Google is not only known as the most preferred search engine but is also popular for its range of intuitive and versatile apps that guarantee increased ROI and better work management.

The various apps offered by Google aim to streamline your processes, operations, and even your WordPress websites and blogs! Confused? Well, yes Google offers a range of easy apps which can be easily integrated with your WordPress website through their APIs and plugins.

From offering website metrics to the calendar, Gmap, advertising, and various others, Google apps surely can add versatility to your website. Make the best use of various utility applications and functionalities available to us today by Google through the right choice of WordPress plugins.

We tell you how!

I) Google SEO Plugins For Everyone

Search engines are a prominent source of traffic for many websites. To help you enhance your website’s SEO, there is an array of free tools to help you out! You can hire wordpress developers for installing the rightest SEO based plugins and boost your digital marketing endeavor. The following WordPress plugins will help in enhancing the SEO of your website:

XML Sitemaps for Google

A sitemap is an essential file of your website where you can catalog the web pages to inform Google and various search engines about your site’s structure. Sitemaps furnish search engines such as Google or Bing with a blueprint of your site including your URLs, alteration dates, priority pages and the like.

This makes it extremely easy for search engines to index your website and its content and decide its ranking. To achieve this, Google XML Sitemaps is a free plugin that helps you create a sitemap for your WordPress website. The plugin would help you out in a plethora of ways, including:

• It creates a new sitemap and automatically submits it to major search engines every time there is any change in the sitemap. For instance, when you add a new page or delete an existing one.
• It also reports search engines whenever you publish a fresh post or alter an existing one.

Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress

The Google Analytics Dashboard for WP utilizes a set of understandable reports in order to make your Google Analytics data simple. It uses a widget with custom reports to provide key analytical insights in your administration dashboard. Its other features include:

• The plugin automatically installs Google Analytics by entering the necessary tracking code in all your web pages.
• The Show Stats To option permits you to share your reports with different administrators, contributors, and editors.
• The Real Time Settings enables you to fetch real-time stats in your Administration Dashboard.

Google Pagespeed Insights for WordPress

The plugin Google Pagespeed Insights assists you to enhance your website’s performance by employing Google Pagespeed suggestions. Google considers the page speed as an essential criterion while ranking your website and this is where this plugin comes to your rescue by helping you in boosting the speed wherever required and letting you identify the problematic areas. Its major features include:

• Advanced data visualization, filtering, tagging and snapshot technology. This tool also offers varied solutions to webmasters for improving site performance, search engine rating and the surfing experience of their visitors.
• Report Summaries and Snapshots, Snapshot Comparison Tool, Add Custom URLs, Desktop and Mobile Page Reports and Scheduled Report Checks.

Google Analytics by MonsterInsights

Google Analytics by MonsterInsights enables you retrieve data from your Google Analytics account and helps you in accessing all the important features directly from your dashboard. It helps you in many ways:

• It can be easily integrated with Google Analytics API.
• The plugin utilizes the universal or asynchronous Google Analytics tracking code which is the quickest and most dependable tracking code offered by Google Analytics.
• The plugin allows you to track outbound links and downloads, anonymize IPs, track internal links and search result pages, ensuring that you always have a better insight.

DuracellTomi’s Google Tag Manager for WordPress

This is the first Google Tag Manager Plugin for WordPress that is prepared for business goals. The DuracellTomi’s Google Tag Manager for WordPress is Google’s free application for users and helps you in:

• Managing analytics, adwords and various code snippets with the use of an intuitive web UI.
• Tracking user interaction with your embedded media like YouTube or Vimeo.

II) Social Media Plugins

Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have brought about social media sharing and online promotion much easier. Better reap the capabilities of social media through a range of social media plugins discussed below:

Google+ Plugin

Google+ plugin allows you to add a +1 button to your portal and helps you to showcase your rating to people. Its features include:

• The integration with Google+, thus allowing you to post directly to G+ from your WordPress portal.
• The Google+ plugin supports post formats to employ a hashtag mechanism to determine the post format in which you desire your G+ post to appear.
• You can also display your Google+ updates in widgets, posts, and pages.

Yakadanda Google+ Hangout Events

This plugin integrates Google+ Hangout and Google Calendar with your WordPress website and enables you to showcase the upcoming schedule in your widgets, pages and posts. Its other functions include:

• Complete customization of the display with fonts and colors.
• This is handy for a big Google Hangouts user. It can display public events from My calendars and also display events via short-code with control features.
• The plugin also supports Google+ Embedded Posts and has the capacity to filter only Google+ created Events.

III) Google AdSense Based Plugins

To help webmasters make money through their websites, Google with its AdSense program allows webmasters to place ads on their websites and rewards them every time an ad is clicked by users. To further provide you a hassle-free experience, here is a range of AdSense plugins that would help you in meeting your purpose.

WP Advertize It

This plugin enables you to easily put ads anywhere on you portal like posts, pages or in the sidebar. You can define ad blocks carrying ads from Google Adsense or Amazon. The core features include:

• It helps you to sell your Ad Blocks directly to your visitors.
• You just need to create ad blocks and determine their position of display and customize them accordingly.

IV) Google Fonts Plugins

Want to introduce some cool fonts to your websites? Here is all that you need! There are various Google fonts’ plugins available with us today that help you to insert top quality fonts on your WordPress powered site. The plugins add the required Google code and assign the Google fonts to particular CSS elements of your portal from inside the WordPress admin. You can also target the Google fonts from your personal theme’s stylesheet.

Easy Google Fonts

The Easy Google Fonts plugin allows you to pick from more than 600 Google fonts to include in your theme without coding. It also integrates with the WordPress Customizer, for obtaining previews of your modifications prior to saving. The plugin is very popular mainly because:

• The plugin is compliant with a range of themes.
• The plugin also permits you to design custom theme specific font controls in the admin settings area to manage specific CSS selectors.

Google Fonts for WordPress

Google Fonts for WordPress plugin enables you to quickly and easily add latest Google Fonts to your website. You can utilize them in your visual editor. Some of its many features include:

• Rapid font substitution, advanced font filter, and additional font sizes.
• Allows you to configure fonts within article content or in the main title and tagline, hover menu, comment box and sidebars and social media share buttons.

Google Typography

It is a simple plugin which enables you to use and personalize Google fonts in real time on WordPress site without entering a single line of code. It is easy to handle, you just need to:

• Go to the Appearance > Typography settings page and just add and personalize as many fonts as you want and then assign it to any available HTML tag or CSS selector.

Google Font Manager

The Google Font Manager Plugin quickly adds Google fonts to your WordPress portal. This plugin is ideal to advance your website typography. It is easy to use because:

• You can use it to include Google fonts to your site and reference them in your individual custom style sheets.
• It completely integrates itself with Google Fonts API and automatically appends fonts to Visual Editor.

V) Google Utility Plugins

Want to make your WordPress website more useful, versatile and flexible? Here are the ultimate Google utility plugins to help you out!

Google Apps Login

This plugin permits Google apps to access your WordPress portal (Dashboard) safely. This indicates that if the user is logged into an email for instance, they can just click on the WordPress login screen without any requirement of username or password. It features:

• Ensures easy secure login and user handling of WordPress via your Google Apps domain.
• The plugin applies OAuth2 authentication as suggested by Google.
• The plugin installation seeks your admin access to any Google Apps domain, or a normal email account, to register and attain two plain codes from Google.

Google Captcha (reCAPTCHA)

reCAPTCHA is a free utility that safeguards your website from frauds and abuse. It utilizes upgraded risk analysis processes to differentiate humans and bots apart. It is highly useful because:

• This plugin lets you integrate the reCAPTCHA with your website’s forms and conveniently increases your portal’s security.
• To apply this feature you have to request the keys with Google’s personal profile.

VI) Google Calendar Plugins

The Google Calendar is an essential utility app that lets you organize your schedule and share events. To help you better extract the value out of this app, there are various Google calendar based plugins that would show your events in a grid on a page or blog post or as a widget.

Google Calendar Events

You can add Google Calendar Events plugin to your WordPress website and access your calendar on the go. You may even choose to share it with others as a post, as a page or as a widget. It tailors event content presentation by utilizing simple tags and there is no coding needed. Its other highlights include:

• It has advanced settings to manage time zones, date formats and the beginning of the week.
• It can be integrated with Event Calendar Newsletter for shaping your events into a newsletter compatible format.
• It offers a completely responsive and mobile supported monthly grid and list displays.

VII) Google Drive Based Plugins

Google Drive is an excellent way for file sharing across various computers and mobile devices. The Google Drive related plugins provide custom functions and specifications. These plugins will assist you in an easy integration of Google Drive within your WordPress portal or blog. They include:

Google Drive Embedder

Google Drive Embedder provides authors a convenient access to their Google Drive in a pop-up window for them to browse documents to embed directly into their blog posts or pages. This plugin also calls for an installation of the free or premium edition of the Google Apps Login plugin which permits the accounts of existing WordPress user to login to the portal applying Google to safely authenticate their account.

