Moeez, Author at WPblog

Beginner’s Guide to WordPress SEO – WordPress SEO Basics

Moeez — Tue, 26 May 2020 00:00:46 +0000

This is the second installment of the series on SEO for WordPress. In the previous installment, I defined the term Search Engine Optimization and highlighted its importance. In this installment, I will discuss WordPress SEO basics.

WordPress is the most popular CMS on the internet. It powers everything from a personal blog to online stores to corporate portals. One important reason for this massive user base is the fact that WordPress is easy to optimize for better SERP rankings. With minimum effort, WordPress developers and administrators could get a good position in Google and other search engines. So, it’s a good idea to boost your search ranking when you are using a WordPress website.

WordPress SEO Related Options

The first step in the process of optimizing your WordPress website for search engines is to check and set (if required) the following options and settings.

Check Website’s Visibility Settings

The first thing you should check is whether your website is visible to search engines. A checkbox in the Settings menu determines if the search engines could see and index your website. This check ensures that under-construction websites do not accidently get indexed in the search engines’ results.

In several instances, this check remains in place even when the website goes live. Thus, the first thing you should do is to make sure that this box is unchecked so that search engine could properly index your website without any problems.

SEO Friendly URL Structure

URL structure is important for both the people and search engines visiting your website. A SEO friendly URL clearly explains the content of the page and is easy to read for both human and search engines.

Example:

Suppose there is a page on your website that explains how to install WordPress. A SEO un-friendly URL structure for this page would be:

www.your-website.com/?p=32506

While search engines might not have any difficulty in reading this URL, people viewing this URL will have no idea about the contents of the page. A SEO friendly URL structure that is easily readable for both search engines and people would be:

http://www.YOUR-WEBSITE.com/how-to-install-wordpress/

You should also use keywords in your URLs. This is relevant for several reasons. It helps in identifying your content for people who see your URL on social media or in an email.

Secondly, if there is no anchor text used, your naked URL will act as anchor text in indicating what your content is about.

And thirdly, URLs appear in the search engine results and research has shown that users consider URLs before clicking on a link from the search engine.

Make use of hyphens and underscores if you want to separate words in your URL. Search Engines now treat both of them equally. You can use spaces as well but it is not recommended because it renders awkwardly in URLs as %20, which doesn’t look good.

Here is how you can update the WordPress website’s permalink structure.

Go to Settings > Permalink. Select the option for Post name and change the structure.

Warning: Be very careful when changing the permalinks of the existing pages because you will lose all your social links, which is terrible for the existing SEO rankings

WWW vs. Non-WWW

Another URL related choice is between www (http://www.example.com) and non-www (http://example.com). Remember that search engines consider both addresses to be separate websites. However, there is no negative website related consequences for opting for either URL structure.

To set your choice, go to Settings > General add your preferred URL structure for both WordPress Address and Site Address.

Meta Title Tags

Many people overlook the all-important meta tags for both the pages and post on the website. These tags are essential for high SERP rankings because these tags are the only introduction to the content of the page in search engine results. The following two images highlight the position of meta title and meta description tags in search engine results listing. The first image shows the meta title while the second tag shows meta description:

Meta title gives a short heading for the page while the meta description gives a short description of the content of the page. Both these tags are included in the section of the HTML of the page/post. Always make sure that you have a relevant meta title and meta description of every page and post published on your website.

Meta Title Best Practices

Your meta title should include both, primary and secondary keywords
Keep your title limited to 55 characters or less
Use a dash between your keywords

Meta Description Best Practices

Your meta description should be enticing.
Limit your meta description to 150 – 160 characters
Do not use special characters. They don’t show in the description.

Keyword Phrases

Keyword phrases are targeted and focused long-tail keywords that people enter as search engine queries. A good SEO practice is to make a list of keyword phrases that you will target in your post. There must be at least one focus keyword phrase and 2-3 supporting keywords phrases that are related to the focus keyword phrase.

Make use of your keywords in the title of your page. You can also use variations of your keywords along with synonyms as well. A smart approach would be to use keywords in the url and the meta description too. Using them in anchor texts that link back to the web page is an effective practice.

Warning: always observe the standards for using keyword phrases in your content. Excessive use will flag the article as an attempt to rank in SERP and search engines might penalize your website for such content.

Image Names and Alt Text

Google has placed high importance on image names and alt text. In one of their articles, Google mentioned “Create great alt text”, which proves how highly it is rated. Through alt text, Google not only determines what is in the image but also determines the text that is surrounding the image.

All images used on your website must have proper names that tell both the people and search engines about the image’s content. Similarly, always make sure that the Alt Text field for the images is properly filled with a description of the image. This field is used when the browser is not able to render the image properly. To boost SEO rankings, make sure that you have included the focus keyword phrase in the Alt Text field.

Website Internal Linking

Internal linking is highly recommended by SEO guide because it’s a popular SEO practice that links the various content pieces published on your website. In this process, you must include anchor text that could be linked to other blogs and/or pages on your website. This is a major component of the On-Page SEO of the website.

Interlinking ensures that the visitor stays longer on the website and reads more than one content pieces, resulting in an increase in page view time and a decrease in the bounce rate of the website.

When interlinking, select a good phrase or a keyword to create a hyperlink rather than “Click here”. Also, make sure your links open in new tabs as this affects user-experience. Your links will be more effective if they are deep. Links that are deep within the structure of the site work best.

Page Load Speed

Google has specifically mentioned that site speed is one of the factors it includes in its algorithm to rank websites. Research also shows that Google might be measuring the site speed to first byte when it considers page speed. A slow website also means that Google will be able to crawl fewer pages and this could have adverse effects on your indexing.

If your website does not load within 2-3 seconds, the visitor will move away (in many cases, for good!). Page load speed is a key factor in WordPress SEO enhancements.

You can increase your page load speed with following techniques:

Choose reliable and fast hosting service providers
Use web-optimized graphical content on the homepage and posts
Optimize pages be resizing them
Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Use the minimum number of widgets and plugins, particularly on the homepage

Do-Follow and No-Follow Links

Do-Follow links allow Google and other search engines to follow them and reach your website. In contrast, NoFollow links do not allow search engines bots to follow a link. Also see ethereum calculator.

That was a pretty simple description wasn’t it? Do-Follow links allow Google crawlers to crawl your web pages. They also give you more exposure and your content is more likely to be discovered by the users. Do-Follow links also have lasting SEO benefits as they can help you deal with Panda and Penguin updates.

DoFollow link:

Google

NoFollow link:

Google

Remember that while search engines are not able to use a No-Follow link, people could easily click them to go to the target web page.

Conclusion

WordPress is one of the best options launching a successful website. I hope that by following the above suggestions, you have optimized your website for better SERP rankings. Remember that it takes some time for the results to be visible in Google. In the third part of this series, I will be focusing on best WordPress SEO plugins. If you have a problem or would like to contribute to the discussion, do leave a comment below.

The post Beginner’s Guide to WordPress SEO – WordPress SEO Basics appeared first on WPblog.

Top Rated Code Editors For WordPress Developers in 2020

Moeez — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 00:00:51 +0000

Over the years, writing code has become an art in itself. Today, developers have access to a large number of programming languages that range from very basic Assembly to Ruby and Python. Despite the numerous choices in programming languages for a given project, one thing remains constant – every developer requires a code editor to write the code!

A good code editor is more than just a simple text editing tool. It is the place where the magic happens and written code transforms into a viable component for a larger project. Given this importance, it is no wonder that developers are very picky about the code editor they work with. Every developer wants a code editor that is fast, easy to use and offers just the right balance of features.

Since every code editor out there claims to be the best and the only code editor you will ever need, I have done the hard work of compiling a list of top code editors for WordPress developers.

Vim

Vim is one of the most popular code editors among WordPress developers. It’s free and has a good reputation among Linux developers.The editor is open source and highly configurable. It gives cross platform compatibility like no other code editor. Also, it works in Dos.

Vim might not be very popular among new users as it has a learning curve. Here are some more features attached to Vim:

Integrated UI
Syntax highlighting for more than 200 languages

Light Table

Light Table is another free and open source code editor that you can find on Kickstarter with more than 300k in funding. The editor has a very clean interface and has tons of extensions. It is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux and is highly customizable.

With Light Table, users can see their changes as they are happening. All they have to do is open a browser window and they can see changes in real time. The editor is also very light weight and has support for different embeds.

Chocolat

Chocolat brands itself as the best code editor for Mac OS X for all the programming languages. The code editor aims to seamlessly integrate with OS. Chocolat offers drag and drops feature, split editing, code folding and code completion for JS, Python, and HTML.

Some other features are:

Project wide search and replace
Live error checking

Notepad++

Notepad++ has very good reasons for being the top choice for many WordPress developers. This lightweight code editor is open source and free to use. The best thing about the code editor is that it is ideal for both novice and expert

The list of supported languages includes everything that a WordPress developer needs in the course of developing a complex project. The long list of features of Notepad++ includes:

Syntax highlighting
FTP support
External plugins
Cross-platform compatibility
Code and Text folding
Compiler Integration

Sublime Text

If you are looking for a compact yet performance oriented code editor, I would recommend Sublime Text. A cross-platform code editor, Sublime Text looks beautiful on your screen, performs really well and scales well for all WordPress projects. To use the code editor, you have to pay a one-time fee of USD 70.

Sublime Text has a lot to offer you including:

Python scripting
Customizable interface
Instant file switching
Syntax and error detection
Multiline selection and editing
External plugin integration
Themes

Text Wrangler

Text Wrangler is perhaps the best code editor you could have for Mac OS. It supports 44 programming languages including JavaScript, Python, HTML, SQL. The best thing about Text Wrangler is that it is a freeware that offers an amazing set of features. Here’s the recommended article which is about top tips to hire a python programmer.

The code editor could easily handle large source code files and offers a wide range of features including:

Plugin and macro support
Secure FTP
SSH support
Syntax highlighting
Auto completion
Spell checker

Atom

When developers create an application for developers, the results often resemble Atom, the code editor created by the team behind GitHub. Atom is an open source code editor and incorporates a significant portion of user contributed code. This makes Atom a very robust code editor that integrates the wishlist of many WordPress developers.

