WordPress Tutorials & Easy How-To Beginners Guides

Beginner’s Guide to WordPress SEO – WordPress SEO Basics

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

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

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

WordPress SEO Related Options

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

Check Website’s Visibility Settings

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

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

SEO Friendly URL Structure

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

Example:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WWW vs. Non-WWW

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

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

Meta Title Tags

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

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

Meta Title Best Practices

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

Meta Description Best Practices

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

Keyword Phrases

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

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

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

Image Names and Alt Text

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

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

Website Internal Linking

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

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

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

Page Load Speed

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

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

You can increase your page load speed with following techniques:

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

Do-Follow and No-Follow Links

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

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

DoFollow link:

Google

NoFollow link:

Google

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

Conclusion

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

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

Top Rated Code Editors For WordPress Developers in 2020

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

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

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

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

Vim

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

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

Integrated UI
Syntax highlighting for more than 200 languages

Light Table

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

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

Chocolat

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

Some other features are:

Project wide search and replace
Live error checking

Notepad++

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

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

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

Sublime Text

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

Sublime Text has a lot to offer you including:

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

Text Wrangler

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

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

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

Atom

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

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

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

Coda

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

Coda offers a whole range of powerful features including:

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

Text Mate

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

Text Mate offers a variety of features including:

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

jEdit

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

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

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

BBEdit

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

BBEdit offers innovative features including:

Autocompletion
Splittable editable windows
Syntax highlighting

Araneae

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

Araneae offers:

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

UltraEdit

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

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

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

That’s a Wrap!

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

The post Top Rated Code Editors For WordPress Developers in 2020 appeared first on WPblog.

8 Best WordPress Photo Gallery Plugins for 2020 (Compared)

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

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

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

Here’s what I look for in Gallery plugins:

What to look for in a WordPress Gallery Plugin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Envira Gallery

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

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

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

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

Price:

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

2. NextGEN Gallery (Free)

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

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

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

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

3. FooGallery (Free)

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

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

Here is Why FooGallery is a Great WordPress Gallery Plugin:

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

4. Gallery (Free)

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

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

Here is Why Gallery is a Great WordPress Gallery Plugin:

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

5. Gmedia Gallery

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

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

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

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

6. Photo Gallery by Supsystic

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

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

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

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

7. GalleryManager

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

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

Here is Why GalleryManager a Great WordPress Gallery Plugin:

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

8. WP Photo Album Plus

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

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

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

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

Get Cracking on Your Gallery Plugins

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

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

Marketing Automation Platforms: 25+ Best Marketing Automation Tools

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

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

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

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

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

Table of Content

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

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

Marketing Automation Tools for Ecommerce

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

Marketing Automation Tools for Startups

12. Google Tools
13. Marketo
14. HootSuite

Marketing Automation Tools for WordPress

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

Marketing Automation Tools for Small Businesses

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

Expert Opinions
Final Words

What is Marketing Automation?

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

Benefits of Marketing Automation

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

Let me share some core benefits of marketing automation:

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

Why Use Marketing Automation Tools?

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

It helps to improve and strengthen Customer Relationship Management CRM.

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

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

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

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

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

How To Use Marketing Automation Tools?

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

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

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

Marketing Automation Tools for SaaS

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

1. Databox

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

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

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

2. Atomic Reach

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

Also Read: Best WordPress Plugins for Content Marketers

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

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

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

3. Lucky Orange

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

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

This marketing automation tool is helpful for conversion rate optimization.

4. Seventh Sense

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

5. SEMRUSH

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

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

Also Read: Best WordPress Social Media Plugins

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

Best Marketing Automation Tools for Ecommerce

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

6. Dotmailer

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

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

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

7. Oracle Bronto

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

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

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

8. ActiveCampaign

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

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

9. Hubspot

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

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

10. SharpSpring

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

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

11. Exponea

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

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

What can you do with Exponea?

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

Best Marketing Automation Tools for Startups

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

12. Google Tools

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

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

13. Marketo

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

14. HootSuite

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

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

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

Snovio

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

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

Features of Snovio:

– Email finder

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

– Email verifier

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

– Sending letters with drip campaigns

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

– Technology check

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

Best Marketing Automation Tools for WordPress

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

15. SendinBlue

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

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

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

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

16. Pardot

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

17. Jumplead

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

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

18. WP Fusion Lite

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

19. AcyMailing

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

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

Best Marketing Automation Tools For Small Businesses

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

20. Mautic

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

21. Infusionsoft

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

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

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

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

23. ContentStudio: ( Saas Automation tool)

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

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

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

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

24. Hatchbuck

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

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

25. SendPulse

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

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

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

26. Easysendy

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

Expert Opinions

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

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

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

Tony Mastri
Marketing Specialist

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

Marie Lamonde
Content Marketing Specialist,

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

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

Peter Kim
Marketing Strategist, Ready Artwork

“Marketing Automation is like AI.

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

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

Devin Beverage
Founder, DevBev Co

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

Stacy Caprio
Founder, Growth Marketing

Final Words

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

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

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

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

7 Best WordPress Lazy Load Plugins to Make Your Site Faster

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

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

7 Best WordPress Lazy Load Plugins

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

What is Lazy Loading

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

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

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

Top WordPress Lazy Loading Plugins

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

1. Ajax Load More

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

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

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

2. WP Youtube Lyte

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

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

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

3. A3 Lazy Load

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

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

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

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

4. Lazy Load by WP Rocket

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

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

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

5. Speed Up – Lazy Load

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

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

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

6. Lazy Loader

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

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

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

7. Lazy Load for Videos

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

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

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

Wrapping it Up

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

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

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

JPEG vs JPG: Same Same, But Different

Muzamil Ali — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 15:27:45 +0000

As a website owner you must have come across a number of image formats when using images for your articles, product pages, and landing pages. Although there isn’t a need to hire an “image expert” to work your way around images, it’ll be great to familiarize yourself with the common image formats like JPEG and JPG.

In this article I will take you through a comparison of JPEG vs JPG image formats so that you know the difference and the similarities between the two.

But before we dive into the comparison, let’s understand what JPEG & JPG are individually.

What is JPEG?

JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group which is the name of the committee that formed the JPEG standard along with other quality standards like the ISO.

