Tag Archives: Plugins

8 of the Best SEO Tools & WordPress Plugins For Maximum Visibility

[ad_1] Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial for any website that wants to maximize its traffic and visibility. As such, most websites will want to employ a number of SEO tools to help. WordPress websites can also install plugins for all sorts of SEO-related tasks. The real challenge is to choose the most valuable ones to help get you to the top of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). For this post, we’ll look at the best SEO tools around, mixed in with top-tier WordPress plugins. We’ll also summarize everything in a handy table towards the end, answer some burning questions, and give you advice on how to choose the right plugin for your needs. What You Should Look for in SEO Tools and WordPress Plugins While it would be straightforward to head to a list of generic, all-purpose SEO tools, this isn’t possible. In fact, you have two areas to consider when it comes to choosing SEO tools and relevant WordPress plugins: The tool’s focus. There are different types of tool that all cover different ground. For example, some help you manage 301 redirects, while plenty of others let you research keywords. Of course, you’ll want to look for SEO tools that match your specific needs. Your potential tool’s quality. Once you have tools on a shortlist, you have to make sure they are high quality solutions. There are a few ways you can do this, and combining them will be the best approach. When it comes to the latter, we recommend a few considerations. Social proof is important (such as ratings and reviews), as you will also likely be one of the happy bunch. Also, checking how much the developer updates a tool will help you decide how ‘invested’ they are in it. You won’t want to spend money on a premium solution only for the developer to move onto other products in their range. The Top 8 SEO Tools And WordPress Plugins For Maximum Visibility Next, let’s look at the eight SEO tools we want to feature. Right now, they’re in no order. Later on though, we’ll rank them – more on that shortly. For now, let’s go through the list. 1. Semrush Finding keywords is an SEO fundamental. Without them, your content won’t have any direction (from an SEO standpoint anyway). Semrush is one of many keyword research tools, and it’s also one of the best. In fact, this is a collection of over 55 different tools to help with lots of SEO aspects. It includes keyword research, but also competitor analysis, market analysis, on-page SEO, and much more. Semrush offers almost every tool you’ll need to help your SEO strategy succeed. 👍 Pros 👎 Cons Almost every tool you need for SEO Cost could be prohibitive Best-in-class keyword research The huge number of tools Semrush offers could be overwhelming The official WordPress plugin doesn’t have good reviews from other users. Pricing: Semrush offers three premium tiers starting from $129.95 per month. Each tier will include a greater number of features and functionality. Try Semrush 2. Rank Math Rank Math represents the first WordPress SEO plugin on our list. It lets you optimize your posts and pages using a variety of tools from the WordPress dashboard. Its on-page SEO functionality is excellent, but it can do lots more for your site. For instance, you can preview how your content will appear across SERPs, social media, and more from within the Block Editor. You’re also able to view Google Search Console content from the WordPress dashboard. This means you can log into your site and see all of the most valuable metrics to help improve your SEO. 👍 Pros 👎 Cons Fantastic SEO analysis within the Block Editor sidebar The whole package may be too overwhelming for some users who want simpler functionality. Plenty of extra Includes Content AI, which helps you write articles with near-perfect SEO Pricing: Rank Math’s core plugin is free to download. However, a premium subscription begins from $5.75 per month and gives you the ability to track a greater number of keywords, the use of a Schema generator, and more. Related: Rank Math Vs Yoast SEO: Which Is The Best WordPress SEO Plugin? Try RankMath 3. Yoast SEO When it comes to WordPress SEO analysis, the champion for millions of users is Yoast SEO. It was one of the first of its kind available, and uses a ‘traffic light’ system to highlight where your SEO is good, bad, and able to improve. While we could give you all the juicy details, we have a comparison article elsewhere on the blog that looks at Rank Math vs Yoast SEO in depth. You’ll want to read that to understand how to find out more about Yoast SEO, and how both of these excellent plugins differ. 👍 Pros 👎 Cons As a free SEO plugin, there’s arguably no better option on the market Lots of users don’t enjoy the inline ads for premium Yoast SEO products The traffic light system to analyze your SEO is near-perfect for efficiency and prioritization The plugin can be buggy at times, especially if an update breaks a particular piece of functionality Some of the metrics in the Readability section are valuable and unavailable in other SEO tools. Pricing: Yoast SEO is free to download from the WordPress Plugin Directory. The vast majority of users will only need this version of the plugin. However, the premium edition is $99 per year and gives you further ways to analyze your site’s SEO, social media previews, and more. Try Yoast SEO 4. Mangools If Semrush doesn’t appeal for whatever reason, there are numerous competitors. Mangools is one of the best, thanks to its straightforward usability and fantastic price. Our main focus is on the keyword research tool here, although there are other apps that focus on backlink mining, SERP rank tracking, site profiling, and SERP analysis for specific keywords. However, the keyword research app is almost a one-page tool. You have keyword

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7 Best Live Chat Plugins for Your WordPress Website

