Tag Archive for: WordPress

Introduction

WordPress is web publishing software you can use to create your own website or blog. Since it was released in 2003, WordPress has become one of the most popular web publishing platforms. Today it powers nearly 30 percent of the entire web — from hobby blogs to some of the biggest news sites online.

Many people don’t realize that WordPress is much more just a blogging tool. It’s actually a highly flexible content management system (CMS) that enables you to build and manage your own website using just your web browser.

WordPress is completely free. That’s because WordPress is an Open Source project. That means that hundreds of volunteers from all around the world are constantly creating and improving the code for the WordPress software. And, there are thousands of plugins, widgets, and themes that enable you to build just about any type of website you can imagine.

Working of WordPress

Since the earliest days of the Internet, websites have been created in programming languages like HTML, PHP, and CSS to format text, create page layouts, display images, and so on. Your web browser then reads this code, interpreting those tags to render and display the content of a particular web page.

But today, you can install the WordPress software on your own web server in about 5 minutes. Once installed, you’ll log into your site using your favorite web browser, and then use a simple editor to create web pages — without having to learn how to code. There are even hosting companies like WordPress.com and others who install WordPress for you and enable you to start building your website with just a few clicks.

Reasons why WordPress is Very Popular

WordPress is Open Source. That means that there are thousands of people all around the world who are constantly working to improve WordPress. And because WordPress is an open source project it’s also completely FREE.

WordPress is incredibly flexible and extensible. There are thousands of plugins and themes that enable you to easily change the entire look of your website or even add new features like a mailing list, photo gallery, or an online store.


WordPress is easy to use and learn. You don’t need to hire a web designer every time you want to make a small change to your website. Instead, you can easily update and create your own content — without having to learn how to code. In fact, if you know how to use the basic formatting tools in a program like Microsoft Word, you can edit your site.


WordPress Plugins

Many of the content creators often find it difficult on what WordPress plugins they must use. Having the right set of tools can help you take your content creation and management to the next level. In this section, I will share the must WordPress plugins for website content management in 2018.

Envira Gallery

While you can easily create image galleries in WordPress without using a plugin, these galleries are fairly basic. Envira Gallery allows you to create beautiful responsive galleries in WordPress. You can create multiple galleries, add them anywhere on your site, create albums, open images in lightbox popups, and much more.

MaxCDN

Images and other static content on a website take the longest time to load. If you want to make your website even faster, then you will need to use a CDN to deliver your static files. MaxCDN is the most reliable CDN service, and it integrates easily with WordPress.

W3 Total Cache

Speed is one of the most important SEO factors. Faster websites rank higher in Google, this means more visitors for your business website and more conversions. W3 Total Cache allows you to serve compressed and cached files to your visitors. This reduces the load on your server and your website becomes faster.

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) is one of the most popular WordPress plugins. It allows you to optimize your WordPress site for search engines. It not only helps you add meta tags, it optimizes your site as a whole.

BackupBuddy

While we’re talking about security, there’s no better security than having a reliable backup system. As a business owner, you cannot afford to lose your business data in case of a hardware failure or an attack on your host’s servers.

The first thing you should set up on all your WordPress sites is a backup plugin. We recommend using BackupBuddy because it is one of the most reliable and easiest ways to backup and restore your WordPress sites with just a few clicks.

Sucuri

Security is going to be a big concern for online business owners in 2017. Sucuri’s web application firewall is probably one of the best protection you can get for your site. They monitor and protect your site from DDoS, malware threats, XSS attacks, brute force attacks, and basically every other type of attack. If you don’t have a firewall on your website, then add one today.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is one of the best email marketing service providers. It allows you to build an email list and send emails to your subscribers. It is by far the most beginner friendly platform, with a quick and easy setup. It comes with built-in tools to add signup forms and also works well with lead generation software like OptinMonster.

MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It allows you to connect your website with Google Analytics, so you can learn more about your website visitors such as where are they coming from and what are they doing on your website. You can then optimize your site accordingly to improve your earnings.

OptionMonster

OptinMonster is the most popular conversion rate optimization software. It allows you to convert abandoning website visitors into email subscribers. If you want to grow your email list, then this is a must-have WordPress plugin in 2018.

SEMRush

As a business owner, you need data to find out what your competitors are doing for their websites. SEMRush allows you to look at the keywords where your competitors are ranking. You can check out their paid keywords as well as their organic traffic. This way you can optimize your own content and marketing strategy.

Freshbooks

Freshbooks is a cloud-based accounting software for professionals, freelancers, and agencies. It allows you to easily send invoices to clients, receives payments, and manage your finances.

Google Apps for Work

Google Apps for Work is a suite of web applications like email, docs, spreadsheets, etc. Created by Google, this powerful suite of office applications is cheaper, easy to deploy, and hassle-free. Most importantly, it allows you to use your own business domain name for emails.

Beaver Builder

As a business owner, you may soon realize that placing things differently on your pages can result in more conversions and sales. But how do you create those landing pages without learning to code? Beaver Builder is a powerful drag and drops page builder tool for WordPress. It allows you to easily create your own page layouts using a simple user interface.

CSS Hero

WordPress themes rely on CSS for the visual appearance of your website. If you want to make customization to your theme, then you will have to learn CSS. This can be time-consuming for a business owner. CSS Hero is a WordPress plugin that allows you to customize any WordPress theme without writing a single line of code.

Insert Headers and Footers

While managing your WordPress sites, you may sometimes need to add code snippets to your WordPress site’s header or footer. This means you will have to edit the theme files which could get messy and break up your WordPress theme. Insert Headers and Footer allows you to easily add code snippets to your WordPress site without editing your theme files.

Quick and Easy FAQs

When launching a new product or website, you may need to add a FAQs section in WordPress. You can add a new page with all the frequently asked questions (FAQs), but in most cases FAQs grows as your product evolves and as your customer base grows. By adding the FAQ section, you can significantly reduce your support overhead and improve conversion.

LearnDash

LearnDash is the best WordPress LMS plugin to create and sell online courses from your WordPress website. It has a drag and drops course builder that allows you to quickly add lessons, quizzes, assignments to build your course.

Shared Counts

Shared Counts is the best WordPress social media plugin. It allows you to easily add social media sharing buttons to your website. Unlike other social sharing plugins, Shared Counts is super-fast and comes with only the social platforms you actually use.

MemberPress

MemberPress allows you to build online communities on your WordPress website. It is the best WordPress membership plugin that allows you to easily add membership options to your WordPress website.

You can create subscriptions and restrict content to users based on their subscription plans. It works with all popular payment ways and plays nicely with online stores using WooCommerce.

Slack

Slack is a team management, productivity, and communication tool. We use it to communicate with our team spread across different time-zones and locations. Slack is more convenient than email, and it can integrate with tons of other online tools you may be using.

OutreachPlus

OutreachPlus is the best email outreach software in the market today. It allows you to manage your email outreach campaigns from a single dashboard like a pro.

You will be able to manage follow-ups, send personalised emails, send trigger based responses, and more. It is super easy to use and allows you to connect multiple email accounts and see all your outreach emails in one inbox.

BirchPress

If you need a solution for your business website where your users can book and pay for appointments, then BirchPress is the solution for you. It allows you to easily add a complete online booking system to your WordPress site.

Schema.org Rich Snippets

Rich Snippets are special markup that you can add to your content and describe your content more precisely to search engines. This information is then used by search engines to show your content differently.

For example, star ratings below your product listings map when someone searches for your business, and so on. All in One Schema.org rich snippets plugin provides you an easy user interface to generate that markup and use it in your WordPress posts and pages.

Conclusion

WordPress can be used in many different ways. It is open to possibilities. We can use WordPress as a content management system, blog, gallery, portfolio, membership site, video collection site, shopping store, rating website, and so on.

If you’re looking for an easy tool that will help you to build your own website or blog without having to learn how to code, you’ll love WordPress. And, you’ll find that WordPress is incredibly flexible, with thousands of themes, plugins, and support options to ensure that your site will continue to grow with you in the future.