. You, of course, do not need to reply as soon as a comment is posted but do make an effort and reply to them within a day or two. Sending out the occasional email and personalized messages to a set of the audience will work wonders for you if you have a medium-scale or a large-scale website.

#3 Invest in SEO

Most people don’t really understand the importance of Search Engine Optimization for their site. Best SEO practices would definitely work to take your website to the next level. By optimizing your content and your site for search engines, you can rest assured that your site wouldn’t only get noticed but would also be a huge success. The first best SEO practice is to indulge in thorough keyword research and use the most relevant ones for your content. The other ones would be to link externally to the authoritative sources, link internally to other relevant and quality content present on your site and much more. Your focus should be on producing quality content that would be of use to your readers and include best SEO practices when doing the same.

#4 Choose an Apt Theme

At times, all that your website will need is a fresh look. With web design evolving so quickly, your site can begin to look out-dated before you even realize it. You can consider some free themes if you want but, you need to remember that a premium theme can offer you more options and a better chance to manage your site. Choose a theme that goes with your business idea and compatible with the latest WordPress version.

#5 Follow Email Marketing Best Practices

list-building An email is considered as the best and the most effective way of establishing a personal relationship with your readers as part of your marketing activity. Apart from this, it also helps in capture leads in case you have any plans for monetizing your blog. Services like MailChimp are quite popular and are being used are several people all around the world to manage email campaigns. If you are just getting started, this can serve as a great tool that would help you in creating your own email list by collecting email addresses of potential customers.

#6 Place Hard-Hitting CTAs

It is quite evident that if you have a website, you must also have certain goals in mind. It could be anything from establishing yourself as a blogger to growing your mailing list of followers. It is essential that you make the audience aware of your goals. This can be done with a ‘Call to Action’ button. You can place it in several places on your site to make it more effective.

#7 Set Up Google Analytics

In case you are worried about your site’s traffic, Google Analytics might just be the answer to all your worries. It not only helps monitor a website’s traffic but also helps in identifying the most popular and visited content and the devices that the visitors most commonly use to access your site. This would help you in making the necessary changes if required.

#8 Create an Engaging ‘About’ Page

The About Page of your site is what lets the audience know more about you and our site. Therefore, it is essential that you focus on your About Page and make it more about the audience than yourself. Make sure that the readers, by reading your ‘About’ Page can set their expectations. This means that they would be able to analyze what all they can expect from your site. Your ‘About’ page should be able to convey as to how your content can prove to be valuable for your reader and how it can help them in solving their issues.

#9 Enable Social Sharing

One of the easiest ways to increase the reach of your website is to include a sharing button on your site. The social media sharing buttons make it easy for the readers to share the content of their choice on their social media profiles. This would not only help more and more people aware of your offering but would also work towards increasing your followers.

Bonus Tips:

  • Secure your site; get an SSL certificate for your website so that users who interact with your site can build their trust
  • Prepare your social media channels well and keep posting regularly so that users can engage with you.
  • Most importantly, manage and maintain your WordPress site to keep it functioning well.
  • Use a great web hosting service so that your website loads quickly and experiences least instances of downtime.

Summing Up

Let’s say you have a WordPress site which has some great quality content that’s enough to draw potential readers and engage them. You, of course, have an excellent collection of blog posts and regular visitors who love your content. You might feel like that the things are going well. But somewhere or the other, there’s some room for improvement to make your content even better than what it already is. Follow the above tips to amplify your numerous efforts to emerge as a total website leader and provide an extra edge to your amazing WordPress site.

About the Author

Catherrine Garcia is a passionate blogger and a freelance Web Developer currently working for WPCodingDev. She along with her group of freelance developers are experts of creating Websites on WordPress.

Interview with Brad Williams: CEO, WebDevStudios

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brad-williamsAnybody who has been researching the nitty-gritty of WordPress website design has most definitely come across WebDevStudios and the highly popular guides for professional website design and development. Today we pick the brain of the man behind the flawless organization of numerous WordPress Phillys and the co-host of the popular DradCast, Brad Williams!