[ad_1] At some point during the natural lifecycle of a company, cultivating customers takes priority. As such, your support services become a key battleground. Live chat plugins are one way to offer your customers practically instant access to your support team. They let users talk to either a real person there and then, or a smart ‘bot’ that redirects them to the right place. In this post, we’ll look at a number of live chat plugins, and offer some advice about which one would potentially suit you. Before that, let’s talk about why live chat is a great customer service channel. An Introduction to Live Chat (And Why You Should Implement It) For the uninitiated, live chat does what it says on the tin. In other words, a customer accesses your site – usually looking for support – and can connect with a representative through a button on the page: While live chat was initially ‘manned’ by a real person, gains in Artificial Intelligence (AI) means that tailored bots are more common now. This brings about a number of benefits: The initial heavy lifting when uncovering a user’s support needs can be handled in a routine way by sophisticated tech. Users are essentially self-solving their issue, which means you can treat aspects of the live chat experience as an extension of your knowledge base. You can ‘qualify’ the user for more advanced support. This lets you create dedicated ‘tracks’ and processes for your support chain, and makes them more efficient. Given these reasons, implementing live chat on your website is a great way to bring users through your support funnel in a refined way. How We Chose Our 7 Live Chat Plugins WordPress wouldn’t be the platform it is without plugins. While you can implement practically any functionality using them, this post will look at live chat specifically. To narrow down our list, we’ve used the following criteria: All plugins must have been updated within the last six months to work with a modern version of WordPress. Where recorded, a plugin must have a rating of at least 80% – for example, four stars on either WordPress.org or CodeCanyon. Finally, a plugin must have a relatively substantial number of active installs. For example, plugins hosted on WordPress.org usually need a minimum of 1,000 installs. Because of the above criteria, you’ll notice that popular solutions such as Zendesk Chat and Intercom aren’t included. In a nutshell, their WordPress plugins didn’t meet the standard we set, although the services themselves are stellar. Summarizing the 7 Top Live Chat Plugins for Your WordPress Website LiveChat. Busy support teams using a personal approach will love this plugin. Tidio Live Chat. Arguably the best all-around live chat plugin for WordPress. Sendinblue. If you’re already a user of Sendinblue’s other products, you’ll find this plugin ideal. Crisp Live Chat. If you have a complex product, Crisp will fit the bill. HubSpot Live Chat. HubSpot subscribers are likely going to use this live chat plugin, although it offers value for non-subscribers too. Olark. This plugin will be great for support team as part of a sales funnel. Tawk.to. A top plugin that offers myriad features completely free forever. 7 Top Live Chat Plugins for Your WordPress Website Without further ado, let’s take a look at the plugins. The seven here are in no particular order, although we encourage you to compare them all against your own requirements. 1. LiveChat First up, we have WordPress Live Chat Plugin by LiveChat – we’ll simply call it “LiveChat” here. The plugin has a number of esteemed customers, such as McDonalds, Adobe, and PayPal. As such, the live chat plugin is great for larger organizations. LiveChat also develops the WooCommerce Live Chat plugin for WordPress too, so they have a number of solutions regardless of your specific need. Under the hood, LiveChat offers a number of efficiency features, such as canned responses. You’re able to send personalized messages to users automatically, and also send them files through the chat window. However, the biggest plus point of LiveChat is also its greatest drawback. It’s an expansive live chat platform with practically everything you’ll need to support your customers. As such, it could be overkill for a smaller site. Overall, LiveChat is great for businesses with heavy support needs, especially if a personal approach to your support provision is important. Pricing: LiveChat starts at $16 per month, per agent. There are a number of tiers depending on your needs, although you could see costs quickly shoot into three-figures per month. 2. Tidio Live Chat Next up, Tidio is a company offering a well-supported live chat plugin with solid user feedback. It’s designed for WordPress site owners in mind, and also integrates email marketing services and a chatbot into the package. Installation is rapid, and once you’re ready, you’re able to set up multiple chat windows across different pages. The plugin supports nearly 200 languages out of the box, and offers a number of customization options to help you match Tidio’s chat windows to your branding. Because of the integrated email marketing, you’re able to follow up with users once they leave your website, turning your support channels into a sales funnel entry point. What’s more, there are a number of third-party integrations available. We’d argue that if you’re running a WordPress website, Tidio is going to be a front-runner for your live chat needs. It’s a modern solution, with a thoughtful feature set. What’s more, our research indicates it’s one of the more well-maintained plugins available. Pricing: Tidio offers a stacked free tier, which could be enough for many site owners. However, there are three other tiers that cater to different needs. Each one works out around $200–225 per year, which could become pricey if you’re looking for an all-in-one support solution. 3. Sendinblue Sendinblue is better known for its stellar email marketing services, although the live chat functionality more than pulls its weight. You’re able to leverage built-in design tools to

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6 Best WordPress LMS Plugins

[ad_1] If you’re looking for a way to deliver an online course, complete with all the traditional tools and features of a learning management system, then some of the learning management plugins available for WordPress might be able to provide all the functionality you need. By installing the free WordPress content management system, and then one of these online course delivery plugins, you can have your own learning platform for a fraction of the price of an enterprise system like Blackboard, albeit on a much smaller scale. Or, you can deliver some simpler online courses to your audience, either for free or by charging a one-off or recurring subscription fee. What is a Learning Management System Plugin? A learning management system plugin helps you add learning-focused features to WordPress to create, deliver, and manage online courses to people. It also comes with features to help you document, track, and report back to students as they progress through your courses. Learning management systems are very flexible. They offer you the ability to create content, make changes and update information, and manage all your admin tasks from one convenient location. Plus, they make eLearning a cinch for students. All they have to do to access your online courses is log into their account, which is set up on your website. You can use an LMS plugin for structured learning with elements such as quizzes, assignments, grades, etc. Or, you can use it in a simpler way to deliver text or multimedia lessons to your website’s subscribers, which is what a lot of entrepreneurs are doing. Membership Plugins vs. Learning Management System Plugins If you are new to online learning, then it might seem like a membership plugin such as Paid Memberships Pro or MemberPress could handle the functionality required, such as registering users and restricting access to content on your site. However, LMS plugins have learning-specific features at their disposal that make them ideal for delivering learning and teaching online. In fact, they go above and beyond what a WordPress membership plugin might. For example, WordPress LMS plugins includes features like: Quizzes Conditional course progression Student gradebooks Lessons Module and course structures Perhaps best of all, learning management system plugins bring the element of gamification to online learning. In other words, you students will be able to experience game-like features such as point scoring, competition with other students, rules of play, and so much more – all while learning. So while there is some overlap between the two, they do offer distinctly different functionality. In some situations, you might even want to pair them together. With some plugins, you can use a membership plugin to handle the membership/payment parts and then an LMS plugin to handle the course content/learning parts. Other LMS plugins include their own built-in membership features, which eliminates the need to use a separate membership plugin. What to Look for in an LMS Plugin Before we dive into the best eLearning and LMS options for WordPress, here’s what you should look for in your solution: Course Building: you want to be able to create interactive, dynamic, and exciting content for your students. This includes PDFs, videos, and more. Make sure you have access to a solid page builder as well, especially if this is the first time you’re creating an online course. Content Dripping: this feature is great for slowly and progressively releasing course materials to students as they move through your course. Course Progress Information: your students want to know where they’re at in your online courses at all times. So, make sure they can easily access this information. Student Management: you’ll want to know how many students are enrolling in your courses. In addition, you’ll want to be able to manage things like memberships, payments, and account access. Quizzes and Tests: this may seem obvious, but not all LMS plugins will give you the option to quiz and/or test your students. Evaluating how well they’ve learned and retained your content is a great way to congratulate top students. It’s also a good way to determine whether your content is effective or not. Forum Integration: being able to integrate with forum plugins like bbPress or BuddyPress is helpful for boosting student engagement and interaction. You can even chat with students through these forums. Payment Gateway Support: finding a payment gateway that integrates with your LMS plugin is important if you want to make money and not lose a lot of profit to excessive fees. Incentives: being able to reward those doing well, especially in a public way, is a great incentive for your other students to do well too. Things like badges and certificates are better than simple email confirmations because people feel more accomplished with official recognition, especially when they can print it out. Homework Options: make sure the LMS option you choose gives you a way to assign and grade homework submissions with ease. This will improve the learning experience without adding a lot of stress to you. Now that you know what to look for in an LMS plugin, let’s take a look at the best options in the market today. What Are the Best WordPress LMS Plugins? LearnDash – best value LMS plugin and most heavy-duty education features (like SCORM support). LifterLMS – best LMS plugin if you need the most features. WP Courseware – best LMS plugin for quizzes. Teachable – best SaaS LMS tool to integrate with WordPress. Master Study LMS – best free LMS plugin. Sensei LMS – simple LMS plugin from Automattic for WooCommerce users. 1. LearnDash ($199/year) The developers of LearnDash have a background in the learning industry. This means that this plugin has been developed based on the experiences and the knowledge that has been gained from working in that sector. This has contributed to the popularity of LearnDash amongst learning and teaching professionals, and explains why you are likely to see it in use at many universities. If you’re looking for a high quality and robust

