WordPress Tips – Sparkle Themes https://sparklewpthemes.com Sparkle Themes - Best Premium and Free Clean WordPress Themes for Personal, Business and eCommerce Store Websites Mon, 10 Jul 2023 06:24:39 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 https://sparklewpthemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/16807461_198753970606487_7432317181345843399_n.png WordPress Tips – Sparkle Themes https://sparklewpthemes.com 32 32 9 Best Travel Booking WordPress Plugins in 2023 https://sparklewpthemes.com/best-travel-booking-wordpress-plugins/ https://sparklewpthemes.com/best-travel-booking-wordpress-plugins/#respond Mon, 10 Jul 2023 05:51:38 +0000 https://sparklewpthemes.com/?p=156731 Are you in need of a fully-functional website for your travel company? If you are, you have come to the right place.

In this day and age, creating a functional and effective travel booking website has never been easier, thanks to the best travel booking WordPress plugins specifically designed for this purpose. These plugins facilitate smooth booking operations and offer versatile features such as booking management, payment integrations, customizable layouts, and more.

As travel companies, if you find creating and managing your website nerve-wracking, worry not! One thing you should remember is that your travel website will perform at its best when equipped with the best travel themes and travel plugins. 

In this article, I have listed the 9 best travel booking WordPress plugins to make your website journey smooth yet fully functional. 

List of the Best Travel Booking WordPress Plugins

As mentioned earlier, travel booking plugins facilitate you with all the necessary tools for creating and functioning a travel website. These plugins will make it easier for travel companies to sell tour packages while fully supporting the needs of their customers. 

All in all, a brilliant travel company will utilize all the functions of a great travel plugin. But do you know which is the best in the oceans of choices? 

Now, you will now know about the top 10 travel booking WordPress plugins. 

1. WP Travel Engine

If you have ever felt overwhelmed while trying to create a perfect travel booking website, let me tell you a secret: WP Travel Engine.

So, what is WP Travel Engine?

It’s a brilliant WordPress plugin specifically designed for travel and tour businesses. You might be thinking, “What makes it so special?” Buckle up because you’re about to find out.

WP Travel Engine has incredible features that make it one of the best in the business. The first standout feature is its customizability. You can create and showcase unlimited travel packages, tours, and destinations precisely as you want. Intriguing, right?

Moreover, WP Travel Engine integrates seamlessly with renowned payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and more. That’s a big sigh of relief.

And it gets better. It simplifies booking management, maintaining detailed logs and automatically generating invoices. So, say goodbye to unnecessary stress.

The best part? Despite its advanced features, it’s user-friendly. Even beginners can navigate it with ease. So, if you’re looking to skyrocket your travel business and deliver an outstanding booking experience, WP Travel Engine is your one-stop solution. And, hereon, you will find out why the WP Travel Engine Plugin is the best plugin for you.

Here is some quick stats about WP Travel Engine:

  • Used by 10,000+ travel business owners 
  • More than 100 reviews, average rating of 4.8
  • Step-by-step video tutorials and documentation
  • Active Facebook community of users 

Build SEO-friendly Travel Websites in Minutes | WP Travel Engine Plugin

Key Features of WP Travel Engine

  • Unlimited Trip Information
  • Multiple Payment Gateways
  • User-friendly Booking Management
  • Flexible Pricing Options
  • Email Notifications
  • Quick and Friendly Support 
  • Customizable Booking Form
  • Travel Information Form
  • Extension and Add-Ons Support
  • Multilingual Translation Ready
  • SEO Friendly for Improved Search Engine Ranking
  • Advanced Search Option
  • Compatible with Many Themes
  • Added Blocks for Enhanced Performance

Best Add Ons and Extensions

The WP Travel Engine Plugin offers a variety of extensions and add-ons to enhance the functionality of your travel website and provide unforgettable experiences to your website visitors. These add-ons are designed to help you sell more with less effort. Here are some of them:

Social Proof aims to boost customer confidence and conversions on your travel website. It allows you to display real-time notifications of customer activities such as trip bookings, inquiries, and reviews in delightful little popups lending credibility to your website.

It is a handy add-on for the WP Travel Engine plugin that enables trip payments through various payment gateways supported by WooCommerce. This add-on makes the payment process seamless and efficient.

It supports all WooCommerce-supported payment gateways, including popular ones like Stripe, Paypal, and Authorize.net. 

You can provide discounts based on the number of travelers that book a trip, using the Group Discount extension for the WP Travel Engine plugin. It is a flexible tool for all kinds of travel packages as it lets you define a discount range for adult, child, and infant groups separately. 

With this add-on, you can specify the available spots and set a recurring time for each trip. The add-on automatically determines the number of remaining seats following each reservation, guaranteeing that the availability of your trip is constantly updated. 

The Advanced Itinerary Builder is an extension of the WP Travel Engine plugin that allows you to create engaging, informative, and interactive itineraries with rich photos. It will enable you to add unlimited itinerary days, each with a description, gallery, and altitude chart.

This add-on provides a flexible payment option for travellers. It allows travellers to book a trip or tour package on an installment payment basis, making it more affordable and accessible. This feature enhances the user experience and can lead to an increase in sales or conversions. 

It is an extension of the WP Travel Engine plugin that brings the convenience of currency conversion to your travel website. This add-on allows your customers to efficiently convert trip prices between multiple currencies, making it easier for international customers to understand the cost in their local currency. 

Themes Compatible with WP Travel Engine

As mentioned earlier, extraordinary features and additional extensions make WP Travel Engine plugin the best tool to create and enhance your travel booking website. But is that all? 

Prepare for another great feature of WP Travel Engine. Well, its compatibility with various WordPress themes is one of the reasons it stands out as a top-notch plugin for travel websites. 

The compatibility with WordPress themes ensures versatility, consistency, easy access, and many other qualities to make this plugin one of the best. It allows you to choose a theme that aligns with your brand’s aesthetic and functional requirements.

WP Travel Engine’s compatibility with different themes makes it a versatile, reliable, and user-friendly solution for building a travel website that meets your needs and preferences.

The following are some themes compatible with WP Travel Engine Plugin:

1. Travel Agency

Travel Agency WordPress theme is the perfect solution for travel and tour operators, hotel chains, and other businesses wishing to build a dynamic, user-friendly travel booking website.

You can utilize this user-friendly theme without writing a single line of code. 

With the WP Travel Engine plugin, Travel Agency may be used to create custom journeys with comprehensive itineraries and FAQs. This feature significantly enhances consumers’ booking experiences by allowing them to book the holiday they want directly.

2. Travel Booking

Travel Booking is a terrific free WordPress theme compatible with the WP Travel Engine plugin for travel and tour operators, hotel chains, and other organizations looking to construct a travel booking website. 

Tour operators can publish trip itineraries, highlight nearby attractions and lodging deals, and, most importantly, enable direct booking on the website. Its stylish and user-friendly design boosts sales.

The functionality of this theme is continuously being enhanced. It is speedy, responsive to mobile devices, schema-friendly, and SEO-optimized, so your site will rank highly in search results and provide a top-notch user experience across all platforms.

3. Travel Monster

The WordPress theme Travel Monster, developed by WP Travel Engine, is designed for anyone involved in the travel industry, including lodging establishments, tour operators, and travel blogs. 

The WP Travel Engine plugin, a powerful and feature-rich tool for planning and promoting vacation packages, works with the theme. You may create and offer detailed itineraries, price information, booking forms, and more. 

Additionally, Travel Monster is search engine optimized, ensuring that people can find your website and that it ranks highly in search results. As a result, it helps increase your online visibility and organic traffic, attracting more potential customers and bookings.

Blocks

WP Travel Engine never fails to serve its users with significant updates. Here are some newly-updated blocks adding more options for users to enhance their website. 

1. Trips

The Trip Blocks feature in WP Travel Engine allows users to add different trips to their blog posts or page with a single click. This feature is designed to make it easier for users to display various trip packages on their travel booking websites. The block offers a range of settings for customization.

2. Destinations

The Destinations Blocks feature in WP Travel Engine provides a flexible and user-friendly way for users to display and manage their trip packages based on different destinations on their website.

3. Trip Types

This WP Travel Engine plugin block allows travel websites to categorize and display their trip packages based on various types. It can include categories like budget-friendly, child-friendly, or dog-friendly trips. 

The block provides settings to organize and display the trip types in a user-friendly manner. It also includes options to show the number of trips associated with each type and a “View More” button for detailed information. 

4. Activities

The Activities block in the WP Travel Engine plugin is a tool that enables travel websites to categorize and present their trip packages based on various activities, such as hiking, paragliding, or peak climbing. 

This feature enhances the user experience by allowing travelers to find trips that align with their preferred activities. 

5. Trip Search

The Trip Search block in WP Travel Engine is a powerful feature that enhances the user experience by allowing travelers to search for their ideal trips based on various parameters. 

These parameters include destination, activities, trip types, duration, price, date, difficulty, and age group. This block can be integrated into any page or post, making it easier for visitors to find trips that best suit their preferences.

Pricing of WP Travel Engine

You can access the free and premium versions of the WP Travel Engine Plugin. While the free version carries no charge, the premium version comes with different plans. 

  • Personal: $99.50 (For one site)
  • Travel Agency: $199.50 (For one site)
  • Software Company: $299.50 (For ten sites)

2. WP Travel Engine – Elementor

The WP Travel Engine Widgets-Elementor plugin integrates WP Travel Engine with the famous page builder, Elementor. It allows you to use Elementor to create a travel booking website, offering a seamless way to display trips, destinations, activities, trip types, and advanced searches. 

As travel entrepreneurs, you can combine the power of two popular plugins to create feature-rich travel websites without writing any code. 

Not to mention, you should install the parent plugin, WP Travel Engine, before installing WP Travel Engine-Elementor.

Key Features of WP Travel Engine – Elementor

  • Integration with WP Travel Engine
  • Easy Installation
  • Elementor Widgets
  • Gutenberg Blocks
  • Dedicated Support and Community.