It’s easy to use interface allows you to:

• Place documents in-line through Google’s read-only responsive viewer that lets your readers read them.
• Embed documents in your website through accessible links as editable files or download directly to the computer.
• Provide access to your visitors to see the documents through document sharing setting

Google Forms

Google Forms embeds a printed public Google Form into a WordPress blog post, page or widget. The salient features of the plugin are:

• This plugin fetches a printed Google Form by applying a WordPress shortcode, moves out the Google wrapper HTML and then interprets it as an HTML form embedded in your post or page.
• Presently, this plugin only executes Google Forms that are “published as a web page” and are public.
• Private or Personal Google forms are unsupported. The Google forms allow you to conduct surveys, present quizzes or plan events.

VIII) Google MAPS Plugin

The Plugins provide an easier process of map installation and add additional functionality. The Google Maps plugins make it very convenient to add locations, directions, routes, and markers. It makes your maps more interactive and beneficial to the users.

Google Maps Builder

It is a convenient WordPress Plugin for building visually powerful tailor-made Google Maps on your portal. The plugin helps you in many ways, some of them being:

• The plugin helps in editing full-screen live maps, shows nearby business locations and interest points with ratings and marker icon, create rare Google Map themes that can fit with any design like the Snazzy Maps integration.
• It also contains an easy “Point and Click” marker building system and gives you control by allowing you to zoom, drag or provide a better street view.
• You can include colorful markers and redirect visitors as they click on the map.

Stellar Places

The Stellar Places is an effective maps plugin that lets users utilize Google Maps to highlight single or multiple locations in an awesome manner. Its features include:

• It has an intuitive interface and for businesses with multiple locations, this plugin will by default display a list of all store locations and show a page for every store location.
• It offers you live map previews and the option to drag as well as drop marker relocation and limitless locations and maps.

Basic Google Maps Placemarks

Basic Google Maps Placemarks helps in adding placemarks with address allot categories and include custom markers if you prefer. It helps you in many ways, such as:

• It gives you the option to make unlimited placemarks as you require and then combines and displays them on a map by employing shortcodes.
• You can make categories build different maps indicating various locations and placemarks.

IX) Google YouTube Plugins

Want to make your website more interesting by adding YouTube videos to it? Make use of YouTube plugins!

Srizon Responsive YouTube Album

You can use Srizon Responsive Youtube Plugin for adding the playlists on YouTube onto your WordPress site. Other highlights of the plugin are:

• This plugin is very convenient and permits you to draw directly from your YouTube channel and placing all your YouTube videos on your portal.
• Srizon Youtube Album displays your videos on Youtube in the form of an album or gallery.
• It displays the thumbs like a preview and also presents the video upon clicking the thumbs. The videos are shown on a lightbox. The title and details of every video can also be displayed.
• You can add multiple albums and it automatically generates the shortcodes which can be copied and pasted into your blog post or page.
• Provides 2 layouts – the Pro Version where you can sync multiple videos provided your connection and server’s storage can manage the data and the Responsive Slider version which displays the thumbs in a dynamic horizontal slider.

Conclusion

The add-on plugins help in making your website more user-friendly and thereby provide a better exposure to various search engines. But all these require professional handling as you have to select your theme and choose a domain or plan for which you need to hire WordPress experts for designing and handling your WordPress website along with installation and maintenance of appropriate plugins.

The post 9 Awesome Types of Google Featured WordPress Plugins For Your Website appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

“Prevention is always better than cure”

How true are these words for a WordPress website! Every day you would hear a new story about a WordPress website being hacked which is sure to shake you up if you own one yourself. The best way to combat this fear is by ensuring that your website is secure through proper measures.

Here are a few preventive ways that would ensure your WordPress website doesn’t fall prey to any malicious activities! And if nothing seems to work out, hiring a WordPress developer is never a bad idea.

1) Get the updated version of your WordPress

The best way to keep your website safe is by using the latest version of the platform which can support the plugins. We all are guilty of avoiding the core updates of WordPress on the belief that they might somehow break some of our plugins in terms of functionalities as a few of them might not be compatible with the recent versions of WordPress, which in fact is wrong.

You have to understand that if you have the latest updates for your site then it becomes better equipped against malicious actions such as hacking. This is why, even if you detect a few broken plugins initially, subsequent updates both from the plugins and the WordPress would repair them.

2) Know the latest WordPress security threat

If you are a WordPress website owner, then you have to be vigilant at all times for the new threats that might pop up from time to time. For instance, it has been observed that during the WordPress updates, the site is at its most vulnerable state.

Just like other websites, every update that comes to the site brings along the fixes for previous security issues. But the problem is most hackers use the previous threats as a dry run and prepare more improved threats which they send with the new versions. So keep your eyes open and make sure to take steps to prevent them from wreaking havoc on your website.

3) Keep your plugins, themes and scripts updated at all times

Truth be told, WordPress plugins are much more vulnerable to malicious activities than the WordPress core files. Sloppy coding used in the development of WordPress plugins worsens the situation, which is why huge stress is given on hiring good and capable WordPress developers.

It is, for this reason, you will find that there are certain updates which come regularly from official sources for these plugin issues. Remember, these updates should only come from the official websites and not from third parties.

Moreover, removal of unused plugins is always a good idea as it gets rid of needless files which might make the website vulnerable. The same thing can also be said for the themes and scripts as well. Keep your scripts and website theme updated with modifications coming from official sources to ensure smooth working.

4) Getting a secured hosting server

Getting a secured hosting server is undoubtedly the best way to keep the hack attacks at bay. Most of these websites are known to have threat monitoring teams which are responsible for keeping an eye on the latest security threats.

They are well equipped to tackle any such threat by simply making the necessary changes on their firewall coding. A record 41% of WordPress websites were hacked due to server breaches in 2013 which actually made people think about the importance of a secured server. Therefore, if you want to protect your website then it is time to get the right and secured hosting server.

5) Shuffling the WordPress login and admin name

You have seen your banks and other online service providers asking you to change your password and username time and again, which is something that must be done for your WordPress administration as well.

If you make the mistake of keeping the default initials for a long time, then you are in for a big trouble. This is why changing the default initials is strongly advised and they should be done during the actual WordPress installation process.

Moreover, hiding the admin name will make it difficult for hackers (proving good for you!) which might allow you to recuperate against an initial attack.

6) Strong password combination

One thing that is going to protect your website is the right password combination but sadly not many people tend to pay heed to it. People are known to use passwords as easy to guess like 123456 which truly make the job of the hackers all the easier.

This is why we would suggest you to use a proper password combination which must include alpha-numeric letters along with special characters. Moreover, reuse of password is a strict no-no as they can be as dangerous as a weak password combination.

In addition, if you have a tendency of sending your passwords over plain text then think again, as it is the best way to get hold of your password without you even knowing it.

7) The right WordPress security plugin

As we turn to the technical side of the security issues, nothing speaks of protection louder than the perfect security plugin. Here you have to be careful about getting the right security plugins so that they can identify security threats and neutralize them as soon as they detect any potential concern.

Here, you can use an SSL which will encrypt your communication and keep it out of the reach of the hackers. With some small and careful coding, you can keep your WordPress website safe at all times.

8) The important Google search console

The best way to protect your website is by using Google Search Console. Search engines like Google are designed to provide only clean results, which is why they tend to alert you if there are any malicious files in your systems.

Although, this would be a bad news for you as it also tells you that your site has already been compromised, but keeping abreast of the situation is still better than not knowing at all.

9) Securing the WordPress database

As the name suggests, the database is the one-stop destination for all information on the website including its history and one of the favorite places for hackers of all shapes and sizes. The first thing we would advise here is to use separate databases for different websites and also avoid access to a single user.

If you would manage a single database for all your websites, chances are high that if the concerned database managing all the websites is compromised, all your connected websites will be crippled at once. However, if you manage an individual database for all your websites separately, if by any chance, database gets hacked, only one website is at stake and not all.

Changing the name of the database is also a pretty clever way to throw off the hackers. Moreover, allowing access to databases should be restricted to give an extra layer of security to it.

10) Website backup is necessary

It is true that you take all the necessary steps to protect your websites but they can still be compromised which is why creating a backup would be wise. Hence, you should get your WordPress backup plan sorted out beforehand to avoid unfortunate surprises.

Remember, keeping a backup does not only protect the important data from hacks but they are equally useful if there is a technical glitch or other such accidents. So preparing a backup plan from the onset would be the best way to go about securing your WordPress website.