Despite being a freeware, Atom offers several mission critical features including:

Built-in package manager
Customizable themes
Support for Command Palette
Integration with GitHub

Coda

Another code editor for Mac lovers, Coda is designed on and for Mac OS. It supports OS X 10.7.5 and later versions and is for developers who like speed and stability in their code editor. Coda is the outcome of a 2007 project for a simple text editor. Over years, Coda has managed to become a very viable option for developers who work on Mac. An important component is the Transmit Turbo Engine which boosts up uploads from a remote location. Coda is available for a free 7-day trial, with the full version available for USD 99.

Coda offers a whole range of powerful features including:

Built-in debugger
Native Terminal
Leopard GUI
Auto code completion
Support for large files

Text Mate

Text Mate is another popular code editor for Mac OS with a massive reputation in Ruby and RoR communities. However, the full list of supported languages include all major and minor programming languages. The basic version is available for free, while the full version is priced at USD 49.

Text Mate offers a variety of features including:

FTP support
Support for Xcode
Syntax highlighting
Supports Foldable Code Blocks
Column selection and typing
Auto completion

jEdit

jEdit claims to be a serious code editor for serious programmers! It is an open source project ( free to use) created in Java and supports all the programming languages that a WordPress developer uses regularly.

Along with supporting 100+ plugins and macros, jEdit is very at-home with regular expressions. Some exciting features include:

Compiler integration via a third-party plugin
FTP support with an integrated FTP browser
Spell checker

BBEdit

Also known as Bare Bone Edit, this code editor is available only on Mac OS. It is an award winning application which lets you search, manipulate or edit code with ease. The trail version is free to download with the full version costing USD 49.99.

BBEdit offers innovative features including:

Autocompletion
Splittable editable windows
Syntax highlighting

Araneae

Available only for Windows, this code editor is well known for its clean interface that really eases the task of code production. The best thing about Araneae is that it is free to use for all WordPress projects.

Araneae offers:

Direct support for popular programming languages including HTML, CSS, PHP, Rails, XHTML, etc.
Supports multiple instance for jEdit, etc.

UltraEdit

A product of IDM Computer Solutions, UltraEdit is a premium application designed for supporting code production in all major languages. In particular, it supports all trending languages including JavaScript, HTML, Perl, C/C++, and PHP. The cost of the code editor is USD 79.99 per year.

This code editor is packed with developer-favorite features such as:

Integration with SSH
Syntax Highlighting
Multi-selection of code
Editable Column and Block
FTP support

That’s a Wrap!

Many developers make the mistake of not trying out several code editors before settling on their favorite. I hope that you will try out some of the code editors for your next WordPress project. Please share your experiences with the above-mentioned code editors, and if I have left out your personal favorite, do mention it in the comments section below!

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WooCommerce 4.0 – Everything You Need to Know!

Moeez — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 06:58:21 +0000

WooCommerce 4.0 is here and there are some exciting updates that come with it. This is the first major WooCommerce release of 2020 so there is plenty to look forward to in this update. Let’s dive into all the amazing features of WooCommerce 4.0 without any further ado.

New Admin Interface

WooCommerce users will now be able to work on the new admin interface that is sleek and extremely mobile friendly. The admin interface is the first step towards a javascript driven experience of the WooCommerce core.

The dashboard includes new and improved reports with an all new notification experience. You will now be able to filter and compare data and will also be able to view an overview of your store’s performance to see how it is performing.

The new activity panel will improve order management and consistency between mobile and desktop experience.

Action Scheduler 3.1

The Action Scheduler is the background technology that is already in the WooCommerce core. The new version that comes with WooCommerce 4.0 utilizes custom tables that provide consistent experience even on larger stores.
Improved Onboarding Experience

Users will now be able to experience the all new onboarding experience which will help them get their shops up and running much faster.

More WooCommerce 4.0 Updates
Fixes for WooCommerce Blocks package
Updates related to Brexit and VAT
Enhancement to Order Edit screen
Optimization for payment gateways

Decided To Move To WooCommerce 4.0?

After reading about all these amazing WooCommerce 4.0 features, one can’t help but quickly shift to the new version. So if you have decided to move to WooCommerce 4.0, here are some things you need to be careful about:

WooCommerce 4.0 is not completely backward compatible with previous WooCommerce versions.
You would need to run a few post update database upgrade routines once you have moved to WooCommerce 4.0
It is recommended that on a large database you run the upgrade routine with WP CLI command wp wc update instead of through the admin interface.

To know more about WooCommerce 4.0, head over to the official announcement.

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8 Best WordPress Photo Gallery Plugins for 2020 (Compared)

Moeez — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 00:00:22 +0000

In the world of the internet filled with words, images stand out images and can, in fact, convey complex concepts in a simpler manner, which makes them far more valuable. Although WordPress has a built-in gallery to display images for your visitors, there is not much allure and functionality to it, and you’d be better off looking for a WordPress gallery plugin from other sources.

Fortunately for you, I took the liberty of sorting through hundreds of gallery plugins and bring to you only the ones that provide the best user experience and feedback.

Here’s what I look for in Gallery plugins:

What to look for in a WordPress Gallery Plugin

Before installing a plugin, don’t assume that the first result is the one to go with. There are some factors that you have to consider first, some of which are:

Features: Elements like navigation, lightboxes, animation, and pagination make the experience of gallery viewing more interesting.

Number of installs/rating: Before you hit that download button, it’s important to check out the number of installs and the average rating. Compare it with the others and see which plugin has a bigger adoption rate.

Compatibility: This is the most crucial! Always check if the plugin you are about to download is up to date and if it’s compatible with the latest version of the WordPress.

Speed: Like your site, your gallery should be quick in execution so as not to frustrate your users. You have to optimize each and every one of your images so that they can load quicker.

Ease of Use: We recommend trying out the free versions of the gallery plugins before you purchase them. Chances are that some of the features of a plugin may not be up to the mark, hence, you can make a better decision that way.

Let’s take a look at which plugin fulfill all these criteria, and you can pick one for your WordPress blog to further your quest to display awesome images for your visitors!

1. Envira Gallery

In just a short span of time, Envira Gallery has gained a lot of popularity in the WordPress community. The plugin enables you to create incredible photos as well as video galleries in under a span of few minutes.

In order to make sure your site is flexible, the plugin is powerfully light, which works great if you wish to display a number of high-quality images in your gallery. It’s also responsive, which means that the gallery can be displayed just as beautifully on a mobile device as it would on its desktop counterpart.

Here is Why Envira Gallery is a Great WordPress Gallery Plugin:

Lightweight plugin that doesn’t affect your site’ performance.
Highly responsive which means your images can be displayed on every device
Simplistic interface allows you to drag and drop images to your gallery
Import and export images with one click

Price:

Basic – $29
Plus – $69
Pro – $99
Agency – $299

2. NextGEN Gallery (Free)

It’s not every day that you find a WordPress plugin with over 16.5 million downloads like that of NextGEN Gallery. So it’s safe to say that not only is it one of the most popular plugins available, but also one of the most powerful.

The free option provides users with hundreds of options and plenty more when you upgrade to the Pro version. It goes without saying that NextGen Gallery is on the hit list of the world’s most revered photographers, imaging professionals, and visual artists.

Here is Why NextGEN Gallery is a Great WordPress Gallery Plugin:

4 built-in lightboxes
Slideshow galleries
Compact and extended albums
Import and export metadata
Control over size and style

3. FooGallery (Free)

From the same team that brought you the lightbox plugin FooBox, FooGallery is free and loaded with intuitive and extensible features. But even with those features, the plugin is light and easy to integrate. Hence, your site and gallery will be easy to load as a result.

Developers can make custom extensions with the hooks and filters that are available with FooGallery, which are then made available to FooGallery users. Given how it is modular and extendable, the core plugin remains extremely lightweight and that allows for great flexibility.

Here is Why FooGallery is a Great WordPress Gallery Plugin:

Lightweight plugin
Comes with Retina support for better image quality on Retina display devices
Easy to install and configure on your WordPress
6 Image gallery templates
Gutenberg ready

4. Gallery (Free)

Don’t let the generic name deceive you because Gallery packs a whole lot in its arsenal. With its vast array of intrinsic and customizable options, you can create a responsive gallery in a matter of minutes. It provides a ton of tools to add and edit images for different views.

You can also add your galleries and albums to various posts, pages, and widgets, as well as add detailed descriptions to images and organize your galleries into different tags and categories.

Here is Why Gallery is a Great WordPress Gallery Plugin:

Offers a gallery management system
Can batch upload images to your gallery
Group galleries into albums
Import metadata, add/delete/rearrange/sort photos,

5. Gmedia Gallery

If there ever was a better way for you to manage and display the photos on your site, Gmedia Gallery is the answer you seek. Its interface is quite robust but user-friendly, which gives you all the more tools to be just as precise with your image customizations as you want to be. Apart from this plugin if you want your WordPress website photos to be protected then here’s our recommended Photo Protect plugin “visual watermark” which is one of the best photo protection plugin for your WordPress website.

Apart from the fact that you can create an unlimited number of galleries to your liking, you can save your visitors the headache of being lost in the clutter by including specific categories and tags for each of your images.

Here is Why Gmedia Gallery is a Great WordPress Gallery Plugin:

Drag and drop builder to create a beautiful gallery in a few clicks
Integrate WordPress search to your library
Mobile friendly galleries
Support for audio and video files
Social sharing of images from the gallery

6. Photo Gallery by Supsystic

If it’s sleek and chic you’re looking for in your site’s gallery, Photo Gallery is the one to call. Get your images and portfolios organized in an orderly manner that is both strikingly idyllic and efficient.

There’s an unlimited number of options available for your convenience as well as a plethora of styles and designs that aims to give your galley meaning and pizzazz. Apart from that, the plugin lets you upload and publish images in bulks, thereby making image management less stressful.

Here is Why Photo Gallery by Supsystics a Great WordPress Gallery Plugin:

Fully customizable gallery styles
Built-in albums
Support for Lazy Loading
Gallery widget
Shortcodes in rich text editor

7. GalleryManager

Save yourself the hustle of managing your image galleries with galleryManager. The WordPress backend is where you will be doing all of the heavy liftings, so to speak, but in an uncomplicated manner. It syncs and optimizes your images on any digital device and makes them easily accessible as well.

It does not require any software to install, does not contain any device fees, has unlimited storage and backup, free upgrades and seamless web integration. It has its own dedicated encrypted servers, which completely masks your online activity to any unwanted third-party.

