WordPress Archives

10 Plugins for Elementor Page Builder to Ease Your Work

December 13, 2018 by WisdmLabs Leave a Comment

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 of them, you will find the following options that help you:

discover a wide range of content types and style their look;
create a wonderful menu and apply attractive settings to it;
organize your content in stylish tabs and accordion tabs;
provide your website with a dynamic blog integration;
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

Details | DemoJetBlog 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

Details | DemoThere 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

Details | DemoIntroduce 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

Details | DemoJetEngine 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

Details | DemoA 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

Details | DemoJetParallax 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

Details | DemoJetMenu 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

Details | DemoDo 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

Details | DemoJetWooBuilder 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

Details | DemoThere 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

September 21, 2018 by WisdmLabs Leave a Comment

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.

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

March 19, 2018 by Sai Krishna Pothamsetty Leave a Comment

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.

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.

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.

Sessions

Speaker sessions are the most exciting events of WordCamp. Some of the sessions were: ‘How WordPress can change your lives’ by Suyogya Shukla

‘Managing WordPress from the command line’ by Ulrich Pogson

‘Playing well with others: writing solid code in large community projects’ by Dennis Snell

‘In search of the Best WordPress Theme’ by Nirav Mehta

‘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

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

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

February 5, 2018 by WisdmLabs Leave a Comment

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.

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

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

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

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

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

January 5, 2018 by WisdmLabs 2 Comments

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:

Define what we want to track, in this case, we want to track when a user completes a contact form.
Configure the Event tracking in Google Tag Manager
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:

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.

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.

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’});”

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”

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.

In the GTM interface, choose “Preview” in the top right corner.
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.
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

December 25, 2017 by WisdmLabs Leave a Comment

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” 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:

Header (Top or Primary Navigation Menu)
The first widget in the sidebar
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.

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

December 11, 2017 by WisdmLabs Leave a Comment

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.

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

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

November 28, 2017 by Pranoti Panchwagh Leave a Comment

Anybody 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?

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: 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)

November 10, 2017 by WisdmLabs Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

November 9, 2017 by Sharon Koshy Leave a Comment

‘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 light spread to those who need help. Whether you run a local charity or are part of a 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

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 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 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)

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, 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.

Charitas ($99)

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 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 the 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 the society. It is a trusted source of information, which has a larger reach and greater impact on the 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

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.

Donation Form: Donorbox, Donately , Give
Newsletter: Bloom, Tribulant, Newsletter, MailChimp
Forms: Ninja Forms, Gravity Forms, Contact Form 7
Campaign: WP Campaign Manager,
Event: Event Organizer, Events Manager, Event List
Portfolio: WP Portfolio, Portfolio Gallery, Envira Gallery
Video Player: WordPress Video Player, Easy Video Player
Social Sharing: Sumo Share, Monarch, WP Social Sharing
Testimonials: Strong Testimonials, Easy Testimonials
SEO: Google Keyword Planner, Yoast SEO, All-in-one SEO pack

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!

Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Get Ready for the Deal of a Lifetime!

November 8, 2017 by Harsh Shah 1 Comment

When it comes to the most anticipated days of the year, Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays are right up there with Christmas and Halloween! The countdown to the world’s biggest sales week has begun and boy oh boy do we have some great deals for you! That’s right. This time, we are offering massive discounts on all our products for not just Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but the entire week in between! From November 21, 2017, to November 28, 2017, it is going to be raining discounts at WisdmLabs!

Wisdm’s Wizard Discounts

Like previous years, WisdmLabs has some exciting offers lined up for all our WooCommerce and LearnDash products this year too. The WisdmWeek bonanza from Black Friday to Cyber Monday has a whopping 20% off on all our products and can be used multiple times. To get the discount code for the sale and a special surprise, all you have to do is sign up for a reminder right here. P.S. We’ll keep you in the loop about the other exciting offers we are coming up with as well!

No idea where to start? Don’t worry, here is a list of recommended plugins and a brief overview of their functionality! The WisdmWeek discounts are applicable to all our products. These are just a few suggestions to help you out!

Recommended plugins for WooCommerce

Product Enquiry Pro: The quintessential quote request generation plugin makes life easier for you by integrating a sleek quotation system into your website. Add a little PEP to your website by encouraging negotiation with buyers on your e-store!

