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Wordpress

How to Setup Your New WordPress Website?

January 28, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Once your website is live, you will have an access to the dashboard of your website. This is where you will be able to make the necessary customisation to your website such as install themes and plugins, upload content etc. This would be the backend of your website. Whatever you do here will reflect in the front-end of the website.

Your dashboard will only be visible to your and those who have been given the username and password or are made “users” (with their own username-password) under settings. More on this later.

The first thing you would need to do once you have the access to your new wordpress dashboard is to upload a theme.

There are a couple of good themes out there, however, we would always suggest you to go for wordpress themes with frameworks. A good example of this would be genesis themes.

Read here as to why wordpress themes with framework are better.

Some good themes in the market are:

genesis
thesis
…..

Do note that these are are paid themes. Though we always recommend people to invest in a good theme; for the start, you can even go for any of the free themes provided by wordpress.

Read here on how to install wordpress theme.

The next step in the process would to install some important plugins. We would recommend you to install the following:

Yoast SEO
W3 Total Cache
Akismet
Contact form 7
Any social media sharing plugin

Check out the full list of plugins that we use. Do note that you will also have to invest in some good paid plugins as to website starts to grow. However, for now FREE ones would also do.

Check out the list of essential free plugins that are must for your wordpress site.

Note: It is important that you keep the minimum number of plugins installed on your wordpress website as having a lot of them can negatively affect the performance of your website.

It is also important to check that the plugins you install are developed by reputed developers, providing good technical support and regular updates. (A very important point from security and stability of your website)

Read – why do we use websynthsis from studiopress for our wordpress websites

Checkout other important settings for your wordpress website here.

Filed Under: Wordpress

10 Premium Plugins You Should Use For Your WordPress Website

January 27, 2018 by Leave a Comment

In spite of the fact that one should use the least number of plugins for their WordPress website, the truth is that beginners and intermediate website owners cannot totally ignore them. Though we staunchly support installing least number of plugins on your site, we believe there is no harm in using plugins from reputed developers who provide regular updates and decent support.

Paid Plugins for WordPress

We only use WordPress for our sites and have tried hundreds of plugins for our websites. Mentioned below are some of the plugins which we found extremely helpful.

1. Advanced ads 

Advanced Ads

Running an authority website and being one of the top publishers in your niche means advertisement is one of your main revenue streams. From Adsense to direct advertisers, we have tried it all. As anyone running multiple ad networks simultaneously on the website would know, managing and tracking ads is a difficult yet important task, especially when advertisers are paying you by the impressions. We have tried a series of ad management plugins for WordPress in the past, including Google’s own DFP, but none has been able to fulfill our requirements as has been done by Advanced ads plugin. With a series of Add-ons offering amazing features, this is a must-have plugin for your website once you are ready for running advertisements.

2. Social Warfare

Socail Warfare

Having social media accounts on all popular networks is a must today not only from the perspective of promoting your content but also for search engine optimisation of your website. Again, we have tried several social share plugins before using Social Warfare (We have been using them now for more than a year now). The plugin has the finest, lightest and smartest looking social buttons and offers “unparalleled” options for customisation. Perfect for your responsive website as well, this plugin is the finest one out there with some amazing customer and technical support.

3. AMP for WP

Apm for WP

AMP is not just a trend but a necessity now. Page loading speed is one of the factors Google uses to rank your web pages. If you are serious about ranking high in search engines, it is important to convert your pages to AMP. If you are technically impaired like us, then AMP for WP is the best plugin out there which will help you to automatically convert your website into an AMP version. The plugin is used by some of the top websites in the world and also has a great development team behind it. It has a series of add-ons and also offer premium support for additional payment.

4. PB Sandwich

Pagebuilder Sandwich

From building your email list to selling your (or affiliate) products, professional-looking sales and landing pages are a must. WordPress is an excellent CMS tool but lacks some important features. Page builder sandwich is a front-end drag and drop page builder tool which makes building professional looking pages a piece of cake. It might get a bit buggy sometimes and has a learning curve to it, however, it is surely one of the best in the market out there.

5. Genesis Extender

Genesis Extender

This plugin is specifically for those websites that are supported by Genesis framework themes. One of the advantages of using Genesis themes is the flexibility and ease it offers for customising your website. If you are not a technical guy (or even if you are), this plugin will save you a lot of time by providing a variety of options to customise and make design changes to your theme right from your WordPress dashboard.

6. Yoast Pro

Yoast Pro

SEO plugin is a must for your WordPress website and honestly, there are plenty of them out there. Having tried a couple of them before deciding and sticking to Yoast SEO Pro, we must say it has everything we need. Of course there is a free version as well which is totally sufficient for your website; however, if you are serious about your business, then go for the premium one.

7. Kraken Image Optimizer

Kraken Image Optimizer

One of the main reasons which negatively affect the website performance and speed is the weight of the images. If you have several images on your website which have not been optimised before uploading, then they can seriously bring down the overall performance of the website. Kraken Image Optimiser plugin is a life-saver. You just have to upload the plugin and it will not only optimise the new images but also the ones in the media gallery. For more amazing results use “Tinypng.com” along with Kraken.