Here is Why GalleryManager a Great WordPress Gallery Plugin:

Every gallery has its own page with unique URL
Support for featured images as gallery thumbnails
Support for WordPress user permissions and capabilities
Support for multisite
Custom CSS for image galleries

8. WP Photo Album Plus

The plugin is not only an image gallery plugin, it is a customizable media management system. If you have a website where you want users to visit and rate your photos, then this is the plugin for you. With this plugin, your users will also be able to comment on your photos.

The setup is not that straightforward but once you are past the learning curve, you will find many customization capabilities that no other image gallery plugin has.

Here is Why WP Photo Album Plus a Great WordPress Gallery Plugin:

Bulk import images to your gallery
Configure email notifications
Search function for image search
Customizable rating system

Get Cracking on Your Gallery Plugins

Now that all has been said and done, the final decision on which gallery plugin best fits your site’s needs depends on you. Remember, you don’t necessarily have to take our word for it; you only need to trust your guts and determine what will make your site look the most appealing.

The post 8 Best WordPress Photo Gallery Plugins for 2020 (Compared) appeared first on WPblog.

6 Best WordPress Firewall Plugins for 2020 (Compared)

Moeez — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Our websites are more vulnerable to hackers and brute force attacks than they have ever been. Fortunately for WordPress users, they can protect their WordPress sites by using WordPress Firewall plugins that creates an added layer of security to keep out the bad guys.

However, looking for one isn’t going to be a breeze as there are so many of them, available for free, in the WordPress plugin directory. That’s where I swoon right in and pull out some of the best WordPress firewall plugins that are not only high in quality, but also in demand.

Understanding WordPress Firewall Plugins

Before we begin, you need to know that there are two types of firewall plugins available for WordPress;

1. DNS Level Website Firewall

DNS level website firewall filters your site traffic through their cloud proxy servers. This means that site traffic is checked before it reaches your website sending only genuine users.

2. Application Level Firewall

Application level firewall checks your site traffic after it reaches your website. This means the visitors are not filtered out and bots and malware can still travel to your website before being detected.

I would suggest you go for the DNS Level Website Firewall as it is more effective in recognizing genuine website traffic against bad requests. This is done by tracking thousands of websites, comparing trends, searching for botnets, bad IPs, and blocking on pages users don’t want to see.

Another advantage of DNS level WordPress firewall plugins is that it shrinks the loading time of your WordPress site, typically ensuring that your website does not go down.

So without further ado, here are the most optimal WordPress firewall plugins you should be getting your hands on:

6 Best WordPress Firewall Plugins

1. All In One WP Security & Firewall

Hotlinking and blocks fake Google Bots from crawling to your site. All in One WP Security & Firewall is one of the best WordPress firewall plugins that has earned the love and trust of every WordPress user because of its simple user interface and the fact that it is easy to use, robust, stable and highly supported.

Features That Makes All In One WP Security & Firewall a Great WordPress Plugin:

Password Strength: This helps users create even stronger passwords that make it hard for hackers and other third-parties to decipher.
Login Lockdown: You can protect yourself against users with certain IP addresses and ranges based on the configuration settings that you choose. It is ideal for protection against brute force attacks.
Stop User Enumeration: It is so that users or bots cannot discover user info via author permalink.
Monitor Suspicious Activity: You have the ability to monitor failed login attempts, block out users at will or even simply see which users are logged in to your website.
Firewall: All malicious scripts will be blocked out before they can affect your WordPress site’s code. It also prohibits image.

2. Sucuri

Sucuri is another highly revered name that needs no introduction when it comes to the best WordPress security plugins. One of its main winning aspects is the fact that it is free to every WordPress user. It is mostly renowned for the seven following features.

Features That Makes Sucuri a Great WordPress Firewall Plugin:

Security Activity Audit Logging: This feature monitors all security-related events on your WP site. It is quite strict as any changes to the application counts as a security event.
File Integrity Monitoring: When you compare a known good with the current state of your site and find that there’s a difference, you will know that there is a problem. The known good will be created upon the completion of the plugin’s installation.
Remote Malware Scanning: This feature does as the names suggest, which is to monitor and scan for any malware. It is also powered by free security scanner – SiteCheck, which makes it all the more convenient.
Blacklist Monitoring: Being blacklisted can be a bummer and that’s why this feature makes use of several security blacklist engines such as Sucuri Labs, Google Safe Browsing, Phish Tank, AVG and Norton among others. Upon scanning, you will be notified if you have been wrongly flagged and with the Website AntiVirus product, you can get off their list.
Effective Security Hardening: Security hardening can be a tiring and massive feat. But Sucuri does all that in haste without and only adds those hardening configurations that best facilitate your site.
Post-Hack Security Actions: Regardless of how good your security may be, you are bound to get hacked eventually. It is for this reason that you should capitalize on the post-hack security actions that Sucuri comes with.
Security Notifications: What good is having any of these features if you aren’t notified of them? And that is where the plugin’s inbuilt security notifications come into play.

3. iThemes Security

When I talked about sharing the best WordPress firewall plugins with you, I really meant it and iThemes Security is one of them. What was once known as Better WP Security is now a treasured name that stands on top of several other firewall plugins there are on WordPress.

Features That Makes iThemes Security a Great WordPress Firewall Plugin:

WordPress Brute Force Protection: The plugin locks out users after a certain number of login attempts. The brute force protection feature lets you set a limit to the number of logins a user can attempt.
404 Detection: iThemes security locks out bots that scan your website by identifying the number of 404 it is generating. You can set a limit to 404s and once that limit is crossed, the user will be blocked.
Database Backups: You can schedule backups of your WordPress site and have them emailed to you as well.
Strong Password Enforcement: The plugin allows you to set which level of users needs to have a strong password.
Fille Change Detection: Hackers usually change files upon entering your site. iThemes will detect such file changes and will send email alerts notifying you of the change.

4. Cloudflare

Next on my list is a name that you had best get acquainted with as soon as possible if you haven’t already. Cloudfare speeds up and protects thousands of sites, SaaS services, APIs as well as other things that are connected to the internet. It is largely known for its free CDN service which includes basic DDoS protection.

Features That Makes Cloudflare a Great WordPress Firewall Plugin:

Layered Security Defence: Cloudflare combines several DDoS prevention technologies to ensure that only the good traffic reaches your website.
Threat Intelligence: Cloudflair’s DDoS protection is backed by intelligence from millions of websites which enables a vintage point to protect your site from the most complex of attacks.
Machine Learning to Prevent Bots: Cloudflair continuously trains its technology so that it can identify bots more effectively.
Mobile App and API Protection: Clouflair also protects your mobile applications from emulation attacks without using mobile SDKs.
Automatic Whitelist: Smartly identifies good bots like search engine crawlers to land on your website while preventing malicious ones.

5. Jetpack

Being part of the Automattic family, Jetpack is quite the familiar plugin in the WordPress community. It is perhaps best known for its incredibly large assortment of functionalities that help it stand out from the rest.

Features That Makes Jetpack a Great WordPress Firewall Plugin:

Secure Authentication: Jetpack makes sure that anyone accessing your website is protected by WordPress.com’s secure logins.
Security Scanning: The plugin scans your website thoroughly to detect any malicious code changes. Once it does, it sends you a notification.
Downtime Monitoring: Jetpack also sends swift notifications to let you know about any downtime that may occur. Once your site is up, you will then be notified how long it was down for.
Brute Force Attack Protection: The plugin also has a vast library to identify all the known malicious attackers that are trying to gain access to your site.
Security Library: It has a library of all the security threats that it has even detected on thousands of different websites.

6. Wordfence Security

Wordfence is one of my all-in-one security solutions that I have had the pleasure of saving for last. The plugin has been downloaded over 22 million times and has an average rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars. It is powered by the regularly upgraded Threat Defense Feed, Wordfence’s Web Application Firewall will guard you against any attack.

Features That Makes Wordfence Security a Great WordPress Firewall Plugin:

Live Traffic Monitoring: Scans live traffic on your website to detect spam or malicious users.
Repair Files: The source code verification method helps you recover from a hacking attempt. It lets you know all the files that were altered so that you can get them back to their original state.
Two Factor Authentication: One of the most effective methods to stop brute force attacks is two factor authentication and Wordfence uses it diligently.
Country Blocking: Wordfence also identifies the countries that are engaging in malicious activities and blocks them for your protection.
Manual Blocking: The plugin also gives you control over who to block from entering your website. It can be a particular user or an entire group of users.

Wrapping it up!

Well that about closes the book on all the well-rounded WordPress firewall plugins that you need to know about to safeguard your WordPress site and everything else with an internet connection. If you feel as if I have missed out on a couple of plugins in this list, hit me up in the comment section below and I’ll get back to you soon.

The post 6 Best WordPress Firewall Plugins for 2020 (Compared) appeared first on WPblog.

9 Best WordPress Survey And Poll Plugins for 2020 (Compared)

Moeez — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 00:00:53 +0000

Regardless of the business you’re running, it’s always helpful to know what your visitors are thinking about your products and services.

But unless you’re a mind reader, the only way to do that is to…ask them what they think!

And if you’re using WordPress for your business website, the easiest way to engage with your audience is using a WordPress survey plugin.

These WordPress survey plugins allow you to proactively reach out to your visitors, ask them questions, and analyze the results. And depending on your budget, they can even help you in lead generation, smart survey branching, and more.

In this post, I’ll look at seven different best WordPress survey and poll plugins so that you can find the option that best fits your needs and budget!

1. Gravity Forms With The Polls Add-on

Gravity Forms is a massively popular and extensible WordPress forms plugin. Because surveys are, at their essence, just a focused application of forms, Gravity Forms is well suited to help you create surveys on your WordPress site.

With Gravity Forms, you can build your surveys using a drag and drop form editor which includes a variety of different field-types depending on your needs including; Free-form text boxes, Radio boxes, Checkboxes,and Drop-downs.

Here are The Features That Makes Gravity Forms a Great WordPress Survey Plugin:

Conditional logic that changes the next question based on the previous response.
Dedicated polls add-on
Limit the number of responses per visitor to ensure the integrity of the poll
Display survey results publicly (if desired)
Close the survey on a certain date or after a certain number of responses

Finally, Gravity Forms includes a plethora of other add-ons that let you connect your survey data into a variety of external services which can be helpful if you, say, want to add survey-takers to your mailing list.

Price: $259

2. Responsive Poll

Responsive Poll is a premium WordPress survey plugin that’s significantly more affordable than Gravity Forms. Built on Twitter Bootstrap 3, Responsive Poll lets you quickly get up and running with surveys and then beautifully visualize the data using charts powered by Chart.js.