Custom Product Boxes: Everybody loves product bundles that offer better deals than purchasing individual products. Add this feature to your e-store with Custom Product Boxes for WooCommerce.

Scheduler for WooCommerce: True to its name Scheduler is a nifty little add-on that lets you schedule products on your WooCommerce store. Don’t be misled into thinking that this is a minor functionality though. Think about the boost your sales are going to get due to limited edition products; wouldn’t want to miss the holiday rush, would we?

Customer Specific Pricing: Customer Specific Pricing is your lifeline for offering special discounts to specific customers on your e-store. Using this plugin, you can easily set individual product prices by name, user role, and even product category, so that every tier of customers has a different purchasing price.

Recommended Plugins for LearnDash

Having developed add-ons for LearnDash for quite a while now, we are conversant with the features that every Course Author requires on an e-learning website. Here are a few highlights from our portfolio.

Ratings, Reviews, and Feedback: Having course ratings and reviews is a proven tactic for increasing student trust and hence improving course signups. However, the problem with all current course review plugins for WordPress is that they do not allow the author to decide when can a student rate a course. Ratings, Reviews, and Feedback addresses this problem and eliminates fake reviews by people who have enrolled but not taken the course!

Group Registration for LearnDash: As the course Administrator, you might often need to handle bulk enrollments, especially when you are planning to conduct a course or a batch of students or corporate employees. At such times, enrolling every person independently can quickly become tiresome. Group Registration lets you enroll students in bulk into the course and assign a Group Leader as well, making it easier for you to keep track of transactions and student progress.

Instructor Role for LearnDash: The e-learning world seems all hunky dory when you are working independently, creating, conducting, and managing your own courses. When it comes to letting courses on your website though, there is a hint of trouble on the horizon. After all, you cannot simply grant Admin access to every other person who wishes to conduct a guest lecture on the website. On the other hand, refusing them is not a good idea either, when they are adding a much-needed diversity to your course portfolio. Instructor Role solves this problem by letting you create ‘Instructors’ who can conduct and manage their own courses but have no access to the core back-end. We are all about finding the middle way out you know!

Advanced Course Manager: The latest LearnDash update has improved the course creation capabilities to a large extent, but the course management features still require some slight tweaks. Advanced Course Manager lets you manage student enrollment, course progress, and course access in a single click on the course building page itself. In addition, it facilitates quicker and smoother conversation between the student and the teacher and integrates the course summary along with the congratulatory message after course completion as well!

These are some plugins that can get you started on exploring the many features we offer for LearnDash and WooCommerce.

And There’s More!

Apart from the core discount on our plugins, we are offering an additional 10% exclusive deal for the people who share their love! All you need to do is share this article on your profile on two social media platforms of your choice, send us a link to the posts @[email protected] and the additional 10% is yours!! That’s right. Sharing it amongst your friends will give you a total discount of 30%!

Which plugin is on your radar for this Cyber Monday? Drop a comment to let us know!

Top 7 Directory WordPress Plugins You Didn’t Know About

August 22, 2017 by WisdmLabs Leave a Comment

This is a guest post by Jason Daszkewicz. If you’d like to feature your content here, write to us at [email protected] along with your content and we’ll be happy to voice your words!

There was a time when WordPress was just a blogging system. Today it has become the most popular and most preferred CMS around the globe. It certainly has come a long way. The internationalization of the WordPress versions has made it possible to build any type of website with it. And creating is a directory WordPress website is no exception.

WordPress offers plenty of advanced directory plugins that can be installed and configured to convert your existing WordPress website into a directory site without having to write a single line of code or making huge changes in the WordPress core.

Thus, in today’s post, we are going to share best directory plugins to let you create and maintain a directory website successfully.

#1 Business Directory Plugin

Business Directory is one of the most popular free WordPress directory plugins that lets you seamlessly build a business directory. It actually comes in two different version i.e. free and premium version. While the free version has many useful features, the premium version offers an array of advanced features and add-ons. With 20,000+ active installs, the plugin provides everything you may need to set up your own business directory.

Additional features of Business Directory Plugin

Offers free listings in your business directory and allows you to accept listing payments
Supports PayFast Gateway and Stripe for accepting payments.
Is 100% fully responsive
Provide complete support for recurring payments.
Comes with inbuilt CSV import and export.
Supports reCAPTCHA.