11) Securing WordPress with professional proficiency

It doesn’t matter if you do it yourself (if you know what you are doing) or hire the best WordPress developer, securing your WordPress website and that too with true professionalism is important.

The best way to do so is simply by putting in measures like limited login attempts which are a common deterrent for hackers. Moreover, it is highly recommended to be on a safer side by making use of Two-Factor Authentication.

12) Correct file permissions

As we know that there are particular file permissions for directories and files but not changing them for your website is a cardinal sin. Therefore, changing file permissions accordingly should be your top most priority to avoid security breaches.

13) Getting a firewall

In simple terms, firewalls are like security professionals who look after the security status of the website round the clock. So, installing and updating them regularly is the need of the hour.

For WordPress websites, you would need to install a Web Application Firewall. All you want to do here is ask your host service provider for its availability, and get it installed and let the Firewall do its magic.

Over the years, WordPress has established itself as a suitable and rather a useful platform for different blogs and websites. However, because of its popularity, it also becomes susceptible to a number of different threats like hacking.

This is why having a set of precautionary measures would be a good idea in order to keep your website and data protected at all times. If you find that securing your website is not your cup of tea, it is better that you hire WordPress developers, rather than repenting at the end.

The post 13 Quick Preventive Ways to Ensure a Secured WordPress Website appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

Isn’t it irksome to find spammers ruining the flow of online traffic to your website?

Well, WordPress anti-spam plugins and WordPress developers are the exact solutions to this irksome feeling.

The WordPress bloggers would be extremely familiar and agreeable with the above query.

You generally cannot cherish the moments when you see a huge traffic being directed to your website because the very next moment, you would end up finding numerous spamming comments plaguing your blog or site.

It is completely obnoxious!

Not anymore! If you are a website owner or you are planning to set up your own website in WordPress, make it a point to interrogate your WordPress developer about the possible solutions to defend your website from those obnoxious automated spamming bots.

Or else, take the command in your hands and ask your developer to install one of the top WordPress anti-spam plugins on your website. Yes, we got them compiled for you, thank us later!

14 Top Rated Anti-Spam Plugins to Look Out For

1) Akismet

Akismet is a highly recommended WordPress anti-spam plugin that strives to clear all the spamming comments in your blog or website. You do not need to get Akismet installed because this plugin is inbuilt in WordPress. All you need to do is use an API key to activate this plugin.

This API key is free for personal blogs and chargeable for commercial and business websites. Akismet runs a filtering search for hunting down the spamming comments and it has a discard feature that directly discards the worst spam leaving free disk space and speeding up your site.

Rating: Akismet is rated as one of the best anti-spam plugins in WordPress and is used by over a million. It has been given a total rating of 4.8 out of 5 and 475 users have rated it a 5 out of 5.

Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/akismet/

2) Stop spam comments

This anti-spam plugin is taking second place in the list due to its efficiency and easier approach. Stop Spam Comments doesn’t require any set-up, you can just activate the plugin and put it to use.

It is known to be a lightweight anti-spam bot as it does not bear any script files or database queries, which is, in turn, beneficial for your server and your site performance.

If you install this plugin, then no tricky questions or captchas or no user interactions would be required for its functioning. In case you are still dubious about it, you may use it along with Akismet to keep your website spam-free.

Rating: Stop Spam Comments plugin has been rated 4.8 out of 5 by the users. I hope you are convinced by now.

Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/stop-spam-comments/

3) WordPress zero spam

The WordPress Zero Spam is a free plugin which does not require any additional set-up or configuration. All you need to do is just install it and activate it and keep your website spam-free. This anti-spam plugin was introduced based on the concept found by Mozilla founder David Walsh.

The WordPress Zero Spam does not require any captchas for functioning and operates brilliantly by blocking 99% of the spam registrations and comments. It also blocks IPs that seem to be spammy and provides optional logging to keep a check on who is trying to spam your site. This plugin supports various other plugins like Ninja Forms, BuddyPress, Gravity Form, etc.

Rating: WordPress Zero Spam plugin has been rated 4.8 out of 5.

Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/zero-spam/

4) Stop spammers spam prevention

This anti-spam plugin can be effective over numerous sorts of spam like registration spam, contact form spam, trackback spam and comment spam. Stop Spammers Spam Prevention is considered to be an aggressive spam detector and it can run 20 different checks for any spam or illegal activities plaguing your website.

The unique property of this plugin is that the users are offered a second chance to post their comments and this is met by a captcha. This anti-spam plugin has options of 12 pages to customize the plugin and use it as per your needs. It also supports other plugins like Gravity Forms.

Rating: The Stop Spammers Spam Prevention has been rated 4.6 out of 5.

Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/stop-spammer-registrations-plugin/

5) Antispam Bee

Antispam Bee is the plugin that is free for both commercial and personal websites, unlike Akismet. This anti-spam plugin effectively operates by blocking spamming comments, trackbacks, pingbacks, etc.

Antispam Bee maintains a spam database which it clears within a few days so that the website speed boosts up. The plugin emails the moderator about the daily spam blocking statistics and keeps a tap on the archive pages for spam-detection.

Rating: Antispam Bee has been rated 4.8 out of 5.

Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/antispam-bee/

6) Spam protection by CleanTalk

Spam Protection by CleanTalk is the plugin that is favored by millions of website owners. It is a super spam detector and it banishes all sorts of spams including comment spam, contact forms spam, widget spam, subscription spam, registration spam, etc.

CleanTalk bears many spam filters, including newsletters filter, bbPress spam filters, etc and it supports WordPress cache plugins like Quick cache, Hyper Cache, W3 super cache, etc.
Spam Protection by CleanTalk scans your site for detection of earlier spam also.

Rating: It has been rated 4.9 out of 5.

Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/cleantalk-spam-protect/

7) Wanguard

Wanguard is another WordPress anti-spam plugin that needs to be activated by using API key like Akismet. This plugin is cloud-based and it consists of many add-ons like Blacklisted Words, Registration Notice, etc.

Rating: It has been rated 4.6 out of 5.

Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wangguard/

8) Spam Shield

The WP-Spam Shield anti-spam plugin functions with a double layer spam protection for your website or blog. It is known for the blocking of multiple types of spams including registration spam, contact form spam, comment spam and trackback spam.

The first layer of this plugin is a mix of JavaScript and cookies that defend the site against spam bots. If anyhow the spamming agents surpass the first layer, it can never get through the next layer which is an algorithmic anti-spam layer. This plugin is supportive of Ninja Forms, BuddyPress, etc.

Rating: Spam Shield has been rated 4.8 out of 5 stars.

Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-spamshield/

9) Spam Destroyer

Spam Destroyer is an anti-spam plugin which does not bear multifaceted features and is rather simple. It clearly filters spam comments from your website. This plugin is not supportive of Contact forms plugins and Jetpack Plugins. You can start using this by simply installing it and activating it. It does not require any additional set-up.

Rating: This plugin has been rated 4.5 out of 5.

Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/spam-destroyer/

10) WPBruiser (Formerly Goodbye Captcha)

WPBruiser is an anti-spam plugin that works by blocking spam comments directly. It further helps by not allowing the comments to get saved in the database.

This enables you to save your time and lets the website run smoothly with good speed. This anti-spam plugin does not impose captcha on the user making it more user-friendly. It has various other features including brute force protection and plugin extensions.

Rating: It has been rated 4.9 out of 5.

Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/goodbye-captcha/

11) Captcha Bank

Captcha Bank is the anti-spam plugin that specializes in spam detection by captcha. Once you start using this plugin, you can add captcha to comment form, registration form, login form, admin comment form, and contact bank form. Captcha Bank has more than 50 settings, which include advanced protection features like Auto IP Block, Login Logs, Security Protections, etc.

Rating: It has been rated 4.2 out of 5.

Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/captcha-bank/

12) NURCaptcha

NURCaptcha is the anti-spam plugin that is meant for website owners who want to permit registration of new users to their website excluding any spam bots.

That is why it is a captcha-based anti-spam plugin and NURCaptcha stands for New User Register Captcha. This plugin avails Google’s reCaptcha tools to add extra protection to your website against those evil spammer bots.

Rating: It has been rated a 5 out of 5.

Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/skt-nurcaptcha/

13) Captcha By BestWebSoft

Captcha plugin by BestWebSoft is an anti-spam plugin that keeps your WordPress website spam-free by imposing captcha based on math logic on the users.

The captcha signifying mathematical equations makes sure that the users are humans and not those spamming bots. This anti-spam plugin can be accessed for registration, password recovery, login, popular contact forms, and comments. It provides solid protection to your site against spam.

Rating: It has been rated 4.5 out of 5.

Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/captcha/

14) Growmap Anti-Spam Bot Plugin

The Growmap Anti-Spam Bot plugin protects your website from automated spamming bots. This plugin involves clicking a checkbox instead of working a captcha before posting any comment or registering on the site. This way the anti-spam bot plugin ensures that the users are humans and keeps the website free of any spam.

Rating: It has been rated 3.9 out of 5.

Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/growmap-anti-spambot-plugin/

Choose one out of these top-rated anti-spam plugins to keep spam at bay! However, if this doesn’t look like your cup of tea, you can hire WordPress developers to make your site spam-free and ensure the proper functioning of the website.

Hiring a WordPress developer has got its own perks. You get to work with a professional who would help you in driving the maximum online traffic to your website, further making sure that your site is not getting attacked by any spamming bots.

Whether you choose to filter spam through WordPress anti-spam plugins or by asking a WordPress developer to work for you, make sure that your website is spam free anyhow. Just kick them out!

The post WordPress Anti-Spam Plugins: 14 Top Rated Plugins to Look Out For appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

Is your site on the verge of losing data? Well, it might happen anytime to you and that too without prior warning. So what steps are you bringing into action to deal with this? You cannot afford your website to be down for even a few moments, right?

The data that you put up and store on WordPress can be lost anytime. Hence, you need to protect it at all costs. Fortunately, there are plenty of plugins available that would backup your pages, blog posts, photos, product descriptions and whatsoever is present on your WordPress website. Which WordPress plugins are the best? Which one should you choose? Well, you would have to keep reading this article to find out.

Before we delve deeper into the details, let’s first talk about a few technical reasons due to which our website might fail anytime. Better safe than to be sorry!

What Might Be Technical Causes for a Website to Fail?

Website failure is a common issue; but is least talked about. It is only possible that one fine day, all you see on the website is a blank screen with no information or pages. You could troubleshoot it and all you will see is that the data has been erased and the database has been wiped clean. So, what are the potential causes of a website failure?

• Malware Infection

This is one of the most common problems leading to website failure. If it happens that there is some malware infection on the site, the host tries to shut the pages down in order to get rid of the issue.

• Payment Delays/Failure

If your payment hasn’t gone through or it has been delayed, the host might take control of your website and shut it down.

• Emergency Issues

There are situations when a fire or a blackout might affect the data center of your website. In such a situation, you might lose all your data.

• Accidental Deletion of Data

Yes, this is a rather uncommon phenomenon, but if your host erases all your data, you would be left with no option to recover it if you don’t have a backup.

• Improper Coding

Sometimes it is also possible that a bug in the website code can lead to the whole site crashing down.
These were just a few of the reasons due to which your website may go down anytime. There may be plenty of more. So, how to deal with this? Fortunately, there are various plugins available at your disposal, and choosing one out of them is a tedious task. Thus, always look out for a few factors in your backup plugin before settling on one.

Features to Consider Before Opting for a Back-Up Plugin

Even though you would be greeted with a number of free and paid plugins for your WordPress site, you need to be careful with your choice. Here are some features you could focus on before getting a backup plugin.

• Backup of Your Site

A good backup plugin for your site should be such that it keeps a backup of the entire website, instead of just the database or the theme selections.

• Automated Functions

It would be a lot easier for you if you chose a plugin that would keep the backups on its own at regular intervals.

• Easy Restore

It is not just enough to be taking a lot of backups at regular intervals; you should always be able to restore the database whenever required.

What are the WordPress Backup Rules to Follow?

WordPress backup is not as simple or easy as it sounds. You need to be equipped with a few do’s and don’ts in order to have a secure database. Here are some ideas:

• Upgrades

Before making any upgrade to your WordPress site, make sure that you have taken the backup of all the data.

• Backup Schedule

You could adjust the backup schedule taking into consideration the upgrade plans and blogging frequency.

• Multiple Backups

Backups are meant to keep your data secure. Hence, you should have at least 3 backups stored in your computer, external hard disk and a DVD perhaps.

• Manual Backup

Maintain two copies of your backup for those worst moments when even your original backup seems to be not working. Having one more copy of backup would serve as savior then!

Now that you are fully equipped and know about backups inside-out, let’s explore a few plugins that would help you in backing up your site flawlessly:

The Best WordPress Backup Plugins:

1. WP Time Capsule

WP times Capsule is a free backup plugin that backs up your WordPress website daily to Dropbox, Amazon S3 or Google Drive.

Features:

• Capable of keeping a backup of the files in which particular changes have been made, instead of storing the entire site every time.
• The data is stored in the cloud storage applications like Dropbox.
• Restores data based on revision history

Plugin rating: 4.5/5
Price: Free

2. Backup Guard

This is one of the easy to use WordPress backup plugin and aims to simplify and backup and restore process.

Features:

• Facilitates unlimited backup.
• Unlimited restores.
• Cancellation of the backup process when it is still not complete.
• Customized backups allow the user to choose specific folders for keeping a backup.
• One-click backup of data indicating a quick process.

Plugin rating: 4.1/5
Price: Free for Starters, $14.95 for Personal, $34.95 for Business, $94.95 for Developers

3. BackupBuddy

BackupBuddy claims to have protected more than half a million WordPress websites since 2010 with its easy to backup, restore and move feature.

Features:

• Facilitates a full site backup.
• Backups can be scheduled based on the user’s convenience.
• Backup files and data can be stored in an offsite location.
• Easy restore process with ImportBuddy.
• Email notifications for backup procedures.

Plugin rating: 3/5
Price: Starting from $80

4. WordPress Backup to Dropbox

As the name suggests, WordPress Backup to Dropbox would automatically upload the backup of your WordPress website to Dropbox on a regular basis.

Features:

• Customizes backups by allowing you to choose specific files for storage.
• Store your backup in Dropbox, in convenient locations.
• Quick and easy install.
• Sleek and simple design to help navigation.

Plugin ratings: 3.7/5
Price: Free

5. MyRepono

MyRepono is another backup plugin that uses automated restoring tools to recover your files.

Features:

• Data and files on the backup are encrypted and stored securely with 256-Bit encryption.
• Compressed backup files, to sizes 10% of the original.
• Unlimited backups facilitated by a single account.
• Friendly technical support for any issue.

Plugin rating: 4.1/5
Price: Starting $0.02 USD per GB stored per day

6. Duplicator

Duplicator helps you in backing up your site instantaneously or you can schedule it for a later date.

Features:

• Clones a site from different locations.
• Scheduled backups based on your convenience.
• Large database support.
• Email notifications to keep the users updated.
• Easy backup and restore processes.

Plugin rating: 4.9/5
Price: Starting from $39

7. BlogVault

BlogVault is a WordPress backup service used by more than 85,000 WordPress websites. It automatically backups your website once any new changes are introduced on its own servers or on Amazon S3.

Features:

• Facilitates regular and automatic backups.
• Backup includes individual files and database.
• Facilitates easy restore from backed up files and database.
• Simple and easy dashboard for smoother navigation.
• Backups are made secure by encryption.
• Backup is done at cloud storage applications like Dropbox.

Plugin rating: 4.3/5
Price: Starting from $9 per month

8. UpdraftPlus

UpdraftPlus is another backup plugin that is known for its easy to use interface and security.

Features:

• The backup data can be stored on different platforms like UpdraftPlus Vault, Amazon S3, Google Drive, Microsoft Azure, OpenStack, and the likes
• Sites and pages can be duplicated for different locations.
• Large files from large sites can be backed up by distributing the data in different archives
• Easy to use dashboards for remotely controlling the backup database

Plugin rating: 4.9/5
Price: Free

9. BackWPup

BackWPup comes with an array of specialties that makes it one of the most trusted plugins. It can backup your website to Microsoft azure or to Amazon S3.

Features:

• Allows complete backup of all the files and data
• Automatic backups can be scheduled whenever required
• WordPress XML Export
• Backup database and logs can be tracked via email
• Backup formats include zip, tar, tar.gz, tar.bz2, etc.
• Backup archives can be administered externally

Plugin rating: 4/5
Price: Starting $56.25 per year

10. WP Clone

This plugin helps you by copying or cloning your WordPress website to another domain or server.

Features:

• Keeps a backup and restores only the user content instead of storing the entire system files.
• From the host’s HTTP connection, the plugin can find the site backup details.
• Fastest backup procedures.
• The users can make copies of the site for developmental purposes.

Plugin rating: 4.2/5
Price: Free

11. WP-DB-Backup

If you are looking to back up the tables of your database, this is the plugin to choose.

Features:

• It is free for starters.
• Allows you to easily backup your core database tables.
• Schedules database backups.
• Restores backup both through phpMyAdmin and manually

Plugin Rating: 4.6/5
Price: Free

12. VaultPress

In addition to providing automated backups, VaultPress further conducts daily security scans on your website, thus making sure that your website is safe throughout.

Features:

• Developed by Automattic, the parent company of WordPress
• Provides both real-time and daily syncing to ensure that the backup of the latest version is available.
• Performs security scans on your website from time to time
• Automatically restores your website.

Price: Basic plan starts at $9 per month while premium is available for $29 per month.

In Nutshell

Backing up your website undoubtedly is of grave importance. Disaster won’t issue a second warning before happening to you. It always pays to be proactive. Choose the right plugin which can do the job for you without compromising your security and integrity.

Avoid procrastinating the task simply because you are having trouble in backing and restoring data. Seek the help of a professional WordPress developer who will do it for you, without keeping your website’s data at stake.

Are you already playing your card right and making use of backup plugins? Which plugins do you use? Let us know in the comments.

The post 12 Best WordPress Backup Plugins for Your WP Powered Websites appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

With the progress of technology, digital marketing and blogging have really been on the rise. The need of the hour is an efficient content management system that can cater to the rising demands and meet the certain expectations like having an easy-to-operate user interface, proper blog section for easy blogging, non-technical HTML-free editing throughout the website etc. This is where WordPress comes in and answers all our prayers by providing a unique and hands-on user interface, an in-built blog section for easy blogging and providing a HTML-free editing as demanded! More than a quarter of the web now depends on the services and platform of WordPress. This is how swiftly and quickly this service has risen in demands and functions over the last few years.

With a huge number of features and plugins that WordPress boasts of, a lot more can be said about the popularity and versatility of WordPress. But we will allow the figures to do the talking as that sounds more logical! Here are some stats about WordPress that every user should know.

1. WordPress powers 26.4% of the web and holds 59.5% market share

If we follow closely from 2011, there has been a sharp rise in the use of content management systems for websites, both old and new. More and more organizations are now opting for better website management systems. WordPress had a usage of about 13.1% in 2011 with the number increasing to 21% in 2014 and finally 26.4% of the web by June of 2016. Considering the other platforms, some have shown relatively milder changes while some others showed a steep decrease. So, WordPress has really been on the rise since 2011.

More interestingly, WordPress has been holding 59.5% of the market share. This means that 59.5% of all the websites using CMS now opt for WordPress as their top choice for appropriate web content.

2. 30.3% of the top 1,000 sites use WordPress

A number of big names use WordPress for content management purposes. Some of these include Time, TechCrunch, Lifehack and many more. Even if we consider the traffic for the websites individually, WordPress is significantly higher that its contemporaries at all levels. This leads us to another stat that the market share for WordPress among the top 1000 sites stands at 30.3%. If we compare this with other successful CMS like Drupal with a market share of 19.7%, WordPress is much ahead of its competitors.

No wonder, why WordPress development companies often suggest you to go for WordPress!

3. How many people are reading blogs?

WordPress released some statistics that are enough to get an idea about the popularity of this platform. For starters, the first question here is how many people are actually reading the blogs on WordPress. If we consider a little more than 22 billion pages on this platform, it gets about a little more than 400 million people viewing the content each month. This shows how WordPress is integrating the bloggers across the globe.

4. How many posts are being published?

The other important stat we come across here is the volume of posts being published. It is said that the members and users of WordPress write about 59.3 million posts each month. This is quite the number indicating the popularity and user-acceptance of this portal. Besides, public reactions account for about 48.4 million new comments on a monthly basis.

5. Where in the world is WordPress.com used?

One of the major advantages of WordPress is its global acceptance. It is presently in use in different countries across the world. In order to make it acceptable to different nations, WordPress blogs can be written in 120 different languages. English is the most common language , followed by Spanish blogs at 4.7%. Besides, French, Russian and German hold usages of 1.5%, 1.3%, and 1.2% respectively.

6. Every 74 seconds, a site among 10 million websites starts using WordPress

Another rather interesting piece of trivia from WordPress is that it is one of the fastest growing content management systems in the world. It is said that there is a new site registration on WordPress every 74 seconds. This is quite impressive. When you compare this result with the second fastest growing CMS, Shopify, it registers a new user every 22 minutes. This, once again, demonstrates the dominance of the portal.

7. 37.3% of English language websites use WordPress

WordPress’ compatibility with different languages is one of the major factors contributing to its progress. Over 37% of all English language websites make use of WordPress for their content. For sites in Portuguese and Spanish, the number lies between 38 and 40%. However, this stat goes above 50% for websites in Bengali and Bosnian.

8. There are 45,000+ plugins in WordPress

The features offered by a particular content development system give you an idea of the user-friendliness of the portal. WordPress in this case outshines its competitors with a list of 45,317+ plugins. This translates to billions of downloads just at your fingertips. Some of the popular names of WordPress plugins include Jetpack, BuddyPress, Theme Check, Akismet and the likes.

9. There are 170 released versions of WordPress updates till date and 32 released versions of MU updates

In order to sustain a blogging service as huge and popular as WordPress, one would require a powerful software that can handle the traffic and demands. In order to make sure that WordPress users enjoy a seamless experience throughout, about 170 versions of WordPress updates have been released till date. Not only this, 32 versions of WordPress MU (it provides the blogging portal the power to host its blogs) updates are released so far. This provides a solid base in order to ensure the correct functioning of the blogging service.

10. WordPress.com is Powered by Only 456 People

We usually talk about the success of WordPress and its growing popularity. In the recent past, it has really improved its status as a blogging service portal. In this case, need to shed some light on the brain power behind this success. WordPress is mainly powered by a web development corporation by the name of Automattic. Being a company of 456 people, this has major contributions in the blogging service WordPress.com as well as the blogging software WordPress.

Make use of such a vast array of features that WordPress has to offer in order to get the website that you desire. A good idea here would be to hire a WordPress developer who would customize it on your behalf catering to your needs.

The good part about WordPress is that it not only has built a group of users and bloggers but gives efficient performances to maintain the user base. With more advanced features and language compatibility, it is only time before WordPress dominates over a major portion of the web on a global scale, attracting more bloggers and readers.

The post 10 Amazing Stats About WordPress You Ought To Know appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

Today as many as 74.6 million sites are proudly powered by WordPress. And what makes WordPress such an ever-growing platform? Perhaps the number of plugins it boosts. There are more than 29,000 WordPress plugins available today, and a new plugin gets added almost every hour.

With such huge popularity that WordPress has, it is only obvious that people are now inquiring more about the WordPress eCommerce solutions. The trend to sell online is up, and since the people have good experience with WordPress, they want to use WordPress as their eCommerce solution too.

Moreover, the conception that the WordPress is free along with tons of easily available WordPress plugins proves to be an icing on the cake. Undoubtedly, WordPress lives up to the expectations quite well and has a lot of easily customizable e-commerce solutions to offer. But at the end, it is all about the details.

Make the Most Out Of Your Business – Learn About Your Needs Well, With Strategic Implementation

There is only one mantra if you want to setup a flawless ecommerce store and that is to delve yourself deeper into the details, specifications, and requirements. The ecommerce plugin that you have just thought of using should not be because your agency suggested that but because it meets your requirements perfectly.

You must be very clear regarding what all you wish to achieve from your online store. Are you targeting just a small area or a wide demography? Is your ecommerce solution robust and scalable enough to handle multiple users at a time? Do you need a pricing calculator? Would there be a different set of prices for customers and wholesale dealers? These are the questions you need to have answers of.

eCommerce is not as easy as it seems. Just like a brick and mortar store needs proper strategies and planning, HTML and CSS stores are no different. It is not just about a payment gateway and an online shopping cart. It is more than that. It is about the experience. It is about functionalities. It is about navigation. It is about products and a lot more!

You cannot simply wake up one fine morning, and decide to go with WordPress and eCommerce. You would need to study your requirements and goals properly.

You would need to figure out where you would like to see your business 5 years down the line. What all geographies would you be targeting and so on? You would need to consider factors like scalability, flexibility, and robustness.

A design firm can surely help you, but you would need to help yourself in terms of the goals and expectations. Makes sense?

Further, the most tempting reason why people tend to go for WordPress e-commerce is because it is free. Well, it is not! The basic versions might be free, but then they are not just enough to keep your store going and would simply not serve the purpose in the long run.

Having a clear idea about the needs would thus help you figure out a potential fit, costing, implementation and other aspects.

General eCommerce Considerations

Before you splurge into your idea of having your own e-commerce store, it is better that you know about the important e-commerce factors you need to worry about.

• Cost
Each plugin comes with its own cost. There are some which are free while the others are paid. There are different criteria for each one. You need to know about these plugins and choose accordingly. Some plugins come with an annual license that is to be renewed every year while others are simple; they come with a onetime fee. Know your budget and before you buy a particular plugin blindfolded, analyze all other alternative options.

• Aesthetics
An e-commerce store is all about the embedded UX/UI experience. You need to be very clear with the looks of your store. How would you like it to look? Should it match closely to your existing WordPress website?

Looks of your store might vary as per the different plugins used. You may even choose to go for a custom WordPress theme. A custom theme helps you design your e-commerce store the way you like – from the margin, padding, font, and text – everything is in your control. Hiring an expert WordPress designer would serve the purpose best here.

• Responsive
It goes without saying; your e-commerce store should be responsive. Do not even give a second thought to this, go with our words, and we’re sure, you would never repent! After all, you won’t like your e-commerce store to be rendered differently on different devices? While navigation might work just fine with phones, the text might be too much shabby on tablets.

This is where the responsive design store comes to the rescue. Responsive design makes sure that your store looks and behaves fabulous no matter on which device it is accessed. It works by rendering the same HTML differently on different devices such that the UX/UI experience is same all around.

• Ease of use
It is your store, and you would surely like to have a few customizations every now and then. You need to add new products, remove old products, introduce discounts, run offers and so on. Thus, choose a platform which provides an easy to handle mechanism.

Functional eCommerce Considerations

Obviously, you won’t like your customers leaving your store just because they were not able to find their preferred mode of payment. And thus to avoid such bad experiences, it is essential that your attention to functional e-commerce considerations should be very much required.

• Product types
You need to study the compatibility of your product offering with your selected software. Not all plugins support digital downloads, or affiliate links or other such offerings pretty well. Take out a chance and review this before settling on one plugin.

• Pricing scenarios
How would the pricing work? Would you set it volume purchase or attribute? Do distributors need to have a different pricing? WordPress undoubtedly has come a long way, but still a lot more is to be achieved. There are not many WordPress plugins which can support you here.

• Payment terms
Next, what all payment modes would work for you? WordPress plugins perform well when it comes to universal payment modes like PayPal and credit card. However, if you like to make it global and are looking to have wire transfers, net 30 and others, you might not be left with a lot of options.

• Sales Tax
This is one of the trickiest portions. You need to choose a WordPress plugin which is robust enough to handle complex requirements and calculations. Thankfully, you can find various WordPress plugins that have the ability to distinguish between services and products and also between state, country and the respective tax laws.

• Shipping
Would you like to integrate your store with shipping vendors like USPS, FedEx, and others? Are you looking to have international shipping? How are shipping charges calculated? Get enough information on each of these subjects, and keep it all well documented before you finalize a shopping cart plugin.

• Discounts and coupons
Undoubtedly, this is going to be one of the most attractive parts of your eCommerce store. This is what could serve as one of the most efficient weapons to lure customers towards your store. Be very specific about the types of discounts and deals that you would need. Strategize if you would like to provide incentives every time a person purchases and so on.

• Returns and refunds
There are two ways to initiate returns and refunds. You can ask your customer to initiate return directly from their user account, or you can have an RMA process. This most likely would need to be managed by you, and in most of the cases, this is outside the reach of basic plugins.

Technical eCommerce Considerations

A lot is being said about functional and general e-commerce solutions. Next, let’s talk about technical e-commerce considerations.

• SSL certification
SSL certification boosts trust of your customers in your store. It is a secure socket layer that ensures that all the sensitive information like credit card numbers and stuff is protected and secured. Check if you would like to have this certification and accordingly check if your payment gateway and shopping cart provides it.

• Security
Since an e-commerce store involves sharing of secure information, if you want to collect sensitive info like credit card numbers and others, it is highly recommended that you have a PA-DSS and PCI compliant solution in place.

• Search Engine Optimization
How would you reach to your customers? One of the ways is by enhancing your store’s visibility in search engine results pages. And this could be fairly achieved by search engine optimization. Make sure that your chosen solution allows you to optimize your store with proper Meta titles and product descriptions. It should support schema and allow you to input all tags essential for on page SEO.

WordPress Ecommerce Solutions

You are all set now! You have all the required info about various aspects to look for in a WordPress plugin and all set to make a well-informed decision. It is the best time to review the various WordPress e-commerce solutions that are available to you. Check out!

• WooCommerce
This WordPress plugin ensures that your store looks beautiful. You can easily transform your WordPress site into a robust e-commerce store quickly with WooCommerce.

It is available for free by WooThemes and is known for rendering flawless looks and embeds awesome user experience, all thanks to its array of features and payment gateways. It comes with an average rating of 4.22 on 5. You can further choose to augment the functionalities of WooCommerce through various easily available free and premium extensions.

Further, it is secure, SEO friendly and boasts of an equally great community. Perhaps this is the reason that WooCommerce is been downloaded more than six million times till date.

• Cart 66
Cart 66 comes with easy to use interface, inventory management, affiliate program, Mijireh support, and others. It basically has everything that you would need in an e-commerce store. Its lite version is available for free. However, you would have to shed $95/year to use Cart 66 cloud version. With 165k downloads till date, cart 66 lite comes with a rating of 3.0/5.0.

• WP e-Commerce
This is yet another wonderful plugin available for e-commerce stores. It comes with a rating of 2.9/5/0 and is being downloaded three million times till date

• MarketPress
MarketPress like its counterparts is secure, easy to use and is compatible with all major payment gateways. It also features its own pre-made themes. With 150k downloads till date, it comes with a rating of 3.9/5.00.

In Nutshell

To conclude, like we already said, it is all about the requirements and your business needs. Just find out the most suitable match – one that matches exceptionally well with your requirements. You should always choose a plugin which matches 80% of your requirements. Avoid randomly picking a solution and then spending weeks on its customization. It would only hinder your productivity.

Setting up a WordPress e-commerce store demands a lot of hard work and strategic execution. It is thus highly recommended to focus on more important tasks and let an experienced WordPress designer do the required development and installation. It is always better to do the tasks we are good at and allow the rest to be handled by professionals. Agree?

Please leave your thoughts and comments below.

The post How to Choose the Best WordPress Ecommerce Solutions? appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

WordPress started out as a bloggers paradise, it stayed and evolved as one of the best stops for bloggers for years, and has now slowly and steadily enticed the business bigwigs to sell their products through it.

And why not, its accessibility and user interface is much more easy and interactive than its many competitors. Moreover, its hands-on services are like no one out there! All you would need to do is get yourself some bang on plugins and you are on! And if this seems like a big task to you, simply hire a WordPress developer.

What these plugins are, really? Let us check out the best ones.

Best WordPress Plugins for ECommerce Sites

1. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a simple, powerful and extendable e-commerce platform for WordPress. It promises to woo your customers when they visit your online store. It has been rated at 4.1/5 by WordPress and has nearly 2 million downloads in its kitty, It surely looks like the plugin that is capable enough to boost up your store in a good way.

WooCommerce is flexible in a way that it allows you to customize your store based on your products and business nature. It has the strength and advantage to be built around WordPress best practices.

The plugin offers a very user-friendly interface that allows you to keep up with the performance of your online store without much hassle of clicking and coding, as it is all available on the dashboard.

The plugin is entirely customizable, compatible with WordPress themes and also offers a PayPal Gateway for easy shopping and payment. Apart from these, it allows credit card payment options, cash on delivery and all other payments being secured by Mijireh.

It is even tied up with ShareThis and ShareDaddy to allow you to socially link your store.

2. WP E-Commerce

This Plugin may race ahead of WooCommerce where the number of downloads is concerned, but it lacks in ratings from WordPress. This is due to the fact that it is far behind WooCommerce where functionality is concerned.

Nevertheless, it is compatible with WordPress, fully customizable, and provides priority support for privileged members. Like WooCommerce, WP e-commerce also offers PayPal integration and various other payment options making it a likeable tool by store owners.

cThe plugin is workable out of the box and provides multiple options that make your store market-ready. These include Google sitemaps, new product widget, flexible coupon rules, Bulk purchase discounts, Google base integration etc.

This plugin offers a drag and drops option to users which makes the whole shopping experience blissful for your customers. The plugin makes your store SEO ready, offers SSL certificates and catalog management.

It may not match up to WooCommerce where functionality is concerned, but with its unique features, it gives a good fight.

3. Cart66 Lite

Cart66 is touted to be the easiest plugin to install for WordPress. The plugin is integrated with PayPal and also Amazon 3 which allows you to manage orders, promotions, shopping options, etc.

That is not all; Cart66 also allows you to do your taxes without breaking a sweat. You can send customized currencies, and email through this plugin to add a little oomph to your online experience.

The plugin is available for free download, but it is just better to configure it so that you have the whole package and your online experience does not get bottlenecked just because there is a certain feature that is not available for the free download.

4. MarketPress

This plugin is, of course, easy to use, and also provides the standard features any e-commerce plugin would provide such as being compatible with other WordPress themes; it is based out of AJAX and provides various payment options such as PayPal, Google Checkouts etc.

This Plugin offers internationalization options that can make your store go global. Loaded with features, and compatible with WordPress, this plugin is just what you need to take your online store to the next level.

It does not only allow you to customize the store but also provides shipping options which make this a global platform. This plugin was developed to offer its users a good interface and a state of the art user experience, the awful experience that other plugins offer inspired WPMUdev to work on MarketPress. A plugin made just for the user has to be something, right!

5. Easy Digital Downloads

This plugin caters to a specific market. It allows for easy digital downloads. If your business is all about the digitized era and your store sells digital media, then this is the go-to plugin for you.

This plugin is not like others that are loaded with features. It is more character-specific and focused on catering to a very specific market. All its features are integrated to help make that experience better.

It boasts 200,000 downloads and a 4.8 ratings. Having said it is not loaded with the whole bag of features, it still does come with the basic ones that are needed to get your store online. Easy digital downloads include various payment gateway options – Obviously – Promotional code system if you happen to have offers and things, option to download multiple files, bulk purchases, etc.

Even though this is not a plugin for all, it does cater to your needs.

6. Ithemes Exchange

Developed by iThemes, and a rating of 5/5 the plugin is well worth your time. It has a very simplified interface that makes it a breeze to work with. Apart from this, it is fully customizable and compatible with WordPress.

It is packed with features that would help you get through the hassle of setting up an e-commerce site unscathed. Ithemes Exchange is compatible with WordPress, fully customizable, and provides priority support for privileged members.

Like WooCommerce, WP e-commerce also offers PayPal integration and various other payment options making it a likeable by store owners.

7. Jigoshop

This is the big guy, built by an experienced set of designers, for the big brands, of the big people. This plugin offers superb functionality and customizability with a whole load of features that suit almost any and every platform of the online store.

As we said, this is the big guy; this plugin offers the features of Easy digital download and WooCommerce. So you can have a store selling some fancy products while giving your customers the option to download media files at the same time.

This plugin will also allow you to offer affiliate products, group products, and other products. Jigoshop also provides the required sales reports to keep you updated with the performance of your store while keeping track of the stocks available.

This plugin is internationalized offering various shipping methods, is fully extendable and has a strong support community.

This plugin is free with nearly 300,000 downloads with a user rating of 3.9/5.

8. Shopp

Shopp adopts a very professional front. The plugin offers a secure cart that is integrated within the plugin which means you don’t have to have security add-ons.

It has catalogue management, Discount feature, and multiple image options and is super SEO friendly. It has JavaScript enabled a very responsive design, which makes the user experience all the more special.

The plugin does have a lot of features, and when we say a lot – it is more of an understatement, and it is free with a package available for starters and go pro versions.

9. Eshop

Very simply, Eshop is an online e-commerce store plugin for WordPress. This plugin not only allows you to sell your products but create them as well. Every e-commerce success story has strong customer relation behind it, this plugin allows you to create customer sign ups to help you build and stay in touch with your customers on a regular basis.

This plugin also allows you to offer downloadable products and for the physical kind, it offers various shipping methods.
Where the money is concerned, multiple gateways for you to receive the money are provided, and options to calculate taxes are provided so you can ethically run a respectable business.

The plugin boasts a user rating of 3.8/5, fairly good, maybe not the best but it does have 500,000 plus downloads, and we don’t think so many of them will go for a product which is not worth their time.

10. Quick Shop

Quick Shop plugin has the bare basics and is so simple; it is just the right thing for a beginner. With emails and PayPal integration you can start earning money about 10 minutes after you download.

The plugin is customizable, compatible and oh so simple to use.

And if any of the above plugins fall short of any of the functionalities, even though they have the whole online store, shopping cart, money matters covered, you can always use extra plugins or customize the existing ones by hiring a WordPress developer.

The post Top 10 WordPress Plugins Essential for Ecommerce Sites appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

1. Easy to use

WordPress is very convenient to use as it shares an intuitive user interface. Everything can be done in a blink of an eye. Adding and posting content, images, blog posts, etc. is too easy. The technology used in WordPress is highly proactive and simple. This makes formatting of data and content easy and speedy. Not much effort and time is utilized in any activity. If you are familiar with working on MS Word, WordPress is easier for you. You would already know formatting features beforehand.

2. Managing is easy

Your WordPress website can be managed from any computer. It can be logged-in through any computer through the use of login id and password. It is browser based software which only requires an active internet to get through it. Being managed from any computer provides flexibility and timeliness in work.

3. No editing software required

WordPress has inbuilt editing software in it. It does not require the use of editing software like Adobe Contributor or Dreamweaver. It is easy with WordPress to edit, format and post blogs, content and documents, upload videos and images without having to use the editing HTML and FTP software.

4. Search engines’ love for WordPress

WordPress comes blessed with a range of SEO plugins that make SEO optimization a simpler task. There is a range of SEO plugins – Yoast, All in one SEO, Broken Link Checker, etc. that help you optimize your blog/website in accordance with the best ethical SEO practices. With the help of these seo plugins, you can optimize each post and provide it with proper meta title, description, canonical, hreflang etc.

5. Full website control

With WordPress, it is you who have entire control of your website. The website owner can flawlessly update the content, photos and other stuff. However, it is highly recommended that you keep your WordPress website updated. With the new versions of WordPress rolling every now and then, it is highly recommended to keep the website updated to ensure security. You might need to hire a WordPress developer who will do it for you – in order to not leave any loopholes for security breaches.

6. 100% customizable website

WordPress enables a 100% customizable website for your brand according to the needs and theme. It acts as a prime head for any website. A WordPress website is like a knight in shining armor which builds your brand name and provides undulating experience to the visitors. A user-friendly and attractive website attracts more visitors than a boring and dull one. The infinite customization granted by the WordPress developers makes it easy for the developers to customize it as per the need.

7. Built in blog

Initially, developed as blogging software, WordPress has all the necessary features of a blogging platform built-in in it. They are so ready to use whenever the need arises or as you desire. It is fully integrated to meet the needs of blogging software. The various features of WordPress blogging include setting RSS and email subscriptions, adding voice notes, the capability of commenting on the posts and arranging the recent posts on the page you want the user to find. This helps in making the website look more dynamic and engaging, increasing the website’s reach in the way. Moreover, these features not only make your website much popular but they provide users a reason to visit it back front time to time. Building customers and website integrity become easy by initiating interaction from the base.

8. Use of plugins for social media integration

Add plugins that can help you configure an event calendar, Twitter feed, Facebook newsfeed, Google+ feed and other similar functionalities in WordPress easily. WordPress enables this through the use of plugins, some of which are absolutely free and others are fairly priced. Social media integration enables sharing of the website content in a single click thus, maximizing the chance of gaining traffic.

9. Website doesn’t hamper

A WordPress website will not be hampered in the least with continued use. As your business continues to grow, so do your website. A number of articles, images, and documents don’t affect the performance of the website and will continue to work without the occurrence of commonly loading issues. WordPress websites are even suitable for those concerns which require the voluminous use of content and video uploads to reach their desired audience. It works efficiently due to its scalable feature. The constant evolution of the features of WordPress with every update makes it more infinite and popular.

10. Multiple user access

A WordPress site can be accessed by multiple users through their own username and password. The administrator of the website can assign the access to the website according to their capabilities. Divisional working enables tasks accomplishment in a better fashion. Over the period of 7 years, WordPress has attained a number of users and supporters. This web-based blogging software has millions of developers behind its development who are constantly in search of ways to make it better with new releases. So, if you are in a dilemma to choose blogging software for your website, just go with WordPress and you won’t regret the decision.

The post 10 Reasons You Should Choose WordPress for Coporate Website Development appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

59% of B2B marketers firmly believe that email is the most effective channel for generating revenue. Furthermore, McKinsey & Company showed that email is almost 40 times more effective in acquiring new customers compared to social media.

Email is the most market competitive method of gaining, building, and retaining customers. Currently, there are over 2.6 billion email users across the globe, however many startups and companies avoid investing in emails, thinking it is meant primarily for big or established players and companies in the marketplace.

This is primarily because of the misconception that email marketing and campaign in general are either obsolete or ineffective.

This is far from the truth.

You don’t have to be a large company or have a huge budget to effectively implement and manage an email marketing campaign. Here are ten WordPress plugins that simplify the task of creating and managing powerful email campaigns.

WordPress Plugins For E-mail Marketing

1. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is a lightweight, modular plugin. Hence, you only need to install the kind of subscription for that you need instead of installing/integrating the whole package.

Once the plugin has been activated, you select, configure, and customize the type form that you want to display on your website (e.g. Slide in, Footer bar, a Lightbox, etc.). Configuration includes adding the duration, exit intent, loading delays, opti-in title, etc. Finally, you can choose a form design and customize the opt-in.

The exit intent pop-up is an important feature of the plugin. It allows you to “catch” the visitors to subscribe to your emailing list when they are about to leave your website.

2. LeadPages

LeadPages is a full-fledged tool for creating landing pages, but can be integrated with its WordPress plugin. It allows you to create custom landing pages using templates and then hooking them up to your email list.

Additionally, Leadpage offers various modules that allow you to create custom opt-ins and in converting website links into popover subscriptions form, and allow visitors to subscribers to join your primary emailing list or other sub-lists (e.g. a webinar).

3. SendinBlue Subscribe Form and WP SMTP

SendinBlue is an email marketing solution provider, similar to MailChimp. The “SendinBlue Subscribe Form and WP SMTP” is it plugin for WordPress that allows you to leverage SendinBlue’s tools to create custom subscription forms. You can also create and send newsletters to your subscription lists.

The plugin offers SendinBlue’s powerful analytics as well. You can segment your contact lists and easily track emails using WordPress’s built in wp_mail() function, and gain access to real-time statistics on clicks, opens, and bounce rates.

4. MailChimp

MailChimp is a popular and powerful email marketing platform that seamlessly integrates with WordPress websites. The installation is simple. Once installed, MailChimp allows you to create custom sign-up forms and add sign-up checkboxes on different forms on your website e.g. contact form and comments section.

You can design email newsletters using ready-made and customizable email templates, setup autoresponders, easily manage subscribers, track emails and view analytics for different email campaigns.

5. Layered Popups for WordPress

Pop-ups are one of the most aggressive, yet a highly effective method of building your emailing lists. Their effectiveness, however, depends on how well-configured they are: their timing, non-intrusive nature, and possible actions that the visitor can take.

The “Layered Popups for WordPress” is a plugin that allows you to easily create custom, attention grabbing pop-ups. These popups can be configured to match your visitor’s preferences and the actions you want them to take on your site. Change design, type, dimensions, adds animations, buttons, and CTAs.

Additionally, you can A/B test different opt-ins in real-time and see how they affect user engagement, and selecting the one that best resonates with your audience and drives your goals. The plugin integrates with Google Analytics allowing you to track the performance and further improve the popup.

6. Opt-in Panda for WordPress

This plugins allows you to gate your valuable content by showing a glimpse of the content. If the visitor wants to further read the content (article, blog, etc.), and scroll further down, an opt-in will ask them to subscribe to your emailing list. The opt-in gives the option of subscribing using social media as well.

Additionally, the plugin also allows you to show exclusive in-content freebies before your visitors (e.g. short eBooks, whitepapers, and other downloadable material). You can easily track how visitors interact with your opt-ins using built-in analytics.

The plugin is SEO-friendly, allowing bots to easily crawl and rank your content. The opt-in can easily be integrated with all the major email service providers including MailChimp, SendinBlue, AWeber, GetResponse, and ActiveCampaign.

7. Attention Grabber Plugin

A handy notifications bar is an effective method of grabbing a visitors attention when they visit your website. The Attention Grabber plugin is the free alternative to the more costly Hello Bar. It’s easy to install and is quick to integrate with your WordPress website and offers a range of features including customizations and tracking sign-ups.

8. FreshMail for WordPress

This plugins allows you to easily create custom and pre-configured sign-up forms and popup opt-ins. Additionally, you can setup automatic checkbox subscriptions based on user action (e.g. leaving a comment, completing a survey, etc.).

The plugin seamlessly integrates with WooCommerce checkout, Contact Form, and Google Analytics. Once integrated into GA, you can easily track the effectiveness of your opt-in.

9. Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is one of the most popular contact forms for WordPress because of its ease of use and customizability. The plugin allows you to create multiple contact forms and place them on any of your website’s pages.

You can easily customize the appearance, mail contents, and form fields of the form, and integrate with MailChimp.

10. SumoMe’s List Builder

Catch visitors to subscribe to your emailing list when they are about to leave your website using a Lightbox from SumoMe. The lightbox is customizable, optimized for mobile devices, allows sharing of content to social media channels, and easily integrates with email marketing service providers including  MailChimp, SendinBlue, AWeber, GetResponse, and ActiveCampaign.

Additionally, the plugin offers a scroll box for gathering email addresses when visitors scroll down the content. It also comes with a range of analytics tools including heat maps and the ability to integrate with Google Analytics and see visitor stats in real-time.

The post Top 10 WordPress Plugins For E-mail Marketing appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.

WordPress is a software that is constantly being upgraded and improved upon and if you’re wondering whether you should update your website to the latest version of WordPress, then the answer is yes! Why should you do so? Well, the seven reasons you will read about below will surely convince you as to why it is so crucial for you to stay up to date when it comes to your WordPress website.

In fact, neglecting updates will put your website at a risk of inconvenience and attacks. Here are the top seven reasons why you should have your WordPress website updated:

1. Superior Performance

Everyone wants their website to be equipped with high speed performance and ease of usage. Upon having your website updated, you will experience exactly that. An update will ensure that your users experience a superior and smooth performance each time they visit your website. Here are some examples of how previous updates have helped with enhanced performance:

• Sites using complex queries were at ease after WordPress 4.1
• With WordPress 4.2 came a superior JS performance for the navigation menus

When it comes down to SEO, quality performance is essential and after having your website upgraded, you will ensure it performs to the best of its potential.

2. An Enhanced Set of Features

When you update your WordPress website, you will gain access to a whole range of new and improved features that will make your website a lot more versatile, robust. You will be at liberty to perform tasks that you may not have been able to perform with older versions. WordPress 3.0 came with custom navigation menus and multi-site installations while 3.1 made it easy to navigate between sites by adding the Admin Bar and also improvised on internal linking.

As the updates keep rolling out, WordPress development escalates and the features get more and more impressive. WordPress 4.1 brought with itself inline image editing while much quicker plug-in updates were introduced with the arrival of 4.2.

3. A Website Richly Secured

WordPress as we all know is open source software and 23% websites from all over the world are powered by WordPress. Its popularity makes it more targeted by hackers and data thieves who can study source codes and use the information to break into websites. Security experts are capable of studying codes and they also report security fixes and bugs. Each time the security reaches a stage of vulnerability, it gets reported after which the WordPress team get to work so that an update can be released that is helpful with having the issues fixed.

To put it in simpler words, if you are using a version of WordPress that is not the latest, the software in use will be highly prone to security vulnerabilities. So stay up to date with WordPress themes, its core and plug-ins so that nasty and malicious hackers can be kept at bay and you can rest assured that your website is safe and secure.

4. Guaranteed Compatibility

You need to know how to update your WordPress website properly so that you can make sure the software is compatible with plug-ins. If you install a plug-in that is brand new while using an old version of WordPress, it may not be compatible to the new plug-in and you will most likely be required to update the version you are currently using so as to ensure its compatibility with the new plug-ins you’ve installed. In addition to this, you will not be able to take advantage of the latest features associated with the updated version either.

5. Bug Fixtures

One of the main reasons for upgraded versions of WordPress is to have the bugs fixed. At times it so happens that bugs seem to slip in through cracks which is why minor releases of WordPress seem to take place so that the bugs can be cleaned out. Why was the recent update of 4.2.3 released? So that it could fix up some 20 bugs that had got into the 4.2 release. If you are facing some issues, you know it’s time to make the change to the newer, latest version of WordPress.

6. Adaptability to Change

Some of you may be comfortable with the version you are using and may not want to make the shift to the newer version of WordPress on your website. But you must understand that the updated versions hold the best of everything WordPress software is capable of delivering and for this reason you must make the shift. At some point or the other, you will need to make a change and keeping your website updated will make you more comfortable with experiencing changes that are so necessary to ensure the effective and efficient functionality of WordPress.

7. Visitors Well Treated

Websites are not created aimlessly. No matter what the reason, be is simply for fulfilling the content appetite of your readers, or for generating income, in order to satisfy the needs of your visitors, you will need to stay on top of your game. One crucial way of doing so is by updating your WordPress website.

If the version you are currently using is old, it will obviously not be equipped with the newest features, bug fixes or security needed for enriched performance. This will no doubt lead your visitors to get frustrated with your website and do you think they will be visiting it again? Well you know the answer to this question. And if your website traffic seems to be facing a decline, it’s needless to say that your business won’t exactly be performing very well. So use the updated version of WordPress and keep your visitors happy.

The above mentioned reasons are clear cut motives loaded with an abundance of benefits associated with updated versions of WordPress. So move on to better performance, security, features and compatibility and ensure visitors keep coming back to you by staying up to date with your WordPress website.

The post 7 Reasons To Update Your WordPress Website appeared first on Digital Marketing Agency - TIS India Blog.