To create a new poll, all you do is enter your question and allow responses. Then, configure some nitty-gritty details (such as styling and whether to only allow a single vote per user). Once the data starts rolling in, you’ll be able to visualize it using the built-in charts.

Here are The Features That Makes Responsive Poll a Great WordPress Survey Plugin:

7 animated chart types for displaying voting results
Allows for multiple polls on a single page
Fully customisable
Responsive
Built using Twitter Bootstrap 3
Uses Charts.js

Price: $16

Responsive Poll is a good option for budget-conscious users who just need to create simple single-question polls or surveys. Don’t expect tons of flexibility, but if you just need to create a poll or survey with a single question, it’s got everything you need.

3. GetSiteControl

GetSiteControl is a multi-purpose set of widgets that you can easily add to your WordPress site via a dedicated plugin.

One of those widgets? The Survey widget.

With this widget, you can create eye-catching surveys or polls that appear in a variety of areas on your site. In total, you get 9 different positions to choose from, ranging from modal popups to notification bars, slide-ins, and more. You can either create a poll with a single question or let your readers advance through multiple questions.

Here are The Features That Makes GetSiteControl a Great WordPress Survey Plugin:

Detailed targeting and triggering options that lets you control who sees your survey and when
Easily connects with external applications like Mailchimp
You could choose to survey only visitors who land on your homepage and are using a smartphone
Complete with skip logic and branching

GetSiteControl is great for webmasters who want to display flexible surveys in creative positions, rather than as a static in-content form. Because GetSiteControl has both free and paid plans (starting at $19 per month), it’s right for websites of all budgets.

Price: Small $9, Medium $19, Large $29

4. Poll, Survey, Quiz, Slideshow & Form Builder (Opinion Stage)

The Poll, Survey, Quiz, Slideshow & Form Builder plugin is really just a way to easily integrate your WordPress site with Opinion Stage.

So what’s the Opinion Stage?

It’s a platform that helps you create interactive content like…you guessed it, polls and surveys.

Because Opinion Stage is a separate service, you’ll do most of your work at Opinion Stage’s website, rather than inside your WordPress dashboard. That’s nice because the Opinion Stage survey creator is easier to use than many of the plugins that try to stay inside your WordPress dashboard.

Here are The Features That Makes it a Great WordPress Survey Plugin:

Skip logic/branching
Display a call-to-action on the last page of survey
Lead generation forms
More detailed reports
Integrations with popular email marketing and CRM tools

With Opinion Stage you have a good deal of control over your questions. You can choose from different question formats, as well as toggle on or off the option for users to add their own answers. Once you post your survey publicly, you’ll be able to view basic reports inside your Opinion Stage account.

Price: Basic – Free, Starter – $19/mo, Small Business – $65/mo, Performance – $199/mo.

5. Everest Forms

Everest Forms is one of the best WordPress survey plugins that makes it extremely easy to make forms on a WordPress site. The plugin lets you create forms through drag and drop functionality which means even beginners who don’t know any code can create forms easily.

Once you have created the form, you can easily include it on your web pages using a simple shortcode. Further, you can combine Everest Forms with its premium addons which will enable you to create a number of different forms including payment forms, application forms and more.

Here are The Features That Makes Everest Forms a Great WordPress Survey Plugin:

Create unlimited forms
Completely mobile responsive
Recaptcha to stop spam and bots
Two different design templates for your forms

Everest Forms is a feature pack WordPress survey plugin that provides a great platform for beginners to create beautiful forms that integrate seamlessly with their website design. You can use the free version of this plugin but to integrate surveys you need to buy a premium plan.

Price: Personal – $49, Plus – $99, Professional – $129, Agency – $199.

6. WP-Polls

Unlike Everest Forms, WP-Polls is a free WordPress survey plugin that lets users customize their forms using different templates, and CSS styles. You can choose to create your own form from scratch or you can choose one of the many pre-made templates. Either way, you are in control of your survey.

Also, you have the option to display your survey form as a widget on your website rather than creating a separate page. WP-Polls is one of the most feature pack WordPress survey plugins which is free yet extremely professional.

Here are The Features That Makes WP-Polls a Great WordPress Survey Plugin:

Customizable
A host of different form templates
User friendly interface
Easy to install and configure
Can display form as a widget

We strongly suggest you go for WP-Polls if you are tight on your budget as it offers a host of features and is completely free.

7. eForm Builder

eForm Builder is one of the most complete WordPress survey solutions around. You can design almost any kind of form using this plugin including quizzes, surveys, data collection, payment / cost estimation and user feedback. The plugin also comes with expert support that guides you through the process of configuring and setting up your WordPress survey form.

This WordPress survey plugin also integrates with several third party solutions including MailChimp, reCaptcha, Zapier, MailPoet and more.

Also Read: Best WordPress Quiz Plugins for 2020

Here are The Features That Makes eForm Builder a Great WordPress Survey Plugin:

Detailed reporting and statistics
Adventure workflows for survey
Built on top of honeypot and tamper protection which makes auto submission impossible.
Social sharing feature to let users share surveys and forms.

eForm builder is an advanced WordPress survey plugin that not only collects data but also presents it visually through graphs and pie charts.

Price: $39

8. YOP POLL

YOP is a free WordPress survey and poll plugin with more than 20,000 active installs. The plugins is a great solution if you want to integrate your forms to your web pages directly from your WordPress dashboard.

This WordPress survey plugins also lets you schedule your polls which means your poll will start and finish at a set time automatically. Also, you can multiple polls simultaneously or you can schedule polls to start as soon the first one finishes.

Here are The Features That Makes YOP POLL a Great WordPress Survey Plugin:

Edit or clone your poll at any time
Poll scheduling automatically starts and finishes a poll at a given time
Display multiple polls at a given time
Allows users to submit multiple answers for a single question

YOP is a great solution if you want to run quick surveys and polls on your website without incurring any extra costs.

9. Modal Survey

Another great addition in this list of best WordPress survey plugins is Modal Survey. It is the number 1 WordPress survey plugin on Codecanyon which means you will get nothing but a fully functioning tool that will let you create amazing survey forms for your website.

The plugin displays data through great visuals using graphs and charts so that you can understand it easily and make the right decisions. It’s user friendly interface also makes it a great prospect for beginners.

Here are The Features That Makes Modal Survey a Great WordPress Survey Plugin:

Embed your survey poll to your content or display in modal style
A number of different poll styles to choose from
Allows you to build trivia forms as well for fun quizzes
Build quiz with timer
Visual Builder to design your surveys

Which Of These WordPress Survey Plugins Is Right For You?

To help you make your decision, we’ll lay out a few different scenarios and recommend a plugin for each.

If you just want to create single-question polls that sit inside your normal content, Responsive Poll and Poller Master are two affordable options to get that job done.

On the other hand, if you’d rather create all types of surveys that are outside your normal content (like a slide in, popup, notification bar, etc.), then GetSiteControl gives you a great interface that allows for both single and multiple question surveys.

If you’re a developer (or have access to one!), then Gravity Forms gives you all the tools you need to create surveys and unlocks the flexible, and extensible Gravity Forms ecosystem. It’s just a bit pricey at $259.

And finally, if you want the easiest way of creating engaging in-content surveys with advanced functionality, Opinion Stage is a good option. Just remember that you’ll need a big budget if you want to remove the branding/ads and get access to the best features.

Now get out there and find out what your visitors are thinking!

The post 9 Best WordPress Survey And Poll Plugins for 2020 (Compared) appeared first on WPblog.

Marketing Automation Platforms: 25+ Best Marketing Automation Tools

Moeez — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 00:00:43 +0000

The time and efforts that a single marketing campaign takes to produce the desired results cannot be understated. A single marketing campaign goes through a rigorous planning and execution phase that requires a lot of time and efforts. Apart from that, monitoring and scheduling, those campaigns can also cause fatigue for marketers.

To tackle these issues, marketers often look for solutions to lighten their workload so that they can focus on more important things like strategy and planning. Marketing automation tools do just that.

Marketers are now using automation tools to improve their work efficiency which leads to better planning and execution. According to Salesforces’s report, 67% of Marketing Leaders currently use a Marketing Automation Platform and a further 21% plan to do so in 2019.

Fact check: The business for online marketing automation tools is on the rise, amounting to US$ 5.5 billions in revenue.

Table of Content

What is Marketing Automation?
Why Use Marketing Automation Tools?
How to Use Marketing Automation Tools?
Marketing Automation Tools for SaaS

1. Databox
2. Atomic Reach
3. Lucky Orange
4. Seventh Sense
5. SEMRUSH

Marketing Automation Tools for Ecommerce

6. Dotmailer
7. Oracle Bronto
8. ActiveCampaign
9. Hubspot
10. SharpSpring
11. Exponea

Marketing Automation Tools for Startups

12. Google Tools
13. Marketo
14. HootSuite

Marketing Automation Tools for WordPress

15. SendinBlue
16. Pardot
17. Jumplead
18. WP Fusion Lite
19. AcyMailing

Marketing Automation Tools for Small Businesses

20. Mautic
21. Infusionsoft
22. Sprout Social
23. Content Studio
24. Hatchbuck
25. SendPulse
26. Easysendy

Expert Opinions
Final Words

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation helps automate marketing procedures which includes segmenting customers, customer data integration and campaign management. Marketing automation tools can target customers with automated messages, emails, web, social media, etc. Marketer and sales departments use marketing automation tools to enable online marketing campaigns and sales activities to increase revenue and maximize efficiency. It effectively reduces repetitive tasks, whereas, employees get time to tackle more important problems and therefore the employee internal communication is better and more productive.

Benefits of Marketing Automation

Marketing automation adds value to your business. It provides benefits to small businesses to stay competitive. Apart from that, it also helps corporate organizations to maintain and manage the demands of their customers easily.

Let me share some core benefits of marketing automation:

Time-Saving: Time scheduling is one of the most difficult tasks to cope with. By leveraging marketing automation tools, you can easily schedule your campaigns and be up-to-date.
Increase Productivity: By using marketing automation tools, you can increase productivity levels by eliminating time spent on nurturing unqualified leads. It helps you improve customer retention, manage multiple clients, and automate an entire funnel.
Multi-channel campaign management: You can track the status of all your social marketing campaigns through one marketing automation tool.
Improved ROI: By using marketing automation tools, it will help you specify your customers and spend your money wisely. Not only this, but it will also help improve your performance of marketing strategies and increases the conversion rate from leads to sales. Beside this, it also helps in removing non-potential leads and strengthen your funnel. That’s how marketing automation improves your ROI.