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8 Free and Premium Coming Soon WordPress Themes and Plugins (2024)

[ad_1] Free and premium coming soon WordPress themes and plugins have a vital role for any new site. They can help you build anticipation for the launch of your project, and will also help you to garner traffic, attention, and hype. As such, dedicated themes and plugins should be on any new or revamped site’s shortlist. For this post, we’ll look at free and premium coming soon WordPress themes and plugins. First off, we’ll discuss how to choose from the many available options. From there, we’ll look at a number of solutions. Towards the end, we’ll also provide a quick summary of which ones you should look to next. How to Choose From the Best Free and Premium Coming Soon WordPress Themes and Plugins Choosing your solutions won’t be easy, thanks to the proliferation of available options that incorporate both themes and plugins. This will be subjective, as your needs will dictate the right option. While there will be cross-over or outlying cases, in short: Choose a theme where you’ll want a longer-term solution. This is because, in part, it will be tougher to swap out a theme fast. It’s arguable, but a theme can give you better quality visuals than a plugin can. Speaking of which, choose a plugin if you need a fast way to set up a coming soon page. You should be able to turn it on and off when you need in a flash. However, you may have less flexibility with design when it comes to a theme. Of course, our niche-agnostic advice on how to choose good plugins and themes also applies: user ratings need to be high, updates need to be regular, security has to be your priority, and the feature set of the solution has to be suitable for your needs. Speaking of which, you should look at least look for the ability to set either a countdown timer or a signup form. These are key aspects of a coming soon page. However, what you include on the page itself is largely up to you – as long as you build excitement! 8 Free and Premium Coming Soon WordPress Themes and Plugins Next, we have the complete list of eight free and premium coming soon WordPress themes and plugins. While we encourage you to read them all, here’s a quick list in case you want to jump to particular tool: Divi Thrive Architect SeedProd Launch Elementor Oaknut Minimal CMP The list here isn’t in any order. However, check out our summary later in order to find out which themes and plugins we like the most. 1. Divi First off, we have an ‘S-tier’ WordPress theme regardless of the application. However, Divi is absolutely suitable for a coming soon page thanks to its functionality and other inclusions. Elegant Themes is a feature across the WPKube blog. In fact, we have a whole review of Divi elsewhere. As such, we don’t need to give you too much here. However, the theme has layouts for coming soon pages among its 2,000-plus choices. Couple this with its crammed feature set and you have one excellent multipurpose WordPress theme. Best for: Divi will be ideal if you don’t like the idea of using multiple themes or plugins for your site’s design. You’ll be able to set up a complete coming soon page with Divi, then transition to your full site design without missing a beat. Price: Divi comes in a package with all of Elegant Themes’ other products. This costs $89 per year, or $249 for a lifetime license. 💰 Don’t forget to use our exclusive Elegant Themes coupon to get 10% OFF. 2. Thrive Architect Conversions will be important for your coming soon page. As such, Thrive Architect could be your choice here. It’s a page builder plugin at its core, with functionality that lets you capture more users through your designs. Again, this is another solution we cover in detail with a dedicated review. We implore you to read that for the full scope on what the plugin gives you. Even so, you have coming soon templates to choose from, and even the Smart Landing Pages feature. This lets you automate styling options, customizations, and more to create a coming soon page in mere minutes. Best for: Thrive Architect will be the option for you if you need to convert visitors. Given that it includes dedicated coming soon templates and pre-built conversion elements, the plugin could be near ideal for many use cases. Price: The plugin costs $99 per year, although there are bundles with other products for a higher price. 3. SeedProd Fun fact: this author used SeedProd for years to not only create coming soon pages, but maintenance pages too. As such, this option has the flexibility to stick around in your setup. At heart, SeedProd is essentially a page builder plugin with a specific focus on landing pages, sales funnels, coming soon pages, and more. It comes with over 200 templates, and it’s a breeze to use, activate, and deactivate when you need. In fact, we have a full tutorial on how to use SeedProd for your own projects! Best for: Flexible landing page creation that includes coming soon pages and maintenance pages. It’s also arguably the best plugin available for the job. Price: SeedProd has a free version available, but the premium edition starts from $79 per year. 4. Launch Let’s get a little closer to home now, with out own solution for a coming soon page WordPress theme – Launch. This is a quick, simple, and customizable option that comes as both a theme and plugin. We know that capturing users is a key aspect of any coming soon page. As such, Launch will let you set up a Mailchimp form and send those email addresses straight to your lists. You have plenty of customization options, and the theme uses the familiar WordPress interface for all of them. Best for: Straightforward, simple, speedy, and fast to setup coming soon

