WordPress Plugins: Free & Premium Plugin Reviews https://wpblog.com/wordpress-plugin/ A Trusted Resource for WordPress Tips, Tutorials and News Wed, 01 Feb 2023 06:56:45 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.0.1 https://wpblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/favico.png WordPress Plugins: Free & Premium Plugin Reviews https://wpblog.com/wordpress-plugin/ 32 32 6 Best WordPress Firewall Plugins for 2020 (Compared) https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-firewall-plugins/ https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-firewall-plugins/#respond Wed, 11 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://wpblog.com/?p=27109 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,...

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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

All In One WP Security & Firewall Plugin

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 WordPress firewall Plugin

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

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

Cloudflare WordPress firewall Plugin

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

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 WordPress firewall plugins

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.

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9 Best WordPress Survey And Poll Plugins for 2020 (Compared) https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-survey-plugins/ https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-survey-plugins/#respond Tue, 10 Mar 2020 00:00:53 +0000 https://wpblog.com/?p=32505 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...

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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 With The Polls Add-on WordPress survey plugin

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 WordPress survey plugin

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 WordPress survey plugin

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)

Poll, Survey, Quiz, Slideshow & Form Builder WordPress Survey Plugin

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 wordpress survey plugins

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

WP-Polls WordPress survey poll plugin

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 WordPress Plugin

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 POLL WordPress survey poll plugin

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

Modal Survey WordPress Plugin

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!

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9 Best WordPress CRM Plugins for 2023 (Compared) https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-crm-plugins/ https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-crm-plugins/#comments Mon, 09 Mar 2020 00:00:42 +0000 https://wpblog.com/?p=18965 Are you searching for a CRM solution for your WordPress website to help you take your business to the next level? If you deal with customers daily or are in the lead-generation business and want to improve your relationships with your existing and prospective customers,...

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Are you searching for a CRM solution for your WordPress website to help you take your business to the next level? If you deal with customers daily or are in the lead-generation business and want to improve your relationships with your existing and prospective customers, there are a lot of WordPress CRM plugins available in the market that can help you exploit your online resources. With the help of a CRM system, you can better manage your customers, allowing you to forge long-term relationships and increase your sales.

But before we move to the list of CRM plugins for your WordPress, let me give a little background of what CRM is all about.

What is CRM?

Customer Relationship Management is a fully-functional tool that is designed for business professionals and entrepreneurs dealing with many different types of customers on a routine basis. It helps them manage their relationships with clients and customers easily and effectively through features like client database management, live chat, sales analytics, sales CRM, lead management and much more.

The most important benefit of using CRM tools is that they make it easy for you to stay connected to your customers and cater to their individual needs. These tools give you the opportunity to convert people who take interest in your goods or services into customers. They help you retain customers and clients by carefully analysing their needs and personalizing content and messaging accordingly.

Since WordPress offers all types of functionalities through its free and paid plugins, there are also WordPress CRM software that integrate seamlessly with your WordPress website without affecting its performance.

Without further ado, let’s look at the best WordPress CRM plugins that you can use to bolster the status of your business.

1. WP-CRM

WP-CRM Plugin for WordPress

WP-CRM WordPress CRM plugin allows you to extend the built-in user management system of WordPress and lets you add customized metadata. WP-CRM has easy-to-use forms that can be used for the front-end and added to your website pages. Another great thing about WP-CRM is that it has powerful filtering features. They allow you to sort through customers using custom attributes that you can add yourself. While the plugin is free, you will have to purchase its add-ons if you want to further extend its functionality.

Here is Why WP-CRM is One of The Best WordPress CRM Plugins Around: 

  • Excellent user organization, filtering and editing.
  • Ability to easily add new user data attributes (i.e. Company Name).
  • Dynamic charts representing attributes with quantifiable data.
  • Contact Forms for front-end.
  • Notifications management.

2. Brilliant Web-to-Lead for Salesforce

Brilliant Web-to-Lead for Salesforce plugin

If you already have Salesforce CRM that you use for managing your business contacts and other information, you may like the WordPress-to-lead for Salesforce CRM plugin as well. It links and synchronizes your website to your Salesforce CRM account. With this plugin, you can easily manage your leads that were captured through your WordPress website and sync it with the account of your Salesforce CRM. This WordPress CRM plugin can also be easily added to your WordPress pages and posts.

Features That Makes Brilliant Web-to-Lead for Salesforce a Great WordPress CRM Plugin:

  • Allows you to collect leads through your WordPress site and feed them directly to your Salesforce account.
  • Cloud based data storage for maximum website security
  • Easily integrates your website with Salesforce CRM

3. UpiCRM – Free WordPress CRM

UpiCRM the free WordPress CRM plugin

The UpiCRM plugin is a free WordPress CRM plugin with no software version that it can connect to for integration. It works in collaboration with your WP contact form plugins in order to manage and generate leads inside WordPress. The plugin has a robust user-management system that enables the user to group contacts, assign leads, send emails, and many other things. Another great thing about UpiCRM is that it works with your Google Analytics account as well and gives comprehensive insights into all the user-activity on your website.

Features That Makes UpiCRM a Great WordPress CRM Plugin:

  • Intrusive and easy to set up 
  • Complete customer lifecycle management
  • Teamwork and collaboration
  • Analytics, tracking and sorting of clients’ data

4. Zero BS CRM

Zero BS CRM WordPress plugin

As the name suggests, Zero BS CRM is the best no nonsense CRM for WordPress. This WordPress CRM plugin was designed for ultimate customer relationship management that can help you handle customers effectively and generate profitable relationships with your clients. The plugin is free to download and you can install it easily on your WordPress site. 

Zero BS CRM WordPress CRM plugin is Compatible with the following Extensions: 

  • PayPal CRM Sync
  • CSV Customer Importer
  • Mail Campaigns
  • Invoicing PRO
  • Gravity Forms
  • Aweber
  • Automations

5. WP ERP

WP ERP CRM WordPress plugin

WP ERP is one of the best WordPress CRM plugins around and comes with a fully stacked feature set that caters to professionals from HR, accounts, finance and business managers. The plugin is developed by WeDevs, a popular WordPress development agency that has produced many amazing WordPress plugins throughout their tenure. 

Here Are Some of The Features That Makes WP ERP a Great WordPress CRM Plugin:

  • Make notes for each customer
  • Activity logs show all dealings.
  • Schedule meetings & calls directly
  • Create company profiles
  • Filter contacts using keywords or attributes
  • Saved search filters & conditions
  • Assign contacts & tasks to the right agents

6. HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM WordPress plugin

We’ve all heard of HubSpot but we might not know what they are most known for. While they have one of the best blogs on digital marketing, they are more famous for their exceptional tools and HubSpot CRM is one of them. The plugin is highly effective in nurturing your leads and turning them into paying customers for your business. 