Why Use Marketing Automation Tools?

Marketing automation tools collect and use data to send personalized messages to your contacts at various times based on their actions.

It helps to improve and strengthen Customer Relationship Management CRM.

You can check the best CRM WordPress Plugins to stay connected with your customers and cater to their individual needs.

Companies that use marketing automation tools tend to get more traffic on the web and increase the number of loyal buyers. By using marketing automation tools you can build a personalized and one-to-one connection.

Marketing automation platforms help you to generate care for your loyal customers by auto follow-up, offering for promotions, etc. According to VentureBeat Analyst Andrew Jones, 80% of those using marketing automation saw increased leads, and 77% saw increased conversions.

According to Gartner research by 2020, companies will manage 85% of customer relationship without any physical appearance.

These statistics make us realize the importance of marketing automation platforms for your business.

How To Use Marketing Automation Tools?

Marketing automation tools can contribute towards your success if you make full use of it. In order to gain real benefits, do remember these few tips. Such as, stop repetitive tasks you might be ‘sending the same emails to different users’. Or trying to ‘manually follow up with your best leads’.

By using marketing automation tools, you can overcome these issues and that’s how you make full use of it. Besides, make sure to pick up on relevant marketing automation tools which are known to satisfy your ambitions.

Here, I will explain Top Five businesses for which you can use Top Five marketing automation tools:

Marketing Automation Tools for SaaS

If you are a software service provider like Office 365, Google Apps, Salesforce, Citrix GoToMeeting, Cisco WebEx or Netflix. I highly recommend you to, do have a look at these interesting SaaS marketing automation platforms.

1. Databox

Databox is a SaaS marketing automation tool which allows you to connect virtually all your data sources with an attractively designed dashboard system and track your company’s performance in an easy-to-read format.

By creating unique and custom dashboards, you have the capacity to monitor your performance.

Databox can connect with Google Adwords, Facebook, Salesforce, Shopify, HubSpot, Wistia, Zapier, and more than 50 other platforms. And the best part? The free platform version does almost everything you’d need to lead the way with reporting dashboards, so there’s really no reason NOT to try it.

2. Atomic Reach

Atomic Reach is useful when you have to recognize which particular content is useful for your specific audience. This marketing automation tool uses Artificial Intelligence which authenticates to provide accurate results-driven data which helps develop a content marketing strategy.

Also Read: Best WordPress Plugins for Content Marketers

The advantage of this marketing automation tool is that it starts with an analysis of how all your current content performs which you have already published.

This will help you to recognize the readability level of your content and tells you what is performing best, and what specific things you should focus on to address in the future.

By using these tactics, your content gets an Atomic score and besides this, you also get tips so, you can improve on that score.

3. Lucky Orange

Lucky Orange is a great marketing automation tool which tells the consumption rate of your content, and how many visitors are viewing your content.

It explores the click heatmap software which enables you to check the most trending areas that people are clicking on along with frequency.

This marketing automation tool is helpful for conversion rate optimization.

4. Seventh Sense

Seventh Sense gives you relief from email reminders, it facilitates you to send emails at the perfect times based on the contact’s needs. It empowers your sale and marketing department to share the data when the customer engages with your organization. Besides, it also enables you to pause campaigns, make changes and distribute the load on your systems, call centers and salespeople.It makes customers happier, minimizing sales cycles and maximize conversion rates.

5. SEMRUSH

SEMRush is really useful for any SEO professional such as it provides ideas to get more organic traffic, backlinks audit, position tracking and many more.

It has improved its social media toolkit which helps to build effective social media strategy.

Also Read: Best WordPress Social Media Plugins

SEMRush marketing automation tool allows you to get a full report on what your content is ranking for, the terms you should rank for. Beside this, you can check errors and issues which need to be fixed and many more.

Best Marketing Automation Tools for Ecommerce

Do you own an ecommerce business and wish to promote your products to a specific audience? Have a look at these great marketing automation tools that will help to enhance the performance of your business.

6. Dotmailer

Dotmailer is one of the best tools which assists you to take your business on to the next caliber. It functions as your marketing backbone, whether you need to handle data, implement effective campaigns, or manage marketing operations.

Dotmailer marketing automation system keeps on adding new features while improving its existing functionalities. That means you will be growing faster along with powerful and scalable capabilities.

Apart from that, it is useful for email marketing professionals with an easy to use interface.

7. Oracle Bronto

Oracle Bronto marketing automation tool focuses on the high growth ecommerce retailers all around the globe. It provides integration to all commerce platforms.

Bronto marketing automation tool provides the capacity to deliver responsive social and mobile media campaigns. It includes an array of powerful apps beyond core functionality.

This platform provides Drag and Drop Automation, Post Purchase Campaigns, VIP and Loyalty Programs, Precise Segmentation. It also provides a great user experience.

8. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCamapign makes pricing more attractive, It mostly focuses on the acquisition rather than conversion. So, the marketers who are looking to get opportunities on the landing page will be disappointed. But, it has the most fascinating feature that, renders self-learning equipment which is really attractive for self-learner.

ActiveCampaign is highly effective for email marketing, Site and Event Tracking, Contact and Lead Scoring, well as SMS Messaging.

9. Hubspot

Hubspot is one of the most recognized tools among marketing automation tools. It offers full stack sales, marketing and CRM technology which is really helpful for business growth. It also provides integrated online and social media marketing activities. Besides, it provides email, SEO, contact, and analytics.

This marketing automation platform is best for the powerful marketer, to learn about Call To Action, Progressive Profiling, A/B Testing Landing pages, Segmentation, SEO Professional Recommendations, Blog Analytics, Integrated Social Publishing.

10. SharpSpring

SharpSpring is an easy-to-use tool which highly emphasized on behavior-based email, blog building, dynamic landing pages and social media. By focusing on these areas, it converts leads into sales. Besides, Behavioral Based Email Automation, Dynamic Forms, Lead Scoring, Dynamic Web Content, Daily Visitor Email ID etc are major features.

This tool is valuable for smaller retailers who need powerful analytics and highly customizable content.

11. Exponea

Exponea is enterprise-grade Customer Data Platform & Experience Cloud that combines customer data analytics with omni-channel campaign execution while cracking the unified Single Customer View. Through this, digital marketers are able to understand their customers and immediately turn insights into actionable campaigns, ensuring improved customer experience and increasing customer retention.

With cutting edge technology, Exponea empowers you to deliver personalized experiences to your customers at scale through deeply embedded AI-powered capabilities.

What can you do with Exponea?

Track your customers’ behavior, be it online or through backend integrations and imports.
Do advanced analytics and segmentation of the tracked data.
Automatize communication with your customers through email, SMS, web layers or notifications.
Personalize your communication based on advanced custom conditions.
Manage comprehensive emails, do AB testing enhanced by AI and more.
Marketing Automation Tools for Startup

Best Marketing Automation Tools for Startups

Running a startup isn’t easy. Young entrepreneurs put in a huge amount of time and effort to launch a startup successfully. If you’re one of those startup owners, you need to automate some of your activities to smoothen your workflow.

12. Google Tools

Google tools will be one of the most phenomenal marketing automation tools for your startup. Tools which Google embraces of Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and Google Keyword Planner.

At the early stages, you want the data of your visitors to pursue your buyer’s persona. In order to acquire that, use Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. Both of them are fit to use. To administer your PPC campaigns, keyword research and track your traffic, Google Adwords Keyword Planner will be a vital choice for you.

13. Marketo

Marketo mainly helps to build marketing strategies from scratch and allows to integrate with all the channels such as websites, social media, and email campaigns. Marketo is slightly costly as compared to other marketing automation systems, but, it does not compromise on quality.

14. HootSuite

HootSuite marketing automation platform is really useful for interaction on social media. It helps you to manage all your social media platforms within one program.

It provides assistance in posting updates, better connection with contacts and review responses.

The pricing is moderate and it is also good for personal use.

Snovio

Snovio automates your email outreach from finding leads to building email campaigns.

The tool is designed to reduce the time it takes to find and collect potential customers and candidates. Search only the people you need, and send your idea right into their inbox!

Features of Snovio:

– Email finder

Conduct email search along with names and job openings from different domains. Use them to search for contacts and connect through domain search, company profiles and many more.

– Email verifier

Valid email address is a service that can clean your email list from old or non-existent emails. Email validator addresses on-the-go individually through an extension or app.

– Sending letters with drip campaigns

Use the send email function to send messages to the list of prospects that you receive with your domain for free

– Technology check

Find the sites on the stack of technologies that they use, or check which technology is used on specific sites. Check that CMS, marketing, web-based frameworks, software, analytics and e-commerce tools are used by businesses. This function is absolutely free.

Best Marketing Automation Tools for WordPress

You will be seeing a lot of WP marketing automation tools, but you don’t know which one to use. Let me share a few of them that will help you in automating your marketing strategies and planning.

15. SendinBlue

By using SendinBlue, you can avail a plugin for email marketing, which assists you to create custom subscription forms. You can integrate it into your posts, pages or even sidebars.

It assists you to manage your contact lists and also helps in to improve your campaign performance.

By using SendinBlue marketing automation platform, you can create and send a rich newsletter with an easy-to-use drag and drop interface.

The wp_mail() function enables SMTP deliverability and tracking. A real-time dashboard helps you to track the open rate, clicks and bounce rate report.

16. Pardot

With a single login, you will connect with the Pardot marketing automation platform. While, on any selection of your campaign, you can track your visitors, work with forms and dynamic content without disturbing a single line of code. You can use the widget which will help you to place a form or dynamic content anywhere.

17. Jumplead

Jumplead marketing automation platform helps you to identify and connect with your visitors, who are active on your website, helping to send a notification to the sales team at the instant.

It helps you to convert your visitors to leads while capturing the profile through web forms, and then creates, manages and secure those profile automatically. Besides, the contact’s profiles are kept on updating.

18. WP Fusion Lite

WP Fusion Lite enables you to connect with leading Customer Relationship Management Systems and marketing automation tools. It automatically creates new contacts in your CRM whenever the new users added in WordPress. It configures synchronization and updates contact in your CRM.

19. AcyMailing

AcyMailing has created email marketing so easy! By using Acymailing, you can maintain real communication with your contacts via newsletters and follow-up autoresponders etc.

