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If you have a website in 2020, or are just thinking about starting one, it is crucial that you make a point of concerning yourself with SEO. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a catch-all term that relates to how well your website will perform in search engine rankings. In other words, how high will your site appear on a search results page? How likely will Google be to recommend your site? Basically, the first step towards getting visitors to like your site is by getting Google to like your site.

The first step towards good SEO is securing a domain name that is relevant to the content of your site. A registrar like 101domain can help with that! But what comes next? Luckily, if you are using a website building program like WordPress, you have the benefit of quickly and easily adding plugins that can make optimizing your website an absolute breeze. In fact, if you used 101domain to register your domain name, using WordPress and adding plugins is even easier. Below you will find a list of five essential WordPress plugins to get your site SEO ready for 2020.

Largely speaking, there are two categories of SEO Tools available as plugins on WordPress. The largest category, which the remaining four plugins all fall into, are considered supplementary SEO tools that perform specific and isolated functions. However, these types of tools only serve to augment the other category of SEO tool, which are multifunctional tools.

Yoast SEO

As you may have intuited by now, multifunctional SEO tools provide a groundwork infrastructure of SEO capabilities and improvements. Because they are intentionally designed to be broad and basic, you only need one multifunctional SEO plugin installed at a time. There are a few of these available, but Yoast is one of the most popular and most complete.

Yoast offers a whole suite of capabilities. It allows you to edit your site’s snippets and meta-descriptions, which are the textual thumbnails that will be shown when your site appears in search results. For example, consider the sample snippet below that Yoast includes on its download page.

If you don’t edit the meta-description of a particular webpage, then Google will pull a section of text from somewhere on the page and display it, which looks ugly and will most likely be out of context and uninformative. With Yoast, you can edit your meta-description so that it gives the prospective visitor a description of exactly what they will find on the page.

Yoast SEO also has an extremely helpful feature that actively analyzes your web pages and estimates how successful your SEO implementation is. It shows how you can boost the SEO of a particular page, post, or what-have-you through the addition of keywords, the editing of the page’s snippet, and more. This feature can be especially useful to those who are a bit newer to SEO and may not be familiar with all of its concepts. Whether you’re a novice or an expert, a blogger or a businessman, Yoast knows SEO, and they make it incredibly easy.

Smush

One of the things that negatively impacts SEO the most is slow loading times. Google automatically punishes slow websites, and not only that, but users tend to leave sites that take more than a couple seconds to start up. This hurts your SEO even more. One of the most common culprits of slow sites is tons of huge, uncompressed images.

Image compression is a pretty neat trick that can have a significant impact on your site performance. Without getting too far into the technical aspects, compressing an image is a method of taking a raw image file—one that may be several megabytes in size—and turning it into a visually identical version of the image. This significantly reduces the size of the file, sometimes down to just a few kilobytes or less.

As with multifunctional SEO tools, Smush is not the only image compression tool out there. However, it has a laundry list of image-related features that make it worth checking out. Firstly, Smush uses what’s called “lossless compression,” which means that the file size can be reduced while having effectively zero impact on the image quality. If you are running a website that requires a lot of high quality images, then the lossless compression that Smush offers is an ideal choice.

Smush also offers a feature called “lazy load,” which allows your site to avoid unnecessary resources by deferring offscreen images. Smush is also able to detect and locate particular images within your site that are causing loading problems, and a whole lot more. The total number of features that Smush has is much too high to list individually, so I encourage you to take a look at their download page.

Schema Rich Snippets

If you remember back in the Yoast section of this article, snippets are the textual thumbnails for your site that show up in search results. What, then, is a rich snippet? A rich snippet is a snippet that includes more data than text. This could include a rating for a recipe or a movie, prices for a product, and more. Take a look at the sample below from Schema Rich Snippet’s download page.

Time Tracking and Activity Reporting WordPress Plugin.

WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) which is absolutely free and uses MySQL and PHP ( Personal Home Page), a server-side scripting language used as general purpose language as well as web development tool. It is very easy to use but with very powerful blogging system as of today.

WP plugins allow you to customize the features and functions of your blog or your webpage. With an impressive 50K+ plugin, each having the feature to create a tailor-made site as per their requirement, even for SEO or to secure the date to be available only for logged in users, whether it is CMS or displaying the added widgets with comfort, you name it, they have it all.

  • Though easy to manage in a centralized way, as for updates only one download is needed only for one site-one theme basis thus saving the data traffic load.
  • Despite being centralized, each administrator has a virtual manager thus ensuring an extra layer of security.

    • But, the disadvantage of the same is more prominent compared to its advantages.

  • If one resource fails, all the sites using it fails.
  • In case of external attack, failure of one site exposes the data and themes of all other sites associated with it to the attacker site, thus making it very vulnerable.
  • Increase in workload makes balancing the same very tiresome.

    • Balancing and expanding the ‘pressed for time’ or ‘clock time’ to ‘real time’ is the key.

    So to the solution to all the problems plus expanding more time to achieve more, time tracker plug-in was introduced. A complete management solution seamlessly integrated to the word “GO”.

    It is very well-focused an ideal solution to the people working on WordPress time crunching projects.

    Few of the most prominent features, which grabbed my attention are worth mentioning here :

  • Letting clients access the front end while maintaining the security, giving the freedom to you and your team for entire backend functions.
  • Calendar, conversation tracking, to-do lists and reminders, all in all, at your fingertip.
  • Manage multiple projects from a single dashboard. It even allows you to see and compare the on-going and the previous project detailing, enabling you to pick and go for the best options.
  • It helps you to manage your team managers, their current working project, time duration invested for the specific project etc.
  • Precise time tracking for each project by each team members for better productivity.
  • Generate reports based on per employee/project basis.
  • For further clarity and comparisons, associated graphs can be generated.
  • Generate and keeps the logs of various events like user’s/ employee’s comments.
  • Creating clients have never been this easy.
  • Creating extra activities or modifying the existing one on the same screen saves a lot of time. You can actually pick the project where you left. No need to switch the screens.
  • For the ongoing projects or the time allocated to the specific team members, just go to add time and add extra time, if needed. No other changes needed. The seamlessly integrated package will coordinate on its own.
  • Importing time is very simple. Once you add the time and the invoice are saved, the added time is automatically connected and saved with its associated invoice and billing is done accordingly. No multiple entries. No confusion. No extra time billed and no work is done unbilled.
  • Invoicing for a specific client is no longer a problem of going through the entire database. Just select the client and all the details relevant, are there. Even the unbilled hours also. It is that easy.
  • Can comfortably handle unlimited projects, unlimited tasks, and unlimited clients, it’s a YUMMY piece of cake.
  • With the START/STOP button, handle your distractions without getting distracted, literally.
  • The very easy to use and highly responsive PAUSE feature lets you catch your breath by allowing the pause button to your audio or video, without deleting or modifying the program.
  • It helps you in setting deadlines and estimating the completion time for the specific project.
  • Easily tracking time with time tracker pop-up.
  • The Project Manager plug-in integrated with the time tracker can manage all the managers, guest bloggers, guest authors and contributors effortlessly on a single dashboard. Transferring the relevant date and increasing the data traffic is no longer there. Less data traffic time means quick response time, all sorted in a customized way with just a snap of the finger.
  • An extra add-on like PayPal Adaptive payments and handling disputes, if any, gives you complete control on the entire management of handling all the resources and seeing the progress of your project in the much smoother way.

    • By far, the best available way online, 100% FREE, for time tracker and to get your projects managed simultaneouslyng with.

    Your choice of blogging platform can help you get the most out of your writing. WordPress is popular with many writers as it’s so adaptable. If you want to customise the platform, these 15 tools and plugins will help you get the most out of it.

    Yoast SEO:

    This tool is designed to make it easy to track and monitor your SEO. It sits in your dashboard and helps you see how good your SEO is as you write. It will show you how strong your keywords are, how good your readability is, and more.

    Floating Social Bar:

    Social share bars are a must, but a lot can slow your site down. This plugin is designed to give you those tools without affecting your blog’s speed. Now your readers can share your blog on any social media site that they choose.

    Easy Word Count:

    Keeping your blogs short is one of the best ways to keep readers interested. This tool will help you keep them to the correct length.

    Academized:

    Plagiarism is a real problem online, and sites will be penalised by Google if they’re found to be using another writer’s work. This can happen if you don’t mean it to. Use this site to check your work before posting it.

    CoSchedule Headline Analyzer:

    A good headline is crucial to getting readers to click through to your blog. This tool will give you data on your headline, and give suggestions on how to improve it.

    WPData Tables:

    This plugin helps you create responsive tables for your blog. It’s easy to use and helps you create visual interest in your posts.

    The Noun Project:

    This plugin gives you icons for almost anything you can think of. You can use them as identifiers, or as images in their own right. They can bring a lot of interest to your blog without the effort.

    Buy essay:

    Proofreading is an essential part of blog writing. This tool helps you find an expert to check your blogs for you before publication.

    Playbuzz:

    This plugin is designed to help you create interactive elements, such as quizzes and polls. It’s a tool that you can use to increase engagement. You can also use it to gauge what your readers want from you.

    Australian Help:

    If you need an editor to polish up your blog ready for publication, you’ll find one here easily. They’ll edit it according to your notes, and send it back to you ready to be used.

    Cool Timeline:

    As the name implies, this tool enables you to create embeddable timelines in your blogs, good if you need more visual interest.

    Link Patrol:

    Links are important, as they will show readers that you’re a well-researched blog. This checks that all the blogs you’re using are legit.

    Big Assignments:

    This writing service is capable of putting out different types of writing, including blogs. Give your writer the topic and any info they need, and they’ll get it written. It can save you time when you’re looking to hit deadlines.

    Followerwonk:

    This tool helps you find new trending topics to include in your blog. This is helpful when you’re out of ideas, or want to use a trend to launch a blog.

    YARPP:

    This tool will help you retain readers after they finish, by sending them to a related post.
    These tools will help you get the most out of your WordPress blog. Give them a try, and you’ll see just how much your readership and engagement can grow.

    Brenda Berg is a professional with over 15 years of experience in business management, marketing and entrepreneurship. Consultant and tutor for college students and entrepreneurs at Resumention and UK top writers. She believes that constant learning is the only way to success. Besides, she regularly writes for her blog Letsgoandlearn.

    Internet marketing has wrought about a mixed basket of fortunes for businesses in the contemporary world. On the one hand, there are early adopters who are now way ahead of their competition and who are easily integrating innovative techniques to boost their marketing campaigns. However, there are also those businesses that took internet technology as a fad and they are playing catch up today. Whatever your position in the current setup, you can revitalize your marketing efforts by leveraging the power of video.

    While video marketing was hitherto a privilege of major brands, it is now possible for all types of businesses to reach a wider audience using online visual content. The secret behind marketing is the nature of humans, especially when it comes to their proclivity to share visuals. Many nondescript brands have rose to prominence through creative video marketing and this is something you can also do for your business.

    Harnessing the Power of Video

    To appreciate the power of video, consider that adding a video on a landing page increases conversion by 80%. It gets even better; visual content in an email increases click-through rate by about 200-300%, which is every online marketer’s dream. Using video on your pages will also increase engagement by 22% according to the same survey. In addition, 64% of viewers are more likely to buy a product or service after watching an ad.

    These numbers make a strong case for integration of video into your marketing campaign. There are so many websites competing in your niche and it is imperative to leverage any technique that boosts your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. By 2017 video content is expected to account for over 74% of all internet traffic. The fact that 93% of all internet experiences start with a search engine means you have to add more visual content on your website if at all you are to boost visibility on search engine result pages (SERPs).

    In summary, video marketing boosts visibility online and allows you to reach a wider market. It is the most cost-effective strategy to meet your website’s marketing goals and it is now even easier to make a video using video plugins. Video encourages social shares, increases lead and sales conversion, creates brand awareness, boosts brand trust and helps increase engagement on your website.

    Hassle-Free Video Making Process

    If you are using a WordPress website, then you are already ahead of the pack. It is easy to customize your website and add and edit your video content. However, you have to come up with the video content first and this can be a hassle for most website owners. Your hands are already full trying to run your core business and starting to create and publish videos will be stressful.

    Luckily, you can now make video online without much strain and add it on your WP website or blog. One good thing about WP content management system (CMS) is the availability of video plugins that make it possible to create a professional video to promote your business.

    An online video maker comes with various advantages as seen below:
    1. Availability of high-quality software – Video making software is expensive and for this reason, most small businesses end up making poor quality productions. However, you can take advantage of high-quality movie software that gives the best visual quality for your videos. This will add an edge to your website and it increases the likelihood of your video going viral.
    2. No technical skills needed –The beauty of online video software is the fact that you don’t require any specialized skills in videography or computers to get the job done. You can now create an amazing animation to market your business without investing in an in-house design team. Once you select the template you love from the platform, you just have to add your video, photos, text and audio to get the production you want.
    3. Affordability – If you are worried about the cost of a professional video, it is time to look at the best WP video plugin to make a scintillating production at the best prices. You don’t have to break the bank in order to market your business. With a good online video maker, you are assured of the best ROI.
    4. Quick video production – The best thing about using a video plugin is the fact that everything is done online and you don’t need to wait for anyone in order to complete the process. Within a few minutes, you will have done everything and visitors to your website will start watching what you have posted.
    5. Versatile range of videos – Whether you want an animation, explainer video, mobile app marketing videos, logo animation, event videos, promotional video or any other type of production, it has never been easier to get it done. This versatility is what has made online video making software so popular.

    WP video plugins come in different forms and their functions are diverse. They allow you to embed your videos into your WPblog or website, create a professional video gallery, remove YouTube brand from your videos and replace them with your own logo, enable social sharing, customize your video in terms of appearance, size, video feed type, width, ratio and much more.

    Conclusion

    There is no denying the importance of video in modern business and for this reason, you must include it at the core of your SEO St Pete efforts. Video content is easy and affordable to produce and also highly customizable, making it the ultimate SEO technique. Better still, there are many online tools that you can use to optimize your video marketing campaign.

    If your business is struggling to make a mark in the internet marketplace, it is time to leverage this versatile marketing tool. With professional video content, you will be able to reach a bigger audience and enjoy the best ROI in your RiseOak SEO Company efforts. This is without doubt the ultimate online marketing tool now and in future.

    Author Bio

    Charlene Ryan is a freelance online marketing consultant based in Miami. She also blogs on topical issues in the industry and mentors upcoming marketers with webinars such as how to make video; the mother of two is also a PADI-certified diver.

    Being a website owner or a blogger, you should always know the behavior of your web visitors whenever they visit your site in realtime. By tracking the action of your web visitors on your site, you can generate better  user experience for them, which in turn, boosts your conversions as well as sales.

    However, getting the insights about how web users interact with your site can be a challenging task,but with the use of available website builders or user friendly CMS platform like WordPress, you can simplify your work efficiently. WordPress comes with a ton of Heatmap tools and plugins that will help you see where your realtime users click on your site, how they interact, and how they scroll your web pages.

    This is a great way to know which areas of your site have got most clicks and views. These tools can help you engage more users towards your site by improving its usability and readability. So, if you have big goals for your web business, make sure you integrate heatmaps to know where you visitors are paying more attention.

    How Heatmaps Work?

    A heatmap simply loads a JavaScript file in the browser of your visitors to collect their mouse movements. When a visitor clicks on your web page, this technology will highlight or mark that particular area to help you know how many clicks you get on your WordPress web page.

    If the spots are brighter in color, then it means they are high-click zones. And if the color fades out, then it means they are low click zones. In short, this technology can help you know whether your potential visitors click on your targeted areas or not, such as logins, purchases or downloads.

    So, with that concept in mind, we bring you a list of 10 most trending heatmap plugins that will help you get detailed insights about your WordPress site on the fly.

    1. Clicky Analytics

    Download

    With more than 10,000 active users, Clicky Analytics has become one of the best heatmap plugins for WordPress sites. It can help you track and collect the number of clicks within your web page. The plugin generates the heatmap on the basis of an individual web page.

    It gives a complete information as well as graphical stats about your real-time web visitors, their number of visits, the number of clicks, organic searches, bounce rate and a lot more directly on your WordPress admin panel.

    The plugin adds Clicky Web Analytics tracking code in each of your web pages to let you track your visitor’s behaviors with ease.

    2. Crazyegg

    Download

    Crazyegg is an amazing WordPress tool that can help you track each and every mouse click on your web page. It allows you to see what your visitors are doing on your site in real-time.

    The tool comes with a ton of exciting feature such as click data heatmap, overlay for a number of clicks on a particular area of your web page, scroll-map tracking, and you can even know where your visitors are coming from (based on referral sources).

    The best thing about Crazyegg is that it offers a free WordPress plugin that you can integrate into your blog to get the most of it, without any external resources.

    3. SumoMe – WordPress heatmap plugin

    Download

    Get complete insights about your web visitor’s behavior whenever they access your website using SumoMe tool. It is a great heatmap plugin that will help you know where your users are clicking on your site so that you can improve its usability and let your visitors spend more time on your site.

    With its in-built functionality, you can track the number of clicks on each web page and also introduce some innovative ideas to know how your visitors are spending their time on your website. This information will let you improve the User Interface of your WordPress site with ease.

    4. Clicktale

    Download

    Clicktale is one of the most incredible mouse-tracking tools that offers a ton of rich features, such as data-driven heatmaps, conversion funnels, session playback, interactive stats about your visitor’s behavior and a lot more.

    The plugin displays the clear picture of a consumer journey on your WordPress site. You can detect what your visitors are doing on your site so that you can give more reasons to stay longer and generate more conversions for your business.

    Tip: Clicktale offers a free plan that serves up to 400 page views/per month.

    5. SessionCam

    Download

    If you want to optimize your conversion rates, then you will need to integrate a tool that can help you track the mouse-clicks on each of your web pages. SessionCam is an ultimate WordPress plugin that comes with a whole gamut of heatmaps, tracking and reporting tools to let you see user activity on your site in real-time.

    It is a responsive plugin that works across multiple devices and screen sizes. With the help of this information, you can improve the areas where you are getting least clicks and also add CTAs to drive more attention – this can boost the UI of your WordPress site with ease.

    6. Ptengine

    Download

    Ptengine is a free heatmap and analytics plugin that helps you track and collect information about your potential web visitors on the go. You can integrate this plugin into your WordPress site to know where people are clicking on your website.

    It comes with some of the advanced features such as scrolling rates, data-driven heatmaps, multi-device monitoring, and well-detailed statistics about how your visitors spend time on your site.

    7. Mouseflow

    Download

    Mouseflow is another powerful heatmap and analytics tool that track the mouse movements of users such as clicks, scrolls, form filling and other keystrokes to let you know how they are browsing your site.

    The tool comes both in free and paid plan. The Paid plan starts at $10per month, in which you will get unlimited pro features such as responsive support, page tracking, clear heatmaps, well-crafted details on each of your web visitor.

    8. Lucky Orange

    Download

    Lucky Orange is beyond a heatmap plugin. It also offers a chat functionality on your WordPress site. It lets you track your user’s movement in the form of visual representation so that you can interact with them in real-time.

    The plugin helps you display heatmap of clicks and scrolls on your WordPress website in a matter of few minutes. You can also identify how users are interacting with your CTAs, forms and other elements within your site.

    9. Heatmap.me

    Download

    Find out how your real-time web visitors interact with your WordPress site using heatmap.me plugin. With this tool, you can see the heatmaps of clicks and scrolls on your web pages to know where your visitors are spending most of their time such as menu, sliders, and forms.

    By collecting the data related to user behavior, you can improve the user experience of your sites to give more values to your real-time web visitors.

    10.  ExtraWatch Pro

    Download

    ExtraWatch Pro helps you monitor your web visitor’s action via clicks and scrolls on your site. You can see your visitors in real-time, click on heatmap data to know where your web visitors are clicking. It also helps you track your conversion rate as well as bounce rate. You will also get the Anti-spam tool to let you keep your site safe and secure.

    Conclusion

    These are the top 10 heatmaps tools and plugins for WordPress that gives you complete details about your user’s mouse movements like clicks and scrolls, All the plugins listed in this blog post can help the conversion rate of your site with ease.

    Author Bio:

    Lucy Barret is a Web Developer with over 5 years experience. She is currently employed at a HireWPGeeks and handles all major projects. She is also a passionate writer and loves to write technical articles. Follow her on Twitter.

    You can be a blogger for years and yet go on without knowing the difference between a WordPress plugin and a theme. Well, we have met quite a few bloggers and WordPress users in real life, who have no clue about the differences between WordPress themes and plugins.

    Let is read this account from a designer who learnt the existence of the two separate identities in the hard way –
    “When my website gave up on me” – this is an account by Neil Winston, who started only a couple of years ago as a website designer. When he built his first website, he almost“built it by fluke”. He had no idea what the plugins were and how they could be used to complement his WordPress theme. Therefore, when he started off with a fashion designer’s website, he chose a theme that was around $40.99. He had found the perfect theme for a bargain price, or so he thought. It had drag-and-drop editors, built in revolution sliders and gallery options. It was perfect for a website designer.

    He spent over 4 weeks fine-tuning each feature and then handed the site over to his clients. The clients were happy and left satisfied.

    The problem arose when they returned after 4 months. They were rebranding their label and wantedto change in the old theme. Therefore, when Neil tried out new themes he found that the sliders had disappeared and the drag-and-drop editor morphed itself into a bunch of shortcodes. Even the gallery was all hotchpotch. He was in a fix! He had a deadline to meet and there was no way he could tell his clients that he knew nothing about WordPress. So he turned to BigDropInc.com.

    What actually happened to Neil’s website?
    Neil was not a hardcore developer so it took him some time to understand that themes and plugins are completely separate entities. His website theme was quite awesome at first, since it included quite a few functionalities including drag-and-drop editors and listing charts. The moment he shifted to a new theme that didn’t have the supporting codes, these features were not integrated and were merely represented as shortcodes.
    What’s a theme?

    If WordPress websites are like houses, then your theme is like the exterior. It controls the visual parts like color, layouts, and design. In a WordPress site, the theme controls the “display logic”. The theme takes care of information organization and representation in front of your visitors. It takes care of your pages, posts and sidebars.

    If you are currently operating a blog page, your theme will control all aspects like the header, footer and post display. It will also control the images and the snippets of posts displayed on the sidebars. Even the author detail displayed on each post comes with these themes.

    What’s a WordPress plugin?

    Now, going back to the house metaphor – if themes are the exterior, the plugins are the interior upgrades. For example – modular kitchen, mahogany polished antique furniture and marble bath fittings are an upgrade to your home interiors. Similarly, the plugins upgrade the interior functions of your website.

    Plugins can modify core codes of WordPress themes in quite a few ways. You can add, remove and change codes to modify website functionalities.
    Why are some of us still confused?

    Sometimes the line between plugins and themes is not as defined as we would want them to be. There are themes that help with SEO and then there are plugins that help with visual properties. There are quite a few themes that we see today, which lets users to add listings and pricing tables to their own websites.

    We are not saying that it is unethical to use such themes and plugins that blur the line between the two entities. All we are saying is, if you use a theme that takes care of functionalities other than visual appearance, you may face the same problem as Neil. His website started acting crazy because his first theme of choice had added functionalities. The moment he made his shift to a newer theme, these features fell apart since the new theme did not have these built-in functionalities.

    Therefore, using plugins that act on visual traits are all right. Since you can carry over your plugins to a new theme.Nevertheless, if you use a website theme that also modifies functionality, you may be calling for trouble. You should ideally look for a theme that concentrates on optimizing the visual aspects of your websites and leaves the functionalities to your plugins.

    Do codes in themes perform better than plugins?

    Well, we do not blame you if you believe this to be true from time to time. We keep hearing how plugins can cause performance issues and we end up thinking that maybe codes are better off with themes. The action of plugins should be as minimized as possible.

    However, this belief is quite baseless. A plugin code is executed quite similar to a theme code. The only difference is the timing. They are executed at the same rate and none of them has any advantage over the other. So one thing can be said for sure, that themes are not better than plugins when it comes to executing codes.

    Why are plugins better than themes?

    You may think, this is like comparing apples to oranges. Or like comparing 0’s to 1’s. However, we say, it is quite possible in the binary world. So if you ask, “are plugins better than themes when it comes to functionality?” we will answer it with a “Yes”.
    Here are the reasons why –

    1. Your plugins will help you to convert your codes into chunks. This is necessary when you are working on a large project. Debugging and maintenance becomes a lot easier when you break your code down to small chunks. In fact, since you can maintain each plugin individually you can always track down the ones that are malfunctioning.

    2. If your functionality is plugin based, you can simply remove or monitor it by modifying the plugin. If your plugin relation features are breaking down, you will not have to delve deep into the core code. You can simply open the plugins directory and deactivate and remove the concerned plugins. Plugins create a compartmentalization of labor that is necessary for efficient management of website.

    3. Changing themes are challenging if your website functionality resides in the theme code. Most of your functionality should reside with the plugins. When you shift from one theme to another, you will be able to easily migrate all functionalities to your new themes. If you have all shortcodes inside your plugins, you can just upload a new theme and activate the plugins.

    4. Have you ever seen a designer add customizations to functions.php and style.css? This is possible because they can add new improvements without having to migrate each and every change manually. It is ideally possible to update and enhance your plugins separately. You can add them to new themes, remove them from old ones and even update them without touching the theme. Storing your website shortcodes inside plugins can also mean, updating them from time to time without creating a butterfly effect on the theme core code.

    5. You can run a 100 plugins on your website without any impact and we are not making this up! Plugins do not slow your website down. They do not perform queries on your website database and they do not load resources. Many active and super successful websites currently run over a 100 plugins all the time. Maintaining so many plugins is also possible since they can be accessed through the plugin directory. You can directly see their performance, database usage and functionalities from one platform.

    So if you are still confused about plugins and themes, and would rather have a theme with all the shortcodes, think again! A plugin can only be evil when they are built incorrectly. If you are choosing a WordPress plugin from a reliable website/directory or WordPress plugins library, be sure to read the reviews thoroughly before adding it and activating it.

    If you are looking for a theme for your website, we would suggest you stick to one that has minimum functionalities. Lots of shortcodes within the theme core code won’t do you any good when you have to change themes. There are plugins to take care of all functionalities including listings and inventories. So why burden your theme code with unnecessary frills? After all, you can add as many plugins as you want and your website will still run as smoothly (if not more) as it did before.

    Author Bio: Evans Walsh is an author, blogger and designer. He started off as a freelance website designer is the late 90s. He has seen the rise and fall of many website design trends, including the minimalist design of the 90s and the glam trend of the 2000s. He has collaborated on several design optimization projects with BigDropInc.com over the last couple of years.

    Launching an interactive and professional-looking WordPress blog is just the beginning of your web career. If you want to generate higher conversions and revenues, you will need to strive on planning and implementing robust online marketing strategies. Your digital marketing campaigns can help you drive more traffic towards your site/blog quickly and efficiently.

    After setting up your WordPress blog, make sure you give more attention to social media websites in order to promote your brand across the web. In the current era, businesses and online marketers are adapting groundbreaking social media marketing strategies to expand their customer base and generate more revenues for their businesses.

    To achieve the targeted goals, they promote their content on all social media platforms, without even understanding their specifications. Even they struggle in getting positive results due to the complexities they face while promoting their blog on social networking platforms.

    To make your job easier, we bring you the list of 7 popular WordPress plugins that will take your social media marketing efforts to the next level, without any technical assistance.

    1. Custom Twitter Feeds

    Download: WordPress Plugin Repository

    Active Installs: 7,000+

    Every platform on social media has its own significance. The strategies, the tools and the marketing campaign you use should be idealized for the individual social media platform.

    Since Twitter has become a robust platform for online business promotion, you should integrate a Customer Twitter Feeds plugin into your WordPress site or blog. The plugin lets you display tailor-made Twitter feeds of your user timeline, home timeline as well as a hashtag on your site.

    It is a responsive and mobile optimized plugin that works smoothly on multiple devices and screen sizes.

    Adding a twitter feed on your blog will give more exposure to your site across social media market. In fact, the content added to twitter feed is SEO friendly that can boost your visibility on search engine platforms.

    2. Custom Facebook Feed

    Download: WordPress Plugin Repository

    Active Installs: 200,000+

    Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms where you can promote your brand, products, and services to your targeted social web traffic effectively. It is a huge platform where you can convey your business message to grow your customer’s read quickly and easily.

    With the use of Custom Facebook Feed plugin, you can post fresh and search engine optimized content on Facebook to drive more web visitors. It is also a free plugin that works seamlessly across different devices and screen sizes – a robust mobile-friendly plugin.

    You can even customize it to showcase feeds from different pages or groups on the fly.

    3. Social Login

    Download: WordPress Plugin Repository

    Active Installs: 30,000+

    Social Login is one of the best social media plugins on the WordPress plugin repository. It lets your web visitors comment, log in, and register into your site with more than 30 social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Google, Instagram, LinkedIn, PayPal, Pinterest, OpenID, Amazon, YouTube, and a lot more.

    You can add social login pages either on your login page, registration page, or the comment formular to grab more attention of your visitors. There is also a login widget that you can add to your sidebar, without any coding.

    4. Monarch Social Sharing Button

    Download: elegant themes

    Monarch is developed by Elegant themes that come with a plethora of exciting features to let you grow your social networking reach quickly and easily.

    It offers 20 social sharing icons that you can add on your site or arrange either at the top or end of the post. You can add multiple numbers of available networks to craft a customized collection of social sharing options for your real time web visitors.

    You can also add floating social sharing icons and automatic pop-ups to give your visitors a rich and hassle-free experience on your website. Overall, Monarch is an incredible plugin for boosting social media marketing of a WordPress blog.

    5. Social Media Share Buttons | MashShare

    Download: WordPress Plugin Repository

    Active Installs: 60,000+

    Encourage your web visitors to share your content on multiple social media websites by adding customizable social sharing icons on it. MashShare is a fantastic WordPress plugin that lets you add beautiful and responsive social share buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YoutTube, Pinterest, etc on your site’s content without any coding.

    The plugin is highly optimized for speed and stimulates users to share your content instantly – which boosts the user experience of a site.

    Plus, it displays total social media share count to give you an idea about your growing popularity across the social networking sites.

    6. Instagram Feed

    Download: WordPress Plugin Repository

    Active Installs: 300,000+

    Instagram has gained a lot of popularity among all scales and types of businesses. It is the best place to share your creative work in the forms of images and videos with your targeted social media audience.

    With the help of Instagram Feed plugin, you can showcase customized, beautiful, and mobile friendly feeds from different Instagram accounts on the fly. It is a simple and intuitive plugin that helps you display images from your Instagram profile on your WordPress blog to help you generate more quality leads.

    You can even showcase images as well as videos from non-private Instagram accounts that include yours as well as those you are tagged in to let you share user-generated content with ease. This can boost the online visibility of your website or blog.

    7. Ultimate Social

    Download: envato market

    Ultimate Social is a premium WordPress plugin that offers a plenty of features including more than 25 social sharing buttons, over 22 fan counters, 20+ display locations, simple and intuitive shortcodes, customization options, responsive designs, multilingual functionality and a lot more.

    The plugin is also integrated with WooCommerce, BuddyPress, bbPress, Easy Digital Downloads, Google Analytics, and other third-party tools. Plus, it comes with a user-friendly interface to let you add social sharing icons within your content, without any technical assistance.

    You can use this paid WordPress plugin to take your social media marketing campaign to the next level. It helps you achieve your goals quickly and efficiently.

    Conclusion

    All the seven plugins mentioned above in this blog post will help you promote your WordPress blog on multiple social networking sites, which in turn leads you more web traffic, more conversions, and more sales.

    Author Bio

    Lucy Barret is a Web Developer with over 5 years experience. She is currently employed at a PSD to WordPress conversion company and handles all major projects. She is also a passionate writer and loves to write technical articles. Follow her on Twitter.

    Here are some time Super useful wordpress Plugins & Tools for WordPress Developers
    Below are some growing collection of WordPress plugins, and discovered some great resources for my WP “developer toolbox.” These are some super-useful plugins and tools for debugging, logging data, working with translation files, analyzing performance, and making otherwise difficult tasks efficient and manageable. May they serve you well!

    WP Developer plugins & tools
    (Note: descriptions taken from their respective resources)
    Debug Queries:
    “List query-actions only for admins; for debug purposes. See all queries on the frontend of the blog and find the slowest part. The plugin is perfect for WordPress developers, plugin and theme developers and site administrators who are trying to find out why the blog is too slow.”

    Log Deprecated Notices
    “Logs the usage of deprecated files, functions, and function arguments, and identifies where the deprecated functionality is being used.”

    WordPress Hook Sniffer
    “The WordPress Hook Sniffer plugin is a tool for plugin developers that helps determine the sequence in which action and filter functions are fired. It allows you to peer into the inner workings of the WordPress Plugin API. You can configure what is outputted and to where the output is sent (screen or text file).”

    WP-FirePHP
    “This Plugin integrates FirePHP in your WordPress installation and simplifies developing. No more vardump() and echo while debugging. FirePHP take care of it, clean and easy.”

    Codestyling Localization
    “You can manage and edit all gettext translation files (*.po/*.mo) directly out of WordPress Admin Center without any need of an external editor.”

    Debug Objects
    “Debug Objects provides a large number of information: query, cache, cron, constants, hooks, functions and many more.” E.g., query, cache, cron, constants, hooks, and functions. “Values and content get displayed at the frontend and backend of the blog, to analyze errors but also to better understand and develop with/for WordPress.”

    5 Ways to Debug WordPress
    “Many plugin and theme authors don’t take full advantage of some really helpful debugging tools in WordPress. Here’s a quick run-down of five cool tools for debugging.”
    And here are some more useful plugins that haven’t been updated in awhile but continue to provide much-needed functionality. Old doesn’t mean broken 😉

    WP Developer Assistant
    WP Developer Assistant is “essentially is a toolkit that makes life as a WordPress developer easier.” Does cool stuff like customizable PHP errors, global variable dump, table modification, execute queries, phpinfo(), and much more.

    AskApache RewriteRules Viewer
    “Displays Most Everything about your WordPress Rewrites. Displays Most Everything about your WordPress Rewrites, Permalinks, URI’s, in a very detailed and raw way. Informational plugin only… Nothing is modified or changed.”

    Latency Tracker
    “This really simple plugin hooks into your wp_footer function (so make sure that your theme uses it) to count the number of queries, how long they took, how much memory was use, and when it all occurred. That way, they can show some solid data to the host so that they are able to compare numbers and know for sure that their load times are faster or slower when compared.”

    TPC! Memory Usage
    “TPC! Memory Usage allows WordPress administrators to view the current and peak memory usage of the application. This is extremely helpful when testing new plugins, or if there are a lot of modifications, plugins, or large language files. As of version 0.4, administrators now have the ability to view detailed system information about their web server, MySQL, PHP, and WordPress software.”

    WP-Devel
    “Developer toolbar giving you easy access to debug information across your entire website. The WP-Devel plugin for WordPress features a ton of debug options to help developers. Debug information is easily turned on/off from the WP-Devel toolbar anywhere on your website.”

    WordPress Theme Generator
    BONUS tool! I don’t know how useful it actually is, but the WordPress Theme Generator enables anyone to create custom WordPress themes “without any need for HTML, JS, PHP, or CSS knowledge.”

    Choosing the platform is not an easy task. From the viewpoint of developers, in designing platforms two objectives should be addressed:

    –          the implementation of the requirements and the upgrade to meet future needs;

    –          Easy interface and use.

    From the point of view of the beneficiary, the choice depends on the allocated material resources, on the functions they can perform, on the experience of the staff that will have to do the maintenance and, last but not least, on the size and specificity of the site.

    Characteristics of e- commerce platforms

    The characteristics of the e-commerce platforms refer to both the elements that are available for clients and visitors as well as to the elements by means of which the products are presented. The analysis of the best platforms in terms of features is based on the identification of the mandatory elements: logo, product offers, news and the top selling products, the shopping cart and the registration form; product; search options and the filtering options depending on category, subcategory, manufacturer, price and product specific options, the product catalog, links to social networks; the symbol of the payment systems that are used, the transport options, the contact forms and the phone numbers.

    The characteristics of the presentation of the products covered in the analysis of the statistics refer to: the quality of the presentation image of product, available alternative images; the zooming function, possibilities of comparing the product, reviews.

    In general, all of the characteristics have positions that were studied.

    WordPress has always been versatile enough to be used as an ecommerce solution but now there’s more shopping cart plugins than ever it’s even a viable alternative to the many eCommerce CMS tools such as Shopify or Magento. Adding cart functionality to your WordPress install makes it easy to build simple online stores with the familiarity of the WordPress template system. Let’s take a look at the best shopping cart plugins available, with some examples of how they’re currently being put to use on live sites.

    WooCommerce from WooThemes has grown to become the number one eCommerce tool for WordPress. It has been comprehensively developed and tested and is backed by a solid collection of developers. The core WooCommerce functionality is free but it can also be built upon with various paid-for extensions.  There is plugin which also used for dropshipping Alidropship plugin review with coupon code. Dropshipping is a supply chain management model in which online retailers partner with wholesale suppliers to directly fulfil online orders. Instead of keeping their own product inventory, ecommerce retailers transfer customer orders and shipping information to the dropship wholesaler, who then ships the goods directly to the customer (and generally deal with returns).

    Jigoshop is a feature packed eCommerce plugin built upon WordPress core functionality. One of the enticing features of Jigoshop is its ability to support various product types, including physical goods, downloadable products and variable sizes (S,M,L etc).

    Cart66, formerly known as PHPurchase is a premium WordPress plugin available for $99, although its array of features does include some functionality only available as a paid extension to other alternatives such as WooCommerce. Cart66 covers every base when it comes to selling digital goods and services, allowing you to collect payments as well as recurring subscriptions or membership fees.

    GetShopped.org, also known as WP e-Commerce is one of the original WordPress cart plugins by Instinct. While its core functionality is free, some crucial cart features are reserved as premium extensions. Still, some of its boasted features such as 100% customisability keep it competitive against the new school options.

    Shopp is another fully loaded premium shopping cart plugin for WordPress. It seamlessly integrates with WordPress to provide unbranded functionality that makes use of WordPress widgets, post types and shortcodes.

    Easy Digital Downloads, as the name suggests, is an easy solution for selling virtual goods via WordPress. While other cart solutions often combine the ability to sell digital goods alongside physical goods, the lack of bloat and specialised features are particularly useful for anyone looking to sell digital goods. 

     

    It’s easy for WordPress users to increase site traffic and reduce bounce rate by adding related posts thumbnails to the bottom of posts. Visitors will spend more time on your site to browse these related posts, and may even click on a sponsored post (a paid related post or ad), which can make you money. WordPress offers many related post plugins to generate related posts for you automatically, and some plugins help you choose related posts manually. Here’s our rundown of the ten best similar post plugins for WordPress.

    10- Yet Another Related Posted Plugin (YARPP), with more than 3.4 million downloads, offers a built-in algorithm to find and support text and thumbnail related posts. It supports RSS feed display and shows an excerpt from each post.

    On the downside, you can’t use YARPP on WPEngine-managed WordPress Hosting sites. YARPP uses up a lot of resources, so if you have a large site, choose the Pro version, which is stored on YARPP’s servers.

    9- Editorial Assistant by Zemanta Link to similar content from other Zemanta network members as well as your content with its free plugin, Editorial Assistant. Other network members may return the favor, sending more traffic your way.

    Related posts include thumbnails, and you can add related images with a click. Edit related posts or display in a widget. Editorial Assistant offers six layouts, which you can customize with CSS. There’s no shortcode option, so you’ll have to take the long way around if you want to embed certain files or objects.

    8- Considered one of the fastest WordPress plugins, Yuzo Related Posts offers easy installation and a minimalist design. Customize text, control categories where thumbnails appear, or show related posts only in a specific post or page. If you want to use similar posts to monetize your site, you’re out of luck. Yuzo doesn’t provide revenue sharing or monetization.

    7- Contextual Related Posts creates a list of related articles based on title and post content, which improves the likelihood of readers clicking on them. These plugin features include caching, thumbnail support, widgets, and a built-in stylesheet. Drawbacks – It shows thumbnails in a bulleted list, and slows down larger sites.

    6- JetPack by Automatic contains several modules. If you don’t need the other modules, you can keep them deactivated and preserve your resources.

    All the content processing takes place in the cloud, so it won’t tax your server. Free and easy to install, JetPack will work for users who don’t need to customize their related posts layout. You’ll need to recode it to make changes.

    5- WordPress Related Posts adds related content to the end of your posts automatically, increasing user engagement. The customizable WRP widget supports thumbnails, caching and multiple styles.

    Like Editorial Assistant, WRP can share your content with other users in the Zemanta network. There’s no way to know which articles the plugin will recommend to the network, so you’ll need to read content yourself to make sure it’s something you want to share with a much wider audience.

    4- Instead of showing related content posts at the bottom of your article, Inline Related Posts features related posts in the boy of the article. When similar post text or thumbnails appear in the middle of an article, readers are more engaged and more likely to click. Used by Entrepreneur, Financial Times and other business websites, Inline Related Posts may boost page views on low traffic sites.

    Inline Related Posts offers easy set-up, and you can position your related content anywhere in the post. You’ll need to use another plugin if you want to show related posts at the bottom of your article and within the text.

    3- Shareaholic, a comprehensive plugin for sharing posts, displaying related content and generating revenue, bills itself as an “all-in-one content application platform.” Easy to install and configure, Shareaholic supports bitly and other URL shorteners. Other features include social media follow buttons, share buttons (with a choice of “floating” buttons), and built-in social analytics. The plugin may be prone to occasional bugs, and there’s not a lot of leeway regarding monetization features.

    2- If you want more control of the similar posts appearing on your site, the Manual Related Posts plugin may work for you. It lets you choose which related posts will appear under your content. You can also select custom post types and pages. Additional features include filtering and shortcode support.

    1-Related Posts for WordPress supports fast text and thumbnail display of related posts. Offers a quick install, and you can use shortcode or a widget anywhere on the page to display related posts. The paid premium version of this plugin provides layout control, multisite support and overwritable templates.

     

    Which Similar Post Plugin Offers the Best Features?

    Although all of these similar posts plugins will help ramp up your page views, Shareaholic offers features that work in tandem with related posts, and won’t drain resources like some of the others. The free Related Posts for WordPress plugin is also an excellent choice if you’re on a budget and don’t want to use a lot of resources.

    Tim Brown is a designer and developer doing WordPress web design and focused on the disciplines of driving traffic and conversion. You can tweet him at @timbdesignmpls.