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5 Best Job Board Plugins to Power Your WordPress Site

[ad_1] Whether you want to advertise for internal positions, or showcase some of the best employer openings in your industry, all of WordPress’ best job board plugins can help. They give you the features and functionality you need to display available positions, and may even give you tools to manage resumes and other related facets. In this post, we’ll look at the best job board plugins for WordPress. Here’s a full breakdown of what the article will feature: First, let’s discuss what job board plugins are and why they’re great for showing off current employment positions. Why Your Site Needs Job Board Plugins (And What to Look For In the Right One) In short, a job board plugin lets you create and manage online job listings and applications on your WordPress website. Of course, this type of plugin serves as a vital connection point between an employer and other job seekers. This means you’ll want to choose the right plugin. While you can manually implement job listings on your site, we don’t recommend it. Instead, a job board plugin offers significant advantages. It can automate different aspects of the job posting process, which reduces your effort and saves you time. In turn, this can keep your job boards up to date and will offer greater value to job seekers. In terms of features and functionality, job board plugins typically include ways to handle almost the entire job search process. Here are some of the ways a plugin might help: You can post job descriptions, categorize listings, and manage incoming applications. Depending on the plugin, you may be able to create custom application forms that feature the ability to upload resumes (and even read them). For end users, automated job alert functionality and detailed search options will enhance the User Experience (UX). Overall, job board plugins can be an essential asset for any WordPress site that wants to establish an efficient and effective online job marketplace. Over the rest of the article, we’ll look at some of the best job board plugins we can find. 5 Best Job Board Plugins to Power Your WordPress Site Here is our list of five of the best job board plugins for WordPress. The list is in no order, although later we’ll try to rank them. For now, let’s discuss the available options. 1. Job Manager and Career First up is ThemeHigh’s WordPress Job Manager and Career plugin. It has a lot of power to help streamline the job recruitment process. This plugin is could be ideal if you need an efficient way to manage listings and job applications. Here’s a snippet of what it gives you: You can create and manage job openings without effort. Candidates will be able to apply directly from a dedicated career page on site. The application management tools give you comprehensive insights into applicants’ details. You can find suitable candidates fast using advanced search functionality. Applicants can share their documents through an uploader – ideal for resumes. You can keep candidates informed about their application status through automated email notifications. In terms of pricing, the plugin offers three subscription options: A single-site license for $49 per year. Licenses for five sites is $99 per year. 25 site licenses are $149 per year. Overall, the Job Manager and Career plugin offers a flexible and comprehensive feature set makes it a valuable addition for businesses of all sizes. There’s also a free version available to try out the plugin’s features. 2. WP Job Openings The WP Job Openings plugin offers a comprehensive set of features and functionality to help you manage your recruitment process. It’s a streamlined design that will suit organizations of all sizes. The plugin is a slick tool that includes a whole host of different aspects suitable for building and running a job board: It includes an intuitive career page creator, complete with pre-built layouts. The application tracking system lets you monitor, rate, and filter applications directly from the WordPress dashboard – all from a single screen. You’re able to build email notification templates and send messages to applicants, complete with real-time notifications. There’s lots of flexibility to create and customize application forms. If you have development knowledge, there are plenty of available hooks to help you customize the plugin to your exact needs. Pricing options for WP Job Openings work on site license limitations, rather than functionality restrictions: Individual: $69 for a single-site license. Professional: $139 for up to five sites. Agency: $399 for as many licenses as you need. Note that there’s a free version available too. On the whole, WP Job Openings is a versatile way to set up a job board for all sorts of sites, such as corporate websites, staffing agencies, and more. We like pretty much everything about this plugin, and it’s one for your shortlist! 3. WP Job Manager If you want the ultimate in WordPress integration for your job board, the WP Job Manager plugin will be near the top of your shortlist. It’s an Automattic product – the leading WordPress contributor – so using this plugin is almost a guarantee of compatibility with the platform. As such, it’s pleasing that WP Job Manager includes a wealth of functionality: Shortcodes let you integration searchable and filterable job boards with ease. Front end forms let employers submit and manage job listings without logging into the back end. You have customizable RSS feeds to help display jobs elsewhere, or to let others subscribe. Job listings use Google’s Job Posting Schema to ensure they display well in search engines. Candidates can apply for jobs through email or a dedicated link. The core WP Job Manager plugin is free, although it offers paid extensions too. However, you can get them all as a bundle. This costs $159 per year for a single site license, and $329 for a developer license without limits. Given the extendability of WP Job Manager, it could suit lots of site types. You get the ability to tailor the

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6 Best WordPress Gamification Plugins in 2022