Pricing of WP Travel Engine – Elementor  

You can download this plugin for free. However, it offers additional paid upgrades and support.

Compatible Themes

WP Travel Engine – Elementor is compatible with all the themes its parent plugin supports.

3. Yatra

You can use Yatra, a free, SEO-friendly, and scalable WordPress travel booking plugin, to create travel and tour websites as a travel agency. This plugin is incredibly user-friendly, making it easy to create trips, itineraries, and trekking packages. 

It supports various payment gateways, making it convenient for customers to make payments. 

One of the standout features of Yatra is its availability calendar, which allows you to modify pricing and other options. 

You will also get a setup wizard, making the setup process straightforward. With regular updates and excellent support, Yatra is a reliable solution for your travel booking needs.

Key Features of Yatra

  • Unlimited Trip/Tours
  • Custom Attributes
  • Unlimited FAQs
  • Activity
  • Unlimited Itinerary
  • Multiple Pricing
  • Destinations
  • Advanced Tabs
  • Easy to Use

Pricing of Yatra

While there is also a free version, the premium version is available at different prices:

  • Starter: $79
  • Essential: $149
  • Growth: $299
  • Master: $599

Compatible Themes

This plugin is fully compatible with the WordPress theme Resa, so your website looks informative and attractive at the same time.

4. WP Travel

WP Travel is a comprehensive and powerful plugin for WordPress explicitly designed for travel and tour operators. This plugin allows you to easily create, design, and launch your own travel website. 

With WP Travel, you can build your travel tourism business website in minutes. It’s a well-conceived and well-executed plugin updated frequently with new features. 

The plugin is intuitive and fits well into any theme, with the flexibility to use different shortcodes. It’s perfect for travel tour booking, making it easy for clients to book through your website.

Key Features of WP Travel

  • Travel Site Ready
  • In-built Booking System
  • Easy Payment Processing
  • Translation Ready
  • WP Travel Login Dashboard
  • Coupon Feature for Promoting Discounts
  • Google Maps Zoom Level Setting
  • WP Travel Tour Extras

Pricing of WP Travel

The premium version of this plugin is available at the following prices:

  • Personal (1 Site): $99.99
  • Plus (5 sites): $199.99
  • Expert (25 sites): $599.99

Compatible Themes

This plugin is compatible with various travel themes, making your website experience smooth and hassle-free. The following are some important travel themes compatible with WP Travel:

5. WP Travel Blocks

WP Travel Blocks is a free plugin that integrates seamlessly with the WP Travel plugin and the popular page builders Gutenberg and Elementor. 

This plugin allows you to display your trips and tour packages flexibly and attractively. With WP Travel Blocks, you can build a new trip page by adding different blocks from the plugin. 

It has a collection of ready-to-use custom blocks specially designed for travel agency sites. This plugin is built simply, allowing you to select multiple layouts without touching a single line of code.

Key Features of WP Travel Blocks

  • Showcase featured trips
  • Put up Search Forms
  • WP Travel Map Add-on
  • Filter Trips
  • Dedicated Support and Documentation
  • WP Itinerary Add-ons
  • Showcase Sales Offers

Pricing of WP Travel Blocks

 You can download and install WP Travel Blocks for free.

Compatible Themes

This plugin supports all the themes that work with its parent theme WP Travel.

6. WooTour

WooTour is a WordPress plugin designed to facilitate creating and managing tour, travel, appointment, and event bookings. It integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce, allowing for easy order management and various payment options.

The plugin offers a range of features, including extra options for each event, tours by special dates or days, multiple payment modes, email notifications, user history booking, and more. 

This theme is compatible with WPML for multilingual sites and provides various display options through shortcodes. As a result, you can customize your website with different fonts and colors. The plugin is regularly updated for optimal performance and user experience.

Key Features of WooTour

  • Numerous discount codes for scheduling bookings and appointments
  • PDF Invoice Support
  • Automatic email creation
  • Customization options for color, font, and thumbnail size
  • Options for custom ticket categories

Pricing of WooTour

This plugin costs $49 as a one-time payment.

7. Tour Master

Tour Master is a premium WordPress plugin for comprehensive tour and room booking management. It’s tailored for tour operators, travel agencies, ticket sellers, hotels, resorts, and more. 

You will have access to key features such as multi-currency support, a membership system, online and offline payment options, seasonal pricing, and the ability to add bookings from the admin backend manually. 

The plugin provides a powerful room search function, multiple location support, a customizable enquiry form, social login, and transaction CSV exporter. You can also support integration with third-party systems and offer a coupon code system.

Key Features of Tour Master

  • Tour Configuration Dashboard
  • Additional Tour Services
  • Automatic Reminder Function
  • Price Management
  • Comprehensive Front-end Management
  • Administrative Backend Dashboard
  • CSV Data Export
  • Month-wise Tour Search

Pricing of Tour Master

This plugin is available at $43 per month.

Compatible Themes

The plugin is compatible with the Travel Tour WordPress theme. In fact, this theme is specially designed for Tour Master.

8. Tour and Travel Booking Manager

Tour and Travel Booking Manager is a WordPress plugin designed to streamline the creation and management of travel and tour packages for tour operators and agencies. It offers a comprehensive travel management system with a multitude of features. 

Key features include support for all payment methods available in WooCommerce, cross-browser support, responsive and SEO-friendly design, multilingual translation support, and shortcodes for customization.

You can use it to manage ticket types, prices, categories, and organizers, and it also provides additional services for managing costs and quantities. 

You can use the plugin’s location feature with Google Maps, add start and end dates, and view registered guest info from WooCommerce order details. 

Key Features of Tour and Travel Booking Manager

  • WooCommerce Integration
  • Cross-Browser Support
  • Responsive Design
  • Multilingual Translation Support
  • Location Feature
  • Date Management
  • Theme Compatibility
  • PDF Tickets
  • Custom Registration Form
  • Automatic Email Confirmation

Pricing of Tour and Travel Booking Manager

The premium version of this plugin is available at the following prices:

  • Starter: $75
  • Business: $199
  • Bundle Package: $225

Compatible Themes

The plugin is compatible with any theme that works with WooCommerce.

9. Travel Booking Toolkit

The Travel Booking Toolkit is a comprehensive WordPress plugin that provides additional functionality to your travel booking website. This toolkit is designed to enhance the user experience and the overall performance of your website, leading to improved user satisfaction.

You can easily install and activate this plugin. You can upload it directly in your WordPress dashboard or use FTP to upload the toolkit directory to your plugin’s directory. Once uploaded, you can activate the plugin in your Plugin dashboard, making it ready for use.

One of the key features of the Travel Booking Toolkit is its open-source nature, which allows for continuous improvements and updates. 

Furthermore, the toolkit has been designed to be compatible with a wide range of themes and plugins, making it a versatile addition to any travel booking website. 

Key Features of Travel Booking Toolkit

  • Enhanced Customizer and Widgets Functionality
  • Improved Website Performance
  • Easy Installation and Activation
  • Open-Source Software
  • Regular Updates
  • Compatibility with WP Travel Engine
  • Translation Fixes
  • Theme Compatibility

Pricing of Travel Booking Toolkit

 You can download and install the Travel Booking Toolkit for free.

Compatible Themes

This plugin is compatible with the Travel Booking theme. 

Final Thoughts

Alright, let’s wrap this up, shall we?

The landscape of travel booking WordPress plugins has significantly evolved in 2023, offering many options to cater to diverse needs. These plugins have made it easier for businesses to manage bookings, enhance user experience, and streamline operations. 

These plugins have revolutionized how travel businesses operate online, from comprehensive booking management systems to specialized features like automatic reminders, price management, and advanced search options. 

As we’ve explored the top 9 travel booking WordPress plugins, it’s clear that each one brings unique features and capabilities. Choosing the right one will depend on your specific needs, budget, and the nature of your travel business. 

Remember, the best plugin for you is the one that fits your business model seamlessly and helps you deliver exceptional service to your customers. 

So, go ahead. Choose your plugin. And watch your travel website take off!

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Top backup WordPress plugins for 2022 https://sparklewpthemes.com/top-backup-wordpress-plugins-for-2022/ https://sparklewpthemes.com/top-backup-wordpress-plugins-for-2022/#comments Wed, 17 Nov 2021 06:11:21 +0000 https://sparklewpthemes.com/?p=146755 Introduction

Are you looking for the perfect WordPress BackUp plugin? With many options available out there with different use complexity, we have selected a list of well-tested WordPress Backup plugins that we have used personally over the years on our WordPress centric projects.

So, without further ado, here are the top backup plugins you can try out for your new or existing WordPress projects.

Top Backup WordPress Plugins for 2022

●     UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin

●     Duplicator Backup Plugin

●     BlogVault – Backup & Staging

●     BackWPup – WordPress Backup Plugin

●     Backup Guard – WordPress Backup and Migrate Plugin

●     All-in-One WP Plugin

UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin

Image Source: WordPress.org

When it comes to free backup plugins, none of the other options mentioned in this article come close to what UpdraftPlus has to offer.

Image Source: WordPress.org

With over 3 million active installs and a 5-star rating, you don’t have any reason not to use this plugin for your backup needs.

UpdraftPlus is a WordPress Backup plugin that makes backing up and restoring websites as easy as pie.

Image Source: WordPress.org

It integrates with top cloud storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, UpdraftVault (Their personalised cloud storage), Rackspace Cloud and much more to allow Website to Cloud Storage Direct Backups.

Image Source: WordPress.org

UpdraftPlus even supports direct backups via FTP which makes it one of the most extensible Backup plugins available for free on the WordPress Repo.

Another extra feature which you would expect to pay for is Scheduling Backups. With UpdraftPlus, you can automate backups daily to any selected storage location for absolutely no cost.

UpdraftPlus also has a premium version (with pricing starting at $70 for two site licenses) which extends its functionality, even more, features like Incremental backups, a powerful add-on for smooth migration (Migrator), an option to backup non-WP files, database encryption and

More storage destinations.