Here is What You Can Get From HubSpot CRM WordPress CRM Plugin: 

  • CRM and contact management platform
  • Email newsletter and marketing automation
  • Forms and Popups
  • Live chat and chatbots
  • Built In Analytics and Dashboards

7. WooCommerce Customer Relationship Manager

WooCommerce Customer Relationship Manager WordPress Plugin

This is one of the paid WordPress CRM plugins that you can download from CodeCanyon. The plugin is developed by Actuality Extensions who have a great portfolio of plugins that includes WooCommerce Order Notes, WooCommerce Conditional Features Image and more. 

Features That Makes WooCommerce Customer Relationship Manager a Great WordPress CRM Plugin:

  • View crucial customer indicators on the orders page.
  • Send emails using the stores default WooCommerce template instantly.
  • Include dynamic information in emails sent in bulk or to a single recipient.
  • Place phone calls and assign products to the call for follow ups
  • Delegate agents to customers for personal management.
  • Group customers dynamically or a fixed set of customers

8. Groundhogg

Groundhogg WordPress CRM plugin

Groundhogg is a popular CRM plugin that helps users simplify and consolidate sales and marketing which saves a lot of time and delivers better results. While this is a third party tool, it also comes in the form of a WordPress CRM plugin that you  can download for free from the WordPress repository. The plugin is a great solution for WordPress users to integrate this third party CRM tool with their website. 

Features That Makes Groundhogg a Great WordPress CRM Plugin:

  • Unlimited emails to clients 
  • Unlimited contacts
  • Drag and drop email builder
  • Automated funnel builder
  • Import and export unlimited data

9. WP CRM System

WP CRM System WordPress plugin

WP CRM system is a relatively new WordPress CRM plugin but it’s highly functional and pack with a lot of features. The plugin allows you to have an unlimited number of records and lets you sort them for future reference. You can also manage team, projects, assign tasks and track marketing campaigns from the WordPress dashboard that you are already familiar with. 

Features That Makes WP CRM System a Great WordPress CRM Plugin:

  • Import contacts from your old CRM 
  • Receive email updates upon creating a project or task
  • Create new contacts from existing users 
  • GDPR compliant 

Final Words

In today’s timeline, you can easily find a whole host of WordPress CRM plugins that can integrate with hundreds of premium CRMs, lead management CRMs and email marketing services providers. They can also be used in conjunction with Google Analytics through its powerful reporting along with client analysis tools, visual graphics form builder, track page conversion system, search functionalities, several lead synchronization with other system, and acquiring in-depth information regarding clients. While it may be difficult to find a CRM with all these features and functionalities, there are a few that offer a complete package solution for all types of WordPress users, no matter

CRM’s are essential to create meaningful and profitable relationships with your clients. Whether you have to create a large client data base or want to create personalized emails and messaging, CRMs take care of everything. In this article I listed the best and up to date WordPress CRM plugins that you can use to nurture your leads and turn them into paying customers and clients. 

If I missed your favorite WordPress CRM plugin, do let me know in the comments or ping me at moeez@app61.cloudwayssites.com

Conclusion

In today’s timeline, you can easily find a whole host of WordPress plugins and software that can integrate with hundreds of premium CRMs and email marketing services providers. They can also be used in conjunction with Google Analytics through its powerful reporting along with client analysis tools, visual graphics form builder, track page conversion system, search functionalities, several lead synchronization with other system, and acquiring in-depth information regarding clients. While it may be difficult to find a CRM with all these features and functionalities, there are a few that offer a complete package solution for all types of WordPress users, no matter

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9 Best WordPress Multilingual Translation Plugins for 2020 https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-multilingual-translation-plugins/ https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-multilingual-translation-plugins/#comments Fri, 06 Mar 2020 00:00:58 +0000 https://wpblog.com/?p=33288 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...

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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 WordPress multilingual plugin

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 Multi language WordPress plugin

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 multi language WordPress Plugin

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 WordPress multilingual plugin

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 language plugin

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 wordpress multilingual plugin

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

TranslatePress wordpress language plugin

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.

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18 Best WordPress Mega Menu Plugins For Website Navigations in 2020 https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-mega-menu-plugins/ https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-mega-menu-plugins/#comments Wed, 04 Mar 2020 00:00:40 +0000 https://wpblog.com/?p=29156 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...

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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.

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.

1. Max Mega Menu

Max Mega Menu WordPress Plugin

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

2. AP Mega Menu

AP Mega Menu WordPress Plugin

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

3. Side Menu

Side Menu WordPress Plugin

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

4. WP Mega Menu

WP Mega Menu wordpress plugin

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.

5. WP Mega Menu Pro

WP Mega Menu Pro Plugin

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

6. MDF Mega Menu

MDF Mega Menu wordpress plugin

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

7. Hero Menu

Hero Menu Mega navigation Plugin

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 WordPress mega menu plugin

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

9. Wow Side Menu

Side Menu Pro Plugin For WordPress

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.

10. Sky Mega Menu

Sky Mega Menu Plugin

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

11. NOO Menu

NOO Menu - WordPress Mega Menu Plugin

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 WordPress Mega Menu Plugin

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

13. Mega Main Menu

Mega Main Menu WordPress plugin

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

14. Flexible Mega Menu

Flexible Mega Menu WordPress Plugin

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

15. WP Floating Menu Pro

WP Floating Menu Pro WordPress Plugin

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 wordpress mega menu plugin

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 Mega menu WordPress Plugin

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

18. Toggle Menu 

Toggle-Menu-plugin

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.

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8 Best WordPress Forum Discussion Plugins in 2020 (Compared) https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-forum-plugins/ https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-forum-plugins/#comments Thu, 27 Feb 2020 00:00:21 +0000 https://wpblog.com/?p=24099 Having a well-built online site is all right. But it doesn’t have to stop with countless web pages of appealing content both written and visual. Why not give your readers and visitors a chance to reflect on what your site is about and have them...

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Having a well-built online site is all right. But it doesn’t have to stop with countless web pages of appealing content both written and visual. Why not give your readers and visitors a chance to reflect on what your site is about and have them be acquainted better with you?

In this case, you can put up a forum for your site community. It’s fun to cater to a community who wishes to exchange thoughts and views about the content on your site. Good or bad, it helps to know what your audience is thinking about just so you can tailor your website more to their liking.

However, making a WordPress discussion forum is definitely not a walk in the park as it requires plenty of time, planning and preparation for it to work. Which is why I have taken the liberty of assembling all of the best WordPress forum plugins that you can use to setup your forum to your WordPress website. Let’s have a closer look at them right now.

8 Best WordPress Forum Plugins

1. ForumWP

ForumWP WordPress forum discussion Plugin

A new premium WordPress forum plugin released in 2020, ForumWP is extremely fast, easy to setup and offers the most modern design and user experience of any WordPress forum plugin. Fully ajaxed, the plugin works beautifully on all devices and with a clean but minimalist design which inherits your theme’s styling, the plugin will look great with your existing website.

Features That Makes ForumWP a Great Choice:

  • Bloat free

The main forum plugin contains only the essential forum functionality with additional functionality available via modules. This keeps the plugin fast and lightweight.