#1 How did you first get started with WordPress? What was the trigger for starting WebDevStudios?

Brad: My first taste of WordPress was in 2006 when I created a personal blog using the software. I did a little bit of research and WordPress seemed to be a solid choice at the time. Remember, back then WordPress was primarily a blogging platform, so it made perfect sense. I started blogging regularly and of course, since I was a developer I started hacking away at the code. Before I knew it, I was creating custom plugins for my blog, and it grew from there.

#2 According to you, what are the most important factors that influence website design?

factors-influencing-website-design Brad: Usability is the most important factor, in my opinion. The idea is to make a website easy to use, understand, and find the content or feature you are looking for. If your website design is trying to be too clever, your visitors will be lost and quickly leave to find an alternative. This also includes accessibility, which is making sure your website is accessible by everyone, including the visually impaired.

#3 What are the three coding practices you swear by?

Brad: Security, performance, and cleanliness. All code should developed with security in mind. Making your code as secure as possible from the start is the best way to ensure your site is safe from security exploits. Performance is another huge consideration. How will your code scale under massive website traffic? Are you integrating appropriate caching techniques to handle an unexpected surge of visitors? Finally, code cleanliness is the right thing to do. Not only will it help you understand your code down the road, but it will also help other developers understand what you built and why you built it the way you did.

#4 What was the biggest challenge you have faced professionally?

Brad: Leaving a comfy job and starting WebDevStudios in 2008 was a huge challenge. I took a big risk towards my goal of starting a web development company and with a lot of hard work achieved that goal!

#5 You are known to wear a lot of hats; apart from being co-founder at WebDevStudios, you write apps, are an active blogger, have co-authored two highly useful books for WordPress beginners, and were a co-host on DradCast, one of the most popular WordPress podcasts. How did you juggle all these roles?

Brad: Passion. When you are passionate about something, in this case web technologies and WordPress, it’s easier to push yourself to juggle multiple projects and roles.

#6 How was your experience as a WordCamp Speaker and Organizer?

Brad: I’ve organized 5 WordPress Philly and 2 WordCamp US events. I have presented at over 50 events all over the world. All in all I have really enjoyed the experiences of both organizing and speaking. What stands out the most is the amazing people I have met over the years. I’ve learned so much from WordPress community members all over the world and many have become close friends.

#7 What do you do to unwind when you’re not knee deep in managing one of your many ventures?

Brad: Spending time with my wife and son is my favorite way to unwind. I also love watching good television shows and movies. Towards the end of the day it’s nice to relax in my recliner and enjoy a good show or movie with my wife and son.

#8 If you weren’t a WordPress developer, what career path would you have chosen?

Brad: From the first time I signed into the internet (dial-up days), I knew I would be working on the internet for the rest of my life. If I wasn’t a WordPress developer, I would be doing something else internet-related.

#9 A word of advice for all the aspiring entrepreneurs reading this Interview?

brad-williams-advice-to-entrepreneurs Brad: Define your goals and take small steps each day towards those goals. If your goal is to lose 50 lbs, that can feel like a very overwhelming task. However, if your goal is to go to the gym today, it’s much more obtainable. Taking small steps toward larger goals is the best way to start moving forward towards your destination! Thank you Brad, for taking time out of your busy schedule and having a tete-a-tete with us! We look forward to talking with you again soon! Brad Williams is the CEO of WebDevStudios. He has been working as a website designer and developer for the past 20 years, especially with WordPress and BuddyPress. He has authored two books about WordPress website and plugin development that beginners swear by. Brad is an active organizer in WordPress and WordCamp events and is currently a member of the Forbes Agency Council.

10 Free Professional WordPress Business Themes (2017)

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This is a guest post by Vairo Kremanis. If you’d like to contribute to our blog, feel free to get in touch with us.