You can also test the content of your newsletter so you won’t be considered as SPAMMER. There is no restriction for sending email campaigns and manage as many as you want.

Best Marketing Automation Tools For Small Businesses

Every successful business starts with a team of dedicated people. Here are some useful and best marketing automation tools for small business owners out there.

20. Mautic

Mautic is well known for a small business marketing automation platform all around the globe. Mautic is offering an open source marketing automation tool which is also good for startups with a tight budget. Mautic marketing automation platform is a combination of quality features at no cost. This platform provides a customizing option along with unlimited integrations.

21. Infusionsoft

Infusionsoft is one of the most popular marketing automation platforms which is specifically designed for small businesses. Infusionsoft offers most of the features as big-scale marketers such as CRM, automating lead capture and follow-up, personalization based on information tracking, sales automation, and online sales.

Sprout Social is a really useful and popular marketing automation platform which is providing great features and benefits to the social media campaigns.

It also includes unlimited customer reports, advanced scheduling, and team collaboration tools. As customers appreciate easy to use dashboard, therefore, Sprout Social has introduced “Smart Inbox” which shows the status of entire social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+ profiles.

You can see all your social media messages, visualize progress, monitor keyword and hashtag on one single screen.

23. ContentStudio: ( Saas Automation tool)

It is a one-stop social media management platform that offers a wide variety of social networks and insights into each. The automation of social media is an extension to the timetable. Excellent quality and team coordination platform for small and large companies

The nice thing about ContentStudio is to write articles on a single window, mark them, delegate groups to the posting of heterogenous materials, update, team member tasks, acceptance process, content assistant and automation.
What features does ContentStudio offers:

Social media Scheduler
Content Curation tool
Multi-Channel Publishing
Social media Calendar
Social media analytics
Brand Management
Auto Scheduling
Auto Scheduling
Social Inbox
RSS feed reader
Audience Targeting
Evergreen Campaign
Direct Publishing
Content studio Chrome extension

The pricing starts from $49 only with a free trial of 14 days!

24. Hatchbuck

Hatchbuck marketing automation platform is a new all-in-one CRM marketing software which is specially developed for small businesses.

It offers a great customer satisfaction rate specifically for contact managing, follow-up automation, and tracking. While it is also providing a great user interface with a drag and drop option.

25. SendPulse

SendPulse is also an amazing marketing automation platform which provides reliable automation email service. With the help of email automation tool you will be able to remind your customers regarding your new products, or send them a thank you note after purchasing your product.

This tool uses multiple channels which means, it will allow you to send SMS or WEB push notifications and emails too.

Other features which include conversion count, visual statistics, data filters, etc. will add more value to your business, enhance your marketing campaigns flow.

26. Easysendy

An all-in-one email marketing solution, Easysendy is an excellent option to drive better results from your marketing efforts. It combines together all your marketing channels to accelerate traffic, a higher conversion rate, and better ROI. Nothing better for online geeks, marketers, small businesses, and startups! In addition, you can easily design email templates for your campaigns as well. Easysendy can help businesses across all industries extend their reach, boost conversion rates, create a bond with their audience, and increase sales. And it is a very cost-effective offer compared to alternative email marketing platforms: a free account if you have < 2000 recipients, $19/mo for 10000 subscribers.

Expert Opinions

Till now, all you have read is me telling you about marketing automation tools. To give you a deeper insight into the topic, we reached out to some marketing specialists and took their opinion on how marketing automation tools are benefiting businesses everywhere.

“Marketing automation provides a way to streamline these tasks and create a seamless process for marketing agencies, their clients, and their customers.

I’ve seen situations where clients spend thousands of dollars a month to generate marketing qualified leads but fail to follow-up with them in a timely manner. For this reason, marketing automation provides a fast solution for improving lead to customer conversions and directly growing a client’s bottom line.”

Tony Mastri
Marketing Specialist

“As a marketer myself, I use automated tools to save time. A lot of what a marketer needs to do is the strategy and analytics part: thinking about how they can make their business thrive. Unfortunately, there’s also a great amount of manual work involved: creating ads, creating marketing reports, scheduling your campaigns, creating content, etc. Automation tools are there to help do all the heavy lifting for you, enabling you to work on your strategies and campaigns instead.”

Marie Lamonde
Content Marketing Specialist,

“Marketing Automation Works If You Have a Plan: Marketing automation is great but it only works if you have the right plan.

The best reason to use marketing automation is the fact that you can see which types of content your audience is looking for and help deliver them more of what helps them the most by seeing exactly which pages they visit, which emails they open and more.”

Peter Kim
Marketing Strategist, Ready Artwork

“Marketing Automation is like AI.

By that I mean that it’s great on its own, but even better when combined with human thought. The marketing automation aspect reduces costs and workload on our side so we can focus our efforts on more sensitive areas. The human touch aspect keeps things running normally, and keeps enough of a human component that customers don’t feel like they’re just going through this completely automated cold system.

Hearing from a human is important to customers, even though many appreciate the smart application of AI and marketing automation now. ”

Devin Beverage
Founder, DevBev Co

“I would recommend at the very least setting up an email marketing double opt-in and autoresponder tool, even if you are hesitant to use automation. Having a double opt-in keeps your list free from spam in a way you would never be able to do manually, and having an auto-respond and/or drip campaign engages customers via email in a way that would take hours to do by hand. There’s really no reason not to automate a large portion of your email campaigns.”

Stacy Caprio
Founder, Growth Marketing

Final Words

Marketing automation tools are creating a significant impact on the world of marketing. By using these marketing automation tools you can create value for yourselves and for your customers as well.

The key is to identify which marketing automation tools are best suited for your business because there is a chance that you might be using the wrong tools.

If you’re using a marketing automation tool that is not in this list, feel free to share about it in the comments below.

The post Marketing Automation Platforms: 25+ Best Marketing Automation Tools appeared first on WPblog.

9 Best WordPress Multilingual Translation Plugins for 2020

Moeez — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 00:00:58 +0000

Creating a website with a lot of content is hard work and generally takes several weeks, even months. As a website owner, you want your website to be readable by visitors coming from all over the world because you certainly wouldn’t want to limit your audience to a particular region or a country.

WordPress multilingual plugins allow visitors to translate your website’s content into multiple languages by detecting where they are coming from. In this article, I will share a collection of the best WordPress multilingual plugins to make your website readable for all visitors.

1. Weglot

Weglot allows you to easily translate and display your website in different languages. Thanks to its technological approach, Weglot is compatible with any Theme and Plugin, including WooCommerce.

Features That Makes Weglot Multilingual WordPress Plugin a Great Choice:

It’s SEO optimized, automatically applying Google SEO best practices for you (unique and dedicated URL for your translated pages, href lang tags, source code translations).
You can use both automatic and manual translations, invite team members to collaborate or even have access to professional translators.
They’re several other options to further manage and monitor your translations the easiest way possible, including a visual editor, to let you translate while being on your web pages.
Pricing: The WordPress translation plugin is freemium with a 10-day free trial period. Today they have c. 30,000 users, being the most 5-star rated multilingual plugin of the Directory.

2. WPML

WPML makes setting up multilingual websites very easy for everyone. After a simple installation, you can choose the languages you want your website to be translated into and start translating your content.

Features That Makes WPML Multilingual WordPress Plugin a Great Choice:

The WordPress multilingual plugin currently supports over 40 languages and you also have the choice of adding language variants such as Canadian French using the language editor. The great thing about the plugin is that you can use different languages in the same domains and subdomains.
As a site owner, you have the ability to turn WordPress users into translators. They will have access to only specific translation jobs which the editor has assigned them.
WPML is also compatible with WooCommerce and is a great way of creating multilingual stores. Everything from the product name, price to the description is translated into the target language(s).
The string translation interface lets you translate texts in other plugins and on admin screens. This WordPress translation plugin works with most WordPress themes so you don’t have to worry about compatibility.

3. Polylang

Polylang manually translates your website into various languages. For this, you need to create content in your target language. The WordPress multilingual plugin is free and easy to use, except for the part where you have to translate the content yourself. You can also choose which post or page you want to be translated.

Features That Makes Polylang Multilingual WordPress Plugin a Great Choice:

The WordPress translation plugin lets you choose as many languages as you want and translate posts, pages, media, categories, post tags, and widgets.

Polylang also supports custom post types, custom taxonomies, sticky posts, and post formats, RSS feeds and all default WordPress widgets. Each translated page gets a unique URL that consists of a two-letter code for languages. Visitors have the option of switching languages through a dedicated widget.

4. Lingotek Translation

Lingotek Translation is another free WordPress multilingual plugin that makes it super easy to translate your WordPress website through its cloud-based localization and translation. The plugin removes the burden of manually translating your WordPress website.

Features That Makes Lingotek Translation Multilingual WordPress Plugin a Great Choice:

The Professional workflow offers access to the Lingotek’s marketplace that is home to more than 5000 translators.
The plugin fully automates the transfer of files between Lingotek and WordPress, saving you the time and hassle of managing translation related files.
You can choose to not opt for the Professional translation and let your writer and editors create translated versions of your content. The Lingotek Workbench is an ideal text editor for translating your content.
The third option is Free Automatic. If you don’t want to spend too much on translating your pages, you can opt for machine translation. The WordPress translation plugin automatically translates the content on your pages by using the commercial API for Microsoft Translator.

5. Babble

The optimized interface of Babble provides a lot of options for managing the translation process. The plugin was acquired by Automattic so it’s part of the WordPress core which means there is a very gentle learning curve for the users.

Babble is both effective and lightning fast. Designed with performance in mind, the plugin enhances site performance. The plugin generates pages 20% faster with 40% fewer queries. You also have the option of adding unlimited languages to your WordPress website.

Because of the association with Automattic, the developers behind Babble are active contributors to the WordPress core. This reduces the chances of a broken plugin.

6. MultilingualPress

MultilingualPress WordPress plugin allows you to build different versions of your website in different languages and connect them with each other using WordPress Multisite. In practical terms, it lets you connect an unlimited number of multilingual websites with each other.

Features That Makes MultilingualPress WordPress Plugin a Great Choice:

The language manager supports 174 different languages.
The WordPress translation plugin also lets you edit your translations for a post or page directly from the post editor without needing to switch sites.
A flexible widget contains the list of links to all translation pages.
MultilingualPress also translates categories names and tags, and generate SEO friendly URL and permalinks.

7. Google Website Translator

Google Website Translator uses Google’s automatic translation service to translate your website in more than 100 languages. The plugin is simple to install and use.