JPEG as Lossy Compression

JPEG is an image standard for lossy compression that compresses an image to reduce its size to minimize the impact on site speed. You can adjust the degree of compression to maintain image quality but that doesn’t mean compression results in poorer image quality.

Image compression tools ensure that an image is usable even after a 90% reduction in size. However, since it’s “lossy” some quality is indeed lost.

Here are some points to keep in mind when using JPEG format for image compression:

The compression process is permanent, though, which means that you can’t revert to the original quality or the size of the image once it goes through lossy compression.
Secondly, while you can set the image’s size yourself, do remember that the smaller the size, the poorer the image quality.
Lastly, you can always avoid lossy compression if you want to maintain image quality by using lossless compression and saving it in PNG format. But while your image quality is maintained, the file size is usually larger than the images compressed by lossy compression.

JPEG as File Format

You may have saved images on your PC on a daily basis but you might not have noticed the format you are saving your pictures in. Pictures downloaded from the internet are usually saved in JPEG format. Even when you edit images on paint or any other software, they’re converted to JPEG.

What is JPG?

Just read the above content again if you want to know what JPG is.

Sorry, what? Well, yes.

JPG is the same as JPEG. I am not kidding, JPEG and JPG aren’t any different from each other.

So why did you even bother with this article? I’ll tell you.

JPG file format was used in older versions of windows when the operating system used to support just 3 letter formats, like PNG and JPG. It wasn’t possible to add extra letters in the file format name because the system simply didn’t allow it. Since the launch of newer versions of windows, the system started supporting 4 letter file formats which made it possible to add the missing “E” and thus JPG was renamed to JPEG.

The same wasn’t the case for MacOS and Linux operating systems, so users could still use JPEG instead of JPG on those OS.

In Windows, there’s .jpg written in the bracket even today when you save an image in JPEG format to avoid confusion.

JPEG vs JPG: Raster or Vector?

Now that you’re aware of this not-so-secret fact about JPEG and JPG, it’s time to learn if they are Raster images or Vector images.

Raster and Vector images are two image types that form computer graphics and the visuals you see on your laptop screen are made from either of the two image types.

Raster Images are bitmaps which comprise of grids of individual pixels that collectively form an image. These bitmaps are contained in small square boxes and each box is coded in a different shade of color. Individually, these boxes won’t make any sense but when they come together, they form a clean visual on your computer screen.

Vector Images on the other hand are not pixel based. They are instead based on mathematical formulas that define different shapes such as lines, circles, polygons and rectangles. This image type is best suited for more structured images like linear images, logos, flags, and fonts. Vector images are more flexible, scalable, and versatile compared to raster images which is why they are always preferred over the latter.

So the question is, are JPEG and JPG image files raster or vector?

Well, they’re raster images.

JPEG vs JPG: Do Both Maintain Quality When Saved?

No. Both of these image types lose some of their quality when saved on a local PC. As we discussed earlier in the article, JPEG is an image standard for lossy compression and since both JPEG and JPG are the same, the compression method applies on both.

How to Convert Image Files to JPEG and JPG?

Converting files to JPEG and JPG format is easy thanks to the handy tools available both online and offline.
The first tool is the one we have been using since we were kids and when the internet wasn’t a 24/7 luxury: The Paint.
Open any image that isn’t already in JPEG or JPG format on paint, click on File from your top left and click on the arrow on Save As.
There you will see all the image formats you can save your file. Just click on JPEG and your image will be saved in that format.

Another way to save image files in JPEG format is through Adobe Photoshop. Once you have edited an image on the software, click on Save As, select the image format as .jpeg or .jpg and click Save.
Online tools such as Online Converter offer a simple method to carry out this task as well.
Select Image Converter from the home page, click on the drop down button on image converter and choose Convert to JPG. Then click Go.

Next, select or drop an image from your local PC that is not already in JPEG or JPG format image. Once you do that, you will be given the option to configure your image’s quality.

Click on Start Conversion and your image will convert to JPG format. Then you can download the image on your PC.

JPEG vs JPG: Just Remove The “E”

So now you that the only difference between JPEG and JPG is the “E” in the middle. The earlier windows version couldn’t accommodate the extra letter which is why it was called JPG but now that it can, the file format is referred to as JPEG.

Regardless of what you might call it, JPEG and JPG images are used widely by site owners because they are lighter and put minimal load on a website. This ultimately results in faster websites without compromising on the visuals.

If you have any questions regarding this article or any article on WPblog, feel free to hit me up at moeez@app61.cloudwayssites.com. Also, use the comment box below to say anything.

The post JPEG vs JPG: Same Same, But Different appeared first on WPblog.

28 Ways to Speed Up Your WordPress Site in 2020 (Ultimate Guide)

Moeez — Thu, 20 Feb 2020 00:00:53 +0000

Disclaimer: WPblog is a part of Cloudways, a Managed Cloud Hosting service, but any assumptions or analysis made on this property belong solely to their writers.

How to Speed Up a WordPress site? Great question, because while WordPress may be a great CMS, it tends to suffer from slow speeds if not properly optimized.

A fast website in this era is an absolute must for any online business. Whether you are a blogger, business owner, or an ecommerce store owner, fast loading websites deliver better user experience, seamless browsing across the website, and reduced consumption of resources (particularly RAM and bandwidth).

28 Ways to Speed Up WordPress Site:

1. - Why Speed Up Your WordPress Website
  - How to Speed up a WordPress Site

Why Speed Up Your Slow WordPress Website?

To begin with, there shouldn’t be any reason for you to run a slow website. No user wants to wait for a website to load and waste their time looking at a blank or a rendering page. If users do come across a page that takes minutes to load, they’ll go looking for another that gives them the info they want in a few seconds.

According to Kissmetric:

“A 1-second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions“.
“If an ecommerce site is making $100,000 per day, a 1-second page delay could potentially cost you $2.5 million in lost sales every year“.
“44% of online shoppers will tell their friends about a bad experience online“.
“79% of shoppers who are dissatisfied with website performance are less likely to buy from the same site again”.
52% of online shoppers state that quick page loading is important to their site loyalty.

These are some serious numbers taken directly from Kissmetric’s blog and those people know their stuff pretty well. Hence, if you don’t improve your WordPress’s speed, you’re losing out on a lot of business.

Besides losing business, there are upsides to improving page speeds as well.