At the time of writing this, over 15,886,000 websites run on WordPress. To put that number into perspective, that’s roughly 28% of the entire internet. Needless to say, WordPress isn’t showing any signs of slowing down, especially as more mainstream companies are beginning to utilize it (CNN, USA Today, and TechCrunch to name a few). However, given WordPress’s open developer-friendly code, there are thousands upon thousands of free website templates called themes. This in itself is amazing because the average business owner doesn’t need to be tech-savvy to find the right look for their website. Though with such a large volume to choose from, you could end up sacrificing hundreds of hours trying to find the right theme, hours that could very well cut into your business productivity. But, fear not! We’ll save you some time and present you with our list of 10 free professional business themes, so you can engage your clients with style.

#1 Hestia by ThemeIsle

Hestia theme - themeisle Themeisle’s Hestia theme is a nice option for small to mid-sized businesses. So if you’re running a restaurant, online firm, or wedding planning site, then this may be the theme for you. However, this doesn’t leave the rest of the business world out in the cold. Hestia offers great flexibility with things like custom backgrounds, colors, e-commerce support, and a few other bells and whistles listed below. Notable Features:

• WooCommerce support • Travel Map • Parallax Slider • Photo Gallery • Blog/news page

Check it out: Hestia

#2 eStore by ThemeGrill

e-store by themegrill

It’s no secret that first impressions are everything. Themegrill knows this and they show it off in their premium-designed eStore theme. Needless to say, this theme is completely WooCommerce focused while delivering the same functionality and sense of professionalism comparable to any other mainstream e-store. Notable Features:

• WooCommerce focused • Integrated Google fonts • Dedicated support forum • Multi-language compatible (WPML plugin support)

Check it out: eStore

#3 Noblia by WPWarfare

noblia-wpwarfare If you’re looking for a trendy theme that you won’t have to change in the next 5 years then this is exactly what Noblia is all about. Although authors have created this theme on a base of a blogging theme, you can connect Noblia to any type of a WordPress cart – transforming this theme into an elegant business website with a nice blogging touch. Noblia will set up everyone in the fashion, lifestyle, blogging, gadget or traveling industries for success from the very beginning, so well worth taking a closer look at this free theme. Notable Features:

• Social networking icons • Clean, lightweight code • Custom CSS capability • Smart featured images • Available Ad space

Check it out: Noblia

#4 RestImpo by TT Themes

restimpo-tt themes Short for restricted impossibilities, RestImpo is a polished, multipurpose theme aimed at businesses who want to keep it simple and clean. For those who’d prefer to get started as quickly as possible, RestImpo has six pre-defined color schemes. Combine that with its custom widget support and you’ll rarely find two RestImpo sites to be exactly alike. As a bit of a bonus, it offers support for over a dozen languages. Unfortunately, TT themes no longer offer official support for RestImpo, but you’re still free to use it. Notable Features:

• 220 Google fonts • Social networking icons • Available in a dozen languages • WooCommerce support

Check it out: RestImpo

#5 Edin by Automatic

edin-automatic Edin advertises itself as a modern theme aimed at corporations who want an air of elegance associated with their online presence. Given its aesthetics, it’s a hard sell to refute. It comes with all the WordPress standards you’d expect with room for customization. If you’re looking for a something elegant, yet corporate, Edin is for you. Notable Features:

• Custom Header • Featured Images • Custom Background Theme • Translation Ready

Check it out: Edin

#6 Business Hub by Rigorous Themes

business hub-rigorous themes Now, a lot of these themes have been aimed at small businesses and corporations, but what about agencies? Thankfully, Business Hub fills that part. Not only does it have a clean and responsive UI, it also extends that same sense of professionalism across all platforms, meaning that you’ll never have to worry about your site on mobile devices. Business Hub is entirely free, but it does offer a pro version for those who’d like a little more room for improvement. The pro version includes useful features like a testimonial section, an Instagram feed, and unlimited color options. This is one theme that agencies should take note of. Notable Features:

• Theme options using a customizer API • Mobile menu • Favicon, logo, title, and tagline customization • Testimonial section (pro version) • Pricing plan (pro version) • Client section (pro version)

Check it out: Business Hub

#7 Multipurpose by Shaon

multipurpose-shaon This theme is exactly what it says on the tin. Shaon’s Multipurpose offers a highly customizable theme that’s SEO friendly to boot. In fact, it’s so customizable that it even offers the option to switch between blog style and corporate layouts. Couple those two factors with its drag and drop feature and one can see that its name isn’t just for show. Notable Features:

• Drag and drop layout builder • SEO friendly • Unlimited color schemes • Separate home pages for blogs and corporate sites

Check it out: MultiPurpose

#8 Kickstart Business by Mike Aggrey

kickstart-business-mike-aggrey Lawyers, consultants, and independent contractors take note because the Kickstart Business theme is meant for you. KB is a quick and easy way to set up your site without the hassle of delicate configurations, freeing up your time so you can spend it connecting with future clients. On top of the standard customization options, it includes a pro version with nifty features like testimonials, one on one email support, and a portfolio feature. So, if you want to kick-start your business, but keep it hassle-free, then give this theme a try. Notable Features:

• “Set it and forget it” installation • Standard customization features • Custom color, logos, and menus • Testimonial section (Pro) • Portfolio display (Pro) • One on one email support (Pro)

Check it out: Kickstart Business

#9 Corpbiz by Webriti

corpbiz-webriti Amongst the myriad of WordPress themes, there are more than a few hidden gems- gems that are the Swiss army knives among themes. Corpbiz is one of these gems. Looking to build a strong and visually impressive corporate homepage? Choose amongst a few in-theme templates, knowing they’re developed with the quality of Bootstrap 3 CSS. Maybe you’re a humble freelance writer? Corpbiz has you covered with a portfolio display. Those are a few of the features in “Lite” version. It’s certainly worth checking out everything this theme has to offer, even if you don’t end up using it. Notable Features:

• Built-in portfolio display • Custom CSS box • Front page Banner • Latest News Column • Caption Slider (premium) • Project Slider (premium) • Footer Callout (premium)

Check it out: Corpbiz

#10 Hueman by Nicholas GUILLAUME

hueman-nicholas guillaume Load times and speed can make or break website traffic, no matter how good the content is. Hueman acknowledges this and gives its users a fast, beautiful, and responsive theme that runs seamlessly on mobile devices. Admittedly, it’s tailored towards blogs and magazines, but it could just as easily be used as a business news site. With over 70,000+ active installs, it’s a small wonder why Hueman is one of the best-rated magazine/blog themes across multiple sites. If nothing else, the demo is certainly worth checking out. Notable Features:

• Mobile friendly • Completely optimized load times • Fast performance • Customization options

Check it out: Hueman

Author Bio:

Vairo Kremanis is an online entrepreneur and founder of WPWarfare.com. His passion is content marketing, blogging, and WordPress in general, which is why he dedicates every spare minute he has to writing, hoping to share an arsenal of practical and useful information with others.

Building a Non-Profit Organization Website with WordPress

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‘A thousand candles can be lit by a single one.’ If you’re the one holding the candle, then let the world know and participate for the greater good! – let the light spread to those who need help. Whether you run a local charity or are part of global charitable trust, you’re working towards the betterment of the community. As part of your work, you need to undertake certain activities like spreading awareness, collecting donations, gathering volunteers and so on. All of this requires a powerful communication channel. And in a world that’s connected through an online network, the channel that’ll help you reach out to the widest audience has to be- your very own website.

Why Do You Need an Exclusive Website for Your Non-Profit Organization?