You can download UpdraftPlus from here.

Duplicator Backup Plugin

Image Source: WordPress.org

Duplicator is a WordPress Backup/Migration plugin that enables WordPress owners to Backup their site for absolutely free.

With more than 20 million total downloads since release and 1 million active installs, this is amongst the most popular WordPress Backup you can consider.

Image Source: WordPress.org

Duplicator works by creating a package that contains parts of your website you want to backup; you have the option to backup your database, site plugins, files or your entire installation.

The free version of the plugin allows you to backup and download your site to your local machine as frequently and much as you want.

Image Source: WordPress.org

You can restore a backup using their wizard (Quite complicated for beginners) or install on a new server if you want (migration).

To Backup your site to cloud storages like google drive & dropbox, you would need to upgrade to the Pro version which pricing starts from $59 & comes with some extra advanced backup features as well.

With the Pro version of Duplicator, you can schedule backups daily, weekly or even monthly and Duplicator will automatically store each snapshot to a selected cloud storage location.

This feature gives complete peace of mind as you always know your site is secure with several backup snapshots arranged by date.

All for a one-time fee of $59 (license for three websites)

Even without the Paid version, it is still considered one of the best plugins to backup your website with

BlogVault – Backup & Staging

Image Source: WordPress.org

If you are a total non-tech-savvy WordPress user, then you might most likely run into problems trying to use the other BackUp plugins on this list. Well, not except BlogVault.

Image Source: WordPress.org

Blog Vault is a backup plugin that takes out all the complexity in backing up your WordPress website and restoring them.

Image Source: WordPress.org

We included this plugin because it does not require any technical skills to use; you simply install it and follow the setup wizard and voila; it does all the work for you.

Image Source: WordPress.org

It comes with many premium features (provided for free) like incremental backups, free offsite storage, one-click backup restore, migration, etc.

Blogvault is not just a Backup plugin, but more of a Backup service just like hosting backup tool notably “CodeGuard” that is used by Bluehost among its package addons, Blogvault is actually used by some of the largest web hosting companies out there.

From WPEngine, Pantheon, FlyWheel to many more and aids their free migration services.

It comes with several other features like migration and staging, with Backups being the main focus.

The premium version of the plugin (starting at $89 a year) provides backups in real-time as well as being completely compatible with WooCommerce with a Backups Archive period of 90 days.

If you just want an easy way to backup your WordPress website, you can try out Blogvault, but I would advise you combine this plugin with another as your backup data is stored on an external server that can go offline anytime any day.

You can try BlogVault out by downloading from the WordPress Repo.

BackWPup – WordPress Backup Plugin

Image Source: WordPress.org

One good alternative to UpdraftPlus you could consider if run into issues with it is BackWPup.

Image Source: WordPress.org

This plugin shares many similar features with UpdraftPlus and allows you to backup your WordPress Website for free.

Image Source: WordPress.org

It also allows Cloud storage locations with a few services like Google Drive being limited to Premium users only.

Image Source: WordPress.org

You can back up just individual parts of your websites like the Mysql database or your WordPress installation with ease.

With a 4.5 star rating and regular plugin updates every month, this could be the best option for your backup needs.

You can download the BackWPup plugin from your WordPress plugin repo.

Backup Guard – WordPress Backup and Migrate Plugin

Image Source: WordPress.org

Backup Guard is a Backup/Migration plugin that provides you with an easy way to backup, restore, and migrate WordPress Website.

What we like about this plugin is its simple and easy to use User interface, especially the dashboard.

Image Source: WordPress.org

Backups are sorted by date of creation and you the option to either download them to your local machine or Dropbox for free.

Image Source: WordPress.org

To add more Cloud Storage services, you would need to purchase the premium version of the plugin, but by default, the free version allows you to move your backups to dropbox.

It also has BackUp scheduling, Notifications, and migration features just like the other plugins on this list but only for Premium users.

Image Source: WordPress.org

The only thing free about this plugin is creating unlimited backups and restoring them.

You can download the Backup Guard plugin from your WordPress plugin repo.

All-in-One WP Plugin

Image Source: WordPress.org

All in One WP plugin is actually a migration plugin that can be used for backing up your WordPress website.

Image Source: WordPress.org

It provides functionality to backup (in an export file) your entire WordPress website, including the database, media files, plugins, and themes without any technical knowledge.

Image Source: WordPress.org

It is also quite extensible and does support cloud storage locations like Dropbox, FTP, Google Drive, Amazon S3, OneDrive Box, MegaNZ, DigitalOcean, Microsoft Azure Storage, etc. on purchase of the extension.

With each extension having a starting price of $50 50 $99, this is considered pricy compared to the other plugins on this list.

Image Source: WordPress.org

It provides an easy Drag & Drop backup restoration wizard which makes this ideal for backing up small sites with minimal content if you consider going for the free version.

You can download the All in One Plugin from your WordPress plugin repo or the WordPress.org plugin page here.

Our Personal Favourite (Recommendation)

UpdraftPlus no doubt, has the best to offer when it comes to backing up WordPress website.

Not only is it a powerful plugin, but it’s also free with several premium features you would otherwise pay for to use on other backup plugins.

Image Source: WordPress.org

Duplicator is also a good option but only when you have plans of migrating your backup to another server at a later date as it’s straightforward to do that with the duplicator.

Finally, a tip that’s worth mentioning, if you prefer to minimize the plugins installed on your site, then in that case, then you should know that there are some hosting companies out there that offer Automatic Backups feature. So you might want to keep that in mind

Conclusion

Each Backup plugin has there advantages and disadvantages, it up to you to test them and find the one that works best for what you’re trying to achieve.

You might need to upgrade to a premium version to get what you want but at the end of the day, you should have a well functioning Backup Plugin working smoothly.

Also, make sure you have more than one backup location, never put all your eggs in one basket, i.e. storing backup files in the same server as your website.

Anything can happen, and at any time, so you have to be ready.

That’s all for this article. We hope you found it useful, If you have a question about any of the plugins on this list, please do not hesitate to add a comment below and we would respond as soon as possible

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How To Increase The Max Upload Size On WordPress https://sparklewpthemes.com/how-to-increase-the-max-upload-size-on-wordpress/ https://sparklewpthemes.com/how-to-increase-the-max-upload-size-on-wordpress/#respond Mon, 06 Sep 2021 04:18:11 +0000 https://sparklewpthemes.com/?p=145134 The incessant essentiality of WordPress to numerous users seems to widen constantly by and large, and inaddition to the need for an increased upload size file. WordPress serves as the center of human wants because of the distinct yet important usage it plays for us. It allows you to create websites for various purposes ranging from a simple blog to an eCommerce store blog.

As a beginner or long-term site user, you would discover that the continuous usage of WordPress tools and plugins on your website can help you achieve your goal, in creating awareness or selling some products on your website. 

This goal can however be curtailed by the restriction placed on your website to only allow a certain size of file or plugin or theme. This restriction is created for the user’s and visitor’s convenience. 

Detailed content has been created for your convenience to help you learn various techniques that can be implemented to increase upload size of files, or themes, or plugins on your website. Indeed, this is a great avenue to achieve an high level of optimization of your website on WordPress.

So, let’s dive in!

The Importance of upgrading the uploadable size of your website

And before we dive into the main cause of action, let’s take a look at the various reasons as to why it is required though not mandatory to increase the size limit in WordPress.

The varieties of files that can be uploaded on WordPress makes it a great avenue to deliver consistent content to your readers or audience. This is obstructed by the limitation fixed on the uploadable file size on the site. 

On WordPress, there are varying methods that users can employ in their individual strategies. Therefore, if your line of work requires you to upload high-resolution pictures or videos directly to your website, then you might have to consider increasing your upload size. 

Yet this is not mandatory. If you are fine with the allocated upload size on your website then you do not need to change it. Or if your site does not require uploading large files or so on your site. 

It should be noted that even though it is not mandatory, it is advisable because you would attain a better experience upon that. 

The main reason why there’s a limit is to avoid the website from being over jammed or to prevent a server’s time out. Regardless, the restriction may prevent you from uploading themes, plugins, or other files that exceed the size given to you on your website. 

Therefore it is essential for you to increase the max upload size of your website.

Importances

  1. Maximize the little to nothing allocated size on your WordPress website. Although, a big part of it is due to your host provider and the host plans. 
  2. Strengthen your connection with your reader or audience with more in-depth content such as files, themes, and plugins. With a larger file size, you have wider possibilities
  3. .For installing a plugin or theme on WordPress, you might need a large upload size for better uploading and to avoid errors or issues.
  4. For a better user experience, you might consider increasing your max upload size. This however entails not just you as the user but also your site’s visitors.
  5. Also, if your site is about selling digital files, a larger upload size would be better and more feasible for you.

These reasons are however subjective. You as a person may have other individual reasons why you need to increase the max upload size of your website. But the bottom line of all the reasons is to inform you of the essentiality of increasing it because of the restriction. 

Various mechanisms to employ to check the max upload size in WordPress

So, before deciding on whether or not you would want to increase the max upload size of your website, then you should at least know the particular upload size of your website. 

On a normal basis, the max upload size of all WordPress most times ranges between 4 MB to 128 MB. Therefore, your website upload size would fall between those numbers. Your host provider has a major role to play in the upload size allocated to your website, therefore, you should ensure you pick the best web host provider

This is why it is essential to carefully choose one’s host. You have to strategically examine the host you consider and choose it because of its performance and support. It is unsafe to nonchalantly pick out a host without a full examination of how much this host can help your site. 

In Addition, it also depends on your hosting plan. Whether you seek out a big or small plan, it also affects your upload size because the plan feature is the host’s decision to make.

How to check the upload size of your WordPress Site

Now, to the order of the day, if you want to check the upload size of your website, you should move to your Admin Area of your WordPress, select the ‘Media’. Select ‘Add New’. From there you should be able to see the upload size of your website.