[ad_1] Searching for the best WordPress gamification plugins to boost your site’s engagement? WordPress gamification is the idea of applying elements of game playing to your WordPress site, such as point scoring, leaderboards, awards, quiz results sharing, and so on. Obviously, WordPress doesn’t include these types of features in the core. But with the help of a WordPress gamification plugin, you can easily gamify WordPress and encourage your users to engage more with your site. In this post, we’ve curated our picks for the six best gamification plugins for WordPress. This list includes plugins that will work for pretty much any WordPress site, along with some plugins that offer dedicated integrations for specific use cases such as BuddyPress gamification or LearnPress gamification. Let’s dig in! Six Best Gamification Plugins for WordPress GamiPress – General WordPress Gamification myCred – General WordPress Gamification MyRewards – WooCommerce Gamification Quiz and Survey Master – Gamified Quizzes and Leaderboards BadgeOS – General WordPress Gamification WP Optin Wheel – Gamified Email Optin Forms GamiPress – General WordPress Gamification GamiPress is one of the most popular and well-rated plugins for gamification in WordPress, with a 4.9-star rating on over 330 reviews at WordPress.org. In a nutshell, it lets you award users with digital points for performing different types of actions on your site (with integrations for pretty much every popular plugin – more on that in a second). Based on these points, you can further reward users with gamified elements such as the following: You can also use these points to unlock more tangible rewards. For example, you could give someone a discount at your WooCommerce store if they have a certain number of points. GamiPress also has dedicated integration plugins for most popular WordPress plugins where you might want to add gamification. Here’s a list of some relevant integrations (but this is not the complete list): Social community plugins – BuddyPress, BuddyBoss, and PeepSo. LMS plugins – LearnDash, LifterLMS, Tutor LMS, LearnPress, MasterStudy LMS, and more. Membership plugins – MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro, Ultimate Member, and more. Forum plugins – bbPress, wpForo, Simple:Press, and more. eCommerce plugins – WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads (EDD). Form plugins – Gravity Forms, Contact Form 7, Fluent Forms, Formidable Forms, Forminator, and more. Event plugins – The Event Calendar, Modern Events Calendar, and more. Again, that is not the complete list – you can view that here. And even if GamiPress lacks a dedicated integration for the tool that you’re using, you still might be able to connect it because GamiPress also supports “automator” tools like AutomatorWP or Uncanny Automator. Finally, GamiPress gives you lots of useful ways for interacting with your users, including the following: Leaderboards Congratulations popups Email notifications Social notifications (e.g. BuddyPress stream) Progress maps toward achievements Option for users to nominate other users Overall, GamiPress’ flexible features and lengthy integration list make it a great option for pretty much any type of WordPress gamification, which is why it’s the first entry on our list. Price: Free core version and 23+ free add-ons. For Pro add-ons, you can purchase them for $49 each or get a bundle of all add-ons starting at $199. myCred – General WordPress Gamification By the numbers, myCred is the most popular WordPress gamification plugin at WordPress.org, with an excellent 4.6-star rating on over 400 user reviews. It shares a lot of similarities to the GamiPress plugin above, both in terms of the gamification features that it offers and the wide array of supported integrations for various WordPress plugins. The basic idea is that you can reward users with digital points for the actions that they take on your site and then use those points for all kinds of things including: Badges Achievements Special discounts Ranks Leaderboards One area where myCred stands out from GamiPress is that it puts a special emphasis on connecting points with real money. This happens in two high-level ways: Users can purchase points using real money (with support for most popular gateways). Users can redeem points for real money (or for discounts or partial credits, e.g. using points to partially pay for a WooCommerce order). If you want to connect your gamified points to real money, myCred is probably the best option for you. For example, setting up WooCommerce gamification to create a gamified rewards program. However, myCred does support more than just eCommerce gamification. Here’s a partial list of the dedicated integrations that myCred offers: eCommerce plugins – WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads (EDD). LMS plugins – LearnDash, LifterLMS, Tutor LMS, LearnPress (third-party), and more. Social community plugins – BuddyPress and BuddyBoss. Membership plugins – MemberPress and Paid Memberships Pro. Event plugins – Events Manager Pro, Event Espresso, Amelia, and more. While myCred hits most of the big names, GamiPress does have a slightly larger integration list. For example, myCred doesn’t have dedicated forum integrations, while GamiPress supports all of the big forum plugins. MyCred does let advanced users set up a bbPress integration using a hook, but you’d need a developer to help. If you need more flexibility, myCred does offer its own Zapier integration and many automator plugins support myCred, such as Uncanny Automator. Price: Free core version and 33+ free add-ons. For Pro add-ons, you can purchase them for $29-$69 each (most are $49) or get a bundle of add-ons starting at $149 for basic integrations and going up to $349 for all add-ons. MyRewards – WooCommerce Gamification Plugin Unlike the previous two plugins that will work in a lot of different situations, MyRewards is specifically a WooCommerce gamification plugin. It helps you gamify your store by awarding shoppers points based on their activity and then letting them redeem those points for rewards. Here are some examples of when you can award points to shoppers: Spending money (give different points based on the value of the order) Making their first order Making any order (give X points for any order, regardless of value) Leaving product reviews Birthdays …more – the plugin supports 20+

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7 Best WordPress Plugins for Sitemap Creation