After you have installed this WordPress translation plugin, specify the default language before adding the languages you want to translate your page in. From then onwards, the plugin’s admin panel makes all processes a walk in the park.

You can embed the widget anywhere on the website by using a shortcode. Visitors could use this drop-down widget to select their desired language.

8. WPGlobus

WPGlobus is a free WordPress multilingual plugin that assists users in translating their WordPress posts and pages. The plugin offers manual translation which means you will have to create the translated version(s) of your website yourself. WPGlobus is also compatible with various page builders and composers. You also have the option to add one or several different languages. The WordPress multilingual is also SEO enabled as the translated pages could be easily integrated with Yoast SEO and All in One SEO.

The customizable widget allows visitors to change the language of the website from the frontend. This change also impacts the language of the admin panel as well.

9. TranslatePress

With a friendly user interface, TranslatePress makes it incredibly easy to translate your WordPress website. It allows you to easily translate entire pages of your website at once. The plugin is also compatible with WooCommerce.

TranslatePress is a GPL and self-hosted WordPress plugin which means you will own your translations forever. It also works perfectly with all themes and plugins so you don’t have to worry about compatible versions.

If you want to translate your pages yourself, you can use the manual translation option as the plugin supports both, automatic and manual translation.

Final Words

Making your WordPress accessible to your readers regardless of their location is a great way to amplify your reach. These WordPress multilingual plugins are an easy and quick way to translate your website’s language to suit your visitors. If I have missed your favorite WordPress translation plugin, let me know in the comments or ping me at moeez@app61.cloudwayssites.com.

The post 9 Best WordPress Multilingual Translation Plugins for 2020 appeared first on WPblog.

7 Best WordPress Lazy Load Plugins to Make Your Site Faster

Moeez — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 16:14:57 +0000

Images on your website are one of the key contributors to its increased load time. Heavier images take longer to load which ruins user experience and increases bounce rate. One of the solutions to this problem is Lazy Loading.

7 Best WordPress Lazy Load Plugins

Since you have landed on this article through search or any other platform, you probably know what lazy loading is and I would suggest you skip directly to WordPress lazy loading plugins. But if you don’t, I reckon you stick around and understand what lazy loading is and how it works.

What is Lazy Loading

Lazy loading is an effective optimization technique that loads only the content that is visible to the user while delaying the content that is in the next fold. This doesn’t mean that your web page will be partially loaded. It only means that the content is loaded when it is required by the user. This is the opposite of bulk loading where the entire page is loaded in one go.

For instance your web page consists of 4 folds. When visitors land on your page, they see the first fold and not the folds below so lazy loading loads only the first fold and once users scroll to the next fold, only then that fold is loaded.

This type of loading makes sense because if your users find relevant information in the first fold, you don’t need to load the entire webpage which can increase your load time and ruin user experience.

Top WordPress Lazy Loading Plugins

Now that we have understood what lazy loading is, let’s have a look at the best WordPress lazy loading plugins.

1. Ajax Load More

It is a great lazy load WordPress plugin with the idea of eliminating lag and promoting infinite scrolling. With its unique ability, it is also known to be one of the best lazy loading plugins for WordPress.

Ajax Load more can be used for building custom WordPress queries to shortcodes and also includes features like shortcode builder, query parameters, repeater templates to edit and extend the functionality of your website, multiple instances and multisite compatibility.

All the above mentioned functionalities and enhanced features makes Ajax WordPress lazy load plugin load more one of the best lazy load wordpress plugin available.

2. WP Youtube Lyte

This lazy load WordPress plugin one is a bit different in the way it operates. As with the name, you would know that it helps load videos and such before a user gets to it. You would be right because this lazy loading plugin uses YouTube’s own website to gather what it needs to display whatever content you have on your website.

This lazy load WordPress plugin achieves this by inserting YouTube embeds which feel like normal YouTube videos. Once clicked, they start playing which gives the impression that YouTube itself is integrated into the website.

With this WordPress lazy load plugin, you also have multiple videos playing simultaneously on your website which provides a much better experience for your users online. It also eliminates the need to use more servers and in the end eases the load off your website to further contribute towards quicker loading times. This makes it one of the best wordpress lazy load plugins on this list

3. A3 Lazy Load

Last but not least, A3 lazy load WordPress plugin. It is a very simple to use plugin which is designed to help your page load quicker with minimal resources being utilized from the back end. The good thing about this lazy load WordPress plugin is that the heavier your page is with context to the content in it, the better this plugin works to help optimize it and make sure your website does not lag or cause any stability issues for your users.

What’s more is that this is optimized for mobile use, which means it is responsive, so since nearly all types of content is being optimized for being viewed on mobile phones, it makes A3 one of the best, if not, the best lazy load WordPress plugins ever.

What makes A3 lazy load WordPress plugin even better is that it is very easy to install and set up. Extensive controls over Admin will help you select what exactly you want and then leave A3 to work its magic on your page.

When your website loads, A3 optimizes the content in such a way that before a user scrolls to it, it is already loaded and ready to be viewed by your users. This makes it one of the best WordPress lazy load plugins on this list.

4. Lazy Load by WP Rocket

WP Rocket is a popular WordPress cache plugin which improves your site’s speed by caching static data. Keeping up with their optimization theme, WP Rocket also has a WordPress lazy load plugin that displays images and frames only when they are visible to the visitor. This method reduces HTTP requests and improves site speed.

The plugin not only works on images within the content but also works on thumbnails, widget text, avatars, smilies, and iframes. The script is really light so it doesn’t put a lot of load on your WordPress.

This WordPress lazy load plugin has more than 100,000 installs on the official WordPress repository and has a 4 star rating with more than sixty 5 star rating.

5. Speed Up – Lazy Load

Speed Up is another great WordPress lazy load plugin that is available for free at the WordPress repo. The plugin avoids downloading iframes and pictures that are not displayed on the visitor’s screen for example images that are on the bottom of the screen and will take 2 or 3 scrolls to reach.

The plugin is easy to install and configure. All you have to do is download the plugin from the repository and install it on your WordPress dashboard. The plugin weighs just 5kb so it won’t affect your overall WordPress performance.

This WordPress lazy load plugin doesn’t have much install since it is new but it certainly does the trick.

6. Lazy Loader

Lazy Loader is a WordPress lazy loading plugin that supports images, iframes, audio and video elements. The plugin also allows users to manually modify the markup to lazy load background scripts, images and styles. Lazy Loader also supports post thumbnails and background images. All these lazy loading elements can be enabled from settings.

The plugin only works on PHP 7 or higher so make sure you update your WordPress version before you decide to download this plugin. Plugin settings allows you to add filters that should be processed by the lazy loader, enable lazy loading for iframes, images, videos and background images.

You can also display a loading spinner on your web page through this plugin. You can also choose to lazy load specific posts and pages.

7. Lazy Load for Videos

Lazy Load for Videos is a popular WordPress lazy load plugin created by Kevin Weber. For those who don’t know, Kevin is an engineer at Airbnb who has created a number of plugins including wBounce, Inline Comments and Lazy Load Videos.

The plugin improves site speed by replacing embedded youtube and vimeo videos with clickable preview images which includes video titles as well. This smart WordPress lazy load plugin only loads the video once the visitor clicks on the preview.

Lazy Load for Videos also allows you to remove related videos that appear at the end of youtube videos, choose between thumbnail sizes, choose from several play button styles and much more.

Wrapping it Up

WordPress lazy loading is a step towards improving load time of your website. The method is effective and many site owners with image heavy websites use lazy loading to improve their site speed. The WordPress lazy load plugins mentioned in the article makes it easier for you to implement lazy loading on your website.

If I have missed your favorite lazy load plugin, let me know in the comments or ping me at moeez@app61.cloudwayssites.com

The post 7 Best WordPress Lazy Load Plugins to Make Your Site Faster appeared first on WPblog.

18 Best WordPress Mega Menu Plugins For Website Navigations in 2020

Moeez — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 00:00:40 +0000

Menus help categorize other pages and sections of a WordPress site. But you can make them even better with the help of mega menu WordPress plugins. Mega menus allow you to create categories, subcategories and other options to make browsing around the site easier.

18 Best WordPress Mega Menu Plugins

Advantages of Mega Menu

There has been a never ending debate on whether one should use mega menu plugins or not. In 2009 Jakob Nielsen argued that mega menus can enhance user experience of a website IF they are done right. They do have a few advantages over traditional menus so let’s check them out first.

1. Helps in Organizing Navigation:

One of the advantages of Mega Menu is that it organizes your menus that results in a cleaner navigation bar. For example your blog has certain categories that can be segregated into one single category.
Rather than displaying 10 different categories on your navigation bar, you can declutter that section by using Mega Menu and displaying them as a subsection of the drop down menu.

2. Accommodate Icons:

Mega menus allow users to place small images and icons that resonates with the menu so that the visitor is informed what type of content will he be able to see through that menu.
This prevents visitors from wandering around your website to search for their desired content.

Disadvantages of Mega Menu

While there are advantages of mega menu, I can’t help but think of the possible side effects of this strategy.

1. Cluttered Menu:

While mega menu declutters your navigation, it can certainly clutter your drop down menu. Since you are tempted to put every other link in a mega menu, you do.
This results in an information overload and makes it difficult for visitors to find the desired menu.
It can also get distracting for the visitors and they might feel agitated and leave your site in frustration.
Compatibility Issues
Since the drop down menu in mega menu is quite significant as compared to a traditional menu, it is often not compatible with different screen sizes.
Longer and broader drop down menus are not exactly made to fit a smaller screen size which results in a broken design and a poor user experience. Not only do they not fit, they also become nonfunctional on different screen sizes.

Max Mega Menu will turn all of your site’s menus into a mega menu. You can add any WordPress widget to your menu and use a theme editor to restyle your menu. You can also change the behavior of your menu with built-in settings.

Features That Makes Max Mega Menu Plugin a Great Choice:

Drag and Drop Mega Menu builder
Display WordPress Widgets in your menu
Various menu transitions
Hover, Hover Intent or Click event to open sub menus
Menu item options including Hide Text, Disable Link, Hide on Mobile etc.
Custom Item Styling
Vertical & Accordion Menus
FontAwesome, Genericon & Custom Icons

Using AP Mega Menu, you can add several widgets column wise, configure them and create a great vertical and horizontal mega menu. It supports Flyout submenu styles, in which you can create a mega menu easily by drag and drop.