#2 GeoDirectory Plugin

GeoDirectory, as the name suggests, is a located based WordPress business directory plugin developed and maintained by GeoTheme. In fact, the GDF theme framework is developed particularly for the plugin to help users who are looking for the most suitable theme for using the GeoDirectory plugin. However, the plugin also works virtually with any WordPress theme available out there.

Additional features of GeoDirectory Plugin

Is 100% fully responsive.
Equipped with a Google Analytics widget.
Integrated with an inbuilt review system.
Is fully compatible with WordPress Multisite.
Offers more than 12 widget areas and 15+ widgets
Lets you export, import and re-import data via CSV files.
Has a user-friendly front end interface for submitting entries

#3 Simple Directory Plugin

Simple Directory is yet another free WordPress directory plugin that enables you to build a personal or business directory within minutes. The plugin is packed with two different templates for archive listing and single listing page. If you are familiar with the working of WordPress theme templates, you would find it difficult to customize and configure this plugin. It also recommends installing Category Image plugin and Piklist plugin for better performance.

Additional features of Simple Directory Plugin

Displays a complete listing version including Name, Address, Contact info, etc.
Offers a variety of Custom Templates.
Lets you display the listing in a mentioned category.

#4 Web 2.0 Directory

Web 2.0 Directory is a fully responsive, feature packed and high-quality WordPress directory plugin that lets you create a variety type of directory websites including wedding sites, real estate portal, pets, vehicles dealers site, boats, bikes and cars site, classified ad listing website and more. The plugin is built on Twitter Bootstrap which makes it completely compatible with the devices and screen sizes.

Additional features of Web 2.0 Directory

Has featured and sticky listings options
Integrated with a Frontend dashboard for regular users
Also, comes with an invoices management
Lets you restrict ads by listings levels
Integrated with order directory listings and Google Maps
Comes with inbuilt CSV import

#5 Directory

Directory is a premium WordPress directory plugin developed and maintained by WPMU, a well-recognized website in the theme and plugin industry. The plugin allows you to create both front and back end business directories such as yelp, yellow pages and more. It also supports rating and review to display the popularity of any listings on your website.

Additional features of Directory

Comes equipped with customizable Directory theme
Is WordPress Multisite ready
Allows you to seamlessly accept payments for listings
Offers custom tags and categories
Packed with a variety of shortcodes
Has Listing rating system and user reviews
Lets you create custom user permissions

#6. Connections Business Directory

In the simplest words, “Connections Business Directory” is one of the best directory plugin WordPress user could ever have. It is very simple in design and many advanced functions make it the most loving directory plugin. It consists of a vast array of unique features and flexibility which motivates the users to stick with this awesome WordPress plugin. With this plugin, you can easily make an address book, maintain staff details and run a business directory. It is highly configurable in order to provide you maximum features that suit your business needs. Let’s have a look at the features of this incredibly handy WordPress plugin.

The admin dashboard lets you have a glance on the particular day’s anniversary or birthdays of the members in your directory.
It caters various entry types from which you can use the entry types such as individual, organizational and family. For Connections, Family entry type is unique.
It also caters repeatable fields for phone numbers, emails, Social media, and dates.
The directories are highly scalable and easy to manage with hundreds of thousands of entries.
It is extensible and very developer friendly.

#7. BePro Listings Plugin

With BePro Listing plugin, you can easily create and submit your listing from the front end. You can set this plugin up in seconds and you’ll be ready to capture various user types such as contact, cost, images, and addresses. After creating the list, a user can easily search and filter through the listing. With this plugin in your hand, you can do that in various search results layouts and optional Google maps. This plugin has proven its worth by adapting to almost every kind of websites such as Business Directory, Product Catalogue, Real Estate, Classified and portfolios. Let’s have a look at the features this incredible plugin has for you to offer,

A very robust and strong front end submission.
It is very easy to search and filter the listings.
Highly compatible with all the gallery plugins.
Works incredibly well with all the SEO plugins.
Also, caters you a shortcode builder.

Going through the above-mentioned list, you won’t find it difficult to choose the most suitable directory plugin for your website. Also, if you have any other relevant plugin in your mind, share it with us in the comments below.

Author Bio:

Jason is an expert WordPress developer having years of experience in working with various web development technologies. Currently, he is working for WordSuccor Ltd. providing WordPress plugin development service to global clients. He is always trying to share his intangible knowledge with others on the web.