You can either select ‘Add New’ seen on the smaller page at the side or from the larger page. Both lead to the same goal but if you select the one on the larger page, it is done in a way to help you upload files from your system. 

Either way, you should be able to see the max upload size of your website. 

You can also selectively check it through the site health page. It is also quite simple. You would simply move into the info page of the site health of your website. From there, you should be able to sight ‘Media Handling’. Click on it and you should be able to view your site’s max upload size.

Study the image to understand more.

Best Practices to employ to increase the max upload size in WordPress

There are some easy ways you can employ to help you up the upload size of your website. The size limit in WordPress can be said to be an obstacle to numerous users whose basics of creating the website in the first place is to share contents that are large sized. They are however obstructed by WordPress restrictions.

However, these are three simple and easy ways to help you increase the upload size of your website. This is categorized from others because it is simple and easy to implement. The other ways you can achieve this involve the use of codes and other technical things. 

You should be able to apply the highlighted ways to achieve a higher upload size for your website. It is also advisable to take on this method before moving on to the ones involving codes and other technical aspects. Though you do not have to strictly follow this, you just have to figure out the one that works for you.

So let’s begin!

Contact your web host provider 

This can be said to be an easier alternative to increasing the upload size of your website. You can easily contact your host provider, state your issues to them, and allow them to proffer a solution to it. They should have the means to solve this. We advise that this should be done first before you begin with other technical alternatives.

And by chance, if you don’t have a hosting provider, you can look up the best web host providers for WordPress on their official website. 

The host you choose can go a long way in creating an impact on your site either positively or negatively. So ensure you choose one that suits your website needs or requirements. 

Multisite 

This entails managing multiple sites with just a single WordPress installation. This type of website is made easy to fix the upload size issue because it allows WordPress to run the site individually on the same installation but performs quite efficiently. 

Although, these sites would have their own media repository but they all share the same resource. 

Here, all you have to do is navigate through the Admin Area, into Network > Settings.

You should be able to see the ‘Max upload file size’

There you can easily change the numbers in the box. 

It should be noted however that you can not exceed the allocated upload size stated by the server of your website. It has to be within what is already stipulated. This method proves useful when you have an upload size lower than that allocated to your website.

Use of FTP/SFTP

You can upload large files directly to your WordPress website using FTP/SFTP. This is a very helpful tool that allows users to upload files from the system to the server or download files from the server to the system, and other useful implements.

So, you can also utilize the use of FTP/SFTP to help upload a large file to your website. Although we do recommend the use of SFTP because it is more secure. 

Another alternative to FTP/SFTP is the Add From Server Plugin. This is in case of any circumstances that prevent you from using FTP/SFTP.

Use of plugins 

This is a great alternative to the use of code or programming languages to change the upload size of your website. They are quite efficient but they require strategic steps, to the extent that if it is not installed or operated rightly, it might not just work for you.

There are numerous WordPress plugins created to help increase the upload size. Some examples are; Upload Larger Plugins, Tuxedo Big File Uploads, and so on.

However, we are going to take on the Increase Max Upload Filesize plugin. It is highly recommended because of its effectiveness. 

To use this plugin, you have to search and install it by navigating through your WordPress Dashboard, then Plugins, and lastly Add New

Search for the plugin afterward.

When found, install and activate correctly.

Open the plugin and change the number given which represents your website upload size.

After the change, don’t forget to save the modification.

It’s really that simple. 

Techniques that can be utilized to increase the max upload size of your website in WordPress

We’ve discussed the basics of this content and also stipulated some easier ways in which you can apply to your site in order to solve the upload size issue. However, there are times whereby you may come across a mulish case or a troublesome host. At this point, none of the preceding alternatives would do any good to you. You can therefore apply these technical methods. 

Although these methods are technical in nature, they do not require special technical knowledge to understand it. And this guide has been created as detailed as possible. So all you have to do is read, understand, and apply the practices to your website. Most even involve just copying the code to your website. 

So sit back and apply the ones practicable to your website and ensure you follow them appropriately to attain your desired result.

1. Use of .htaccess files 

Many of us might not be familiar with this but .htaccess is like the stronghold of your website. It basically controls your website performance and it acts as a channel to communicate with your host provider.

And you can also use this channel to increase the max upload size of your website in WordPress.  

However, you have to make sure that your server is utilizing Apache. You have to also ensure that the PHP of your website is in Apache mode as well.

Therefore, you can copy these codes and add them to the .htaccess file of your website.

1. php_value upload_max_filesize 32M

2. php_value post_max_size 32M

3. php_value memory_limit 64M

4. php_value max_execution_time 300

5. php_value max_input_time 300

To do this, you have to connect your server through an FTP client and locate the WordPress installation file. Afterward, you would open up .htaccess through a notepad and then paste the copied codes. However, ensure that you’ve made hidden files visible because .htaccess is a hidden file.

You can edit the code numbers, fix your desired numbers to the one suitable for your website. You should note that number (4) or (5) is quoted in seconds, so you have to decide which is preferable to your site. 

This techniques are a way of attaining WordPress Optimization.

2. Use of Nginx

Nginx, like Apache, is a web server that is variously utilized for performance optimization in WordPress. So you can also implement the use of Nginx to increase the upload size of your website. These procedures may however vary depending on the host server you are using on your site.

So for this step, it would require you to search for your php.ini file in the Nginx server. Modify the upload max file size and the post max file size to your desired size and save the modification. 

Afterward, in the Nginx. conf file, you need to modify the max upload file as well. You need to set this appropriately at the location, server, and http.

Save modification and restart Nginx to apply changes.

You can employ this code to reload – sudo service nginx reload

3. Make changes to your php.ini file 

This is also a great technique to allow you to increase the max upload size of your website. This technique works great for different users and it’s simple to apply. 

Now, all you have to do is search for the php.ini file in your root directory. You can utilize the use of a file manager in your host’s dashboard at the c-panel to help search for it. Or as an alternative, you can use FTP/SFTP. 

Search for the file, and if not found, you can create another php.ini file.

However, the way it goes, add this code to the file; 

upload_max_filesize = 10M

post_max_size = 10M

max_execution_time = 300

Copy and add these codes to it. And you can try out 64M instead as an alternative. 

4.  Make use of user.ini files

 Sometimes, you might not be able to achieve the desired result with the phi.ini files. There are times where your server configures your website to take cognizance of user.ini files rather than phi.ini files.

However, both require the same process for an increase in the max upload size in WordPress.

Locate the user.ini file in your root directory. Employ the use of FPT or the file manager app of your host’s c panel dashboard. 

If you are unable to locate it, then you can create a user.ini file. 

Add these codes to it

upload_max_filesize = 10M

post_max_size = 10M

max_execution_time = 300

As seen, the code and process are similar to that of phi.ini. 

This method has proven to be quite useful to individuals that employ this method. Therefore, endeavor to follow it systematically and appropriately. 

5. Make changes with the use of WordPress themes to increase max upload size

If it’s more comfortable for you, you can increase the max upload size in WordPress by changing your theme. Doing so would change the value of the current upload size of your website into a default value. Then you would add these codes to the functions.php of your theme.

@ini_set( ‘upload_max_size’ , ’64M’ );

@ini_set( ‘post_max_size’, ’64M’);

@ ini_set( ‘max_execution_time’, ‘300’ );

You can set it to your preferred size from the code. However, it goes, ensures the code is inputted correctly to the functions.php file of your WordPress theme to change the upload size of your website.

How to confirm the max upload size of your website after applying the given techniques.

After taking up any of these techniques, you can check and confirm if the technique was successfully implemented on your website. For this, you would have to follow the same procedure as explained before. Move into the Media Library of your website dashboard in WordPress.

Confirm if it has been successfully changed.

If it has, congratulations to you then. You can unrestrictedly upload files, or themes, or plugins as you please. This entails that although there is still a limitation as to things you can upload on the site you have a wider spectrum than the previous size.

However, if not successful, you can try out other techniques which you have not tried out and apply them accordingly on your website.

Conclusion 

These are the varying ways you can increase the max upload size of your website on WordPress. These distinct ways can be tasking and perhaps difficult to apply accordingly, so you have to figure out which you could work on and apply it on your website appropriately. 

As earlier stated, the reason why there’s a limitation in the first place is to prevent issues that could reduce WordPress optimization of websites and ensure that WordPress distinct features satisfy user’s needs and also user’s convenience. 

Therefore we can say that WordPress is a Versatile Content Management System that provides extendable features that can be easily harnessed by the user for various individual reasons. Even the WordPress Community is a great avenue to seek answers to any issue related to WordPress that you require to be solved. 

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WooCommerce vs. Shopify: Which Is Best for Your eCommerce store? https://sparklewpthemes.com/woocommerce-vs-shopify-which-is-best-for-your-ecommerce-store/ https://sparklewpthemes.com/woocommerce-vs-shopify-which-is-best-for-your-ecommerce-store/#respond Thu, 02 Sep 2021 18:37:15 +0000 https://sparklewpthemes.com/?p=145419 There are so many blogs and guides out there dictating between WooCommerce and Shopify and trying to state which is better for you to utilize on your eCommerce site. But there are so many things you have to consider before deciding, and we would also let you know the one we pick and why we choose it!

This is a common showdown among users who are confused as to which to pick. Whether you’re a beginner or long-term user, looking at redesigning your website or want to commence a bandwagon for your product or content. Then stick around till the end and know how much impact the right platform can do on your site.

We are going to dive in deep, strategically covering up the necessary points that would aid your knowledge and reading. 

So, if you’re in search of a simplified yet detailed understanding of both platforms. Then stick around, read to the end, and let us know what you think in the comment section. 

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce

So, for the better understanding of readers, most especially newbies who are inexperienced with the whole concept of WooCommerce. Or are wondering why they come across the word so much but have no idea what it means. Long-term users, on the other hand, can just follow the overview in a like-mind.