  • Modern user experience

The plugin removes the need for pagination with infinity scroll and creating new topics/replies does not require the page reloading.

  • Ease of use

From simple setup too quick moderation, everything about ForumWP is easy to use, so is a great choice for beginners and non-coders.

2. bbPress

bbPress WorPress forum plugin

bbPress is the saving grace for those whose forum is always subjected to intolerably low speeds and is a constant victim of hacking. Truth be told, it is the best solution for integrating a forum into a WordPress site. It is especially known for its easy usability, web standards as well as speed.

Apart from being small and light, it also allows for great add-on features thanks to WordPress’ massive plugin system. It is also available in 11 languages to compensate for those whose first language is not English. A host of amazing features and an easy installation and configuration makes bbPress one of the best WordPress forum plugin.

3. BuddyPress

buddy press wordpress forums plugin

BuddyPress forum Plugin is another strong forum & essential WordPress plugin that will hope to aid you in establishing a strong and sophisticated social network. buddypress WordPress theme let you customize your forum exactly to your liking. It is the brainchild of the most loyal of WordPress contributors and was built for the sake of easy integration and functionality.

Registered members can create their own profiles, make connections, have private conversations, create and interact with groups and more. It has all of the necessary social media components that is suitable for any niche like for a company, school, sports team and so on.

4. Sabai Discuss

Sabai Discuss plugin for WordPress

Sometimes answering every user’s question in the comment section can be quite strenuous and time-consuming. That’s why Sabai Discuss is just about the ideal question and answers plugin that is built to relieve you of that stress. It has the ability to allow users to post questions & answers similar to what Stack Overflow and Yahoo Answers have to offer.

Features That Makes Sabai Discuss Forum Plugin a Great Choice:

  • Filter QnA by custom fields.
  • A completely responsive and flat design.
  • Post questions and answers from the frontend.
  • Create search and filter options with visual form editor.
  • Post comments to both questions and answers.
  • Post and edit comments inline.
  • Tag questions with auto-suggest

5. Simple Press

simple press forum plugin for wordpress

Simple Press is one of the best WordPress forum plugin that allows you to craft either a small forum or a robust public arena. What’s more is that it is really light, fast and simple to use. The themes and templates let you customize your forum exactly to your liking.

Add that to the fact that you will even have access to an extensive plugin library and its solid plugin structure allows you to make more out of your forum site as you want.

6. CM Answers

CM Answers forum plugin for wordpress

Similar to Sabai Discuss, users can post questions and answers in a stack overflow format. It also includes, moderation, voting, access control, notifications and upload files in a discussion board manner. As such, users possess full moderation access of questions and answers, restrict user capabilities as well as create multiple forum categories.

This means that admins can customize questions & answers, filter out any unruly content, monitor the actions of users in the forum and add answers. Other features include private messages, multiple file uploads and receiving notifications whenever there is new content.

7. WP Pro Forum System

WP Pro Forum System wordpress forum plugins

If it’s a clean and user-friendly forum you’re looking for, then the WP Pro Forum System is at your most humble service. It has the power to give you a powerful and incredibly professional looking forum/helpdesk with the greatest of ease.

Even though the forum has been made to work on the frontend of your site, admins can manage all of their topics, replies, forums, categories and tags from the admin area.

8. Forums

The name of this plugin should be enough to tell you what it’s all about. However, it can give each site on the Multisite network a simplistic tool to help them create their own forums, which can be embedded into any page or post. You can also add posts and pages to the entire multisite.

Features That makes Forums WordPress Plugin a Great Choice:

  • Very Simple

In only a few clicks, you can add a message board to your site and then encourage community participation. You can also include a title, a small description and set basic styling options.

  • Expand Pro Sites

This plugin consists of Pro Sites integration. You can restrict the number of forums a site can have depending on the subscription level and also add value to premium memberships.

  • Powerful Multisite Features

You can give each site the ability to create their own forums.

9. Groups Forums

Group Forums discussion Plugin for wordpress

Give your WordPress sites the freedom and comfort they need with a lightweight solution in the form of Group Forums. It is based on the free plugin Groups, which gives you the ability to maintain an infinite number of forums, where it is just the users or visitors who can post or reply to topics in a forum.F

Features That Makes Group Forums WordPress Plugin a Great Choice:

  • Topic Moderators and Topic Assignees
  • Frontend and backend topic submission
  • Sticky topics
  • Subscribe to topics and choose to leave a reply or not
  • Widgets included : Forums, Topics, Topic Tags, Topic Search
  • Customizable comment notifications with Groups Notifications

How to Create a Forum for WordPress Using  WordPress Forum Plugin bbPress

Creating a forum for WordPress is a breeze especially if you are using a forum plugin. bbPress, as mentioned in this article, is arguably the best forum plugin for website which is why I will be using it for this tutorial.

First, install and activate the forum plugin for WordPress from your dashboard. Once you do that, you will see the Forums option on your sidebar. Navigate to Forums > New Forum

WordPress forum plugin activation

You will then be redirected to a page where you can create your forum.

create your forum

On this page, you will be able to name your Forum and add some content to it if you want to. Also, you can choose to make this forum open for the public or keep it private. Once you are done, click Publish and your forum will go live.

You can also change your forum settings from Settings > Forums

forum settings

From the settings page, you can configure your forum settings according to your liking.

forum settings configuration page

Conclusion

So there you have it! All of the best WordPress plugins for forums that are out there today. Now you can give your users and visitors the convenience of talking out their feelings, encourage suggestions and the like. If there’s any that you think needs mentioning, do hit me up in the comment section below or email me.

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6 Best WordPress Caching Plugins Compared in 2020 https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-caching-plugins-compared/ https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-caching-plugins-compared/#comments Fri, 21 Feb 2020 00:00:18 +0000 https://wpblog.com/?p=3477 Guess what happens when a website is slow? No one visits it. It is soon forgotten because it stops appearing on decent search engine ranking positions.  Sorry, I got a little dramatic but it’s true, a slow website gets no love. Therefore, you need to find...

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Guess what happens when a website is slow? No one visits it. It is soon forgotten because it stops appearing on decent search engine ranking positions. 

Sorry, I got a little dramatic but it’s true, a slow website gets no love. Therefore, you need to find a way to optimize your WordPress website and the easiest way to do it is through WordPress caching plugins.

Caching is an effective way to speed up your WordPress website as the method involves storing your website’s static data. This way, the browser doesn’t have to fetch data from the server every time there is a visitor on your website cutting load time significantly.

What is WordPress Caching? (Caching Explained)

To completely understand WordPress caching, let’s first take a look at what exactly happens when anyone visits your website.

First, your visitor’s browser contacts your web server to fetch your website’s data. Your visitor can be accessing your website from anywhere. It can be a mile away from your web server or can be half way across the world from it.

Second, your WordPress will contact the website’s database where it is installed.

Third, the database compiles the data, converts it into an HTML page, and sends it back to the user.