Features That Makes AP Mega Menu Plugin a Great Choice:

Supports Flyout or Mega Menu sub-menu styles
Mega Menu/Flyout 8 Pre Available Skins or Custom Template Designs
Widgetized Mega Menu with Visual Builder Drag and Drop Position Method
Fade or Slide transitions
Free AP Mega Menu Contact Info Widget Added.
Horizontal Mega Menu position features such as Full-width, Center, Left Edge, Right-edge.
Menu Icon Settings with 300+ FontAwesome, 160+ Genericon and 100+ Dashicons available.
Language Translation Ready

Side Menu lets you create vertical slideout menu buttons. You can direct users wherever you want by inserting your links. You can also show modal windows on click to give users extra content and functionality.

Features That Makes Side Menu Plugin a Great Choice:

Choose color for buttons
Customize the style of the menu buttons
Unlimited amount of menus
Built-in user links: LogIn, LogOut, Register, Lostpassword
Show menu depending on language (allows creating multi-language)
Customize the style of the menu buttons
Align menu: Top, Center, Bottom

WP Mega Menu is a Free responsive mega menu builder plugin for WordPress. You can create stunning mega menus having widgets, links, badges, images, tabs, and more. WP Mega Menu is a revolutionary drag-and-drop menu builder. Adding rows, customizing columns, and relocating the menu items can be done smoothly with it. WP Mega Menu lets you display eye-catching icons and buttons with menu items. The plugin has the ability to boost your sales tremendously by showcasing products right on the site’s menu bar.

Features That Makes WP Mega Menu Plugin a Great Choice:

Drag and drop responsive menu builder
Widgets in menu items
Multiple menu themes
Export/import menu themes
Add logo, social icons, and search bar to menus
Menu labelling/badge, ex: hot, new, etc.
Font Awesome and Dashicons icon support
Mobile menu support
Menu background image
Unlimited colors
Google Fonts
Unlimited options

Building menus with WP Mega Menu is absolutely fun. Create a menu theme, customize the menu theme, activate the menu location, and apply it to a menu. There are lots of customization options to shape your imagination.

WP Mega Menu Pro is the pro version of the famous WP Mega Menu plugin. It comes with a lot of added features in just $19 and is available to download on Codecanyon. The mega menu plugin lets users create and customize menus on their WordPress website.

Features That Makes WP Mega Menu Pro a Great Choice:

10 predesigned templates
5 new tab designs
Horizontal and vertical mega menu
Widgetized mega menu
No coding skills needed

A very easy to use WordPress mega menu plugin, MDF Mega Menu provides a user-friendly interface that allows users to easily create menus on their website.

It offers different widths so that you can have menus that fit your website. You can also use animation for your menus with 20 different options available for that feature.

Features That Makes MDF Mega Menu Plugin a Great Choice:

20 animation options for mega menus
Static menus
Fixed menus
Sticky menus
Trigger mega menu with click or mouse hover
Add customer content to your menu with WordPress editor
Simple assembly process
Highly responsive

Hero Menu has a fast and user-friendly interface. You can add and drop various items for products, categories, contact, and subcategories among others.

Features That Makes Hero Mega Menu Plugin a Great Choice:

Drag and drop menu structure builder
Easy mega menu builder
270 icons by Elegant Themes
Sticky menu

8. UberMenu

UberMenu is a great responsive WordPress mega menu plugin that will help your site stand out more. Its features include:

Custom Content & Widgets
Create beautiful menu layouts
Automatic Item Generation
Tabbed Submenus
Enhanced Item Settings UI

After installing Wow Side Menu, you can improve every piece of content that has important information. It is compatible with Modal Windows, which allows dialog and modal windows in the side panels of the site, making the user experience more friendly.

The Floating menu can be used along with Modal Windows to show all types of notifications. You can assign a sidebar as part of the site’s navigation using anchor links.

Sky Mega Menu is another good-looking and clean mega menu plugin that comes with a bunch of features like:

Unlimited Number of Levels
Beautiful CSS3 Animations
361 Vector Icons

NOO Menu is an amazing mega menu plugin in which anything can be customized in an interactive admin interface.

Its features include:

Real-time preview in backend
12 column grid
9 Preset Styles and continue adding
Unlimited Saved Styles

12. Superfly

Superfly is a multipurpose WordPress mega menu plugin. It allows users to make full-screen menu, icon toolbar, and vertical push/sliding/static navigation.

Features That Makes Superfly Mega Menu Plugin a Great Choice:

Trigger settings
Various menu modes
Rich elements
Smooth scroll
Rich menu button settings

Mega Main Menu is very simple to use and yet it is very effective. It has become quite popular in the WordPress community because of its amazing features.

Features That Makes Mega Main Menu Plugin a Great Choice:

10+ Dropdown
Unlimited colors
600+ Google Fonts
1600+ Vector Icons
WPML compatible
Amazing support

Flexible Mega Menu is a highly responsive WordPress mega menu plugin. It offers more than 300 ready to use styling options so that you can give your website a fresh look. The plugin is great for creating sticky headers on your website. The headers will stick to the top while you are scrolling down your website.

Features That Makes Flexible Mega Menu Plugin a Great Choice:

Configure the content and styling of any navigation menu, including widgets navigation menus
Menu styles and items settings editors, developed using the latest WordPress features
Compatible with WordPress Customizer
Multi-menu support
Translation ready
Cross-browser

WP Floating Menu Pro comes with powerful customization features that include custom layout design options that will make your menus look at their best. You can create amazing sticky menus that will stick to the header as your users are scrolling down your website.

Features That Makes WP Floating Menu Pro Plugin a Great Choice:

13 template layouts
Unlimited number of menus
Page-wise configurable menu
Responsive to different screen sizes
Sortable menu option
7 different menu bar positions

16. Quadmenu

Quadmenu is a great WordPress mega menu plugin that is designed for both beginner users and developers. The plugin comes with a drag and drop functionality that lets users easily create their mega menus without any programming skills. In only $20 you can get this amazing mega menu plugin from Codecanyon.

Features That Makes Quadmenu Plugin a Great Choice:

Drag and drop builder
Support for multiple menu locations
Customizable menus
Sticky menu
Comes with Google fonts

17. Morph

Morph is a highly customizable WordPress mega menu plugin. It is also highly responsive as it works seamlessly with desktop, mobile, and tablets. Morph is extremely user-friendly. The plugin gives you full control of all the elements of your website’s menus.

Features That Makes Morph Mega Menu Plugin a Great Choice:

Multi-level accordion menu and widgets
70+ customizable settings Super clean, beautifully animated design
Highly customizable
Morph uses the built-in WordPress menu builder and customization tools, making the plugin lightweight and allows you to use tools already
familiar to you
Slide in the menu from either left or right side
Choose from multiple menu button styles and animations
Add a label to the menu button

Toggle Menu is one of the most popular WordPress mega menu plugin that is lightweight with a clean design and user friendly. In just $24, you can download this great mega menu plugin directly from Codecanyon.

Features That Makes Toggle Mega Menu Plugin a Great Choice:

Mobile menu
Lightweight and fast
Regularly updated for compatibility
Compatible with any theme

Conclusion

The menu of your WordPress site will stand out in terms of unique functions and appearance with the help of the mentioned WordPress mega menu plugins. Not only on the desktop, but also for mobile app navigation, it can help if you can use a suitable plugin. If you think you can contribute to the list, do let me know down in the comments.

The post 18 Best WordPress Mega Menu Plugins For Website Navigations in 2020 appeared first on WPblog.

Moeez, Author at WPblog

Beginner’s Guide to WordPress SEO – WordPress SEO Basics

WordPress SEO Related Options

Check Website’s Visibility Settings

SEO Friendly URL Structure

Example:

WWW vs. Non-WWW

Meta Title Tags

Meta Title Best Practices

Meta Description Best Practices

Keyword Phrases

Image Names and Alt Text

Website Internal Linking

Page Load Speed

Do-Follow and No-Follow Links

DoFollow link:

NoFollow link:

Categories

Conclusion

Top Rated Code Editors For WordPress Developers in 2020

Vim

Light Table

Chocolat

Notepad++

Sublime Text

Text Wrangler

Atom

Coda

Text Mate

jEdit

BBEdit

Araneae

UltraEdit

That’s a Wrap!

WooCommerce 4.0 – Everything You Need to Know!

New Admin Interface

Action Scheduler 3.1

Decided To Move To WooCommerce 4.0?

8 Best WordPress Photo Gallery Plugins for 2020 (Compared)

What to look for in a WordPress Gallery Plugin

1. Envira Gallery

2. NextGEN Gallery (Free)

3. FooGallery (Free)

4. Gallery (Free)

5. Gmedia Gallery

6. Photo Gallery by Supsystic

7. GalleryManager

8. WP Photo Album Plus

Get Cracking on Your Gallery Plugins

6 Best WordPress Firewall Plugins for 2020 (Compared)

Understanding WordPress Firewall Plugins

6 Best WordPress Firewall Plugins

1. All In One WP Security & Firewall

Features That Makes All In One WP Security & Firewall a Great WordPress Plugin:

2. Sucuri

Features That Makes Sucuri a Great WordPress Firewall Plugin:

3. iThemes Security

Features That Makes iThemes Security a Great WordPress Firewall Plugin:

4. Cloudflare

Features That Makes Cloudflare a Great WordPress Firewall Plugin:

5. Jetpack

Features That Makes Jetpack a Great WordPress Firewall Plugin:

6. Wordfence Security

Features That Makes Wordfence Security a Great WordPress Firewall Plugin:

Wrapping it up!

9 Best WordPress Survey And Poll Plugins for 2020 (Compared)

1. Gravity Forms With The Polls Add-on

Here are The Features That Makes Gravity Forms a Great WordPress Survey Plugin:

2. Responsive Poll

Here are The Features That Makes Responsive Poll a Great WordPress Survey Plugin:

3. GetSiteControl

Here are The Features That Makes GetSiteControl a Great WordPress Survey Plugin:

4. Poll, Survey, Quiz, Slideshow & Form Builder (Opinion Stage)

Here are The Features That Makes it a Great WordPress Survey Plugin:

5. Everest Forms

Here are The Features That Makes Everest Forms a Great WordPress Survey Plugin:

6. WP-Polls

Here are The Features That Makes WP-Polls a Great WordPress Survey Plugin:

7. eForm Builder

Here are The Features That Makes eForm Builder a Great WordPress Survey Plugin: