One of these tools is WooCommerce. It is a relatively new software that has already gained recognition as the best eCommerce plugin for free. If you want to create an online store and start selling products online, choosing a WooCommerce WordPress combination is the best option for you. Even though it may seem difficult to know what to start with, this software is designed to easily navigate you through the fundamental components of an online store website creation.

However, to be able to see a bigger picture, let’s start with finding out what WooCommerce is and how it is used in WordPress.

How WooCommerce Helps?

WooCommerce was created by a strong software development team in 2011. Since then, WooCommerce has been advancing as a tool and gained its popularity among website developers and online store owners. Today, it is mostly known as a WordPress plugin for online store creation that offers expanded functionality for free.

Today, WooCommerce is used to help people sell goods and services through their websites. When the website undergoes WooCommerce customization, its owner gets a better opportunity to control stocks, manage inventory, receive and accept payments, ship products, and even calculate taxes. In addition, there are many WooCommerce extensions that help run a professional online store without any extra effort from your side.

For the simplicity of its use and comprehensive nature of the functions it performs, WooCommerce is regarded now as the most popular software solution for online store creation. A study shows that around 25% of eCommerce stores in the world are powered by WooCommerce today.

What Are WooCommerce Main Features?

As an open and free tool, WooCommerce offers a wide range of features. For example:

• WooCommerce helps you sell tangible and intangible goods.
• It allows adding an unlimited number of images.
• You can create product categories and collections if needed.
• It is possible to add ratings or reviews on each of the product.
• WooCommerce helps you adjust your locale settings.
• You can enable filtering and sorting functions for your customers to navigate through the website easily.
• WooCommerce integrates several payment methods for your customers to feel secured when transferring the money.
• You can adjust your shipping options as you find optimal.
• WooCommerce helps you easily manage your orders and keep track of the inventory.

Apart from it, WooCommerce is highly extensible. If you want to upgrade your online store to a new professional level, you can purchase one of the WooCommerce extensions and enjoy even more advanced online store tool.

How to Start with WooCommerce in WordPress?

It all starts with WooCommerce installation, of course. However, before you proceed with furnishing your website with WooCommerce functions, we do recommend you introduce yourself with WooCommerce tutorial. The point is that this eCommerce tool has a lot of features that you may not be aware of. Thus, having a brief guide on WooCommerce functions can really widen your horizons.

However, when you are done with the WordPress part of website creation, including filling out your data, creating a name, performing WordPress customizations, etc., you can proceed with downloading and installing WooCommerce plugin from the plugin directory. When you launch it, you will be guided through the process of creating essential online store pages, including “My Account,” “Balance,” “Checkout,” etc. You can also add your pages if you need some specific ones.

You will be required to set up locale settings for your business, including country, currency, and other related information. Then, you will be transferred to the Tax page since WooCommerce cares much about the correct and timely calculation of taxes. After filling this out, you can choose a payment method that will be offered to your customers as a primary one.

The following steps of your WordPress website customization will refer merely to filling out product information, uploading high-quality images, enabling product categories, and writing a short description for each item. No worries, you will be guided automatically through the entire process, or you can hire a WordPress expert who will save your time and efforts.

WordPress Theme Install

We intentionally omitted the topic of WordPress theme customization because it should be done after you add products to your store. When the most time-consuming part of the job is done, you need to think about the visual appearance. With all product-related information inserted, you can customize from a better perspective.

Regardless of the WordPress theme you choose, they all work well with WooCommerce. However, leaving customization to the end of the process was necessary for you to be able to check the layout of the individual product pages as well. When you are done with the data entry part of website creation, you can make sure that everything looks the way you expected.

However, even though all WordPress theme collection functions perfectly with WooCommerce, it still has to offer some WooCommerce-optimized themes. We recommend you have a look at those ones offered for free because some of them look really great and stylish. WooCommerce design team has taken some customer behavior tricks into consideration to make each theme good-looking and profitable.

Final Words

WooCommerce creates unlimited opportunities for those who only start their online sales business as well as later extends them for medium and big businesses. WooCommerce requires no investment from you before your store actually starts bringing you profit, but it does need you to have some knowledge about the features it offers. In practice, when you start online store creation, all you need to do is to install the plugin and follow a procedure initiated by the program. Once this is done, you need to customize the website look for it to appeal to your customers. WooCommerce can be perfectly integrated with any WordPress theme that makes this tool ideal for WordPress online store creation.

If you don’t have enough technical background to set up your online store, or you simply don’t have time, our e-commerce experts install the store and perform all necessary configuration with great pleasure. Your awesome online boutique will be up and running within the next 24 hours.

What’s the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com?

WordPress.com is a platform that allows you to create and run your blog.

WordPress.org is an open source software. It’s a complex combination of code that you download and install on your web server.

Here are the main differences between the two systems:

1. Hosting

WordPress.org doesn’t offer free hosting. You’ll have to find a separate hosting provider and pay for the hosting. WordPress.com, on the other hand, comes with free hosting and 3Gb of website space.

2.  Subdomain

WordPress.com gives you a free subdomain, under the WordPress domain. WordPress.org doesn’t offer any type of a domain, and you’ll have to purchase the domain separately.

3. Security

Security is handled by the host at WordPress.com. At WordPress.org you’ll have to take care of your own security by installing plugins that allow for regular backups.

4. Support

WordPress.com is entirely handled by the WordPress team. This means that if something happens to your site the support team will help you deal with the issue. This also means that you aren’t in control of your site. WordPress.com offers more freedom when it comes to managing your site. You’ll be able to resolve most of the issues yourself in a shorter period.

5. Customization

At WordPress.org you have an almost unlimited choice of themes and customization options. You can choose a ready-made theme, or create your custom theme. WordPress.com also offers a range of themes to chose from. However, the choice is very limited, and for the most part, once you install the theme, you can’t change anything.

6. Features

WordPress. com has a limited number of features available. And it doesn’t allow you to install third-party plugins to improve the experience on your site. WordPress.org allows for both WordPress and third-party plugins so you can create a website that responds to your customer needs and is easier to manage.

WordPress.org vs WordPress.com price comparison

WordPress.com is essentially free, and if you want to have some customization options, you can upgrade the plan. WordPress.org is free too, but you pay for a domain name and hosting. If you chose a custom theme at WordPress.org, you’d also have to spend some money. When you want to customize your site just a tiny bit, having a website on WordPress.com can become your biggest hurdle. WordPress.org offers plenty of customization options plus the cost of hosting and domain name are very cheap, so it’s clear that you’ll get more value out of WordPress.org.

Pros of WordPress. org

As mentioned earlier, WordPress.org is focused on giving you as many customization options as possible. Additionally, this CMS is a free and open source, which means that it’s evolving very quickly and there is no need to pay exorbitant fees. WordPress.org also gives you full control over your site. Change the appearance, install plugins, make a homepage different from the blog – with WordPress.org it is easy to build a unique, beautiful website. Lastly, a plethora of developers choose to base their creations – themes and plugins – on WordPress.org, so you’ll have access to work created by some of the best web design and development professionals.

Pros of WordPress.com

You only need 5 minutes to set up a website on WordPress.com. You just sign up, and you’re good to go. WordPress.org has an onerous installation process, though some hosting providers make it very easy and offer a one-click installation. WordPress.com is a perfect platform for someone just starting a blog or a personal website. If you don’t want to get into details of web development, and technical matters give you a headache, then WordPress.com is a perfect newbie website owner tool. As mentioned earlier, WordPress.com is supported by the WordPress team, so all the updates and backups are done on the support side – you don’t have to do anything. Lastly, price is an important point of consideration. Even though WordPress.com can get pricey very quickly, the basic version is still free, and if you need a simple website, you would not have to pay a cent.

Final Word

If you still can’t decide between WordPress.org and WordPress.com consider your future business plans. Are you running a personal blog just for yourself without any plans for expansion? Do you see yourself creating a business out of your blog? How important are visual elements to you and would you prefer to have a unique site or something visitors have already seen online? These are the questions to consider.

Additionally, you should know that WordPress.org is considered to be the “real WordPress” so whenever a developer or designer talks about WordPress, they are probably discussing WordPress.org. Another important thing to mention is that WordPress.com can place ads on your site without your permission. You’re also not allowed to run your ads on WordPress.com or use Google Analytics. The “powered by WordPress.com” link will also appear on your site in the free version.

The downsides of WordPress.org is the time needed to install and support your site. You’ll have to pay attention to updates, security, and compatibility of plugins. The most significant advantage of WordPress.org is the availability of various free, custom and premium themes. There are millions of themes available these days, and if you want to have access to the best premium themes on the market, you have to go with WordPress.org.

If you got to this part of the article, you should have already made the final decision between WordPress.org and WordPress.com. But if you are still in doubts here is a simple trick you can use. You can start a website at WordPress.com and then transfer the files to WordPress.org. This is a simple procedure that doesn’t require much effort but will allow you to experiences the benefits of both systems.

In simple terms, using WordPress.com is like renting a room, and WordPress.org is your own house. The freedom you get from customization options and the sense of security following the reputation of the platform overweighs all the drawbacks of the system. Plus once you install WordPress and customize your theme, only small tweaks and updates are necessary, and all the investments you make in the starting phase will undoubtedly pay off.

People spend a lot of time on social media. Studies claim that by the end of 2019, there will be 2.8 billion social media users in the world. It is confirmed that people are more likely to visit one website or another if a friend recommends them online. Moreover, social media helps in building better brand image. Thus, if you want your website to appear in social media like Facebook or LinkedIn, you should enable and encourage sharing. Some big businesses even lead marketing campaigns intended to promote social sharing among its visitors and subscribers.

Fortunately, WordPress does not require you to code something to add social share buttons to its websites. There is absolutely no need to hire a WordPress expert for this job. In this article, we will cover some of the most popular plugins to add WordPress share buttons to your website.

5 Best WordPress plugins to add social media share buttons

Plugin #1: Jetpack

Jetpack is another software that helps add WordPress share buttons to your website without coding anything. The principle is very simple. You need to find it in the plugin directory, download and install. Once you did it, you should activate the plugin and pay attention to the Sharing module if you want to add social share buttons. Jetpack has a lot of different functions, and social sharing is only one of them.

Jetpack supports Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, and other social media services. You can configure your social media WordPress integration in the Settings section Jetpack offers.

Plugin #2: Shared Counts

Shared Counts plugin allows for quick and easy adding of social share WordPress buttons. You need to download and install this social media plugin for it to work on your website. Then you will need to activate the plugin and follow a guide step by step. You will need to choose social media platforms where you want your website to be shared. This plugin also counts numbers of shares you receive on each platform. This function can be disabled.

The biggest achievement of this software is that it does not slow down the website. It basically has no effect on its loading time. Thus, it minimally affects your website’s performance.

Plugin #3: Social Pug

If you decided to complete your website’s social media setup, you need to think about adding sharing buttons. Social Pug is the best option for you if you want to customize your social share WordPress buttons. You can decide where they should be placed or even set the follow your visitors while they navigate through your website.

When you install the plugin, you should repeat the ordinary procedure of activating it and then follow the guide. It will offer you two options: sharing can be done as Inline Content or as a Floating Sidebar. You can proceed with other settings, customizing your social share buttons the way you find appropriate. The result will be demonstrated to you immediately.

Plugin #4: Orbit Fox Companion

One more excellent plugin is available to you for free if you want to enable Facebook share button among the others. Orbit Fox Companion provides a number of different functions, and sharing is one of them. You can choose among 20 social buttons and easily add them into your blog or website. Also, you are in full control over your share buttons customization since you can select their position, turn them on and off and do that based on the device your visitor uses to view the website. All these configurations and customizations are available to you in the Social Sharing Module.

This plugin will especially fit your website if you want to increase your social media presence. For now, it works with the largest number of social media platforms possible.

Plugin #5:  AddToAny Share Buttons

This plugin serves merely one purpose: to add social media buttons to your website. It helps in increasing website traffic through integration and engagement of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, WeChat, etc. with your website. This plugin is the most popular and effective in WordPress because it allows universal sharing and helps website owners to increase their social media presence.

Since 2006, AddToAny Share Buttons plugin has been advancing in terms of analytics and WordPress optimization. It is now easy to customize and extend it if some extra features are needed. For example, you can use any icons from media uploads directory or anywhere else.

Final Words

WordPress evolves trying to meet its clients’ needs. Thus, with the emergence and penetration of social media, it started playing a critical role in digital marketing. To catch up with the trend, WordPress allowed for social sharing that significantly increased website traffic and made brands more visible online. The plugins offered above have developed a social sharing function to meet the latest trends and make sure your website is up to date. Study all opportunities each plugin provides and decide on how you can boost sharing activity among your visitors.

Fortunately, you do not need to go far. Many free solutions can be found in the WordPress Plugin Catalog. There are plug-ins to add additional functionality such as enhancing protection, integration with social networks, backup and much more.

In this guide, we will try to choose the best WordPress plugins in 2019. We will talk about 10 plugins that every site owner or developer should pay attention to. Without further ado, let’s move on to the plugins that will provide you with invaluable help this year!

WooCommerce

Used for almost a third of all e-commerce sites, WooCommerce is one of the most popular WordPress plugins for those who want to create an online store. This e-commerce plugin allows you to sell a wide range of physical and electronic goods throughout the world. It also includes a huge library of extensions with different price categories.

Already at the moment, according to the results of a survey among the US population, 51% of people prefer to make purchases over the Internet, therefore, it never hurts to prepare the basis for future success.

WooCommerce key features:

• Integration with a wide range of extensions and plugins.
• Availability of various payment methods.
• Friendly structure for developers.

WooCommerce is recommended for:

Site owners or developers who want to sell their products or services through their WordPress site.

Yoast SEO

The best WordPress plugins in SEO are rightly headed by Yoast SEO, it is designed to help you publish high-quality and search-optimized content. Since the WordPress SEO optimization rules are constantly changing, it is very important to have on hand a great plugin that will help you stay up to date.

Yoast SEO with a unique system, clearly shows you how your content will interact with search engines. In addition, he appreciates the readability of your text, so not only search engines will be happy, but readers too.

Yoast SEO is a completely free plugin, but there is also a premium version of the plugin starting at $ 69.

Yoast SEO key features:

• Analyzes WordPress pages and posts and finds omissions in SEO.
• Updates the page analysis results immediately after relevant SEO changes.
• Creates an XML Sitemap.
• Creates a navigation chain incompatible WordPress themes.

Yoast SEO is recommended for:

For those who want to win the top lines of the most popular search engines.

Jetpack

Jetpack is a WordPress plugin designed to help you get as much traffic as possible, protect your website, track its performance and much, much more. It contains many modules that you can activate on your own.

The main functions of Jetpack are completely free. However, the premium version of this plugin provides backup options and additional layers of protection along with a bunch of other features.

Jetpack key features:

• Analyzes and gives site statistics.
• Protects your site.
• Monitors the time of your site.
• Controls WordPress speed optimization
• Allows visitors to interact with you through social networks, an improved comment system and stylish feedback forms.

Jetpack is recommended for:

If you need a plugin with a huge amount of functionality in one set, Jetpack is ideal.

Broken Link Checker

As the name implies, Broken Link Checker is looking for links that may lead to 404 errors on your site. This is very important, since the search engines may impose sanctions on your website for a large number of missing or broken links.

After installation, the plugin will search for the presence of broken links and provide you with a report in the control panel. Next, you can either edit the links or hide the notification. For large sites, verification may take some time, but you can check the search progress through the control panel.

Broken Link Checker key features:

• Searches for broken links on the site.
• Notifies you of all errors, both via email and in the control panel.
• Does not allow the search engines to go through broken links.

Broken Link Checker isrecommended for:

For those who want to optimize their site and make sure that their site has high lines in the search ranking.

Contact Form 7

Feedback forms are a key element for communicating with your users and potential customers. Contact Form 7 is the best solution for creating one or more custom forms for your WordPress site.

The design of Contact Form 7 makes the process of working with comments, suggestions and other messages very simple. In addition, with the ability to support CAPTCHA, Akismet and Ajax, your personal data will not be accessible to all, and your mailbox will remain free from unnecessary spam.

Contact Form 7 key features:

• Allows you to manage multiple feedback forms on WordPress.
• Offers the ability to customize the feedback form.
• Helps prevent spam with CAPTCHA and Akismet.

Contact Form 7 is recommended for:

Owners of sites who want to put on their site stylish feedback forms, without losing functionality and reducing security.

Google Analytics Dashboard for WP (GADWP)

Given the competitive nature of doing business on the Internet, monitoring your website analytics is a prerequisite for business development. The Google Analytics Dashboard for WP plugin will help you shed light on the activity of your website directly through the WordPress control panel.

The installation process is simple and after it is completed you will find a separate panel on the WordPress screen. Although there are many other plug-ins, GADWP provides a more stylish design along with more indicators to track. It is ideal for those who want to get as much information as possible without additional plug-ins.

Google Analytics key features:

• Collects visitor data in real-time.
• Tracks important site events.
• Offers access to specific Google Analytics reports.

Google Analytics is recommended for:

Internet marketers and site owners who need to track the performance of their sites in real-time.

Imagify Image Optimizer

Despite the fact that the download speed has been an important factor for many years. In 2017, due to the prevalence of the mobile sector, this factor has become even more relevant. Very often, large images are the main culprits of a slow site loading speed. Therefore, the use of such plug-ins as Imagify Image Optimizer will greatly help in reducing the page size and, accordingly, the load time.

This plugin is fully automated. It will check and optimize any images in the WordPress media library. However, there is a limit on the number of images to be optimized in the free version.

Imagify key features:

• Compresses images based on three algorithms.
• Restores the image to its previous state after its removal.
• Automatically optimizes images in the Media Library.

Imagify is recommended for:

For those who are concerned about how quickly their site loads. Also, if you have a large collection of images on the site, then Imagify Image Optimizer is a great option.

Sumo

Like the previously mentioned Jetpack, Sumo is a collection of free tools for expanding the functionality of the site. However, this plugin focuses more on interaction with the visitor than on any other aspect.

For example, you can embed buttons for posting on social networks, generate an activity map. It also provides several options for pop-up messages to create a list of subscribers and more. In addition, Sumo can be integrated with most popular answering machines, including AWeber, MailChimp and Constant Contact.

Sumo key features:

• Provides a set of tools for social interaction.
• Allows you to analyze the activity of your visitors.

Sumo is recommended for:

Online marketing representatives who want to increase traffic with a certain number of powerful tools.

NextGEN Gallery

Finally, we got to NextGEN Gallery. Modern sites require a smooth visual component that does not overlap the site content. This plugin is the choice of millions of users and developers who need a WordPress customization plugin that can provide a modern way to display images.

The functionality allows you to get more control over your media files than the standard Media Library. You will also get two layouts and two design styles. Each of them has a set of options to customize the style of your site. For those who need additional functionality, there are several premium extensions that will help you turn your gallery into a space for selling and displaying images.

NextGEN key features:

• Provides a powerful image management system.
• Includes several design layouts, all with customizability.
• Allows you to extend the functionality through premium extensions.

NextGEN is recommended for:

For those who work professionally with images or just want more control over how their images are presented.

Migrate Guru

Migrate Guru is a fully automated and free WordPress plugin for migration. It offers a clean, sleek, and reliable process for moving any site to WordPress or a WordPress multisite network.

This plugin runs on the BlogVault server (the command that creates the plugin). Running on external servers, Migrate Guru does not overload the WordPress site and ensures that 200 GB sites can be moved without any issues. Moreover, it has three simple processes that are easy to understand even for beginners in WordPress.

Migrate Guru key features:

• Can move site up to 200 GB
• Works on external servers
• Easy to use

Migrate Guru is recommended for:

Owners of sites that want to switch to another WordPress hosting and freelancers WordPress developers.

Due to the sheer number of plugins, it is very easy to get confused when it comes to choosing the best one. Of course, choosing the wrong plugin may entail some sometimes unpleasant consequences for your site.

However, following the manual (like this one!), you can reduce the choice only to proven plug-ins. Do you know any other plugins to help improve WordPress? Let’s pick the best WordPress plugins in the comments together!

Also, if you need some help with WordPress theme installation service, you can always hire a developer from our professional team and enjoy the fast and high-quality result!

WordPress enables its customers to create websites and blogs that can serve different purposes. Some of the most popular products include business and sturtups, portfolios, forums, resumes, social networks, eCommerce shops, etc. However, given this variety, even active may not know all the opportunities WordPress provides. There are some tutorials intended to demonstrate users what WordPress can offer and how all these tools and plugins can be implemented to make a website or blog even better.

In this article, our WordPress experts will answer some of the most popular questions asked in relation to WordPress child theme. Search engine request “wordpress how to create a child theme” is definitely beating all records. Obviously, the opportunity to customize the mirror reflection of the parent theme without making any changes in the original version is a useful technique and a new level in website creation.

What Is WordPress Child Theme?

The questions “What is WordPress child theme?” and “How I can create and use a child theme in WordPress?” are very popular on the Internet forums. Obviously, the child theme offered by WordPress has nothing to do with the customer’s age. It serves as a powerful tool for customization since the changes in the mirror reflection of the original WordPress website are not affecting the parent theme at all. In other words, you can make as many changes as you need to target your website to a particular group of customers without actually modifying the parent website. At the same time, the changes you make in the parent theme are immediately reflected in the child theme. Thus, you can actually update the parent website, but the changes will migrate to all themes created with the use of child theme plugin.

The scope of use of WordPress child theme is wide. This is the safest and the fastest way to update all related websites. Also, if a website created through a child theme plugin stops functioning as you expect or experiences an issue, it can be quickly deactivated without any loss to the parent theme.

A child theme is created in the way that it is actually overlaying the parent theme. A visitor who loads your website sees a child theme that inherits information from the parent theme. However, you can change certain parameters to modify the design and layout as well as add new scripts even if they were not present in the parent theme.

The parent theme becomes a backup theme that includes all key elements. If the upgraded and modified child theme stops working, you can always get back to the parent theme without losing information. At the same time, all changes you make with the parent theme are immediately reflected in the child theme.

How to Create Child Theme for WordPress?

To create a WordPress child theme, you need to follow a simple procedure. First of all, you need to make sure that you have access to the WordPress admin area. Having access to file manager or FTP, which is recommended, will make your path easier.

Creating a child theme is actually much simpler than the work you have performed while creating the parent theme. To begin with, you need to create a directory for the child theme in the existing themes directory. You should name it in the way that will make it easier to distinguish the parent theme from the newly created one. You can use FTP client or File Manager to create a new directory.

The above mentioned it a manual way of creating a child theme in WordPress. You can also use a WordPress child theme plugin to make your task even simpler. In this case, you do not need to manipulate with File Manager or FTP client. All you need to do is to choose one of several plugins offered to you and install it on your site. As an administrator of the website, you should not be having problems with this step. Once it is installed, you can use it to create a new child theme in a few clicks.

After you follow the required actions, you can navigate to Appearance – Themes, choose the newly created theme and activate it. You can edit, re-design and modify what you see and read without making any changes to your original website. This customization should serve a particular purpose. For example, if your parent theme includes merely basic design and text, it is a good idea to add images, colors and other effects to your child theme to attract visitors. You can add and remove features, change text, edit fonts and layouts the way you find appropriate. At the same time, you can always roll back to the original parent theme.

Final Words

A child theme in WordPress is a great tool that serves to protect the job you did when you created the parent theme. That website is original, and it serves as a default. You can always roll back to it since a child theme does not make any changes in its codes, content and directories. At the same time, a child theme allows you to experiment with the design, add-ins and other features that serve to customize your website and make it more user-friendly.

If you need help with creating Child Theme or WordPress development and setup, choose what you need from our web development and SEO  services and contact us to  implement all your ideas!

Want to create a business directory on WordPress? And do not know which WordPress plugin directory is better?

Choosing the right plugin will not be easy, especially for beginners, when there are several options for plugins, both free and paid. In this article, our WordPress experts have selected the best directory plugins to help you save time and money.

Internet directories allow you to browse the catalogue of links, which is divided into various subsections, categories and areas. A great example of an online directory is your phone book.

Best plugins for business directory

WordPress provides several related plugins and themes that will allow you to create an online catalogue. However, in this article we will show you a method with a plugin, so you can use it on any WordPress site. This article will be useful for both beginners and experienced developers who works on WordPress plugin development.

Business Directory Plugin

This is a free plugin for creating a business directory in WordPress. While the basic functionality is available for free, there are other features that require the purchase of paid add-ons.

With over 20,000 active installations, the plugin offers a complete set of functions for launching a web directory for WordPress in several languages. You can even make money by adding sites to the directory, or by creating a directory of companies, making it paid. You can also sort the entries by categories and tags, create additional entries, customize the input-form, etc.

The plugin works with any WordPress theme and compatible with WordPress search engine optimization plugins. The catalogue layout is fully responsive and it doesn’t affect WordPress performance optimization.

Connections Business Directory

Connections Business Directory is a powerful directory plugin that is used by most of WordPress SEO experts. Basic functionality is available for free. If necessary, you can purchase paid add-ons available on the plugin’s official website.

Using it is very easy to create a WordPress catalogue site. It comes with a wide range of custom fields that can be used to create almost any kind of online catalogue. The plugin also has privacy settings, where administrators or users themselves can set the privacy level of some user fields, such as phone numbers and IMS.

Displaying a directory is very easy and it won’t affect the WordPress site optimization too much. You just need to add a shortcode to the desired page. There are also many short-code options that you can use to customize the look of the directory. The plugin also supports templates, so for your posts, you can choose a layout from ready-made catalogue templates for WordPress.

GeoDirectory

As its name suggests, GeoDirectory allows you to create geo-directories (directories with a location), such as a directory of organizations with a map. The basic functions of the plugin are available for free, but for 100% use, you need to acquire additional functionality.

GeoDirectory comes with a powerful feature set for creating a geo-catalogue. It has an easy-to-use interface where you can easily add entries and mark them on a map, and users can search for places, businesses, districts, etc. on the map. Also, the plugin is perfectly compatible with most of eCommerce WordPress themes.

Simple Directory

Simple Directory is another free WordPress directory creation plugin. With it, you can easily create a business or personal catalogue. The plugin has 2 templates for the announcement and the page of the archive of announcements. This makes the plugin very easy to configure if you know how to work with WordPress theme templates.

For best performance, Simple Directory requires the installation of the Piklist plugin and recommends the Categories Images plugin. There is also an extended version of the plugin which has some additional and advanced features.

Directories Pro

Directories Pro is a WordPress plugin that allows you to create any type of directory, such as a local community-based business directory, such as Yelp.com, Google+ or Yahoo! Local, the user directory, the online classified directory, the property directory, etc. This is the most versatile and versatile directory creation plugin you can find for WordPress.

Directory Pro is a WordPress plugin for creating directories of any type and complexity.

Plugin Features:

• Payment gateway;
• Paypal, Stripe, Woocommerce Payment;
• Mailchimp for storing email;
• WPML support;
• 13 language files;
• Integration with WPBakery Page Designer.

What do you think of our list? Do you use any of these plugins? Perhaps you have your own preferences? Leave your answers in the comments, it will be very useful to us!

If you need help with WordPress performance optimization, contact our WordPress development company and we will implement all your ideas!

WordPress CAPTCHA is a special test to remotely distinguish a person from a machine, program, or script created for the passage of registration forms, commenting, etc. In other words, the lowest level of person verification on the site that can be a part of the WordPress development services.

Types of captcha for WordPress sites

Rebus

The most difficult, rarely seen type is captcha. Everyone knows about Google services. In the picture, a captcha will offer you to choose three pictures with a typewriter or fruit.

Alpha

The alphabetic or alphanumeric captcha will force you to repeat a set of numbers and/or letters in the captcha window. Numbers may be distorted.

Maths

Here, the user will be asked to solve a mathematical example, often simple. To complicate matters, the numbers can be Roman or written in words (one plus three).

Where do you need to install captcha?

This plugin might come in handy as well as WordPress SEO optimization or WordPress theme installation service. For global protection, which can be called paranoid, Captcha is needed in all forms of site interaction with the user. Namely:

• During registration;
• In the forms of comments;
• In authorization forms;
• In the form of subscription third-party plug-ins;
• In feedback;
• In the form of a password and username reminder;
• Custom form.

WordPress System Captcha

CMS WordPress does not have an internal Captcha tool. All forms of user interaction are open to machine registration.

Note: Do not confuse machine registration with site hacking attempts. These are different actions, although often related to each other.

As a rule, massive, machine registration of a pseudo-user is a prelude to hacking, aimed at finding security vulnerabilities.

Captcha WordPress Plugins

Again, the WordPress system does not have the Captcha tool, so the desire to protect against machine registration of captcha needs to be completed by installing a profile plugin.

It is worth noting. You can protect yourself from machine registration without WordPress Captcha plugins by installing more serious security plugins that cut off suspicious users. The most famous Akismet plugin, recommended by WordPress.org. All the plugins of this review are constantly updated, which indicates the possibility of continued use by WordPress experts.

Google Captcha (reCAPTCHA)

As you can tell from the name, Google Captcha uses the all-new Google reCAPTCHA technology to protect your site from spam and unwanted users. To use this plugin, you first need to register your website with Google and get the Site Key and Secret key. This free plugin protects all the default forms like the registration form, comments form, login form, etc.

Moreover, the plugin also has a pro version that includes the following features:

• Select Google Captcha (reCAPTCHA) language manually;
• Change size: normal or compact (for version 2);
• Configure all subsites on the network;
• Get answers to your support questions within one business day;
• Compatible with WooCommerce, BuddyPress, Divi, and others.

Captcha Plus

Captcha Plus, developed by BestWebSoft WordPress plugin creator, is one of the best security plugins that help you save your site from possible attacks. This plugin can be used for login, registration, password recovery, comments forms, etc.

Captcha plus is a simple, easy to use a plugin that lets you add a captcha to various pages, Choose your captcha types, Hide Captcha for Registered users in the comments form, Whitelisted IP addresses, Set captcha submission time limit, Add custom code via the plugin settings page, etc. This captcha for Contact Form 7 is an ideal match.

HumanCaptcha

HumanCaptcha uses a rather unusual approach to differentiate humans from bots. Unlike other plugins which use images or math problems, the plugin asks questions that require human logic to answer. If the answer is correct, they pass the Captcha test. The plugin comes with a few predefined questions for a quick start. But if you want to, you can add your own questions and answers.

Every day, a huge number of new sites are created, and each resource needs reliable protection. In this article, we looked at the tools for the top-priority protection of your Internet resource, and we hope that one of them will help you solve problems with potential attacks and unwanted messages.

Hire a developer to install Captcha on your WordPress site

If you still face any issue with WordPress plugin installation, you can always hire a developer from our professional team, who will be happy to help!

Why is pages speed optimization so important?

People leaving your site is not the only reason why you would want to optimize the page loading speed. Here are some other factors to consider:

1. You can get a lot higher in rankings if your site loads faster. Search engines will assign a higher value to better-operating websites.
2. The loading speed is the major decisive factor for customers. Again, when the site loads too slow, people lose interest right away.
3. Your profits may suffer from people leaving the sales funnel. Say that your visitors had enough patience to wait for the site to load. Now, their attention span is limited and considering the length of a purchasing process, the chances they will leave are very high.

What’s the loading speed of my website?

Before you embark on the journey of page speed optimization, you need to know the loading speed of your site. Here is how you can find it out:

1. Try WebPageTest.org. Enter the homepage address into the field and see the results.
2. Go to Tools.Pingdom.com and do the same thing.
3. Similarly, PageSpeedInsights helps you identify measures needed to make your website faster.

You want to check your homepage first and then check each singular page. There are different factors that affect page loading speed and they vary from page to page. So even though your homepage might be loading fast, it doesn’t mean that other pages do too, and other pages might contain the most important information for the customer.  

Finally, here are all the tricks for increasing your website pages loading speed:

1. Change your hosting

One of the most important factors that affect a website loading speed is the choice of a hosting provider. There is no shortage of hosting providers available these days, yet they might not be all suitable for your business. For example, a shared hosting might be cheap and easy to set up but it hosts thousands of other websites. With a shared hosting, you can’t tell how well the folks at the hosting company work to optimize the servers and how many other websites are hosted on the same server. Shared hosting is great when your website isn’t your main source of leads and new prospects.

A dedicated hosting solution from Amazon Web Services or Google Compute Engine will cost you more money but they are also more reliable. The only drawback of such service is that you have to set up the servers from scratch and this can easily turn into a nightmare.

2. Optimize image sizes

Optimizing image sizes is the most effective way to reduce the page loading speed. You optimize your images by reducing their sizes all the while preserving the quality. This can be achieved with tools like Chrome PageSpeed Insights or a special WordPress plugin. We recommend using a plugin since other tools might take longer to optimize your images. Here are some image optimization plugins you can use:

WP Smush

EWWW Image Optimizer

3. Use a different WordPress theme

Some WordPress themes look great but load slowly due to the overwhelming amount of images, sliders, social icons and many more design enhancing features. You want to keep the balance between the speed and visual appeal because no matter how great your site looks, people will not be able to enjoy the design to a full extent if they leave a website early.

Choose a lightweight WordPress theme that doesn’t contain unnecessary design elements. You can also try a theme built on Bootstrap since these are known to speed up a WordPress performance.

4. Use caching

W3 Total Cache is a WordPress plugin helps you add caching rules to your site. Also, check out Varnish – a caching mechanism. Coupled with W3 Total Cache, Varnish is a great way to speed up your WordPress site.

5. Take a look at JS and CSS files

A code is an integral part of your website. JS and CSS are part of the code and if you can optimize them well, your site speed will increase significantly. Optimizing JS and CSS means reducing the number of calls and the size of the files.

Take a look at Autoptimize plugin, that can help you optimize JS, CSS and HTML files on your site. You can also research information online and try optimizing JS and CSS manually.

6. CDN

It’s surprising for many people to know that the location of the user might influence the site loading speed. If the visitors are located far from where your servers are, they will likely experience page loading delays. To solve the problem look into CDNs – Content Delivery Networks. CDNs can minimize the effect user location has on a site loading speed. The way CDNs work is simple. They basically keep a copy of your website in datacenters located all over the world, so that the website can be served to visitors from the nearest to them location.

7. Use GZIP compression

GZIP is a technology that compresses your website and then unzips it whenever a visitors tries to access your site. Similar to keeping the files on your computer, using GZIP compression will reduce the bandwidth usage and can significantly increase the speed of your site.

8. Work on your database

This is a no-brainer and yet so many people don’t pay enough attention to their website’s database. If you make a deliberate effort to keep your website database clean and organized, remove old files, spam comments, old post drafts, and images, you can significantly improve your website loading speed.

9. Minimize the number of plugins

The common rule for Page Speed Optimization is to remove everything you don’t need or use. Just like in real life getting rid of an old baggage makes you a more productive and happy person, removing plugins that you don’t use can help improve page loading speed. We recommend keeping the number of plugins to a minimum and using third party services such as Zapier and IFTTT.

10. Disable pingbacks and trackbacks

Pingbacks and Trackbacks send you an alert every time your blog or website receives a backlink. If you’re actively engaged in link building this might be a good option to stay informed. However, pingbacks and trackbacks slow down your website by occupying your server resources. Pingbacks and trackbacks, essentially, keep WordPress busy by generating requests everytime a pingback or trackback is created.

To turn off pingbacks and trackbacks go to Settings >> Discussions and deselect “Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks)”.

Final Word

It doesn’t take much to increase the loading speed of your website, but the benefits of doing so are great. Not only your visitors will enjoy the new optimized website experience, but you will also experience a surge of traffic because page loading speed can greatly affect your search engine rankings.

What are other ways to optimize a website loading speed? Comment below!

WordPress customization needs plugins which may be not compatible

We all love WordPress, but sometimes it just drives you crazy. Regardless of whether it’s a terrifying white screen of death, a PHP error not known, caused by a problem with the server or a plugin that causes the site to crash, it is never fun.

But whenever WordPress customization decides to let you down, you don’t have to worry, because from this post you will find out that there is a solution for any problem and become real WordPress experts. So do not rush to hire a developer!

1. Use WordPress plugin conflict detector

There are tens of thousands of plugins to implement any functionality on the site. However, there is no guarantee that a WooCommerce setup plugin created by one developer will not conflict with WordPress SEO optimization plugin on your site.

Causes of errors on the site:

• Conflict between two plugins.
• Conflict between your theme and a new or updated plugin.
• The conflict between the plugin and the current version of WordPress your site.

What are the symptoms:

• Either your site starts working once, and the plugin refuses at all.
• Or, after the next update or installation of the plug-in, a white screen of death appears.

2. How to eliminate the conflict of plugins WordPress?

Each plugin from the official WordPress.org site and other directories has a detailed description:

• specifications
• date of creation and update
• customer reviews
• forum
• rating

This information is especially useful for users who do not know how to work with the code, but want to find out if there are any potential problems that you need to know about. Do not forget to check this data when you do WordPress theme installation service or plugin.

3. What to do if the plugin stops working, an error message appears on the site or you see a white screen of death?

Option number 1: The site is working, the plugin does not work.

If one of the plugins does not work correctly or does not work at all, but you still have access to the site, check the availability of the update plug-in. Perhaps an error in CSS or JavaScript.

Update the plugin and check the site. If the problem is solved, the plug-in developer knew about the conflict and corrected it.

Option number 2: After the installed or updated plug-in site works with errors.

Just turn off the suspicious plugin and return to your site. Everything is good? If yes, then you can inform the plugin developer so that he can correct the error and look for another plugin.

Option number 3: After the automatic update of the plug-in site does not work.

If the plugin or theme does not work correctly or an error message is displayed on the screen. Good news! You have access to the admin panel.

Now you need to check the following:

• Check your latest backup. If this happened before the update was made, restore it. Then go to test each plugin, one by one.
• If you do not have a saved backup, go to WordPress and deactivate all the plugins.
• Check out the site. If earned correctly – the problem is in the plugin.
• Switch the current theme to the default WordPress theme. (But be prepared for the fact that all the settings might disappear.)
• Updating a topic can sometimes be the cause of errors. For example, if the developer added a new feature that is already bolted to the site using another plugin.
• Look at the site again. If everything works, it remains to check each of the plugins one by one.
• Start by restoring your main plugin, for example, if you have an online store or you provide paid access to content (subscriptions).
• Then add plugins one at a time and check the site for errors. Be sure to deactivate the one you just checked before activating the next one.
• Once you find a plugin conflict, deactivate it and report it to the developer in the official WordPress directory or write to tech support for a premium plugin.
• You can use the previous version of the plugin (which did not cause errors), but I do not recommend it. Sooner or later you will still encounter an error, and the site, in principle. Should work on the latest version of the theme and plugin.

4. If you see the white screen of death

A runaway screen of death is a scary prospect for every WordPress user. However, if the reason is in the latest update, then everything is solved quickly.

1. If you see a white screen, you will not be able to access WordPress and manage plugins. In this case, go to the control panel and use SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) to access the files on your site. You can use FileZilla.
2. Deactivate all plugins. You can do this by renaming the “Plugins” folder. If you just want to delete all the files (the plugins are deactivated by the machine), first save them in a different place. Now you can reload the saved plugins into the same folder – they are not activated, but simply return to your server.
3. Now you need to go to the admin panel and check all the plugins one by one. (see steps above).
4. If you still see a white screen, the reason is in the subject of the site.
5. To disable the theme, do the same thing as with the plugins: change the name of the “Theme” folder or delete and reload the theme file into the folder. Then go back to the admin area and switch the topic.

5. How to avoid conflict of WordPress plugins in the future?

Here are some tips:

• No need to install everything. The fewer plug-ins you use, the less chance of an error.
• Always look for information about the plugin: technical data and reviews, as well as read the forum with the tickets.
• Do not forget to update the plugin.
• Update plugins one by one to notice a possible error in time.
• If you have an automatic update connected, make sure that you back up first and use the secure update technology.
• If the plug-in tech support does not work, and the last update was six months ago, find a new plug-in.
• Make a backup copy of the site. Regularly!
• Use the hosting emulator for a copy of the site. There you can test a new theme or plugin before installing it on the main site.
• Start learning HTML, PHP and JavaScript. You can always add the desired functionality without installing plug-ins, just using the code.

I hope the article was useful to you. Now you know all the details about the conflict of plugins WordPress. Though, if you are still facing the issue with plugins, you can always order our WordPress development service and we will be glad to help!

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a page where you direct visitors to with the goal of getting them to make a purchase, subscribe to an email, click a link, or do some other activity. A landing page can be an introduction to your site, product or service. It can also be a separate – more salesy – version of your main site.

When someone creates a landing page, they pursue a certain goal, as opposed to creating a visually appealing website without a defined purpose.

How is a landing page different from a website page?

A website and landing page are two different online assets. As mentioned earlier, a landing page has a goal and this goal almost always implies making a visitor perform some sort of action. A website page also has a goal, but instead of promoting action-oriented behavior, a website page permits mindless browsing, information research, and deep analysis.

For example, a company website may contain such information as company description, product benefits, company location, and contacts, as well as a registration form and call-to-actions. All these elements are crucial to customer understanding of the brand, but they don’t necessarily push the user toward action. Even though call-to-actions are present on the main website, you can also find plenty of redundant information there which doesn’t help with the sales process. Still, this seemingly unnecessary at first glance information allows the user to form a comprehensive understanding of the company and its offerings.

Unlike a website page, every element of a landing page has a set goal. The sequence of elements and each element itself are dedicated to achieving that goal. Every element that doesn’t serve a common purpose is ruthlessly eliminated while elements that move the visitors closer to the goal are emphasized and highlighted. So if you want visitors to do something on a website, consider creating a landing page that is characterized by the following:

• it has a structure similar to a sales funnel
• it doesn’t contain any information that doesn’t serve the goal
• it doesn’t have a footer
• it gets to the point right away

How to create a landing page in WordPress

1. Plugins

Plugins can be an easy and inexpensive way to create landing pages in WordPress. There are plugins for everything nowadays and landing pages are not an exception. However, plugin developers also have to earn money so most plugins are free but you do need to pay for premium features once you start using the plugin. Try WordPress Landing Pages plugin which has most basic features and is pretty easy to use.

Plugins are probably the easiest way to create a landing page, but free plugins are also incredibly difficult to find. So read on to the method 2.

2. Theme builder

Unlike a regular WordPress theme, a theme builder allows you to change the positioning and visual style of the elements as you like. In a theme builder you’re still restricted by certain limits (you can’t just design something out of your head without knowing the code) but still, a theme builder gives you a lot more customization options compared to a regular WordPress theme.

Remeber, that theme builder is still a theme only it offers you more creative freedom by integrating a drag and drop functionality into a theme. Unfortunately, not every theme out there has a drag and drop functionality. So if you know you’re going to need a lot of landing pages along with standard company site, make sure you chose the right theme from the very begining.

3. LeadPages templates

If you want a truly custom solution, LeadPages might be exactly what you need. LeadPages often offers free HTML versions of landing pages that can be found on their website. The trick is to download a template and make it WordPress compatible since the template is pure HTML and not a theme. If you know a bit of code you can still make an HTML template work in WordPress. You do this by editing the code at the very top of the template, renaming the index.html file, changing the path to every external file, and editing the PHP file. It all might sound like a lot of work, but in the end, you’ll get a unique beautiful landing page, so it’s worth it.

4. Build a landing page

You can always forgo the three methods mentioned earlier and build a template manually. Of course, this is a very expensive and time-consuming option but it still remains popular. The thing is that a neatly designed landing page can become a gold mine for the business, so creating a landing page that works might be a great investment.

To build a landing page from scratch hire a designer and a front-end and back-end developer. Or do it yourself if you have the necessary skills. With a custom landing page, you really take full control of your sales cycle and how the landing works and performs.

Conclusion

Landing pages have become such an indispensable part of doing business online, that almost every business nowadays does marketing through landing pages. A landing page serves a specific purpose – usually making a sale or getting people leave their contact details. While WordPress as a CMS isn’t intended for the landing page creation, it’s still possible to design a landing page in WordPress. You can create a landing page in WordPress using any method from the four methods listed above, but apart from choosing a method consider identifying a single goal a landing page is intended to achieve, and before you start designing, make a sketch of a landing page structure – a structure that slowly but surely moves the visitors toward the goal.