The entire process repeats itself whenever the user refreshes the page. Your user’s browser requests all the images again and the data from the MySQL database will be recalled whenever he visits your website.

How would you like if your visitors’ browser store the images in their local hard drive and the WordPress saves the data fetched from the database until you make any changes?

This is exactly what WordPress caching does. Caching is the process of recycling the data which has already been fetched to speed up your WordPress websites. Caching minimizes the number of times data is flown between the visitor and the database. It reduces the number of requests, which ultimately reduces website load time.

Types of Caching

Caching can be divided into Client Side Caching and Server Side Caching.

1. Client Side Caching

Client Side Caching is when a web browser keeps a cache of all the files from your WordPress website. This includes HTML files, images, Java scripts, and CSS files. As a WordPress site owner, you need to set caching rules.

Setting Cache rules will allow your web browser to ensure that there are no changes made to the data since it was last saved before using the cached copy.

Client-side caching is especially helpful with static images as they hardly change after you have published a content. This contributes greatly to reducing the load time of your website.

2. Server Side Caching

As the name suggests, server-side caching is data that is stored by your WordPress server. If your WordPress website has a WordPress cache plugin, it can perform this type of caching.

The cache plugin can create caches of HTML pages which will save all the different elements of your web page including the header, body content, footer, sidebar, etc. These elements will then be served to multiple users through the cache.

In addition, your WordPress can create a cache of the MySQL database so that it doesn’t return the same post or article multiple times. The cache will be saved in its original form unless you have made changes to the already published article or have published a new one.

Opcode caching is another feature of server-side caching. Since all the PHP pages are compiled in a single code, opcode caching saved this compilation of codes which reduces the work for the server and improves server response time.

Why Do You Need Caching on Your WordPress Website?

You must have figured out by now that WordPress caching improves your website’s speed and overall performance. This is because static cached files load faster than dynamic ones.

Caching also reduces the workload on your server. If you have a limited hosting plan, caching might be your solution to increase load time. Caching also helps save memory and other operations that usually overburdens a small server.

Speeding up your WordPress website will also improve SERPs as Google always prefers faster websites over slower ones. website Speed, however is not the only metric that helps you rank above all. The content on your website, keyword optimization, link building, and other important factors play a huge part in good rankings. But if you couple these with a slow website, it won’t’ give you the desired results.

Along with that, a faster website provides a much better user experience than a slower one. A website that loads fast makes it easier for users to explore and browse. This will increase your avg session duration and reduce your bounce rate.

Best WordPress Cache Plugins

1. WP Rocket

WP_Rocket WordPress cache plugin

Unlike other WP cache plugins, WP Rocket is not free. In spite of that, it is rather a simple plugin to install and configure. It comprises of various intrinsic features, such as Lazy Loading for your site images in which images only load if users scroll down to them; Page Caching that creates an ultra-fast load time when WP Rocket is activated and Static Files Compression — in which the size of your HTML, JavaScript and CSS files are reduced through minification.

Even though the ‘Settings’ tab of WP Rocket is divided into seven sections — users can easily get around it without being dragged into a room full of technicalities. Still, there is an ‘Advanced Options’ tab, which is only used to select the files and pages you want to exclude from minification and caching.

WP Rocket is the most user-friendly option as it comes with a license fee of $39 for one website, $99 for three websites (business license) and $199 for an endless supply of websites. What’s more is that all of these options come with a 30-day money-back guarantee for a year of supports and updates.

The recent version of WP Rocket is compatible with the current version of WordPress (4.7.2). Click here if you wish to buy the plugin.

2. W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache Plugin for WordPress

If you want to get a better chance of improve the conversion rate by generating leads and increase in traffic , then W3 Total Cache is a shoo-in for that department. With the help of one of its popular feature, Content Delivery Network (CDN) integration, so you can easily reduce reload times and improve site’s overall performance by tenfold. It also supports Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), Secure Socket Layer (SSL), including caching of database objects and fragmented disk or memory.

If you wish to tweak the functioning of the page a bit, then you’ll be happy to know that the plugin comes with a Dedicated Settings Page for each kind of caching, such as: database caching, browser caching and page caching. It allows you to alter the default life of a cached objects. Therefore, going through 16 pages of plugin settings can be strenuous, but once you get the hang of it — it’s all good.

Several WordPress users highly recommend using W3 Total Cache on all WooCommerce and WordPress sites for their sites. Let us assure you that W3 Total Cache works very well with the latest version of WordPress. To download the plugin, simply click here.

3. WP Super Cache

WP super cache WordPress Plugin

Unarguably, WP Super Cache is one of the best cache plugins which is available for WordPress. It enables you to generate static HTML files from your dynamic WordPress blogs. After this, you will only be working on that specific file instead of working on heavier and expensive WordPress PHP scripts.

It consists of seven tabs in the ‘Options’ tab, but it is relatively simple-to-use. By enabling cache from the ‘Easy’ tab, your plugin will begin to cache your pages automatically. You can use the ‘Contents’ tab to check the number of pages that are cached.

Over 99.9% of internet users are served with static HTML files and the best part is that they don’t even see those files — they will get different cached files that are better than most uncached files.

To customize your cache settings for a better performance, visit the ‘Advanced Settings’ area. There are some files that should have been enabled by default, such as ‘Don’t Cache Pages for Known Users’ and ‘Compressing Files. ’

Fortunately, the current version of W3 Super Cache is compatible with the latest version of WordPress (4.7.2). Please click here to download and install the plugin.

4. Hyper Cache

hyper cache WordPress plugin

Hyper Cache is a relatively new WordPress cache plugin but it is developing a good reputation in the community. The plugin has over 30,000 active installs with an overall 4.5 rating out of 5.

This WordPress cache plugin is designed to get the maximum speed for your website. The plugin especially works well for low resource hosting servers.

The plugin is simple and doesn’t require any technical knowledge to configure.

Also Read: Best WordPress Image Compression Plugins

5. Comet Cache

Comet cache wordpress caching plugin

The WordPress cache plugin takes a real-time snapshot of your website’s pages, posts, categories, and links to store them and create caches so that they can be reused later.

You will see Comet Cache configurations on your WordPress dashboard where you will see Comet Cache -› Options. Once you have selected a file, the WordPress cache plugin uses advanced techniques to identify when it should or should not use a cached version of the file.

This WordPress cache plugin excludes login pages and admin pages. It also does not show cached pages to users who have logged in on your WordPress website.

6. Simple Cache

Simple Cache plugin for WordPress

As the name suggests, Simple Cache is the simplest WordPress cache plugin available. It is a decent plugin which is free to use. With over 8000 active installs, the plugin has a rating of 4.5 out of 5.

The WordPress cache plugin has an easy one-click install. It literally has an On and Off switch. The plugin dramatically improves your site speed that enhances its user experience.

WordPress Caching Plugins Test Results

Tested using these two scenarios.

Scenario #1 . A busy store was created with nearly 100 requests that had a number of images, plugins and dynamic elements to make it heavy. Cache plugins were tested to see if they can handle such a site.