A website is a go-to resource for all information available about your organization, but more importantly, it is a credible resource. It can help you convey your mission, your current activities, upcoming events, and more. It also helps you connect with people in need of help and those who are willing to help. Therefore, maintaining a structured, content-rich website for your organization is a must! So, let’s discuss general guidelines and steps to build a website for your non-profit organization.

#1 Choose the Right Platform

wordpress-joomla-drupal Now that you are building a website for your non-profit organization, the way to go about it is to choose the right platform. Since your website will contain a lot of content, it makes sense to choose a CMS to get started. Several CMS platforms are available in the market. Upon careful evaluation of leading CMS platforms like Joomla, Drupal, WordPress we’ve inferred that WordPress is the way forward. It offers solid functionality to fulfill all your website building needs. Let’s explore!
  • Free Core Setup
WordPress offers a free core setup easily available to download in a single click. Needless to say, minimal costs can certainly benefit the setup of a website for a non-profitable organization.
  • Robust Open Source CMS
WordPress is an open source platform that allows experts to contribute their bit to upgrade its functionality. It supports tons of themes to suit your organizational requirements. It is robust and flexible enough to handle multiple plugins offering varied functionality.
  • Easy to Learn, with Community Forums available for Support
WordPress is a simple-to-understand CMS. Even if you’re new to WordPress, you’ll find it easy to work with. And in case you need any help or support, the WordPress community forums and tutorials are widely available.
  • Blogging and Social Media Integration
WordPress by itself started out as a blogging platform. That means, your website will have a built-in blogging feature where you can write about the activities run by your organization. WordPress also offers several plugins to help you stay active on social networking websites and gain a wider reach.

#2 Select the Most Suitable Theme

Choosing a perfect theme from an abundance of themes isn’t so easy, but it isn’t so difficult either. Selecting an appropriate theme is much simpler when you have a clear idea of branding. The website’s design should complement the nature of the work of your organization. It should have a simple and convincing look that highlights your work and achievements in an optimum manner. Shortlisted below are some such themes that would suit your purpose:

1. Pearl WP ($29)

pearl-wp-theme-non-profit-organization-website Pearl WP is a multipurpose WordPress theme. It is one of the least expensive themes suitable for non-profit, charity organizations. It keeps your budget low while being functional. A simple drag and drop wizard helps you design without professional help. It encompasses functionalities to help you to book appointments, add events, campaigns, and maintain a calendar. It is integrated with essential plugins like Contact form, WooCommerce, and social media marketing (Twitter, Instagram). You can set a customizable Google map to mark your offices and event locations. This 100% responsive, SEO-ready theme can help you maintain volunteer profiles and more.

2. Awaken ($44)

awaken-non-profit-organization-website Awaken is a powerful fundraising theme developed specifically for raising funds for social activities, NGOs, churches, and other non-profit organizations. It’s suitable for small-to-large organizations to set up their online presence and promote their work. The unique features of Awaken include unlimited color schemes, drag-and-drop page builder, customizable homepages, multilingual support. Beyond these, the theme also offers various application specific features as well. It enables you to maintain a social calendar, publish sermons, create a ‘cause page’ for fundraising, create a donor’s profile, and keep track of donations.

3. Helpinghands ($49)

helping hands-theme Another robust and responsive theme specifically designed for non-profitable organizations is Helpinghands. The theme promises an effortless and rich website building experience with its high-quality drag-n-drop builder, a premium slider, countless color variations, and styles. This SEO-ready theme contains an advanced control panel, built-in payment gateway, and social media integration. Other prominent features include WooCommerce integration and campaign creation option. Helpinghands makes it possible for you to run multiple donation campaigns simultaneously and reward your donors.
  1. Charitas ($99)
charitas-theme-non-profit-organization If your organization can afford to stretch their website budget, then a professional and sleek theme Charitas can be a complete package that is suitable for all needs of your organization. Charitas has a warm and caring look and high-quality features which are highly impressive; hence the recommendation for your organization’s website. This lightweight theme offers a super fast page loading experience and is completely responsive. It is equipped with WooCommerce and multilingual support. With over 15 widget areas, photo sliders and multiple post styles, Charitas renders a neat and fuller look to your web pages. The theme enables you to create your story, to promote your work, write testimonials, receive donations, publish newsletters, event flyers and so on. Charitas, in particular, covers all the dynamics of the website for a large scale, national/international level organizations and NGOs.

#3 Add Must-Have and Good-to-Have Features

With a theme selected, you’re all set to go a step further. Let’s jot down essential and helpful features for your non-profit organization’s website. The classification of functionality under must-have and good-to-have features should bring clarity to your setup. It’ll also help you decide the additional plugins you’d want to use.

Must-Have Features

  • Good and Clean Responsive Design: You need a professional and clean online appearance for your charity organization’s website. A clean and well-designed website creates a greater impact on visitors. This requirement should be specially considered while selecting your theme.
  • Smooth Navigation Menu: Navigation should be straightforward. Important pages should be linked from the main navigation menu. Highlight important information about your organization on your ‘About Us’ page. It should include your foundation story, inspiration, your mission, your area of work and much more. Frequently update upcoming events and related information.
  • Donation Form: Charity or nonprofit organizations rely and grow on public donations. If visitors are keen on donating money, food, books or clothes, then you need a donation form ready. Create customized donation forms that will include the donor’s information and mode of donation. You may need to include the locations of your donation-accepting booths as well.
  • PayPal Donations: Accepting monetary donations shall need the provision of various possible ways. Mobile wallets like PayPal, Apple money are accepted worldwide. In case the donors wish to pay by NEFT or cheques, mentioning your account details is necessary.
  • Clear CTA: Your website can be a great way of converting visitors into volunteers who could join your mission. Clear and strong call-to-action buttons – like ‘Join Us’, ‘Donate Now’ on important pages shall grow your working-force and funding as well.

Good-to-Have Features

  • Photo Sliders: Use photo sliders to showcase the initiatives by your organization, or to share stories of people you’ve impacted. These can be a great way to appeal to a visitor’s emotion.
  • Video: Besides still images, videos can be effective to share key moments. Use videos to highlight issues and the steps taken by your organization to resolve those. Videos have a great potential to spread awareness.
  • Press Releases: Publishing your organization’s work in the Press is a crucial factor. Media is considered as a mirror of society. It is a trusted source of information, which has a larger reach and greater impact on society. Thus, maintaining a special section for Press Releases and News pieces on your website can help.
  • Social Media Sharing: Social Media is so very powerful to communicate with people. It has multiple portals by which you can connect with professionals and friends. You can share short and crisp updates about the activities of your organization. You can even conduct polls, receive feedback and suggestions about your work. Sharing links to your blog on social media can help attract visitors to your website.
  • Newsletter Sign Up: Newsletter is an effective communication tool to share the happenings of your organization. Publish a weekly newsletter that will include information about your activities or personal stories. Create a signup form to help visitors subscribe to your newsletter.
Most of the above-discussed features can be added using plugins. Let’s take a look at some of these below.

#4 Enhance Functionality by Handpicked Plugins

plugin-image Now it’s time to get your website running with additional plugins. One of the greatest qualities of WordPress is its flexibility. You can tweak your WordPress website’s functionality as you desire using plugins. Following are some of the handpicked, top rated plugins for non-profit organizations. Of course, you’re free to add more plugins you need based on your requirements. Just make sure that the plugins you choose would add some value to your website and the theme you’ve chosen. Plugins having duplicate features that your theme already has can make your website bulky.

Endnote

So that’s it. Building a solid website for your non-profit organization is affordable using WordPress and its ecosystem. Your theme, plugins, and if you choose – some customization – can help you make the website special as your organization. We hope the article has given you valuable insights to get you started. If you have more ideas or tips to enhance this website creation experience or have any questions, do let us know. We would be pleased to hear from you!

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