Improved user experience for visitors coming from diverse sources.
Search engines love fast websites and rank them higher in SERP.
A fast WordPress website naturally has more page views than a bloated website that loads slowly.

Great, now you and I both know it’s crucial for us to have a zippy website that delivers info in a heartbeat.

The problem is, speeding up a WordPress website is not a matter of few tweaks. Rather, it’s a combination of various factors and optimizations that come together to form a super-fast website.

How to Check or Test Loading Time of Your Site?

How to test the loading time of your website?

Okay, so we might be rushing ahead because there’s a possibility that you have an inkling about your website being slow, but you’re not absolutely sure.

Don’t fret, though, because we have the perfect solution for you in the shape of these awesome tools that can tell you how your site is performing:

You can analyze your website speed properly using the tools above and get a fairly accurate idea of how deep in the water your performance is! For now, though, let’s address the elephant in the room.

Here are the 26+ ways in which you can speed up your WordPress website! Dig in.

How to Speed Up Your WordPress Site

1. Host on a Reputable WordPress Hosting Provider

Before you even think about optimizing your WordPress website for speed, ask yourself this question: is my website hosted on a reliable web host?

For beginners, hosting on a shared hosting plan always seems to be a bargain because the costs are low and the offered features seem to have no end. However, with time, everyone realizes that shared hosting is never a good solution for any website that prioritizes speed.

There are a lot of hosting options out there, so do you know which one is best for you?

As a general rule of thumb, remember that shared hosting is not good for you, and Cloud Hosting is the best option. 5 years ago there used to talk about the cloud being the future. But the cloud is now the present and the future. And if you’re hosted on a Cloud Hosting (like Cloudways, the one we’re hosted on and we absolutely love it), then your online presence is in safe hands.

Factors like Speed, Security, and Simplicity in hosting are a must, and cloud hosting promises you all that without any compromises. Many hosting providers come with built-in features for speed and security which includes cache plugins and SSL certificates.

There are other cloud hosting providers like WPEngine, GetFlyWheel, Pagely, Pantheon, and Kinsta that get the job done as well. So if you want a super-fast website, choose a reliable cloud hosting provider and let the site speed do the talking!

2. Use a Lightweight WordPress Theme / framework

Once you’ve set up your website and you’re sure you’ve chosen the right WordPress hosting provider, it’s time to look at your theme selection.

The internet is overflowing with WordPress themes. In fact, the official WordPress Theme Repository has thousands of them. Furthermore, dedicated theme websites such as ThemeForest add a couple of thousands to the list of WordPress themes.

In this case, ask yourself these questions before selecting a theme for your WordPress site:

Is the theme based on an optimized framework such as Bootstrap, Thesis or Genesis?
Is the theme minimalistic and looks good?
Is the HTML code optimized?
Is the size of theme files small?
Is the WordPress theme free of bloated options that nobody ever uses?

If the answer is yes to all these questions, go ahead with your selected theme.

But since everyone isn’t acquainted with technicalities and most don’t want to go through the hassle, you can select great, minimalistic, and fast themes from lists compiled by WordPress blog like us.

Here’s our list of the fastest loading themes for WordPress: Fastest Loading WordPress Themes

Select any theme from the list, and your website’s speed is in safe hands!

3. Install Fewer & Lightweight Plugins

Plugins! They add functionality, features, and awesomeness to your website.

Whatever functionality you want on your WordPress website, chances are that there is already a plugin in the WordPress.org plugin repository that does the trick.

But there’s one more thing they add if you overuse plugins: weight.

WordPress admins sometimes get carried away with adding plugins for more functionality. But as the number of plugins increase, so does the website load time and affects the overall performance.

Hence, I strongly recommend that you use as few plugins as possible for WordPress speed optimization and always opt for plugins from reputable developers.

Also Read: Best WordPress Speed Test Tools to Optimize Your Website Performance

4. Delete Unused Plugins and Themes

So you got carried away and installed every plugin you could find? And once you read that installing so many plugins can slow down your website, you probably deactivated them thinking that will solve the problem, didn’t you?

Well, your intention may be correct, but the method is wrong.

The real solution, in this case, is to delete the plugins and even the extra installed themes from your WordPress. Only when you delete them from your dashboard do you really reduce the size of the wp-content folder, which improves access time to this folder.

In short, deleting unused plugins and themes can help increase your WordPress speed.

5. Use Optimized Images (Reduce Image Size)

If you’re a beginner, you may make think that high-resolution images (100KB to 1MB in size) mean your website is visually better. However, the bigger the image size, eat up a lot the more time it takes to load and consumes more bandwidth.

Most importantly, though, high-resolution images make your WordPress website sluggish. To deal with these images, I suggest that you convert the images to a lower resolution and smaller format (JPEG, BMP, GIF).

If you prefer a plugin to do the job for you, then WP Smush.it and ShortPixel Image Optimizer wins my recommendation of the best WordPress image optimization plugin to speed up a WordPress site.

6. Reduce External Scripts & HTTP Requests

The HTTP Request Stats by prepostseo

Some themes and plugins are loaded with external scripts that call various resources including JavaScript, CSS, fonts, and images.

If you check website’s source code, you’ll find some scripts that you can’t identify. The best practice to speed up a slow WordPress site in this scenario is to eliminate as many external HTTP requests as possible and host them on the server alongside your website.

External HTTP requests are sometimes slow to respond and in worst cases, they even timeout because external requests are loaded from external servers that you do not control.

7. Use Latest PHP Version

Updating to the latest PHP version (at the moment PHP 7.x) will greatly improve your site’s speed. PHP 7 works delightfully well with WordPress websites and delivers exceptional performance.

So go to your WordPress dashboard and see which PHP version you are currently on. Do ask your hosting provider whether they have support for PHP 7 before upgrading, though. This is a must-have upgrade that helps your site perform well even on low-end servers.

8. Install a WordPress Caching Plugin

Caching plugin is a must-have on all your WordPress websites. These plugins help in configuring the following caches on the website:

Browser Cache
Database Cache (more on this later)
Opcode Cache
Object Cache
Server-side Cache (Varnish)
Page caching

Best WordPress Caching Plugins For A Fast Loading Website

WP Rocket
W3 Total Cache
WP Super Cache

To view the full list check out our article on Best WordPress caching plugins to speed up a WordPress site.

9. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Visitors come to your website from all over the world. The problem with this globally distributed traffic is that everybody will have different page load speed.

To ensure near-uniform loading time for all geographical locations, a CDN is the best choice. CDN makes a copy of your website onto servers that are distributed across the world. A website behind a CDN will be served from the nearest server to the visitor’s IP address.

I strongly recommend MaxCDN to improve your WordPress speed optimization.

10. Optimize WordPress Database

Over time, the WordPress database will get filled with data that you may not require any more. WordPress databases store everything including entire blog posts, images, user data, settings, and comments.

I recommend that you clean up the WordPress database every three months. This will keep your database healthy and free of unwanted garbage that potentially slows down the website. You can optimize WordPress database manually and through a database optimization plugin.

11. Reduce Database Calls & Use Database Cache

There is a high chance that you might end up using a poorly coded WordPress theme that makes unnecessarily calls to the database, even in situations where a simple HTML code will do well.

This is why it is vital that you evaluate your theme, file by file and replace any unwanted PHP and database calls with simple HTML.

Another way of optimizing databases is to use a caching system that caches all the database requests. Memcached and Redis work wonders and help reduce the load on the database by caching the requests and reducing the time required to serve the most frequent requests.

Also Read: How to Keep your WordPress Theme & Plugin Code Secure

12. Use a Better Database or Host It Separately

MySQL is probably the most used database by WordPress users and hosting providers. However, several databases such as MariaDB, PostgreSQL are known to perform better than MySQL.

Ask your hosting provider whether they have MariaDB or PostgreSQL, and if they do have the support, I suggest you move your WordPress database to either of these DBMS for better WordPress site speed optimization.

13. Update the WordPress Core

Updates for the WordPress core are vital for the security of your website. In addition to the security, these updates are also essential for speeding up your website. The performance boost may be too small to be noticeable, but still, I highly recommend that you update the WordPress core as soon as an update is released.

14. Update the Plugins

Similar to the core. It is necessary to keep all the plugins updated at all times. The same logic that applies to the updates for the WordPress core, applies to plugins as well. Many WordPress site speed optimization issues arise from outdated plugins.

15. Adding Google Fonts

Google Fonts is one of the most popular and extensive web fonts libraries which you can use to incorporate any type of font in your WordPress site. WordPress Google Fonts are hosted on a different server and can be assessed by calling the custom style sheet inside your WordPress site.

Although Google Fonts offer an extensive range of fonts; there are a few things you need to keep in mind while using the library so that you do not compromise the site’s performance.

Pre-load Web Fonts For Better Performance

When you use Google Fonts you are basically calling the style sheet generated by Google which is brought to your WordPress site from Google’s servers.

You can see behind the scenes working by Inspecting your web page using Google Chrome’s developer tool. Inside Source, you can see two entries for Google Fonts.

Upon clicking on the fonts.googleapis, you will find that the style sheet you generated the URI for. And for each font face declaration, there is a call to the actual font file.

This means that for each of the weight of the font; the browser needs to navigate to fonts.gstatic.com to download the required weight for the font. This process can slow down the loading time of your WordPress site.

To improve this process, you can inform the browser right off the top about the connection it needs to make for getting the right font and its weights. This enables the browser to open up the port for handling this request.

Inside your functions.php file, add the following function inside the function where fonts are managed.

function twentyeleven_resource_hints( $urls, $relation_type ) {
	if ( wp_style_is( 'rumi-fonts', 'queue' ) && 'preconnect' === $relation_type ) {
		$urls[] = array(
			'href' => 'https://fonts.gstatic.com',
			'crossorigin',
		);
	}

	return $urls;
}
add_filter( 'wp_resource_hints', 'twentyeleven_resource_hints', 10, 2 );

Replace the theme name with yours in the code above.

Locally Hosted Google Fonts

You can void the hassle of downloading the Google Fonts from Google altogether by locally hosting the fonts. This way you are not dependant on any third party for supplying the fonts to your WordPress site. However, this method will not update the fonts automatically and you might need to replace the file with the updated ones after some time.

To host the fonts locally, simply visit the Google Webfonts Helper site, search your desired font family.

Scroll down and under Copy CSS, choose Modern Browsers so that you get the downloaded font in .woff or .woff2 formats which offer better performance.

After downloading the fonts file, extract the file and upload it to your project.

Note: Google Webfonts Helper is not an official Google project.

Other Best Practices

Each font-weight or variant you add slows down the downloading process. It is recommended to use only those weights which you think will be used and eliminate the unnecessary ones to improve the overall performance.

You have this option while choosing the desired Google Fonts inside the CUSTOMIZE tab.

Another good practice is to define fallback fonts inside your WordPress theme so that if for some reasons Google Fonts are not loaded; default fonts can replace it.

Inside the style sheet where you refer to font-family add default fonts families like Georgia, Cambria and “Times New Roman”.

16. Update Your Theme

Just like outdated plugins, outdated themes are also the cause of WordPress site speed optimization issues. If you have purchased a premium theme or downloaded a well-maintained theme from the WordPress.org Theme Repository, chances are there will be occasional updates for these themes. The authors of the themes continuously fix bugs and improve the quality of the theme by minifying the theme code.

To update your WordPress website, just log in to the WordPress admin panel and under Dashboard >> Updates, you will see all the available updates for the WordPress Core, Plugins and Themes.

17. Limit Posts on the Homepage & Use Excerpts

Some WordPress themes, by default, load entire blog posts on the homepage of the WordPress website. To make your blog more readable and to reduce the loading time, I recommend reducing the number of blog posts that are displayed on the home page. To limit the number of blog posts, head over to Settings >> Reading in the WordPress Admin and define the number of blog posts you wish to display. I recommend using a number of less than 10.

Other than limiting blog posts, it is a good practice to use excerpts of blog posts on the front page. Most themes display excerpts on the front page, when you select Summary in Settings >> Reading, as shown in the above screenshot.

18. Split Comments Into Pages

If you have a popular WordPress blog, chances are that people will start commenting on your blog posts. Sometimes, the conversations span over hundreds of comments. Keeping all the comments on one page will seriously impact the loading time of your website.

The best practice to deal with thousands of comments is to paginate them and load groups of comments on demand. You can easily control this by navigation to Settings >> Discussion and select the Break Comments option as shown in the following image.