[ad_1] Wondering which WordPress plugin is best for sitemap creation?  Sitemap helps you ensure your web pages are indexed properly and increases online visibility.  Sitemaps are like a “roadmap” of your website, allowing search engines and humans to navigate and read your content more effectively. XML sitemaps and HTML sitemaps are two formats of sitemaps created for the same purposes but with a few variations. HTML sitemaps are created to enhance the web navigation experience of your site visitors. Whereas XML sitemaps help search engines understand your site structure, crawl your website & index your site content faster. Simply put, HTML sitemaps are for humans, and XML sitemaps are for bots. So in this article, we’ve compiled a list of the best Sitemap plugins for WordPress that you can use on your website to create XML and HTML sitemaps as per your requirement. How Do I Add a Sitemap to My WordPress Site? WordPress comes with an in-built functionality that automatically generates a sitemap of your website. This auto-generated sitemap includes post types, categories, tags, and archive pages.  You can view the sitemap at: https://www.yourdomain.com/wp-sitemap.xml. One of the major drawbacks of the WordPress default sitemap feature is that you can’t customize it without knowing PHP. So you can either: Article Continues Below Create a custom sitemap in WordPress without a plugin.  Create a custom sitemap in WordPress with a plugin. We recommend using a WordPress plugin to create a sitemap because WordPress sitemaps plugin helps search engines index your website in a better way. Generates a comprehensive XML of all the pages on your site, and you can also customize them as per your need Most of the WordPress plugins that offer sitemap features are completely FREE. Save your time by automatically creating sitemaps. Handle all the technical requirements.  In WordPress, you’ll find two types of plugin options to create sitemaps. The first is WordPress SEO Plugins offer sitemaps as one of the functionalities along with other SEO features; the second is Dedicated Sitemap Plugins, which only provide attributes specific to sitemaps. In our list, we’ve included both plugin options so you can choose the one that suits your website needs. Best WordPress Plugins for Sitemap Creation Here are our top recommended Sitemap plugins for WordPress: WordPress SEO Plugins With Sitemap Functionality Since sitemap is an essential part of SEO, many popular WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast and Rank Math come with built-in sitemap functionality, including other awesome SEO features. However, in this post, we will cover the specific sitemap features provided by popular WordPress SEO plugins. So, let’s dig in!  1. Yoast SEO Yoast SEO is one of the leading SEO plugins in the market. Whether you need content optimization, on-page SEO, or sitemaps, this plugin will handle everything. To create an XML sitemap with Yoast, you need to install and activate the free Yoast SEO plugin. Yes, the free version of the plugin allows you to create a fully-fledged sitemap of your site. Once you activate the plugin, Yoast SEO automatically generates an XML sitemap containing links to the content of your website.  Also, the generated sitemap will automatically refresh any time you add or remove a post or page. Key Features of Yoast XML Sitemap Automatically creates advanced XML sitemaps, making it easy for Google and other search engines to understand your site structure & content. Gives you complete control over what goes into the sitemap. For example, if you want to exclude a specific content type from appearing in the XML sitemap, you can do that simply from Yoast’s backend settings. To make XML sitemaps in WordPress speedy and efficient, Yoast SEO splits up large XML into smaller sitemaps. Allows adding a sitemap to Search Console. Gives the flexibility to limit the number of sitemap entries. Yoast’s sitemap feature is enabled by default. However, you can auto-generate and view your XML sitemap by going to the Yoast backend setting options. Login to your WordPress site,  then click Yoast SEO >> General on your WordPress dashboard. Next, click on the Features tab. This will open Yoast SEO’s features section. Scroll down the page, and you’ll see that the XML sitemaps option is enabled by default. You can view the XML sitemap of your site by clicking on the question mark icon near XML sitemaps and then clicking the link labeled See the XML sitemap. As soon as you click on the option, you’ll see your site’s XML sitemap open in a new tab. Here’s WPLift’s XML Sitemap generated by Yoast SEO. This sitemap consists of files containing useful information, such as the last time the page was updated, how often the page is updated, and whether the page is available in other languages. If you’ve already installed and activated Yoast on your WordPress, you can find your XML sitemap at https://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml. And that’s how simple it is to auto-generate XML sitemaps using Yoast SEO. Download Yoast SEO 2. All In One Seo All In One Seo is another very popular SEO plugin for WordPress. It comes bundled with many awesome SEO-focused features and helps you optimize your WordPress site content for search engines. Using the All In One SEO plugin, you can generate a custom sitemap automatically and submit it to Google and other popular search engines.  Additionally, All In One SEO notifies search engines when your website is updated or adds new content. Furthermore, it will ensure that all your important posts and pages are properly indexed. All In One SEO offers several types of sitemaps, including a standard XML sitemap, a news sitemap, and a video sitemap.  All In One SEO’s free version lets you create a standard XML site that includes indexes, post types, and taxonomies based on your needs. Further, you can prioritize your top converting pages for crawling and indexing. To generate a news or video sitemap, you need to go for the higher-paid plan of All In One Seo. Key Features of All In One Seo Sitemap Automatically generate XML,

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#49 – Matt Cromwell on the Effectiveness of the WordPress.org Repository for Promoting New Plugins – WP Tavern

[ad_1] [00:00:00] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My Is Nathan Wrigley. Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes and in this case, the effectiveness of the wordpress.org repository for promoting new plugins. If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to WPTavern.com forward slash feed forward slash podcast. And you can copy that URL into most podcast players. If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea featured on the show. Do that by heading over to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox, and use the form there. So on the podcast today, we have Matt Cromwell. Matt is Senior Director of Operations and Marketing at StellarWP, where he provides marketing and business insights and coaching to burgeoning WordPress product owners. He’s also one of the founders of GiveWP, a donation plugin, which uses the freemium model. Having a free version on wordpress.org’s repository as well as a paid premium offering. The wordpress.org repository is where you find yourself when you click the add new button in the WP admin. It’s a place where plugin developers can, if they follow the guidelines, hosts to their plugins. It provides a direct line of access to all WordPress websites, and is therefore a convenient, free place to host your plugin. In return, the plugins in the repository must be freely available by the plugin authors. In the past few weeks, the repository has been in the news. Some statistics were unexpectedly removed, and this has led to a conversation about the governance of the repository, as well as questions about whether or not the repository is still a worthwhile place to offer your free plugins, if you have a premium tier. Alex Denning wrote a post entitled, “WordPress.org is ineffective for plugin distribution in 2022”, in which he lays out his thoughts as to why he no longer recommends the WordPress repository. The battle against already successful plugins, low conversion rates, and the difficulty in gaining visibility are amongst the arguments that he puts forward. Shortly after Alex’s post was published, Matt Cromwell posted a rebuttal entitled, “The case for the WordPress freemium model”. And this is the basis of the podcast today. We talk about Matt’s history in WordPress as a premium plugin owner and how his experience leads him to conclude differently. That the WordPress repository can be successful, given the right expectations and approach. He’s found using the repository to be an effective channel to drive the plugins premium tier, as well as a way of offering a useful free donation tool to the community. It’s a fascinating chat and is sure to be of interest to anyone thinking about starting a freemium plugin. If you’re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading over to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast. Where you’ll find all of the other episodes as well. And so, without further delay, I bring you Matt Cromwell. I am joined on the podcast today by Matt Cromwell. Hello, Matt. [00:04:19] Matt Cromwell: Hi, thanks for having me. [00:04:20] Nathan Wrigley: You’re very welcome. We’ve got a, an interesting subject today, all about the wordpress.org ecosystem and whether or not it would be sensible or otherwise to put your free plugin over there. Before we get stuck into that debate, though properly, anybody that is unfamiliar with Matt, let’s give him an opportunity to introduce himself. So, Matt, just give us a few moments of your time to tell us who you are, what your relationship is with WordPress, what you’ve done in the past in the WordPress space. [00:04:47] Matt Cromwell: Sure. I’ve been in WordPress for a while. I would say about 2012 or so. Jumped in and started building websites with WordPress, mostly helping non-profit organizations, churches, educational institutions. Then ended up partnering up with my longtime business partner, Devin Walker, and he and I decided to tackle a big problem in WordPress, which at that time was how to take online donations. And so we created a plugin called GiveWP, and that was launched in 2015. That has catapulted us into our career, and has done really well and we’re really proud of it. So much so that we sold it last year to uh, Liquid Web, which is where we are now in the StellarWP brands. There, we have also just recently been asked to uh, take on a bit more. And so now Devin and I are both managing GiveWP as well as iThemes, Iconic and Kadence WP. So things keep getting more and more exciting. [00:05:44] Nathan Wrigley: Thank you very much. Yeah, really broad and rich history there. We could have spent the podcast talking about those products, but we’re not going to. Well, I think we might do tangentially as a way of demonstrating different things. But we’re on the podcast today to talk about a couple of pieces which came out. I will link correctly to both of the pieces that we’re in discussions about today. But I’ll mention them both in turn so that those listening to the podcast could possibly have a quick read of them before they pursue any further. So the first one was produced on the 18th of October by Alex Denning over at getellipsis.com, and that piece was called wordpress.org is ineffective for plugin distribution in 2022. And then a few days after that, you, Matt Cromwell, wrote a piece and that was at mattcromwell.com and it was called the case for the WordPress plugin freemium model. And in effect, your piece coming a little bit later was a rebuttal about what Alex was