8. Akismet Anti-Spam

Akismat Anti Spam

This one is pretty straight-forward. Pioneer is anti-spam technology, Kismet Anti-Spam plugin has been around for a long time. If you have a WordPress website or planning to start one, then sooner or later you will face the issue of dealing with spam comments. Segregating spam from genuine comments is a time-consuming and mind-numbing job, which you will have to do manually if you do not have Akismet. Also, spam can be a potential threat to your website. Be wise, use Akismet. Enough said.

9. Thrive Leads

Thrive Leads

Content marketing is imperative whether you are selling products or services. You will also need professionally looking optin forms presented to the readers in a way which is not obstructive and irritable. This is where thrive leads come in. With a dozen of ways to collect emails from your readers, thrive leads is one of the finest plugins out for lead generation. If you want to make a serious relationship with your audience through email marketing, then thrive leads plugin is a must for your website.

10. EDD Easy Digital Download

Easy Digital Download EDD

We have been selling digital products for more than 7 years now and have used every method out there to automate the product delivery system. Easy Digital Download is the most feature-rich and widely used WordPress plugin out there (even for non-digital products). EDD also has a marketplace which features a dozen of essential Add-ons which can be used to make your store have all the functionality which a famous commerce website will have.

Over to you…

Which according to you are the most important WordPress plugins in the market today?

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Filed Under: Wordpress Tagged With: paid plugins

How To Start A Website Using WordPress?

January 27, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Having an online presence is a must these days. Whether you’re a freelancer, small business owner, or a high-profile executive, having an online identity is necessary for your professional growth.

Having started my digital journey almost 10 years back, we’ve seen the industry and the technology supporting it change drastically. However, it is easier than ever for any one to create their online presence not only to showcase their services/products but also to attract new clients.

Without wasting anymore of your time, let’s get straight into setting up your first website online.

Note. I do not like to refer any self-hosted personal/professional identity as blog as it tends to make people casual towards my business. I like to term all my online assets as websites, including my “personal blog”.

Step 1:

Choose a domain name and register the same.

It is important to give a solid name to your website, which will not only be your future brand but will also be used to drive traffic to you product/service page (we will take about this in future).

Finding a good website name related to your business or industry is a tricky and time-consuming task. Do spend some time to come up with some catchy name, which would be easy for people to remember and gives a sense of your industry. For e.g if you are a wedding photographer who wants to sell photography services, you can choose sometime like – weddingmemories.com or weddingbells.com (These names are too common and just for example purpose. But you get the idea). However, it is not compulsory to choose a name with your industry/service name in it. If you feel your chosen name is catchy, just go for it. At the end, it is how you market and position yourself is what matters the most.

Note: Whichever name you choose; always make sure to check if the domain for that particular name is available or not. This is important to keep a sync between your online and offline marketing efforts. We do not want to name our company as “weddingbells” and then find out that weddingbells.com is already taken by someone else.

Check domain name availability on any domain registration websites. We suggest:

domain.com
namecheap.com
godaddy.com
siteground.com

It is also prudent to check trademark/copyright directory of respective country to ensure that a particular name has not been already registered to prevent infringement issues later on. (If you are a local business who is not planning to go international, you can always choose domain names such as .in (country initials), .info,.co, .net etc. However, we would suggest you to give first priority to .com.

If you are finding a tough time to come up with interesting names, you can use business name generating websites such as:

Step 2.

Buy A hosting Plan

This should be your next step once you register your domain name. You would need to host your website online and connect your domain name to the host. (More on this later)

You can always choose to buy the domain name and hosting space from the same service provider. However, we always suggest to buy the domain name and the hosting from two different service providers. This is because if one of the service provider goes down or has a technical glitch, you know who is at fault.

Choosing a hosting name can be confusing. This can be because of one or all of the below reasons:

1. you don’t know how much space you would need for your website
2. you don’t know who is the best and provides value for money service
3. you don’t understand the technical jargons

For the uninitiated, unless and until you are planning to make a 100 + or 1000+ pages website and drive a massive amount of traffic to its pages, go for any “starter” plan which will usually be a shared hosting plan.

Once your website starts getting traffic and reaches a certain number of visitors per month, the hosting providers will send you a mail to upgrade the plan. That would be the right time to move your plan with higher bandwidth and space.

Note: The key here to to just start without getting bogged down by various things. As you move ahead, make the necessary changes as required.

For those looking for hosting providers, you can choose from the below:

siteground
bluehost
namecheap
web synthesis (Studiopress)

How to setup your hosting and install wordpress?

Once you purchase any hosting service, you need to point your domain name to your hosting space. In simple terms, connect your domain name to your hosting server.

Every reputed hosting service will have proper documentation and instruction manual. You can also contact them for assistance (Some service providers can get it done by taking some minor fee or even do it for free). However, we highly suggest to go through the “how-to videos” of the hosting provider and some youtube videos to help you navigate through the process. There is no doubt a learning curve, but it’s fairly simple. It will also help you to know the very basics of your website, which we feel is very important in the long run.

You can also take help from some professional on sites like Upwork and Fiverr.

Once you have connected the domain, please do note that it can take 24-48 hours or even couple of days for your website to go live. This is very normal.

A general setup procedure can be found here.

It is also important that for advanced security reasons, you purchase an SSL certificate as well. Read about the importance of SSL certificate for your website here.

Filed Under: Wordpress

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