19. Paginate Long-Form Content

Just like paginating blog comments, it is a good practice to paginate long blog posts that contain more than a thousand words. Many website development firms use this technique to keep the loading time to a minimum. A side benefit is that content consumption becomes easy because of small servings. Ultimately, this will help you speed up your WordPress site.

In most themes, you can use in the post editor to paginate the text after the tag to the next page.

If this tag does not work, simply open single.php file in your prefered editor and add in the WP Loop. I recommend checking out the WordPress Codex.

20. Use Lazy Loading

Lazy Load Diagram by passivegrow

Loading all the images at once can put a lot of stress on the server and the browsers of the visitors. The best method of reducing the load time and improve WordPress speed optimization of your WordPress website is to lazy load images. This concept loads up the images as the visitor is scrolling and viewing a part of the image.

You can easily implement this technique through the WordPress Lazy Load Plugins or hiring an agency is one of the ways for fixing problems and speeding up

21. Use Third Party Platforms for Visual Content

Uploading large media files such as images, infographics, and videos to your WordPress website is generally not a good practice as it adversely increases the size of the uploads folder.

To keep the load off your server, it is better to host the videos and large images at a third party image storage solution provider and embed them in the WordPress posts and pages. This way the video and image rendering is handled by the external servers.

For example, to increase WordPress speed, host the videos on Youtube, Wistia or Vimeo and embed them into the WordPress website. The embedded resources load faster and also look nicer. This technique also ensures that you have a backup copy of all the visual content of your website at an external location and it helps speed up the WordPress site.

22. Disable Pingbacks & Trackbacks

By default, WordPress enables pingbacks and trackbacks. Through pingbacks, WordPress websites communicate among each other by sending notifications whenever one WordPress website links to another one.

Enabling pingbacks and trackbacks has drawbacks as each notification is a separate request. Thus, If your website receives a lot of trackbacks and pingbacks, it adds to the load time of the website.

To turn off these requests, navigate to Settings >> Reading in the WordPress Admin and uncheck the Allow link notifications from other blogs option as shown in the following image:

23. Limit Post Revisions and Enhance Your WordPress Performance

By default, WordPress saves the drafts of blog posts and pages as post revisions. Every 60 seconds, a new revision is saved. Just imagine the load on your website in the case of multiple authors working on different blog posts. Each revision save request consumes server resources and increase the load time for the visitors.

You can simply disable or limit post revisions on WordPress by using WP Revisions Limit plugin to speed up a WordPress site.

24. Disable Hotlinking to Your WordPress Website

Hotlinking is the concept where one website uses the media (images, infographics, etc.) of another website in its content. Some websites will embed images in their content by making a call to your media files.

Hotlinks will eat into your server resources and it is a good practice to disable hotlinking altogether. You can read a helpful guide from our friends at WPNinjas on how to disable hotlinking.

25. Add an Expires Header to Static Resources

Expires header in your content defines for how long should the visitor’s’ browser retain your content in its cache. This is very helpful for returning visitors to your website because the browser does not have to reload resources on every visit.

You can add expire time in the .htaccess file by defining the following code

ExpiresActive On

ExpiresByType image/gif A2592000

ExpiresByType image/png A2592000

ExpiresByType image/jpg A2592000

ExpiresByType image/jpeg A2592000

The above code tells the visitor’s browser to cache images for a month. You can edit this duration by editing A2592000 (this means 1 month in the future (60*60*24*30=2592000)).

26. Remove Useless Widgets & Social Sharing Buttons

Similar to plugins, people do get carried away all sorts of eye candy, widgets, and buttons on WordPress websites. Adding too many widgets and social buttons will add a lot of requests on the frontend and each request means an additional call to the database. The end result of this many requests is a slow loading page. Therefore, It is best to keep the frontend of your theme lightweight and simple if you want to speed up WordPress site.

27. Use AMP Pages

Accelerated Mobile Pages is the new hype in the SEO and web development industry. The AMP pages load in milliseconds on mobile devices and rank higher in Google SERP in searches originating from mobile devices.

If you want higher traffic from mobile users, it is absolutely necessary to configure AMP pages on WordPress. Read our helpful guide on how to configure AMP pages on WordPress websites.

28. Lastly, Use Faster Internet!

After you have implemented all the above 26 steps and your visitors are still complaining that your WordPress website is slow, it is time to ask the all-important question: Is my Internet Fast Enough?

Summing Up

Speeding up WordPress website is not simple. The above steps cover all essential aspects of improving your WordPress performance for your visitors. If you have further questions on how to how to speed up a WordPress site, then do leave your questions in the comments section and I will point you in the right direction.

The post 28 Ways to Speed Up Your WordPress Site in 2020 (Ultimate Guide) appeared first on WPblog.

Best CMS Detectors Tools to Find Out What CMS Is This Site Using?

Moeez — Thu, 20 Feb 2020 00:00:41 +0000

Before jumping on to building their own digital footprint, a majority of people go through dozens of websites, and the question on top of their minds is,‘what CMS is this site using’?

That’s usually because building a WordPress website isn’t as easy as it sounds and as any expert will tell you, selecting the right platform is crucial. Once you’ve selected your choice of CMS from the dozens that are available in the market, you need to select an appropriate theme, the best WordPress plugins/extensions & other components that make a great website.

Hence, instead of going through the hundreds to thousands of choices yourself, a great way to pick the best CMS, WordPress themes, and plugins is to check out what other popular and successful websites use.

But all that information isn’t plastered on the top folds of every website, right? That’s why you need a website CMS detector.

And so we’ve listed down all the best CMS detectors out there to help you identify what CMS a site is using, and what WordPress business themes & plugins are powering them!

But before we move on to the CMS detectors, let’s build an understanding on what is a CMS and how many CMS’s are there.

What is a CMS?

A CMS, or a Content Management System, is a piece of software that allows users to create and manage websites and their content. It is an ideal solution to build websites for non techy users as you don’t have to use codes nor do you require any development knowledge to create your website from scratch.

A great example of a CMS is WordPress which has made website development a piece of cake for everyone. The CMS lets you create your website, manage its content and design through different themes and website builders. You can also add various functionalities to your WordPress website using plugins like Yoast SEO, Contact Form 7 and more.

Because of WordPress’s popularity, many users don’t know about other CMS’s available. Drupal, Joomla, Wix and Magento are some of the CMS that are widely used to create various websites. If you are looking for a CMS with rock solid security for your website, then you would choose Drupal but if you have a more complex website, Joomla is your answer.

Discover What CMS a Site Is Using With These CMS Detectors

To detect a website’s CMS, use these highly useful online tools:

1. What CMS

What CMS is a respected online CMS detector that can detect 142 different CMS applications and their services. If ever a website slips through their system, WhatCMS people don’t take much time to update their database immediately!

2. IsItWP.com

IsItWP offers plenty of information on WordPress based websites including the theme, plugins, underlying hosting, and other information. It’s really easy to find out all the underlying technologies a WordPress site is using with this tool.

3. Allora / Rescan.io

Formerly, Allora.io, Rescan is another well-known tool with a database of over 2200+ CMS/frameworks. The tool even offers suggestions and recommendations based on popular plugins and themes . The list is dynamically maintained, enabling you to check out the latest themes and plugins used in your chosen niche anytime you need to.

4. Wappalyzer

If you don’t want to use a web-based tool, you could go for Wappalyzer, a Chrome extension that does the job as well as the other tools on the list. Once installed, you just need to visit the website you want to detect and click on the Wappalyzer button to find out the theme and related information about the website.

5. BuiltWith

We at WPblog use BuildWith because this is hands down the most comprehensive CMS detector around. It not only tells you which CMS a website is using, but it also reveals the tools installed on that website. All you need to do is enter a site’s URL and it shows you what analytics tool the website is using, what social media tools are being run and what is CMS is the website built on.

6. W3Techs

W3Techs is a very reliable CMS detector that provides a list of tools installed on a website. Upon visiting W3 Techs, navigate to Sites and enter your target URL. Then you will be able to see all the technological details of the website including CMS, hosting provider, DNS Server provider, Site Elements and more. You also get some added information like site description, popularity rank, and traffic based on location.

7. Netcraft Site Report

Netcraft is a simple CMS detector that detects a website’s CMS along with its domain registrar, hosting provider, hosting country, and much more.

It is one of the oldest CMS detectors around and is usually used by more traditional users.

8. OnlineWebTool

A very popular CMS detector, OneWebTool, provides a very straightforward way of identifying CMSs of your target website although the database is not as large as other CMS detectors. However, it does provide a lot of detail about your target website including the CMS, Alexa rank, website safety and much more.

How to Detect CMS Manually Without Using a CMS Detector

Apart from using CMS detectors, there are other ways to find out what CMS a website is using. For some popular CMSs like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, the task is fairly simple but many other CMSs make it hard for anyone to detect this particular information.

For example, every WordPress website comes with a default text in the footer that says “Powered by WordPress”. However, in most cases, users often hide this text because of security reasons. Since WordPress is the most popular CMS around, hackers often target WordPress websites to find loopholes and vulnerabilities within the theme or plugins those websites are using.

For other CMSs like Joomla, a favicon is displayed on your browser tab which will help you discover this information but there are more traditional ways to discover a website’s CMS.

One of the ways to detect CMS is through the source code of the website. If the website is built on Squarespace or WordPress, you will be able to find the CMS in the source code through the search option. Just type Ctrl+U > Ctrf+F and then search for the CMS you think the website is built on.

Apart from that, you can also Inspect Element on the website and go to Source. There, judging by the URL of the files, you will be able to judge what CMS a website is built on.

Of course, these methods are either too time consuming or they don’t give a definitive answer which is why we listed these amazing CMS detectors.

Conclusion

In order to save a lot of time and effort, I’d suggest that you first make a list of the websites that you want to use as references and then use one or more of the above-mentioned tools to discover more about the CMS, themes, and plugins.

In case the list above is missing your favorite site that detects a website’s CMS, theme, or plugin, let me know in the comments below, and I’ll add it to the list after testing it out!

The post Best CMS Detectors Tools to Find Out What CMS Is This Site Using? appeared first on WPblog.

8 Best Free and Paid FTP Clients for WordPress Users (2020)

Moeez — Sun, 16 Feb 2020 00:00:41 +0000

Some 13 years ago, WordPress came into existence. To this day, we have seen the open-source platform reach a number of milestones and become the most widely used CMS in the world. The team behind WordPress have rolled out a number of updates over the years to improve user experience and enhance security.

But despite the efforts, WordPress still has a long way to go to make it a perfect platform for its users. Users still find it difficult to carry out some functions from within the platform, like file management.

WordPress doesn’t let you access your files directly from your server. This requires an FTP connection.

What is FTP?

FTP – File Transfer Protocol, acts as a bridge between your computer and your web server, allowing you to upload and download files.

These FTPs are software that establishes a connection between your server and PC to facilitate the file transfer. You can easily copy, upload, delete, rename, and edit files/folders on your WordPress site.

But it’s not as simple as it sounds. The interface is not very beginner-friendly and non-technical users often find it difficult to wrap their heads around an FTP. As a result, many casual WordPress users don’t use FTP at all. These users use FTP for troubleshooting rather than file management.

FTP also acts as a fix for many common WordPress errors, one of which is the white screen of death. This is caused by plugin incompatibility and you will need an FTP to delete plugins because you are not able to access the WordPress admin area.

In this article, I will be covering some of the best free FTP clients that fit your file management needs.

1. Cyberduck

Cyberduck is an open-source, cross-platform FTP client that is compatible with both, Windows and Mac. It has an extremely easy user-interface which makes managing files super easy. It is also free to download.

Most cross-platform FTPs are not very Mac-friendly but that is not the case with Cyberduck. It not only integrates with the Mac environment but also supports exclusive Mac features which include saving credentials in the keychain and discovering files in finder.

Cyberduck also smoothly integrates with some of the biggest cloud storages including Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, and OpenStack Swift. For these reasons and more, Cyberduck goes in my list of best free FTP clients.

Also Read: Simple Steps To Remove Proudly Powered By WordPress

2. FileZilla

FileZilla is probably the most popular best free FTP client there is. It’s open-source and compatible with major platforms including Windows, Mac, and Linux. The FTP is completely free and it has been around since 2001 making it one of the oldest FTP around.

FileZilla is as easy as an FTP can get. However, some Windows users have experienced adware and spyware included in the FileZilla downloads. You can uncheck the box for adware during installation but many users usually don’t pay much attention to these checkboxes. Make sure you are not one of them!

3. FreeFTP

FreeFTP does exactly what it says on the package, It is an FTP client and it is absolutely free. Developed by Coffee House, FreeFTP is one of the most popular WordPress FTPs. With a beginner-friendly interface, FreeFTP is quite easy to use.

It includes support for FTP, SFTP, FTPS, and HTTP and also has bookmarking functionality including combo bookmarks. The history feature means that you will never forget where you have stored a file.

4. FireFTP

FireFTP is an extension of the famous internet browser Mozilla Firefox. The open-source WordPress FTP client is free to download and it comes with FTP, SSL, TLS, and SFTP support. The plugin runs smoothly with your Firefox browser and has a seamless drag and drop feature as well.

With FireFTP, file transfers automatically resume if it is disconnected at any point. It also comes with Directory synchronization and comparison. It is one of the best free FTP clients around.

5. CuteFTP (Paid)

The paid WordPress FTP client has the best name among all FTP clients. CuteFTP is compatible with both Windows and Mac but has different pricing for both. The Mac version would cost you $39.99 and the Windows version would cost you around $59.99 with 1-year maintenance. The price difference for Windows-version means that there are additional features for Windows users.

CuteFTP comes with support for a variety of protocols, including FTP/S, HTTP/S, and SFTP. One of the features for Windows users is the TappIn. It allows you to share files between computers and mobile/tablet devices. The built-in text editor lets you edit your content smoothly and quickly.

6. Direct FTP (Paid)

Direct FTP is actually the paid version of Free FTP. The software is Windows-exclusive and has a price tag of $39 attached to it. The preview function lets you see the changes you have made before finalizing and saving them.

The snippet library lets you store your favorite code snippets. With image-editing functionality and built-in text editor makes Direct FTP one of the best free FTP around.

7. Transmit (Paid)

Transmit is a Mac-only WordPress FTP client that comes with a nominal price of $34. Transmit is the best free FTP client for Mac users. Why? Speed! The latest version, Transmit 4, is so fast, it will make your eyes water. Transmit 4 is 25 times faster than Transmit 3 and Transmit 3 was pretty fast as well. It is, not only the best but the fastest WordPress FTP client for Mac.

Along with speed, Transmit has other features as well that make it stand out from the rest. It supports FTP, SFTP, and Amazon S3 Cloud transfers. A stylish UI and advanced server preferences are enough to justify the $34 price tag.

Also Read: 17 Best WordPress Security & Malware Protection Plugins in 2020

8. WinSCP

WinSCP is the most straightforward WordPress FTP client available right now. It’s simple but very effective. It has all the things that you could want in an FTP client. WinSCP is lightweight, reliable and easy to use.

It supports FTP, SFTP, SCP, and WebDAV protocols. With a clean user interface and a built-in text editor, WinSCP is one of the best free FTP clients.

That’s a wrap!

WordPress, even with all its perfections, still lacks some functionalities. Thankfully the most popular CMS in the world is open-source which results in various solutions provided by developers and designers. Your choice of FTP client depends on your requirements and usage. You might be able to fulfill your requirement with a Free FTP client but do not underestimate the effectiveness of a paid one.

I hope my list of best free FTP clients will help you in deciding which FTP to go for and if I have missed an FTP client that is on your list, do mention it in the comment section below.

Bonus Content

How To Fix 403 Forbidden Error in WordPress
How to Add Breadcrumbs to WordPress Website
How to Fix WordPress White Screen of Death

The post 8 Best Free and Paid FTP Clients for WordPress Users (2020) appeared first on WPblog.

3dcart Review: The All-In-One eCommerce Solution

Moeez — Tue, 11 Feb 2020 05:31:25 +0000

Deciding on ecommerce software for your WordPress site can be overwhelming.

From open-source software to hosted SaaS platforms, there are plenty of options to choose from, and each eCommerce solution comes with its unique benefits. So what makes 3dcart different? And how is it an all-in-one ecommerce solution?
Let’s take an in-depth look into 3dcart, which is widely considered to be one of the most feature-packed eCommerce platforms on the market, to see if it’s worthy of integrating with your WordPress website.

What Is 3dcart?

Founded in 1997 by CEO Gonzalo Gil, 3dcart was created with the goal of streamlining everything an online merchant would need to build and run an online store into a single, comprehensive solution. It’s an all-in-one SaaS hosted eCommerce platform that provides merchants with a long list of features, tools, and integrations to make selling online easier.
Today, 3dcart hosts over 20,000 online stores and regularly updates its software to offer the newest eCommerce tools to merchants.

What Does 3dcart Offer?

There are plenty of useful features that 3dcart offers to make your ecommerce journey worth it.

Shopping Cart Software

Arguably, the most important set of features for the purposes of online selling that 3dcart offers is its shopping cart software.
3dcart gives you total freedom when it comes to creating a custom shopping cart that works both for your website and your customers. Merchants can view, edit, and save carts in addition to enabling either customer accounts or guest checkout. Checkout pages can be customized to be either one-page or three pages – whichever works better for your specific business.

You can also enable real-time shipping rates and set custom shipping types, like free shipping on your online store. Sales tax is easy to set-up with 3dcart’s interface, making it simple for your online business to be tax compliant while also being PCI compliant. There’s also marketing, SEO, and abandoned cart recovery tools built into 3dcart, helping you capture more customers and boost your overall conversion rates.

Embedding Options

For integration into your WordPress site, 3dcart offers an HTML buy button that can be added anywhere on your website as a widget.
The Buy Button can display a product’s pricing, stock level, options, and more. Users can click the button and go directly to your custom storefront and checkout, which makes selling directly from your website quick and easy. Adding a Buy Now Button is possible on any website that accepts HTML code, making the possibilities endless for how you integrate ecommerce into your website.

3dcart also offers a front-end API that allows for another method of adding eCommerce functionality to your website. By adding the REST API to your website’s code, you’ll be able to add products, a shopping cart, product categories and more directly to your existing site.
Since your 3dcart plan includes its own domain name and a secured storefront, you also have the option of adding a link to your existing WordPress site that directs to your 3dcart site.

To make this integration seamless, you can edit your storefront’s design to look cohesive with your existing website’s design – so, let’s get into store design features.

Online Store Design

With 3dcart, you have total control over designing your website’s storefront, product pages, category pages, and checkout.
With 3dcart’s advanced Core Templating Engine, you can get the exact store design you want that seamlessly matches your current website’s look and feel. Using a Drag n’ Drop HTML editor and modular design code, it’s easy to make large visual edits and more advanced code edits.

All store templates are designed to be responsive and fast-loading, thanks to Google AMP and AJAX implementation.

Payment Gateways

The software gives merchants access to a long list of more than 160 payment gateways and checkout options, including solutions for accepting credit cards, eChecks, digital wallets, ACH payments, and more. Some major options that 3dcart supports are:

Square
PayPal
Stripe
Klarna
EVO Payments
Elavon
Authorize.Net
Persolvent

3dcart is a popular option for businesses that need support for high-risk merchant accounts and international accounts because their long list of accepted payment gateways includes options for those industries.

Pricing

3dcart offers a variety of paid plans. You can choose the plan depending on how large your business is and how many features you need. To start out, you can sign up for a free 15-day trial to get an initial feel of the admin and begin setting up your storefront.

The least expensive plan available is their Dropshipping plan, which is $9.99/month and comes with all the basic features you’d need to run a drop-ship online store.

If you’d like to do more than drop-ship, their Startup store plan costs $19/month and comes with 1 staff user, 2 email accounts and includes access to over 160 payment gateways.

For more advanced features and more staff users & email accounts, you can upgrade to a Basic store plan at $29/month or a Plus store plan at $79/month.

If your business is already too big and you need up to 15 staff users and 30 email accounts, then you’ll want to look into the Pro store plan at $229/month.

Enterprise store pricing plans are also available and can be discussed with 3dcart sales.

Integrations

You can integrate 3dcart with hundreds of apps and services to add functionality to your website’s eCommerce site.
Let’s run through a few of the most popular integrations you might consider adding:
Accounting Software:

QuickBooks
Xero
FreshBooks
eBridge Connections

CRM Software:

ReadyCloud
HubSpot
LiveAgent
Engagebay

Marketing Tools:

MailChimp
Drip
Rejoiner
Constant Contact

Support

Because 3dcart is a hosted SaaS solution, they’re able to offer a dedicated technical support and customer service team to merchants. Their technical support is available 24/7/365 (including holidays) via phone, live chat, email, and ticket submission.

If you’d like to troubleshoot any issues yourself, 3dcart has also compiled an expansive self-serve knowledge base filled with articles for seemingly any problem you may encounter.

How does 3dcart compare to WooCommerce?

It’s no secret that WooCommerce is the most popular choice for WordPress sites that want to add eCommerce functionality. There’s a lot of reasons why this is the case: WooCommerce is free, easily customizable, fully integrated, and supported by an exhaustive list of additional plugins.

But, there are several reasons why 3dcart may be a better fit for your website as your chosen eCommerce solution.
First, the obvious difference between 3dcart and WooCommerce is that the former is a paid hosted SaaS solution while the latter is a free WordPress plugin.

But the paid service, 3dcart, may be worth it because of the sheer number of built-in features that it comes with – features that you may be paying extra for with added plugins in WooCommerce. This may end up saving you money in the long run, since you’ll have all of the features you need already combined into one monthly plan, rather than spread across multiple premium WordPress plugins.

Second, WooCommerce being an open-source plugin for WordPress means there isn’t a dedicated technical support team that can help you troubleshoot and solve any problems your site may run into with the integration. 3dcart, on the other hand, offers extensive round-the-clock support from a team of experts well-versed in the software.

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for a powerful solution for adding eCommerce functionality to your WordPress site, then 3dcart is a comprehensive and streamlined option. It’s packed to the brim with useful features that are all available out-of-the-box, without any extra plugin installs required. 3dcart is also supported by an easy-to-use backend and dedicated support team, available any time that you need it.
We definitely recommend their eCommerce platform to any WordPress webmaster that’s looking for an all-in-one solution.

The post 3dcart Review: The All-In-One eCommerce Solution appeared first on WPblog.

WordPress Tutorials & Easy How-To Beginners Guides

Beginner’s Guide to WordPress SEO – WordPress SEO Basics

WordPress SEO Related Options

Check Website’s Visibility Settings

SEO Friendly URL Structure

Example:

WWW vs. Non-WWW

Meta Title Tags

Meta Title Best Practices

Meta Description Best Practices

Keyword Phrases

Image Names and Alt Text

Website Internal Linking

Page Load Speed

Do-Follow and No-Follow Links

DoFollow link:

NoFollow link:

Categories

Conclusion

Top Rated Code Editors For WordPress Developers in 2020

Vim

Light Table

Chocolat

Notepad++

Sublime Text

Text Wrangler

Atom

Coda

Text Mate

jEdit

BBEdit

Araneae

UltraEdit

That’s a Wrap!

8 Best WordPress Photo Gallery Plugins for 2020 (Compared)

What to look for in a WordPress Gallery Plugin

1. Envira Gallery

2. NextGEN Gallery (Free)

3. FooGallery (Free)

4. Gallery (Free)

5. Gmedia Gallery

6. Photo Gallery by Supsystic

7. GalleryManager

8. WP Photo Album Plus

Get Cracking on Your Gallery Plugins

Marketing Automation Platforms: 25+ Best Marketing Automation Tools

Table of Content

What is Marketing Automation?

Benefits of Marketing Automation

Why Use Marketing Automation Tools?

How To Use Marketing Automation Tools?

Marketing Automation Tools for SaaS

1. Databox

2. Atomic Reach

3. Lucky Orange

4. Seventh Sense

5. SEMRUSH

Best Marketing Automation Tools for Ecommerce

6. Dotmailer

7. Oracle Bronto

8. ActiveCampaign

9. Hubspot

10. SharpSpring

11. Exponea

What can you do with Exponea?

Best Marketing Automation Tools for Startups

12. Google Tools

13. Marketo

14. HootSuite

Snovio

Best Marketing Automation Tools for WordPress

15. SendinBlue

16. Pardot

17. Jumplead

18. WP Fusion Lite

19. AcyMailing

Best Marketing Automation Tools For Small Businesses

20. Mautic

21. Infusionsoft

22. Sprout Social