WooCommerce is not exactly an eCommerce site but the significant feature it offers as an open-source plugin for all sites to make it function properly as an eCommerce site.

WooCommerce kicked off in 2011, but now, it is the most popular eCommerce platform utilized by over three million users on their WordPress site. This plugin is installed and activated on the website. 

One distinguishable feature between WooCommerce and Shopify is that the former is distinguished to be a natural platform for WordPress and it is flexible and convenient for users to modify their site to their discretion since it is self-hosted. By self-hosted, it means the store files remain in a single server that is embedded in it, unlike Shopify. 

What is Shopify?

Shopify was launched in 2004, but unlike WooCommerce, the former is not an open-source platform but runs powerful features provided to its user at a monthly fee and commission. But aside from this, it makes up for this by providing users with reliable and user-friendly components that are variously employed to run their eCommerce store.

Another notable feature is the fact that Shopify employs a user-friendly nature that gives room for beginners and individuals with no technical skills. However, the utilization means that your store would run by Shopify software which although is wide but limited. Therefore, you can only make modifications that are permitted by the software, unlike WooCommerce which is self-hosted. 

Trend Overview

Although this is not a major factor for you to decide which is best for your site. But since we are looking at a lot of grounds in this article, we are going to cover the market share trend and figure out the popularity level of both platforms.

As claimed by BuiltWith, it states that as of 2018, 21% of websites employ the use of WooCommerce compared to Shopify that uses 18% of users’ websites. And this research was carried out on the top one million sites on the web.

But with more critical analysis, the research done with other top ten thousand websites stipulates that WooCommerce is 17% behind Shopify and it is greatly utilized by top authority companies. WooCommerce is seen as one of the top alternatives to Shopify but the differences give room for both platforms to grow and perhaps outgrow. 

You should remember that WooCommerce was earlier launched compared to Shopify that has been established for quite a while. The milestone Woocommerce has reached should not be overlooked. 

WooCommerce vs Shopify

WooCommerce being blue and Shopify being red. We can see the steady growth between both platforms as it gradually passes over the years. And at the end of the trend, there’s a slight increase by Shopify.

And though this is not a reason to choose one over the other. It’s preferable you gain more insight into the features they provide and choose the one comfortable and convenient for your eCommerce store.

However, before moving into the features comparison, let’s take a look at this breakdown. 

Comparism Shopify WooCommerce
Number of Users using the platform.Source: Builtwith1,300,000 plus3,300,000 plus
Installation ProcessDirect and EasyComplex and Simple
Themes AllocationOver 60(Free + Paid)Infinite 
Price Range
Trial Section14-days free trial without the use of credit cards.NO
Sales EnterpriseFrom 0.5% – 2%NO
Prices paid monthly Shopify Lite: $9/monthly
Basic Shopify: $29/monthly
Shopify: $79/monthly 
Advanced Shopify: $299/monthly
FREE
Properties 
HTML Compatibility Yes Yes 
BlogsLimitedYes
Email NewsletterYes Yes, but subject to a plugin
SEOYes Yes 
Mobile VersionYes Subject to the theme
Product Editor
SupportYes Yes, with an active community of users
StorageUnlimited Limited depending on the server
E-marketing Options
Inventory ManagementYes Yes 
Payment GatewaysYes Yes 
Connectivity to the MarketplaceYes Yes 
CSV Catalog ImportYes Yes 
Offline Payments TrackingYes Yes 
Size of the Catalogue OptionYes Yes 

What to look out for when choosing between WooCommerce and Shopify? 

Picking the best from both eCommerce platforms can be herculean because both platforms provide users with lots of indisputable features. These features are best used by users to improve their eCommerce store, promote awareness, and obtain a better rank on the search result page. 

So most users are either eager to choose the best for their store or would just want one that perfectly suits their taste, budget, and convenience. 

Therefore if you want to know which to pick between WooCommerce/Shopify, stick around, and let’s discuss the factors or grounds you should consider before deciding the one that best satisfies your needs. 

1. Installation Process

Due to popular opinion, yes, the installation process of both platforms does matter. 

For WooCommerce, it takes the process of installation and activation and a level of knowledge on WordPress sites (this is pertinent where you have barely any knowledge as to the connection of your site to WooCommerce). 

WooCommerce installation package

The WooCommerce installation, fortunately, comes with a guide to take you through the whole process of connecting your site to it. So, don’t feel discouraged because it’s straightforward and only takes a few minutes of your time. And in addition, there are provisions for blogs, tutorials, and the WordPress Site community who would come up with discussions as solution to issues on one’s sites. 

However, you have to go through the process of installation and activation of the plugin, installation and configuration of WordPress, and other basic information such as the tax payment, payment gateway, shipping features, and a host of others. This has to be done accordingly before you can use WooCommerce on your eCommerce store. 

A step-by-step guide on the installation process of WordPress sites with other related plugins can be found here.

For Shopify, this is undoubtedly more simple compared to the WooCommerce installation process. All you have to do is create a Shopify account, sync an existing domain name or buy a new one, and finally set up the payment getaway or if you already have an existing Shopify payment gateway process, then it’s easier for you to evade that step. 

2. Practicability

This is also a good factor to consider when comparing both platforms. Now, we would want to figure out which is practical enough for your understanding, that is, easy to use and manage. 

With the aim of giving your visitors the best website experience, you would want to choose a platform that can be easily managed and operated to suit your convenience. Here, you are tasked with making online deals, managing customers feedback, vendor issues, and a host of others. You should ascertain that the platform suits your eCommerce store and can therefore match your work line. 

Here, WooCommerce wins this round because it provides features that help users to simplify their site’s setting to fit their convenience. For example, the eCommerce payment processing feature. 

3. Level of control over site’s functionality

Another thing to look out for is the level of control you would have over your website over time. You would want to choose that which is flexible and administer a level of website control to the user. 

Here, we have WooCommerce as the clear winner. 

Shopify gives its user some level of control of the website functionality but it is a limited variation, meaning that it’s not a self-hosted site and can not assert the same flexibility that WooCommerce provides.

With WooCommerce, you can;

  • Customize your theme. There are unlimited themes to choose from(both free and paid).
  • Customize your domain code 
  • Extend your WooCommerce feature with additional plugins designated particularly for WooCommerce. Amazing right! There are lots of WooCommerce extensions that can aid your WordPress site. To mention a few, we have; WOOCS – Currency Switcher, Stripe and/or PayPal, Custom Product Tabs, Fancy Product Designer, Beeketing, WooCommerce Memberships, and a host of others. There are thousands of them out there. 

You can visit our blog site for more tips on how you can effectively employ WooCommerce to increase sales on your site. 

In comparison, Shopify offers limited flexibility to its users. This does not imply that it has no flexible content that it provides to its users but is limited. Like the product variation restriction placed in Shopify. Unlike WooCommerce that has no restriction, Shopify restricts its product variation to 100 variations for each product and three total product options. And this is not defined by the plan you are on. 

Shopify product variation

Apart from that, Shopify allows users to customize their HTML but only applies to their homepage and not all pages. 

So, Shopify allows a measure of control of the website functionality by the user but in comparison, it is unlike WooCommerce. 

4. Extension to Third Party Platforms 

Another factor to consider is if the eCommerce platform you want to set up for your store is not limited to just its features but can extend its thrilling features to external platforms. Things you have to consider here are things like if the platform allows the extension to other social media tools, and email marketing tools as well. 

These tools are to run side by side with the platform chosen in your eCommerce store. You might not be able to get it all with WooCommerce/Shopify but with the extension, you can get it all.

WooCommerce, like earlier discussed, there are over 50,000 extensions made available for WordPress websites to add. And we also have MailChimp; a third-party integration of WooCommerce that further aids email marketing. You can find more third-party extensions of WooCommerce here.

Shopify runs an app store with about 500 applications but if you want your eCommerce store with more admissible extensions, WooCommerce is a better choice.

5.  Customization

For this category, it’s hard deciding which is the winner in the WooCommerce vs. Shopify showdown. You should know that the theme and design play a major role in attracting your website visitors. Some visitors use the website theme and design as a reason to stay on the site. 

So, you have to buckle up and figure out the theme that matches your product and is capable of driving sales to your site. 

Shopify offers over sixty curated themes that can match your product website. In comparison, WooCommerce has lots of thrilling themes, and therefore, the user has a wide range of choices to pick.

Storefront is the official store for WooCommerce themes. 

To know exactly what you want, there is a detailed blog that discusses WooCommerce themes and picking that which you need for your eCommerce store. 

6. Payment method 

A major factor to also consider. Although both eCommerce platforms support lots of payment methods and even the popular ones. 

WooCommerce has a lot of support for major payment methods and even minor ones as well. They have over seventy payment gateway options made available for you.

some WooCommerce payment gateways

The major difference between WooCommerce vs. Shopify in the payment option is the fact that Shopify charged up to 2% extra charge on external payment gateway in addition to the normal payment gateway fee. 

7. Hosting Option

You should also try looking at the hosting features in Woocommerce and Shopify.

For Shopify, you don’t get the alternative of choosing another host, unlike WooCommerce. Here, your site would run under the Shopify server.

This is unlike WooCommerce where you get to pick the hosting provider of your site from a wide variety of host providers and subsequently you get to choose the host features such as the size or the bandwidth and other considerable things.

You have to determine the host plan you want to go for, pick the one suitable for your website and matches your budget size. You don’t want to pick a host that might fluctuate on days when you’re running a sale or special event on your website. This is why the option to choose your server is a good thing which is admissible only under WooCommerce.

And you can see how to improve the speed of your site and what may cause the slowness here

8. Maintenance Option

For this category, maintenance is wholly operated by the users unlike Shopify since it is not a self-hosted platform.

WooCommerce gives control and ownership to the user, therefore, the job to secure and maintain your website is given to the users. This is why the web host provider you choose has a great role to play in your website’s maintenance.

Your eCommerce store should have a good hosting provider because this decreases the level of maintenance you have to uphold on your site. This does not delimit the level of security and reliability which WooCommerce provides for its users.

9. Cost of Operation

Another factor to consider is the cost of operating WooCommerce or Shopify. The thing is, it is hard to ascertain which has a higher cost of operation since it depends on the package run by the user. For instance, the premium theme and plugins for WooCommerce, as well as the premium theme and apps for Shopify. This varies accordingly and can affect the cost of operation differently.

WooCommerce has a static price for the domain, hosting, and payment gateway. Shopify is also accountable and has a static monthly payment price that covers most activities done on your site. But this can also be affected by extra fee charges like the one placed on the external payment gateway on Shopify.

10. Multilingual Support

You would be surprised to find out that Shopify is not a great option for a multilingual store. So if your eCommerce store requires communication or connectivity with the world outside your location then you have to restrategize.

To enable Shopify multilingual support, you have to install Langify but have to pay $17.50 every month to continue enjoying its functionality.

Pretty high right! In a year, you would have spent over $200 just to enable the multilingual feature of your site with Shopify. This is aside from other charges you’re still going to make for your site with Shopify.

A preferable alternative is WooCommerce. It provides a multilingual feature with the installment of WPML.  And it is priced at $29 for the first year and $21 for the preceding years, or you can pay once at a commendable fee of $195.

Do the calculations.

11. Support system

Another factor to examine is the support system of WooCommerce and Shopify. Although they are versatile, there might come a time where you would need the support system for any issues.

For WooCommerce, it’s an open-source platform with no formal support system. But this is supplemented with a host of other mediums such as blogs, tutorials, and even the WordPress active community where various issues are collectively discussed and solutions are given.

There is no official support channel indeed but this does not seem to be a hassle because there are other means by which users can easily obtain information on a certain WooCommerce issue smoothly.

For Shopify, there’s provision for an official support medium. There is provision for emails, chats, or you can even try to get hold of their social media handle to communicate with them, and of course there’s the option of hiring a Shopify specialist to help with an issue in your eCommerce store.

12. Dropshipping Feature

For people who are new to the dropshipping feature, it allows eCommerce stores to be an intermediary between the actual supplier and the buyer. This permits the retailer to hold no inventory but displays the goods or product on the site and acts as an intermediary between the buyer and the actual supplier.

Both WooCommerce and Shopify make provision for the dropshipping features. This is to the level that they allow add ons and extension plugins and apps that support the drop-shipping feature on your site.

So I guess both platforms win this round.

Our top Pick- WooCommerce vs. Shopify

There are various reasons as to why we should pick WooCommerce over Shopify and vice versa. But it is pertinent for you to note that Shopify can be termed to be a storefront with product pages, so if you want more classical pages about your store, then WooCommerce should be your top pick.

We are choosing WooCommerce because of its;

  • Flexibility
  • User’s Controllable features
  • Customization
  • Multilingual support at a low-cost range, and
  • Reliability. Some products are banned from the Shopify product page. You can find more information here.

Conclusion

Our top pick is in no way degrading the excellent feature that Shopify provides to its users. The various factors discussed are a way of showing how much impact both platforms have on the world. But we are picking WooCommerce for the top five reasons stipulated in the preceding subheading.

If you have other reasons, do let us know.

However, choices in this showdown may differ, there are other blogs out there that pick Shopify over WooCommerce, this shows how both platforms provide excellent features to cause such an uproar.

So, take a step back, check the factors discussed again and figure out the one that would best suit your site.

You can also take on a trial period for each platform. But decide this knowing fully well that it is technical going through the migration process of your website for both sides.

If you’re in search of simplicity, Shopify is good for you, whereas if you seek ownership plus flexibility, then WooCommerce is the best option for you. But at the end of the day, it’s all up to you.

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Google Site Verification: 9 Ways To Verify Your Site With Search Console https://sparklewpthemes.com/google-site-verification-verify-your-site-with-search-console/ https://sparklewpthemes.com/google-site-verification-verify-your-site-with-search-console/#respond Sun, 29 Aug 2021 05:58:20 +0000 https://sparklewpthemes.com/?p=145237 Do you want to manage your site properly? It’s, therefore, crucial to add Google Search Console to your site on WordPress and equally verify it. 

This was formerly known as “Google Webmaster Tools”. It is an effective tool for users ranging from SEOs, bloggers, marketing professionals, designers, and many other internet users. The name has only changed but the application still offers the tools, even with more advanced features. 

With the Search Console, users can know how their site visitors view their site, which page has the most views, as well as, if their visitors are viewing their site from a desktop device or mobile device, how the visitors got into the site, and many more. These pieces of information additionally help the user understand how to conveniently use his or her site to help the visitor find more glamour; which in this case, satisfies both the user and the visitor. 

It is pertinent to get your site verified if you want to add your site to Google, present sitemaps, and a host of others. And it’s advisable for every site owner to get their site verified. It would save users a whole lot of trouble and would make it easier to promote your site accordingly on the Google Search rank. 

Let’s begin with how we can make life easier with the verification for site owners. 

5 reasons why you need to get Google Site Verification 

Majorly, site owners whether beginners or long-term owners, do not see the persisting need to get their site verified, especially the ones on WordPress site. It is once again advised and recommended that you get your site verified by the Search Console. 

This comes with a lot of great benefits, which is why it is highly recommended for site owners who would yearn for a better searched ranked website or a verified and owned website. These are among the varying benefits. 

The reasons why you should get your site verified are;

To build confidence and trust in your visitors. Millions of web pages out there have passed through the website verification channel to get their site verified. Therefore, it is becoming rampant and important as well. So, imagine how your visitors would view your website if it is discovered that it is unverified by Google Search Console. Whereas, verifying your website, would reassure them that they are in a verified and subsequently, a legitimate site. This can consequently be a great turnaround for you and a means to a great end.
To effectively manage your products or goods on your website, and can, therefore, claim ownership in case of any online shoplifting or website theft. This further builds your site’s reputation. This is not limited to products or goods alone but inclusively, website designs, content, and a host of others.
To productively claim your site in case of domain hijacking or domain theft. Since your website is verified, claiming ownership in such a case can be made less challenging. Therefore it serves as a great opportunity for users to claim their website. And this does not just entail their website alone but also the things that encompasses that website. 
Do you yearn for a better search rank for your website? Take the first step and get a Google Site Verification. It’s a few-minute task with attainable benefits to attain a better search rank on Google web pages. 
To effectively manage the information and conveniently give your users a better experience on your website. This can also be a great way to harness the information into reshaping your site or knowing where you need to work on and so on. This can further help you drive traffic to your website.

Now that we have discussed the various reasons why you need to get your website verified. We can move on to different ways to verify your website. These ways have been broken down and explained to aid your understanding. 

So sit back and let’s move on to the main course of action!

9 simplified ways to verify your site by Google Search Console

The importance of verifying your site has been explicitly discussed. However, you might think it is a herculean task verifying your site. We want to reassure you that it is not difficult at all, it is simply strategic, that is, with just some steps you can get your site verified. 

There are numerous ways to get your site verified; either manually or through some SEO tools or plugins. You just have to choose the one easy and workable for you, follow the steps appropriately, and verify your site. 

To get started on these steps or ways, you need to have a Google Search Console account. You can sign up or log in here. Follow the instructions given, proffer information demanded, open your account, and get started on the following ways to verify your site.

1. HTML Tag Method

This information is in accordance with the WordPress verification format. Therefore this method dictates ways to verify your site on WordPress by Search Console.

Once you have opened your account, it would request for the site’s URL to ensure Property type.

Note, there are distinct methods to verify your site. You can take up the URL prefix verification method or the domain name method. Either way, it is recommended to take up the URL prefix method because of its flexibility and it creates more options for users.

Domain name or URL prefix  for Google Saerch Console

So you need to proffer your WordPress URL prefix details. If you’re not quite sure of it or do not have the information at hand, move into your WordPress admin dashboard, navigate between Settings>General.

WordPress General Settings page

You should note there’s a difference between;

https://www.wordpress.com and https://wordpress.com

They are two different entities on Google. So ensure you proffer the right ‘Site Address URL’ or copy and paste it into the property type of the Google Search Console account.

Afterward, select continue and move to verify your website’s ownership.

You can achieve this through different means. Here, we would discuss the HTML tag method.

This is by copying the HTML meta tag code and pasting it on WordPress.

Google Search Console Ownership page

Here, you can make use of any WordPress plugins to link the HTML tag to your WordPress site. But more details on this would be explicitly discussed later in this guide.

You should note however that the archaic style of copying the HTML tag to the heaader.php of the theme on your website is not advisable because in most cases, the HTML tag gets deactivated or does not get connected to your website anymore, upon an update or change operated on your website.

Coupled with this, Google periodically runs a check on websites for the HTML tag, and this could lead to restriction to the site’s data if the tag is not found on your website, and subsequently states that your site is not verified.

2. HTML Verification File

After following the steps enumerated for “HTML Tag Method ” up to the point of confirming ownership; this is where both methods differ.

Successfully verify your site through this method by downloading the Verification file of the HTML and uploading it through a cPanel file software or if you can conductively navigate your way with FTP or SFTP which would permit you to connect the HTML file to the root directory of your site.

HTML file page on Google Search Console

To achieve this, you need to access the HTML File on the Search Console dashboard, this would however be shown after you include your site, it would bring it to your screen as a recommendable method to download in order to give effect to the verification.

Download and upload it to the root directory of your website through either method as discussed above.

Once you’ve accomplished the preceding step, that is uploading the downloaded file to the root folder of your site, revert to the Search Console, and turn your site “Verify”. You would see it if you complete these steps accordingly. The Google Site Verification process would then look for the file in your server, and subsequently verify your site.

3. Verification by DNS 

Another great option is verification by the Domain Name Provider. This is a great advantage for website owners with large varsity to claim verification which subsequently covers their main domain, subdomains, as well as other associated domains linked to their website. 

Users can verify their site through this method by navigating through the Search Console dashboard > Manage Site. From here you would locate the place to verify the site, click on it, and locate verification by “Domain Name Provider” either under recommendable or alternative methods. 

Either way, when you click on it, you should have something like this.

Copy DNS TXT record on Google Search Console

Following the steps, now all you should do is input the DNS TXT record, you can copy and paste it to your site on WordPress. 

To do this, locate the DNS record on your site through My sites > Upgrades > Domains > Change Name Server > DNS record.

Once you’ve located it, copy the TXT record to your site and save changes. 

Come back to DNS on Google Search Console and “Verify” as stipulated in the image. 

Take into account that these methods may vary depending on your Domain Provider. Therefore, you might not have a word-for-word guide for this method. 

4. Google Analytics Method

Another impressive option to verify your site by Google is by getting your site connected to Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is a great web analytic tool generated by Google. It bestows users with so many benefits if it is installed on their site.

Moving on, to verify your site through this method, you have to have the asynchronous tracking code already connected to your site. This can be added through a plugin or manually,  whichever the user chooses to use. And you also have to make sure that the tracking code is at the “Head” section of your homepage, not the ‘body’.

Once all this has been confirmed, move into the Search Console dashboard, and click on Google Analytics under any method. But you would most probably find it in ‘Other Verification Method’.

Google Analytics

And simply “Verify”.

This method is one of the easiest for users. It immediately verifies your WordPress site after following these simple steps.

5.  Google Tag Manager 

Verification is also attained in the same likeness to Google Analytics. Your site would immediately be verified once you’ve performed all that needs to be done accordingly. 

This method has been found to be more complex than Google Analytics because some users do not even have to properly implement it before it functions properly on their site, most especially paid advertisers who utilize Tag Manager widely on a single web property. 

All you have to do here is expand the “Google Tag Manager” under “Other Verification Methods”.

Google Tag Manager

And simply “Verify” afterward. 

6. SEOPress

This is an easy, efficient, and powerful SEO plugin provided for users to harness for the improvement of their WordPress site. And in addition, it can also be a great implementation tool to get your site verified appropriately. 

Here, all you need to do is go into your WordPress dashboard, and navigate through the SEOPress > Advanced > and thereafter, you should be able to locate the Google Search Verification section at the bottom of the page. 

Google Site Verification box
WordPress plugin

As we have earlier discussed, get your Google Verification code, and enter it into the box as indicated in the “Google Site Verification” box, as provided in the image sample.

Afterward, click on ‘Save Changes’. 

You can add any other information if required. 

After you’ve saved the changes made, SEOPress would automatically link your pages with the HTML tags. 

And finally, verify once completed appropriately. 

7. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is also an easy way to verify your site on Google Search Console. It’s a popularly known and used plugin for the majority of WordPress users. 

To execute this method, you should first attain your Google site’s verification code under ‘HTML tag’. This has been discussed earlier under the HTML tag method.

HTML tag on Google Search Console

Above all, get the meta tag and move into your WordPress dashboard. 

When this is completed, manage your website by navigating through SEO > General. If these steps are properly followed, you should be able to view the Webmaster Tools Section. 

Google site verification code on Yoast SEO
A wordPress plugin

Input the verification code into the highlighted box and save changes. 

After you’ve completed this, go back to the Search Console Account and Verify your site. 

At this stage, you have successfully connected your WordPress site with Search Console and can now enjoy all the gains that come with it as well. 

8. Site Kit by Google Plugin

This is an official and free tool powered by Google. And this can also serve as a medium or way to verify your site accordingly with Google Search Console. 

First things first, download and install the plugin on your system.

After activation of the plugin, sign in to your Google account. You can select which account to use for the sign-in, this applies to cases whereby users have more than one account.

To achieve the preceding step, navigate through Site Kit and then Dashboard

WordPress plugin

Reaching this stage, Google would give rise to a connection of your site to Search Console to properly verify ownership. 

Sign in with Google

Utilizing Site Kit, however, gives rise to some access to things on your website which Google would inform users before proceeding with the setup. 

Give access

Click on allow. 

verify site ownership

So, it subsequently verifies your website ownership through the site’s HTML code. 

Proceeding, it seeks access to some website or account data. All you have to do is allow/proceed. 

A verified site

After completing these steps appropriately, you should see this congratulatory message on your screen confirming the verification of your website, and other information would be provided. 

These steps are simple to implement. If you do not see the congratulation page, then you must have missed a step or not have followed it appropriately. Either way, you can just go back and repeat these steps.

And if you see the congratulation page, you can move to your WordPress dashboard, you should be able to see the Search Console tab among other tabs. This further aids your confirmation. 

9. Rank Math SEO Plugin

Also requires a simple strategy to verify your website using this plugin. This plugin helps create distinct optimization techniques for numerous WordPress sites. 

In this case, to use this method, you have to have your Search Console verification code. 

After installation and activation of this plugin, you can verify your website by logging into the dashboard and navigating through the General Settings > Webmaster Tools.

At such an instance, you should be able to see the highlighted boxes on your screen. 

WordPress Plugin

 Now, all you have to do is input the verification code into the box provided for it.

And save the modification. 

Finally, go back to Search Console and verify your website under ‘HTML tag’. 

And done!

Your website is equally verified and verified by Google Search Console. 

Conclusion 

A detailed guide on ways in which users can utilize appropriately to verify their site right from the comfort of their home. These steps are straightforward and to some extent, easy to implement. 

However, you can ponder on which method to use. Here, we are considering using the manual method to verify your site, or to use the easier method- through plugins. You should remember that some of these methods require some items or code or HTML or some sort for its implementation. 

Therefore, go over the lesson, and pick that which suits you while also considering your website, convenience, accessibility, and implementation. 

Once verified, it can not be changed. Therefore whichever method you decide on, leave it like that because Google conducts a periodic check for Google Site Verification. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Is Google Analytics and Google Search Console the same?

Although they are both powered by Google and offer immense benefits to users, they’re however not the same. In simpler terms, Google Analytics is a tool that shows the data account on a user’s visitor activities on the user website. This is mostly used for marketing purposes. 

Whereas, Search Console depicts information and data on your site’s performance and how it is indexed. Therefore, how search engines see your site. 

2. How long does the verification on the site last?

The verification, once done, lasts for as long as Google can confirm the verification because periodic checks are most times operated on the website. 

If Google can not confirm the verification, the affected user would be notified and within a specified amount of time, if not fixed, then the verification would expire. 

3. Which method is the best for Google Site Verification?

There is no particular method that is the best. It is up to the user to decide on which method can be effectively performed on the WordPress site. And with other things considered, users should be able to take up one of the methods and appropriately apply it on the site. 

For more information on this, check Search Console help.

4. Do I need to verify my site as a blogger?

As long as you own a website, this verification is for you. Regardless of whether you’re new or a long-term site owner, a generalist or a specialist, google verification is advantageous to every site owner. So whether you’re a blogger or site administrator or WordPress developer, your site should be equally verified by Google. 

5. Does the Search Console keep my data?

Yes. Google Search Console stores users’ data for sixteen months.

6. Does the Search Console help with SEO?

Definitely! That’s the whole point of the data-driven information and statistics. It is automatically designed to help you rank higher for the Search engine results.

7. Is HTML meta tag compulsory for every method of verification? 

There are few methods that do not require the HTML tag before the verification can be performed. We have the Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Domain Name Provider (DNS).

You can read the article for more information on the process of implementation.

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12 Best WordPress Plugins For Loading Websites Faster https://sparklewpthemes.com/wordpress-speed-plugin/ https://sparklewpthemes.com/wordpress-speed-plugin/#respond Tue, 15 Sep 2020 01:38:09 +0000 https://sparklewpthemes.com/?p=102255 WordPress is the open-source software to create beautiful websites, apps, and blogs. With its powerful features, WordPress is extending its application rapidly with over 35% of the web today using WordPress.

Speed is an extremely important aspect of your website. Everyone wants to know the secret behind a fast loading WordPress site. It is one of the factors that search engines usees to determine your website’s ranking.

A performance plugin helps to maintain the speed of your website. There are different plugins designed to make your website optimized for faster load times.

Now the question is: Which is the best Plugin for WordPress speed optimization?

Here, we have come up with 12 best plugins that could help you load your website remarkably faster.

WP rocket

WP rocket plugin

WP Rocket is the world’s most powerful caching plugin. With a wide range of features and automatic optimization options, any class of users can use it effectively.

It applies more than 80% of performance optimization practices. WP rocket comes with a wide range of options like lazy loading for your images, XML sitemaps preloading, CSS and JS modification, Google Fonts optimization, and many more.

With these optimization features the performance of your website can scale a new height.

Features:

  • Minimal Configuration
  • Images on request
  • Page caching
  • User-friendly

W3 Total Cache

w3 total cache plugin

W3 Total Cache (W3TC) is the fastest and most complete WordPress plugin that improves the SEO and user experience of your site by increasing website performance.

It reduces load times with astonishing features like content delivery network (CDN) integration, improving server performance, and other latest best practices.


With over 1 million-plus active installations this plugin is the most mandatory plugin for any websites. It is a total performance solution for optimizing your website.

Caching of database objects, minifies CSS, JavaScript, HTML with granular control, browser caching, accelerated mobile page support are some of the unique features available in this plugin.

Features:

  • Compatible with shared hosting, dedicated servers.
  • Transparent CDN management.
  • Improves the search engine ranking.
  • Reduces download times.
  • Improves page load time.
  • Significant bandwidth saving.

WP Smush

wp smush plugin

WP Smush is an award-winning, crowd favorite image optimization plugin. It detects incorrect image size, resizes images and improves the Google page speed powerfully.

With over 1 million-plus active installations it is 100% free WordPress image smusher. With super smush i.e. double times compression WP Smush optimizes unlimited images and boosts up your website speed.

Features:

  • Compatible with nearly all themes, page builder, and library plugin.
  • Lossless compression.
  • Lazy image load.
  • Preserves image quality despite compression
  • Backup original image.

Cloudflare

cloudflare plugin


Cloudflare is a widely used WordPress plugin that accelerates page speeds, improves search engine activities and protects against DDoS attacks as well as WordPress-specific vulnerabilities.

Nearly 30% of all WordPress sites are using this plugin as it increases sites performance by over 60% and concerns on security as well.  You can easily change settings for cache purge, security level and image optimization being online.

Cloudflare drastically improves the performance of the website with minimal configuration. With over 200k plus active installations this plugin is being the mandatory WordPress plugin in WordPress sites.

Features:

  • One-click setup.
  • Web application firewall(WAF) rule sets.
  • Automatic cache purge.
  • Offers free SSL for WordPress.
  • Improvises SEO.

Asset CleanUp

It is always trouble to remove unnecessary files of the website. This plugin removes all those fat bulky files and speeds your website. Asset CleanUp scans your page and detects all the assets that are loaded so you only need to edit a page/post is just to select the CSS/JS that is not necessary to load.

With 60000 plus active installations this plugin help to load pages faster which ultimately creates happy visitors

Features:

  • Higher page speed score.
  • Decreases the number of HTTP requests.
  • Minifies CSS and JS files.
  • Google font optimization.

WP Optimize

wp optimize plugin

WP-Optimize is an all-in-one plugin that cleans your database, compresses your images and caches your site with the world’s fastest caching engine. Trusted by over 1 million WordPress sites, this simple yet powerful tool is a mandatory thing you need to keep your website clean and optimized.

It caches your pages, clears out all of this unnecessary data and even retrieves space lost to data fragmentation and thus boosts up the speed of your website. Optimizes SEO thus reduces the number of bouncing visitors resulting in boosting business.

Features:

  • Cleans database.
  • Image optimization.
  • Simple to use
  • Advanced optimization options
  • Cache preloading.
  • Scheduling
clearfy plugin

Clearfy

Clearfy is a multipurpose and free tool WordPress plugin with a heavy range of features. You can be 100% sure that you use SEO, caching, and security plugins as all-in the package for completely free.

Clearfy extends its functionality, fixes the errors and deficiencies thus it became the most popular plugin of the year 2017-18 with plus 20000 installations in a quarter.

It cleans code by disabling RSS feed, rest APIs, minifying HTML, removes unnecessary widgets, and removing unused functions and thus speeds up your website.

Clearfy is highly concerned for the security of WordPress sites as it hides your WordPress, sets a limit for login, hides the login page, and many more.

Features:

  • Speeds up websites
  • Security optimization
  • Disable unused functions
  • SEO optimization.
  • User-friendly interface

WP Fastest Cache

wp fastest cache

WP Fastest Cache is one of the highly popular cache plugins with its multipurpose, effective and professional optimization approach. Cache system generates a static HTML file and saves so the page renders very slowly.

This cache plugin improves your page load time and thus improves your SEO ranking. With over 1 million-plus active installations this is must-have a plugin in every WordPress site.

Features:

  • Desktop cache, mobile cache, widget cache.
  • All cache files are deleted when post is published.
  • Minifies HTML, CSS, JS files
  • Database cleanup and lazy load.
  • SSL, CDN support.
  • Easy setup.

WP SuperMinify

wp super minify


WP Super Minify is a speed optimization plugin. This plugin combines, minifies, and caches inline JavaScript and CSS files and speeds up page loads.

20000 plus active installations, 200k plus downloads this plugin is rapidly growing its market. It uses the latest modified time in filename generation which helps to ensure freshness and loads all external Javascript files asynchronously.

Features:

  • Compresses HTML, CSS and JS files.
  • Optimizes security.
  • Regular updates
  • SEO optimization.

Rocket Lazy load

lazy load

Rocket lazy load is one of the important plugins in WordPress website to remove issues with image. It displays images on a page only when they are visible to the user thus improves the loading time.

Lazy load plugin works on thumbnails. YouTube iframes are replaced by thumbnails and all images are in post content or in a widget text. No jQuery used thus the script weight is very less.

Features:

  • Optimize loading speed
  • Optimizes SEO ranking
  • Reduces the number of HTTP requests.
  • No Javascript library used.

Advanced Database Cleaner

advanced database cleaner

Advanced Database Cleaner is a must-have plugin that cleans, optimizes database, and many more.

As your database may be full of garbage you need a regular cleanup of your WordPress database. Your site may be slow and bloated due to old revisions, orphaned post Meta, spam comments, etc.

Cleaning these unnecessary data helps to reduce your database size and improve website speed and performance.

Features:

  • Cleans and optimizes the database.
  • Quick database backup.
  • Scheduled and standard optimization.
  • Removal of orphan tables, posts, comments, etc.

Shortpixel

short pixel

ShortPixel is an easy to use, lightweight image optimization plugin that helps to compress all your images and PDF documents. It is a freemium, comprehensive, stable and frequently updated image compression plugin.

Increase your website speed and boosts your site’s SEO ranking thus increases the number of visitors.

It uses advanced compression technology that reduces image size without any before or after the difference in quality and finally making your pages load faster.

It is one of the popular speed booster plugins with over 200,000 active installations according to WordPress

Features:

  • Lossless and lossy image optimization.
  • Compresses jpg, png images along with pdf documents.
  • No file size limit.
  • Quick backups
  • Less bandwidth usage.

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12 Tips to Increase Email Subscribers for Your WordPress Business https://sparklewpthemes.com/tips-to-increase-email-subscribers/ https://sparklewpthemes.com/tips-to-increase-email-subscribers/#respond Mon, 14 Sep 2020 01:14:30 +0000 https://sparklewpthemes.com/?p=100322 If you are not working on building your email list then you are missing one of the biggest growth opportunities. According to recent research by  Marketing Sherpa, 72% of consumers prefer to receive emails with promotional messages, and also did you know that “For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI”.

There are many examples where people have been successful in building a million dollars business simply with the help of email marketing. That is why it is always good to put a lot more effort into boosting your WordPress email subscription rate.

Want to skyrocket your WordPress email list growth? Here are the 9 most effective tips to increase email subscribers for your business.

1. Use Lead Magnets

Using the lead magnet is one of the best ways to enhance the email subscription rate. With lead magnet, you offer something very valuable to your visitors in return for their email address.

The lead magnet should be created in such a way that it should be focused on solving the problems of the reader or visitor because of which they will be more willing to leave their email address in exchange. example of the lead magnet can be

  • email course
  • bonus features
  • free trial
  • calendar or planner

2. Run Giveaways

rafflepress giveaways

Running giveaways is one of the most common and most proven ways to get more email subscribers.

When you are running a giveaway, make sure that you make users sign up the email form in order to make them enter into the contest. This way people will subscribe to a chance to win your contest.

RafflePress, RaffleCopter, KingSumo, SimpleGiveaway are some good plugins that you can use for your giveaway contest.

3. Add a Pop-Up

pop up tool

According to research by Sumo, the average conversion rate with the pop up was found to be  3.09%, and this is overall a very good rate of conversion.

pop up can create a distraction if they are displayed randomly. Therefore you need to follow certain basics while creating pop-ups. You can apply a very good pop up setup using Sumo, which is one of the best email capture tool.

4. Use Responsive Theme

Today more than 80% of the visitors come from mobile devices.

If your theme is not responsive it is not going to look great on a mobile device and visitors are not likely to convert easily.

Make sure you pick up a responsive WordPress theme so that you can create an equally good experience on all kinds of devices.

5. Give Freebies

everybody loves free stuff. And when the freebies are something that creates more value to the visitors, they are obviously going to leave their information in return to freebies. This can be in the form of pdf guides, ebooks or some courses.

6. Write Guest Posts

Guest posting on other related blogs can be a means to get more subscribers.

Try to find bloggers who are creating the same value as you do.  Reach them and offer a collaborative exchange of values. They might be interested if you could convince them in a good way.

You may offer them to publish a blog post on your website and in exchange ask a mention of your brand on their blog. This way both will create a win-win scenario.

Not only with the blog posts, if you are doing good with social media, but you can also exchange a blog post with a shout on your social media. The thing is about sharing value for mutual benefit.

7. Make Easy Subscription

Try to simplify your subscription process as much as possible. The user does not like a complicated process.

Some of the subscription processes contain too many distractions that users finally leave out without subscribing. You should eliminate all the distractions that might prevent user subscriptions in an easy way.

8. Use Social Proof

You can use the power of your social proof to create get more subscribers.

one super good example is by displaying your total number of your current subscribers like Harsh Agrawal did in his blog shoutmeloud.

below is a good example of this technique. This will motivate the user and make them sure that the quality of your content is good enough and already a lot of people are following you.

Trustpulse is a great tool that helps you get more subscribers using social proof.

10. Use Powerful Words

Using strong and powerful words can make a difference.

By pulling the right strings, people are more likely to open, read and click-through. See how this form includes words with a powerful emotional trigger.

People are likely to get touched by and learn more about something if they have some emotion associated with it.

11. Link from social media

Most of the people link back to the homepage of their website from the bio link in their social profile.

You can maximize the chance of getting more subscribers if you create a subscription landing page and then link your bio to this landing page.

12. Use Minimum Form Field

It is a proven fact that the more form fields you have on your form, the less likely it is to get submitted.

Removing unwanted and extra fields will certainly drive more signups!. Asking only for Name and email address is the best option here.

13. Create a Quiz

You can create some relevant quizzes and then later send the answers via email if they sign up.

There are different quiz plugins available in WordPress. You can find some of them here

14. Signup Button On a Facebook Page

This is a good idea to create more sign-ups straight from your Facebook page.

Growing email list is one of the hardest parts of creating a successful blog or website. Even though there are many ways to increase your email subscribers, you need to figure out which one works better for you. A process that totally works for some others may not at all work for you.  Therefore it is always better to split test different ideas and make sure to implement the best one.

I would advise you to use this Free google product to run a split test. You can also integrate this tool with Google Analytics

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