Scenario #2 . A simple blog with a minimalist WordPress theme with only 10 requests and already optimized. Plugin were tested to see if it has an impact on such a website.

PLUGIN BUSY SIMPLE
Without caching (baseline) 3.00s/2.10s 1.00s/597ms
SWIFT Performance Lite (free) 1.04s/890ms 768ms/570ms
SWIFT Performance (paid) busy 911ms/900ms 644ms/453ms
WP Rocket (paid) 1.05s/1.02s 659s/426ms
Simple Cache (free) 1.07s/993ms 498ms/458ms
LiteSpeed Cache (free) 982ms/1.02s 569ms/532ms
Breeze (free) 1.35s/1.04s 528ms/496ms
Comet Cache (free) 1.21s/955ms 557ms/460ms
Powered Cache (free) 1.28s/938ms 748ms/680ms
WP Fastest Cache (free) 1.30s/963ms 573ms/527ms
Borlabs Cache (paid) 1.19s/1.04s 919ms/723ms
Yasakani Cache (free) 1.30s/1.07s 851ms/568ms

Final Words

In today’s day and age, it is impossible to imagine a successful website with slow load time. Given the attention span of this generation, you can’t expect anyone to wait for a second longer for your site to load. As a site owner, you must ensure that you take up all the measures to improve your site’s load time and installing WordPress caching plugins is one of them.

I hope this article gave you a good understanding of WordPress caching and why WordPress caching plugins are important. If you have any questions, feel free to hit me up in the comments or email me at moeez@app61.cloudwayssites.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. Where is WordPress cache stored?

WordPress cache is stored in the wp-content/cache/ folder in your WordPress. Durable WordPress cache plugins like W3TC store your website cache in the wp-content/cache folder and in that folder there are subfolders based on W3TC.

Q2. Can I delete WordPress cache folder

Yes, you can delete the WordPress cache folder which is the wp-content/cache folder. However, you must know that all your cache data will be deleted with the folder.

Q3. How WordPress cache works?

WordPress caching is the process which involves saving the dynamically generated HTML files on the server’s hard disk or memory and serving them from the cache every time a request is made. This saves the overhead of executing PHP code and MySQL database queries.

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9 Best WordPress Image Compression Plugins for 2020 (Compared) https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-image-compression-plugins/ https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-image-compression-plugins/#respond Mon, 17 Feb 2020 00:00:08 +0000 https://wpblog.com/?p=33747 Page load speed is crucial if you want to improve your website’s user experience. A slow website will not frustrate your visitor, it will also have a negative impact on your SERPs and ultimately your website traffic. This means fewer website conversions and a dip...

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Page load speed is crucial if you want to improve your website’s user experience. A slow website will not frustrate your visitor, it will also have a negative impact on your SERPs and ultimately your website traffic. This means fewer website conversions and a dip in the revenue all because of increased website page loading time.

Experts have tried many ways to enhance page speed load time but one that has guaranteed effect is image compression. Image compression is the process of changing file size so that it consumes lesser space than its original version. Since it now consumes less space, it loads quickly, improving page speed of the entire website.

WordPress image compression plugins are effective in compressing images on your website without distorting their quality. In this article, I will list the top 10 plugins that can help you compress images on WordPress and improve your page load time.

1. WP Smush

WP Smush best image optimizer Plugin

The reason why WP Smush is topping this list is simply that it is the fastest and easiest image compression plugin on the market. This plugin has been voted as the best WordPress image compression plugin because of its amazing features and the fact that it is completely free!

Features That Make WP Smush Image Compressor a Great Choice:

  • The plugin lets you control the image width and height so you can resize the images to your preferred dimensions.
  • WP Smush compresses images not only in media uploads but in any directory you want.
  • WP Smush is compatible with popular media library plugins including WP All Import, WP Offload S3, WP Media Folder, and WPML.
  • WP Smush takes privacy into consideration as it does not interact with the users on your website like asking for newsletter subscriptions.

2. ShortPixel Image Optimizer

ShortPixel Image Optimizer WordPress Plugin

ShortPixel Image Optimizer is an easy to use, lightweight, WordPress image compression plugin that compresses all the past images and PDF files on your website. The plugin is an install – and – forget – about – it, since you don’t have to worry about manually compressing your images. Everytime you upload an image on your WordPress, the plugin automatically compresses it without losing quality.

Features That Make ShortPixel Image Optimizer a Great Choice:

  • The plugin compresses JPG, PNG, GIF and also PDF documents.
  • ShortPixel also has the option to convert JPG, PNG and GIF into WebP.
  • With a 24hrs dedicated support system,
  • ShortPixel is one of the best WordPress image compression plugins available.

3. Compress JPEG & PNG Images

Compress JPEG & PNG Images

The Compress JPEG & PNG images plugin compresses your website’s images by using a popular image compress service; TinyJPG and TinyPNG. This plugin optimizes new images that are uploaded onto your WordPress. The plugin also lets you resize original images by setting the maximum width and height for the images.

Features That Make Compress JPEG & PNG a Great Choice:

  • Compatible with WPML
  • Optimize imaged already in the WordPress library
  • No limit to file size
  • Compress animated PNG
  • Bulk optimization of heavy images

4. Insanity

Imsanity image optimizer plugin for WordPress

Imsanity is one of the best WordPress image optimizer plugins that helps you resize the image on your website to a size that is compatible with the display in the browser (makes it large enough for the users).

Features That Make Imsanity a Great Choice:

  • The plugin resizes the image automatically as soon as the user uploads it and replaces it with the resized image.
  • Imsanity also offers a bulk resize features where you can select a number of images and resize them all at once to free up disk space.
  • The plugin is free and is ideal for blogs that don’t require high resolution images on their website & perfect for Blogs to increase your blog speed.

Also Read: Tips to Speed Up WooCommerce Store in 2020

5. EWWW Image Optimizer

EWWW Image Optimizer plugin

Just like WP Smush, EWWW Image Optimizer is also a popular WordPress image optimizer plugin that helps increase your website’s speed by compressing your images on WordPress site. The increased page speed will improve your rankings on search engines, increase traffic and ultimately help promote conversions.

Features That Make EWWW Image Optimizer a Great Choice:

  • The automatic background optimization and parallel optimization features let you optimize unlimited file size and improve your website’s load time.
  • This plugin helps you optimize your images on WordPress site.
  • No Speed Limits and unlimited file size.
  • The tool optimizes images to pixel perfection by using industry-leading tools and rendering.

6. WP Retina 2x

wp retina wordpress image compression plugin

WP Retina is a great free WordPress image optimization plugin that not only creates image files required by high DPI devices but also displays it to your visitors accordingly. The plugin generates retina images automatically so that you website looks crisp and sharp on every device regardless of the screen size.