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7 Best WordPress Image Optimization Plugins and Tools (Tested) – 2022

[ad_1] Searching for the best image optimization plugins or tools to speed up your WordPress site’s images? By now, you probably know the importance of website loading times and page speed. The internet has been abuzz with news about how loading times impact your bottom line and Google has been pretty clear about favoring fast loading websites and blogs. While there are many ways to optimize the speed of your website, one of the first places you should look to make improvements are the images you use. To help you with optimizing your images, in this post we’ll take a look at seven best image optimization tools and compare their results with real testing. We’ll start by sharing details for each image optimization tool along with its individual performance. At the end of the post, we’ll put everything together into a few different comparison tables so that you can easily see how the different tools and plugins stack up. 📚 Here’s everything that you’ll find in this post: Seven Best WordPress Image Optimization Plugins and Tools: Individual Details and Performance Below, we’ll share details for the seven best WordPress image optimization tools and plugins. Beyond sharing basic features and pricing information, we also tested each plugin on this list by seeing how well it was able to optimize the same two test images using both lossless and lossy compression: Both images are 1280 px wide and we’re sharing data for the full size image (rather than one of the smaller thumbnail sizes that WordPress automatically generates). We also did not convert them to WebP, which is a feature that a lot of image optimization tools offer. Instead, we kept them in their original image formats. Of course, beyond the file size savings themselves, you also might be concerned with the quality of the compressed images. To my eye, all of these tools resulted in more or less the same image quality, so I don’t think it needs to play a role in your decision: For lossless compression, there was no difference in quality (which is the definition of lossless). For lossy compression, there was a small reduction in quality, but it was very difficult to notice and I didn’t see any noticeably different results between the different tools in terms of image quality. 1. EWWW Image Optimizer When you install and activate EWWW Image Optimizer, it will automatically optimize any images that you upload to your website. It can optimize JPGs, PNGs, GIFs, and PDFs and it also allows you to go through your existing media library and optimize already uploaded images. The plugin can also convert images to the best format if you decide to enable this option in the plugin settings. One of the benefits of EWWW Image Optimizer is that it allows you to optimize images using their specialized servers to provide both lossy and lossless compression. In short, this means that image optimization won’t cause additional load on your server. The paid service also offers other enhancements such as a built-in CDN, WebP conversion, automatic scaling, and more. Alternatively, you can do the processing on your own server for free, but you can only access lossless compression if you use your server. Pricing: If you use your local server for processing, you get unlimited usage for free. However, this only supports lossless compression, which is a pretty big limitation. Paid plans start at $7 per month for unlimited image optimizations for a single site, along with a built-in CDN. 👉 Use our exclusive EWWW Image Optimizer coupon to get 15% OFF. How did the plugin do? Image File Type Compression Type Original Size Reduced Size Percentage Reduced JPG Lossless 271 KB 271 KB 0% JPG Lossy 271 KB 151 KB 44.2% PNG Lossless 416 KB N/A* N/A* PNG Lossy 416 KB 105 KB 74.8% *I couldn’t get EWWW Image Optimizer to run a lossless PNG compression for some reason. Even if I chose lossless, it still used lossy compression. 2. Smush Image Compression and Optimization Developed by WPMU Dev, Smush Image Compression and Optimization plugin is available in both free and premium versions. After you install the plugin, you’ll be taken to the plugin settings page where you can see how many images were already optimized and configure which thumbnail sizes you want the plugin to optimize, whether images should be resized, and more. The free version of the plugin lets you optimize unlimited images, but each individual image cannot exceed 5 MB. The plugin can optimize your JPEG, GIF and PNG images individually or you can use their bulk optimize feature. In addition, you can optimize image files that are uploaded outside your media library such as images stored in your theme files. Pricing: To remove the 5 MB limit for individual images and access other paid features such as CDN image delivery, WebP conversion, and more, the paid plans start at $7.50 per month. How did the plugin do? Image File Type Compression Type Original Size Reduced Size Percentage Reduced JPG Lossless 271 KB 268 KB 1% JPG Lossy 271 KB 224 KB 17.5% PNG Lossless 416 KB 320 KB 23% PNG Lossy 416 KB 74 KB 82.3% 3. ShortPixel ShortPixel is a freemium plugin that can compress JPGs, PNGs, and GIFs. After the plugin installation, you will prompted to sign up for an API key by providing your email address. The plugin will automatically optimize every uploaded image and you can also bulk optimize images already present in your media library. The plugin supports both lossy and lossless compression methods. It will also optimize all the thumbnails created by WordPress, remove EXIF data, set a maximum resolution for your images, and save a backup of every image you upload to a new folder. Other useful features include the following: Conversion to WebP or AVIF formats for smaller file sizings. Retina image serving. PDF optimization in addition to images. The original ShortPixel plugin optimizes the images on your site’s server. However, there’s also

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8 Best WordPress Donation Plugins for Fundraising + More (2021)

[ad_1] Searching for the best WordPress donation plugins so that you can raise funds for your website or cause? Whether you just want a simple PayPal donation button or you’re looking for a more advanced fundraising solution that can help you run full campaigns and manage donors, you can find some excellent WordPress plugins to help you get going. In this post, we’ve collected our picks for the eight best WordPress donation plugins: Three of these plugins are full-service fundraising tools that work great for charities. They can help you create multiple campaigns, raise money towards goals, and more. The other five plugins are more limited in scope, such as adding simple donate buttons/forms or letting you accept donations via your WooCommerce store. Ready to get started? Let’s dig in! Eight Best WordPress Donation Plugins Compared in Detail 1. GiveWP Active on over 100,000 sites, GiveWP is the most popular donation plugin at WordPress.org.  It offers a full fundraising solution. Collectively, organizations use GiveWP to raise more than $100 million USD per year. It helps you create stylish donation forms and campaigns. If you create a campaign, you can create a dedicated fundraising page for that campaign that showcases your progress towards your goal(s). You’ll also get a complete donor management and reporting system on the backend. You can keep track of all your donation activity and you’ll be able to view a complete history of each donor, along with the ability to generate tax-deductible receipts. Beyond those core features, you get plenty of other options including the following: Support for 18+ payment gateways – PayPal is free, while the rest cost money. One-time or recurring donations – visitors can choose to make their pledge ongoing. Custom donation amounts – enter preset amounts and/or let people donate a custom amount. Fee relief – ask people to cover the payment processing fees. Integrations – integrate with your favorite email marketing services and CRMs. There’s also a catch-all Zapier integration. 💵 Price: Free core plugin. Premium add-on bundles from $249. 👍 Pros: Well-designed interfaces on frontend and backend. Best-in-class donor management. Advanced features and integrations. Comes from an established team. History of success – GiveWP users collectively raised over $100 million in 2019. 👎 Cons: The free version is limited – only one-time payments via PayPal. Expensive compared to other plugins. No peer-to-peer fundraising feature. Get GiveWP 2. Charitable Like GiveWP, Charitable is another full-featured WordPress fundraising plugin that makes a great option for non-profits or anyone else who needs a true fundraising solution. You can create great-looking donation forms, as well as full fundraising campaigns that display the number of donations and progress towards your fundraising goal.  Charitable also supports peer-to-peer fundraising – you can let other people register on your site and create their own fundraising campaigns. For example, if you have a charity 5k event, participants could register on your site to create their own fundraising pages. Or, they can register as a team and raise money together. Here are some other notable features in Charitable: Donation management. Flexible donations – preset or custom donations, along with one-time or recurring donations. Support for 5+ payment gateways – PayPal is free, while Stripe, Authorize.net, and others require paid add-ons. Fee relief. Email marketing integrations – connect to Mailchimp and other popular tools. 💵 Price: Free core plugin. Premium add-on bundles from $129. 👍 Pros: Affordable for its features – it’s cheaper than GiveWP. Peer-to-peer fundraising. Easily modifiable via code snippets. 👎 Cons: The free version is limited – only one-time payments via PayPal (same as GiveWP). No donor management/history – you can only see a list of individual donations, not full donor profiles. Limited integrations as compared to GiveWP. Get Charitable 3. PayPal Donations PayPal Donations is a 100% free plugin that makes it easy to add a simple PayPal donate button to your WordPress site. You can see a real example in the image above. When you set up the plugin, only have a few options: Pick the currency. Choose the default amount (you can customize this for different buttons). Choose different button styles or use your own custom button image. To connect to PayPal, all you need to do is enter your PayPal email address – there’s no need to mess around with the API or anything: To place your button(s), you can use a shortcode. That’s it! 💵 Price: 100% free. 👍 Pros: 100% free. Very simple setup. No need to use APIs – just enter your PayPal email. 👎 Cons: It literally just lets you add a donate button – nothing more. Get PayPal Donations 4. Stripe Donations Stripe Donations gives you an easy way to accept donations via the Stripe Payment gateway. However, unlike the PayPal Donations plugin above, it goes beyond just adding a simple button (though it’s still nowhere near plugins like Give and Charitable). If you’re a non-profit, Stripe is a very attractive payment gateway. The “normal” processing fee is 2.9% + $0.30/transaction, but registered non-profits can get a preferable 2.2% + $0.30/transaction rate. To collect donations, you can create a customizable form that includes the payment fields, as well as the option to add a custom title, description, and image. You can also send a customizable email to donors and create a custom thank you page. What’s more, the plugin will store a list of your donors. 💵 Price: Free. There’s also a $19.99 premium version that adds more features. 👍 Pros: Free version should work for most people. Easy setup. Default form design looks good. 👎 Cons: While you get basic donor management, it’s limited as compared to GiveWP and Charitable. Get Stripe Donations 5. Donorbox Donorbox is technically a SaaS donation platform, rather than a native WordPress donation plugin. However, it’s very easy to integrate into your WordPress site thanks to its dedicated integration plugin at WordPress.org. If you’re ok with that SaaS approach, you can get a lot of advanced features  Customizable payment options – add multiple

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