Features That Make WP Retina 2x a Great Choice:

  • Supports multiple methods to display retina images to your visitors so that consistency is maintained throughout various devices.
  • The plugin doesn’t require any complex configuration.
  • It is also lightweight and doesn’t overload your WordPress website.
  • The PRO version adds support for lazy loading as well

7. reSmush.it Image Optimizer

resmush wordpress image optimization plugin

reSmush.it allows users to optimize images using the reSmush.it API. The plugin provides image optimization based on various alogorithms. The API accepts JPGand GIF files and the size limit is 5MB.

Features That Make reSmush.it Image Optimizer a Great Choice:

  • Bulk optimization within 2 clicks
  • Option to choose the images you want to optimize
  • More than 100,000 active installs on WordPress repository

8. Optimus – WordPress Image Optimizer

Optimus is a great WordPress image optimization plugin created by KeyCDN. For those who don’t know, KeyCDN is a popular CDN, Content Delivery Network, that helps in optimizing site speed. The plugin reduces image size up to 70% without affecting image quality. It also optimizes thumbnails along with images within the content.

Features That Make Optimus a Great Choice:

  • Reduces file size while uploading
  • No coding necessary
  • Supports WooCommerce
  • Optimized for WordPress mobile apps

9. Imagify

Imagify is an effective WordPress image optimization plugin created by WP Media. The plugin automatically optimizes WordPress images including thumbnails to improve site load time. It also optimizes WebP images through this plugin for free.

Features That Make Imagify a Great Choice:

  • Supports Lossless compression
  • Supports Lossy compression
  • Can also compress WebP images

Final Words

Image optimization is essential if you want your website to load faster. This method is effective and can be easily done through the WordPress image optimization plugins I mentioned in this article. If I have missed your favorite image optimization plugin, do let me know in the comments or ping me at moeez@app61.cloudwayssites.com

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10 Best WordPress Backup Plugins Compared in 2020 https://wpblog.com/best-backup-plugin-wordpress/ https://wpblog.com/best-backup-plugin-wordpress/#comments Fri, 14 Feb 2020 00:00:11 +0000 https://wpblog.com/?p=3311 Recently, a lot of WordPress websites were compromised due to a bug found in the WordPress REST API. This caused many posts with defaced content titles like “Hacked By SA3D HaCk3D” and “Hacked By GeNErAL”. WordPress backup plugins are important because if something like this...

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Recently, a lot of WordPress websites were compromised due to a bug found in the WordPress REST API. This caused many posts with defaced content titles like “Hacked By SA3D HaCk3D” and “Hacked By GeNErAL”. WordPress backup plugins are important because if something like this happened to your website, your crucial data is protected.

Fixing this is easy if you make regular duplicate copies of your website and one of the most effective ways to do this is to install the best WordPress backup plugins.

Top WordPress Backup Plugins

Plugin Name Ratings Active Installations
UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin 4.8 / 5 1+million
BackUpWordPress 4.7 / 5 200,000+
WordPress Backup Plugin – BlogVault 4.3 / 5 20,000+
Snapshot Pro by WPMU DEV N/A 299712
VaultPress N/A N/A
Duplicator – WordPress Migration Plugin 4.9 / 5 1+million
CYAN Backup 4.3 / 5 2000+
BackWPup – WordPress Backup Plugin 4.3 / 5 600,000+
WordPress Backup to Dropbox 3.8 / 5 70,000+
BackupBuddy N/A N/A

Why Backups Are Important?

You do a lot to keep your website secure. You make sure WordPress stays updated, you install the latest version of plugins and themes, and you have Sucuri. But, they all are preventive measures.

Having backups is important as it is the only way of recovery if your website gets trashed by a hacker. Obviously, it will be faster to restore from a backup than recreating the entire website again.

So, be safe. Make copies.

How to Create Backups on WordPress?

Well, there are two ways: Manual Backups and Plugin Based Backups to backup your site. Manual backup is a great solution but requires a bit of expertise. If you keep an eye on plugins, then using one for backups is not a bad idea. Many plugins come with automatic settings that can be used for creating copies without human help.

10 Best WordPress Backup Plugins

1. UpdraftPlus

UpdraftPlus the best WordPress Backup Plugin

If there had been a plugin that I wished WordPress could couple with its installer instead of Akismet and Hello Dolly, then UpdraftPlus would have been my top choice. With more than a million active installs and almost perfect rating (4.9 out 5 stars), it’s the perfect one to have.

With UpdraftPlus, you can store your copied files on the cloud as the plugin supports Amazon S3, Dropbox, and Google Drive. You also have the option to store backups on a server of your choice through FTP transfer.

UpdraftPlus Pricing: Free (UpdraftPremium Personal for $70 Up to 2 sites)

The plugin has a premium version for which you have to pay. With the paid version, you get more storage options, like Microsoft OneDrive, SCP, WebDAV, and OpenStack Swift) along with a dedication 1GB space on Updraft Vault. Secure FTP, cloning, and remote transfer features are also included in this feature. Email and forum based support is available. The price depends on how many site you’re planning to use it and varies between $70 and $145.

2. BackUpWordPress

BackUpWordPress Backup WordPress Plugins

The name’s brilliant and it’s a popular option too. It has a 4.7 out of 5-star rating. There’s a good reason behind it. The plugin has low-memory usage, making it ideal for hosting environments with shared resources.

BackUpWordPress is full-site backup plugin which means it makes a copy of everything that’s important and it does on your provided schedule.

If you want your backups to be stored on Dropbox or Google Drive, you’ll have to pay up. However, it’s worth the price if you love the ease of using this plugin.

3. BlogVault

BlogVault top Backup WordPress Plugin

This one’s paid, but it comes with excellent support. Currently with a 4.5 star rating, blogVault has a small learning curve but it’s worth it. The plugin offers automated daily backups the way you wanted. The service keeps offsite copies; therefore, you do not to worry losing about your copies. The plans start from $9 per site and there are unlimited plans too with storage capacities

Most efficiently, you get email-based support. Last but not the least, the service provides incremental backups for huge websites.

4. Snapshot Pro

Snapshot Pro backup plugin for wordpress

Sometimes, you get really good stuff outside the official WordPress repository. When it comes to backups, then this WordPress backup plugin from WPMU DEV is perhaps the best in the industry. Snapshot Pro creates manual and automatic full-site copies to both local and cloud servers. This helps when you experiment.

The local backups allow you to undo a change quickly while you do not have to fear any data loss as a copy is simultaneously being stored on WPMU DEV Hub, a cloud-based off-site storage. For now, each account gets 10GB of space. You also get additional cloud storage choice. You can download copies through FTP or SFTP.

Their claim of having a Time Machine for your website is quite true. The plugin works like an efficient backup system with granular controls.

5. VaultPress (with Jetpack)

VaultPress the best backup wordpress plugin

This is a service that comes directly from Automattic Inc., the force behind WordPress and Jetpack. Now, to use VaultPress, you need to install Jetpack and then subscribe to a plan. For as little as $3.95 monthly, you will get a topnotch backup and security service where the copies are stored at an off-site location. If you wish, you can download a copy from the WordPress admin.

6. Duplicator

Duplicator is one of the most downloaded WordPress backup plugins with more than 900,000 active installs. The plugin has a 4.9 overall rating and there is are solid reasons behind that. The plugin not only backs up your data, but also duplicates your entire website from one location to another. It is extremely useful in the event of primary website failure.

However, the plugin requires some technical knowledge. So if you are not sound in development and other technicalities, you might want to hire a professional to get the best out of this plugin.

7. CYAN Backup

Yet another underrated backup plugin that is super effective for your backup needs. CYAN Backup supports hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly backups. If you are looking to make backups of your website after a few hours, then this plugin is for you. The plugin also allows you to specify which data you want to or don’t want to backup.

8. BackWPup

BackWPup best WordPress backup plugin

A popular backup plugin with more than 500,000 active installs. The plugin saves your complete installation including the content and creates an external backup on Dropbox, S3, FTP and more. The restoration is super easy where you only need a .zip file.

BackWPup is free but the developer suggests that the free version will not be as effective as the pro version. The pro features include backups to Google Drive and Amazon Glacier.

9. WordPress Backup to Dropbox

As the name suggests, the backup solution works with Dropbox. A very well-known backup plugin with more than 100,000 downloads. For this plugin to work, you would need to have a Dropbox account. The plugin is free but it will cost you if your data exceeds 2GB. The installation is as easy as it gets. You just have to authorize your plugin with Dropbox and your data will start the backup process automatically.

The plugin also has a premium version with added functionalities and also provides support in multiple languages

10. BackupBuddy

Probably the best premium backup plugin for WordPress. Apart from the usual features, a backup plugin has, BackupBuddy is a plugin which can be tailor-made into backing up your WordPress website the way you want it to. You can choose to backup your website daily, your uploads weekly, and your plugins monthly or any other combination.

The interface is user-friendly and easily understandable. You can figure out what this plugin can do in a couple of minutes.

Best Practices for Website Backups

Once you have backed up your website using the above WordPress backup plugins, you have just passed phase one in making your site safe and secure. Disaster management is essential if you want to keep your website data out of trouble.

Here are the best disaster management practices that you must follow

Backup Your WordPress Website

By now, you must have realized the importance of backing up your website. Whether you do it through WordPress backup plugins, or you decide to do it manually, backing up your website must be on the top of your priority list.

You must also have a working backup of your website on your hard drive, even if you have stored the backup on the safest of places like Amazon S3. This is because you must have a working backup with you in case of the absolute worst case.

Replace files Rather Than Restore

WordPress white screen of death is one of the common issues in WordPress caused by messing around with the fuctions.php file. Your first thought would be to restore your entire website. However, there is a much more convenient way to get your website back and that is to replace the messed up functions.php file.

All you need to do is simply access your personal backups, find the functions.php file till the date it was working and overwrite it with the backup file using FTP.

Think Before Your Restore

Restoring your entire website should be the last thing that you must do to get your website back. Normally, your hosting provider creates a daily backup of your website. In that case, the most you would lose is 24 hours of your website data. You don’t need to restore your entire website for that.

Keep Your Copies Close

It does not hurt to be careful. Create copies of your websites and make as many as you like, but never store your copies on the servers where the websites are hosted. You should keep them on cloud storage services, like Dropbox or Google Drive. If you can, store the same copies at different online drives. This process can be automated.

This way, you reduce the chance of losing your backups to almost zero.

Final Words

Backing up your website data is crucial in making sure that your business runs smoothly without any hurdles. In this article, we covered the best WordPress backup plugins and also shed some light on why backing up is important for any website.

If you know any other WordPress backup plugins that aren’t in this list, do let me know in the comments or hit me up at moeez@app61.cloudwayssites.com

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. How to restore WordPress backups?

  • Login to your cPanel Account
  • Find the Backup option and select it
  • Locate the “Restore a MySQL database backup”
  • Navigate to “Choose file button” and select backup file from hard disk
  • Click on the upload button

Q2. Which WordPress files should I backup?

  • Core WordPress Files
  • Files in the wp-content Folder (your theme, plugins, and uploads)
  • WordPress configuration files
  • Your WordPress Database

Q3. How to backup wordpress without cpanel or FTP?

  • Install WP filemanager plugin
  • After installing, click activate
  • To configure the plugin, click on WP filemanager on the sidebar of your WordPress admin
  • Set the ‘Filemanager Default home location’ to “../”,
  • Check all of the check boxes

Q4. How to WordPress backup to s3?

To backup your WordPress website to Amazon S3, choose a backup plugin that offers this storage service. BackWPup is one of the best WordPress backup plugins that offers S3 storage service. Install this plugin and choose Amazon S3 as your preferred storage device and your website will be backed up to S3.

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9 Best WordPress RSS Feed Plugins in 2020 https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-rss-feed-plugins/ https://wpblog.com/best-wordpress-rss-feed-plugins/#comments Wed, 22 Jan 2020 00:00:46 +0000 https://wpblog.com/?p=25175 Before we get started, I will give a brief introduction about what is WordPress RSS feed and the significance of WordPress RSS aggregator. What is RSS Feed? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, but it could also mean Rich Site Summary or Real-time Simple Syndication....

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Before we get started, I will give a brief introduction about what is WordPress RSS feed and the significance of WordPress RSS aggregator.

What is RSS Feed?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, but it could also mean Rich Site Summary or Real-time Simple Syndication. It is an XML-based content format that updates the user on the latest news, articles, headlines and content from all of their favorite websites.

Since it has been around for a long time, many have assumed that RSS feeds have withered away in time, just a little bit at least. But I’m here to dispel such faux nonsense. In fact, there are quite a lot of professional WordPress developers or WordPress maintenance Services who are developing a slew of RSS feed plugins even as I speak.

So yes, RSS feed isn’t really going anywhere anytime soon. Imagine the kind of traffic bloggers and site developers can attract with this wonderful method especially if you’re running a WordPress site. Which is why I have proud to share this list of possibly the best RSS feed plugins for your WordPress website today:

PLUGIN RATING ACTIVE INSTALLS
Category Specific RSS feed Subscription 4.6 / 5 9,000+
RSS Post Importer 3.3 / 5 20,000+
Feedzy RSS Feeds 4.8 / 5 20,000+
WP RSS Aggregator 4.4 / 5 60,000+
RSS with Images 3.4 / 5 900+
FeedWordPress 4.3 / 5 50,000+
Disable Feeds 4.6 / 5 20000+
RSS Includes Pages 3.6 / 5 30000+
Continuous RSS Scrolling N/A 1000+

1. Category Specific RSS feed Subscription

Category Specific RSS feed Subscription WordPress Plugin

With Category Specific RSS feed Subscription WordPress RSS plugin, you can show your visitors a menu that consists of multiple RSS feed subscription options other than your regular subscription option.

If your site covers a lot of topics and your visitors don’t know about them, then it could be problematic as they would be getting plenty of notifications of articles that they are not interested in.

That’s where this RSS feed plugin comes to your rescue. It allows you to show category specific RSS feed for all of your categories. Interestingly, you can even configure up to 8 different custom topic specific RSS feed.

This RSS feed plugin allows you create RSS feed that are specific to your tags using nothing more than a simple shortcode.

Also, if you want to create feeds for a particular article, then this is the best option for you.

You can add this RSS feed plugin to the sidebar from the widget menu. Also, you can add a shortcode [category_specific_rss_menu] to your posts and pages.

2. WP RSS Aggregator

WP RSS Aggregator feed plugin

WP RSS Aggregator is highly revered for being the first and best RSS plugin that is responsible for easily importing, merging and displaying RSS and Atom feeds on your WordPress site. With more than 40,000 active installs, WP RSS Aggregator is one of the most popular RSS feed plugin.

It is the most robust and sleek WordPress RSS feed solution there is. The free version of this plugin lets you aggregate as many RSS feeds from over a number of sources as you like. You can also stagger them for the sake of better performance.

By using WP RSS Aggregator’s shortcode and its parameters, you can display all the important feeds from either a single or multiple sources from any spot of your WordPress site.

Also Read: How To Create A WordPress Plugin

The free version of this WordPress plugin lets you import unlimited number of feed items for your RSS feed. You can also display feed items by using only the shortcode. It also allows you to import feed items with unique titles. Limiting feed items is also possible through this RSS feed plugin.

Also, you can also link the title and source to the original source.

3. RSS Post Importer

RSS Post Importer

If you’re looking for advanced WordPress RSS feed plugin that helps you in syndicating, curating, importing, merging and displaying complete text RSS and Atom feeds on your WordPress blog. Then RSS Post Importer is the great choice for you, The way this works is that it fetches an RSS feed and then publishes the full article of each feed item as a separate post.

Bloggers can make use of content syndication, which allows them to import the RSS feed from other blogs for their niche. This way, they can share relevant data with their visitors or readers. It is also quite the shortcut alternative to writing a blog post of their own from the ground up.

The WordPress plugin has a pro feature as well but the free version comes with a load of features as well. Using the free version of this WordPress RSS feed plugin, you can import feeds automatically using cron. It also allows you to import the full text rss feed content and display the full content of your articles

Also, you can choose to display only the titles of your posts in your feeds. The plugin also gives you control over the number of posts and category in your feed. You can also set author for your imported content.

4. Feedzy RSS Feeds

Feedzy RSS Feeds WordPress Plugin

Aggregating feeds has never been more fun or even easier than with Feedzy RSS Feeds. You get to curate, and display feeds in your posts or pages with the help of shortcodes and widgets. Here are some of the key features that help it stand out.

Features of Feedzy RSS Feeds Plugin:

  • Mobile-responsive

Every one of the displayed feeds are responsive, even the one with images. The caching is done automatically, letting you breathe in a sigh of relief when it comes to page loading times.

  • Shortcode-friendly

The plugin generates all of the shortcodes for your posts. You can choose how to display the feeds on your site with the editable shortcode parameters.

  • Images Appear In Feeds

You can make your feeds more interesting by adding in the first image of the aggregated content. Or you could just pick out a custom image that you want to be featured alongside the feeds.

  • Unlimited Feeds

You have all the freedom to add in as many feeds to a single page as you like. You can even use the same feed shortcode from other posts and pages.

5. RSS with Images

RSS with Images WordPress feed plugin

Give your RSS feed a little flavor in order to prevent them from turning out bland and boring by adding some attractive featured images in your site’s RSS feeds with RSS with Images. It even comes with customizable sizing options.

It works very well with Mailchimp’s RSS-to-Email campaigns, which allows you to get more out of your email newsletters. You can even customize the XML encoding of your RSS feed. The only downfall to this is that it won’t add any existing images to your feeds, not like that’s much of a big deal.

6. FeedWordPress

FeedWordPress RSS Plugin

FeedWordPress intelligently syndicates content from all of the feeds that you choose for your WordPress blogs. Every content that it syndicates appear as a series of special posts in your WordPress posts database. It’s a popular RSS feed plugin with more than 50,000 active installs.

By syndicating several feeds, you can use WordPress’s posts database as well as a templating engine as the back-end of an aggregation website. It was designed for ease-of-use, ease-of-configuration, and flexibility.

7. Disable Feeds

Now here’s a unique plugin out of the aforementioned ones in the list. As its name suggests, Disable Feeds WordPress plugin lets you disable all the RSS/Atom/RDF feeds on your site. This is especially useful if you’re using WordPress for content management purposes and not for blogging.

All of the feed requests will be redirected to the corresponding HTML. You can tweak the plugin’s behavior is by going to Settings -> Reading.

8. RSS Includes Pages

RSS Includes Pages WordPress Feed Plugin

RSS Includes Pages WordPress RSS feed plugin includes pages instead of posts. It can be of particular use if pages represent a significant proportion of your content.

The pro version of this plugin extends that functionalities for less than $10. You can make sure that only pages are included in the feeds and not posts. It also allows you to add custom post types such as WooCommerce products.

9. Continuous RSS Scrolling

Continuous RSS Scrolling
As the name suggests continuous RSS Scrolling creates a vertical scroll on the page displaying the given RSS feed. The scroll however only includes the title of the post and not the entire post.

Users don’t need to have any coding knowledge to install or configure this plugin. Once you have installed it, drag and drop the widget to the sidebar. You will be able to see the scroll with a default RSS feed if you haven’t specified any.

How to Add RSS Feed to WordPress Website

Now that we have covered the top RSS feed plugins, it’s time to create and add WordPress RSS feed to WordPress website.

To set up an RSS feed on WordPress, login to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Appearance > Widgets.

Appearance > Widgets section of a wordpress

Once you’re on the Widgets page, find the RSS Widget.

Widgets page

Click on the dropdown button and you will see a list of places where you can add the RSS feed WordPress widget. Select your desired section and click Add Widget.

Add Widget button

The next step is to add the URL from where you want to fetch your WordPress RSS feed.

WordPress RSS feed section

For this article, I added WPblog’s URL in the URL field. You can choose to display content, author, and the date of your desired WordPress RSS along with the number of items per feed. Once you have added all the information, click Save.

Rss feeds

This was a simple process to create an RSS feed on WordPress websites.

How to Find Your WordPress RSS Feed

By default, all WordPress websites come with RSS feeds for all your posts installed in the feed directory. Just add/feed at the end of your website’s URL and you’d be able to see your RSS feed. Here is how WPblog’s RSS feed looks like:

feed directory

The problem is, as WordPress users, we don’t have a default option to share these RSS feed with our visitors. The best way is to use FeedPress, a WordPress RSS plugin that will let your visitors subscribe to your RSS feed and get email notifications.

Conclusion

And this is where my writing comes to a close. Every single one of these WordPress RSS feed plugins is just what you need to give your readers and visitors the important news and info that they’re looking for. If you think I’ve left some out, please do let me know in the comments below.

The post 9 Best WordPress RSS Feed Plugins in 2020 appeared first on WPblog.

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