Saturday, February 13, 2016

WordPress Plugins Overview – Quick Click Hosting Video

Welcome to our second video on WordPress. In this video we will go through a WordPress Plugins Overview, including login into your WordPress site, activating and deactivating plugins and much much more.

If you are looking for WordPress Hosting then look at our WordPress hosting:

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Quick Click Hosting have now made it even easier to set up WordPress with an instant set up of a WordPress install.

WordPress Hosting UK – IRE/FR/DE/NL/BE/IT/PT/LT/CZ/ES/PL – US/CAWordPress Hosting
WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and a content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL, which runs on a web hosting service.Features include a plug-in architecture and a template system.100% Compatible WordPress Hosting UK, Exceeds WordPress minimum requirements, Latest Versions of Apache, MySQL, & PHP, Installs the newest WordPress Version

 

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Friday, February 12, 2016

How To Access Your WordPress Login Page

Learn To Use WordPressHaving difficulties working out how to log into your WordPress blog admin area? This quick tutorial shows you how to access your WordPress site’s login page.

How Do I Log Into My WordPress Admin? – Quick Tutorial

If you are a new website owner, learning your way around your website can sometimes be a little confusing.

If your website has been created using WordPress, then one of the main things you need to learn is how to log into your WordPress admin section, as all of your website’s administration tasks are carried out in this area.

Depending on the WordPress theme your site uses, you may be able to log in directly from your main page.

Look for a hyperlink that says “Dashboard” or “Admin-Login”. On some websites, this link can be found in the Meta section of the web site’s sidebar menu

How To Access Your WordPress Site Dashboard - Learning WordPress

If the link displays on the main page, simply click on it …

Accessing Your WordPress Login Page - WordPress For Newbies

You will be taken to the WordPress login page. Enter your username and password, and click on the Log In button to access your WP Administration …

How To Access Your WordPress Login Page - WP Tutorials

info

Note: The WordPress “log in” link may not be visible in many themes. If you cannot find your WordPress login link on your website, then you will need to type your WordPress admin login URL into your browser.

The WordPress admin login URL typically looks like this:

  • http://ift.tt/1QbMEO7 (if WordPress is installed in the root directory of your domain)
  • http://ift.tt/20siIg2 (if WordPress is installed in a subfolder of your domain, e.g. “blog”)
  • You can access the login area by typing the following address into your web browser: http://ift.tt/ww5jlA

warning

Note: If the WordPress login section doesn’t show when you type in one of the above URLs into your browser, check that the address of your WordPress installation is correct.

If you’ve tried all of the above methods and you still cannot access the login box, then you may need to get help troubleshooting the issue.

The post How To Access Your WordPress Login Page appeared first on Quick Click Hosting.


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Wednesday, February 10, 2016

How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Cost You Prospective Customers And What To Do About It

WordPressAre you missing out on prospects because of a poorly-built site? Regardless of how professional your company is, a poorly-constructed website could lose you potential buyers and cause more turmoil than you can handle.

In a world where attractive design sells, your website’s design can be very important to the success of your business. Your website is probably the first thing that your web visitors see and this can influence their purchasing decision.

We typically do it online. Even if we’re only doing preliminary research, we will turn to our smart phone and go browse a web site first before purchasing goods in-store or online.

Now, try to see things from your customer’s perspective. How does your web site appear to other people? Does it invite them to approach and explore things further, or does it make them hesitant and cautious about where to go next?

How your site looks is just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more than can affect your web visitors’ perceptions and their decision to ultimately buy from you.

Let’s review some of the more important design problems that can affect your web site’s results:

Web Site Design Issues

Typical web design problems that can influence your visitor’s perception of your website include:

  • Color – Unattractive color schemes affect your website’s results. This also applies to your choice of text and background color. There are ways to pick web colors correctly and even safe web color palettes to make sure that the colors you use will display correctly across different devices. If in doubt, seek the services of a professional web designer.
  • Design Elements – Web pages that contain visually unpleasant, outdated and just plain old hard to read text can easily result in visitors quickly losing interest in off your site. Visitors can also be affected by careless inconsistencies in the design elements or overpowering use of design elements.
  • Layout – How your page content is laid out can have a significant effect on the way visitors interact with your site. Layout considerations also include how your navigational items, links and other objects.
  • Responsiveness – Since business information is now accessed using a range of devices with different-sized browsers, it’s vitally important that the design of your website be responsive. If your web pages do not display well on all devices, browsers and platforms, you will lose valuable business opportunities.

Functionality Issues

Common functionality problems can include some or all of the following:

  • Subpar functionality – A huge turn-off for visitors is arriving on a page where some hyperlinks don’t work, videos don’t play and graphics are missing. Persistent errors are not acceptable, especially if you are trying to come across professionally. Your online presence reflects your company. It’s important therefore, to ensure that all your hyperlinks, videos and graphics remain working at all times. Sometimes, problems could be related to things like your hosting, or they may even be unbeknownst to you, but it’s important to make sure that you’re consistently proactive and that you get issues addressed immediately.
  • Feature limitations – If your site provides visitors specific features or functionalities, then make sure that these functionalities are not limited. For example, if you plan to sell products on your site, make sure that you provide users with full e-commerce functionality that allow them to easily select and add products to a shopping cart, use coupons, complete purchases with credit card or PayPal, receive purchase notifications, receipts and email confirmations, etc.

Poor Web User Experience

Typically, where your business suffers most noticeably because of a poorly-designed site is the “user experience”.

A disappointing user experience can leave a bad taste in visitors’ mouths and lead to venting their dissatisfaction in social sites, user forums, review sites, commenting sections, etc., bringing you negative attention.

Here are just some common issues that can create a poor user experience:

  • Ease Of Use – Your website must be easy to use and easy to navigate. Information about your products and services should be easy to find. Your prospective clients want user-friendly features and they want to find what they are looking for quickly and without disappointment. Make your content searchable and if you plan to add downloadable information to your site (e.g. videos), make sure that users are given instructions on how to download and access your information.
  • Organization – If your web site isn’t well organized and user-friendly, you run the risk of losing not only prospective clients but also existing clients. Providing features like descriptive URLs, product and service categories and well-organized sections where topic-related content is grouped or linked together provides visitors with a good experience.
  • Stimulating Web Site – Users want sites that are easy to use, easy to navigate, and that provide them with eye-catching options. This requires striving for a balance between attractive, modern web design and compelling content that engages your visitors. For example, draw attention to hyperlinks pointing to product pages by inserting eye-catching product pictures and well-crafted product descriptions. This can be very effective and will help improve not only the user experience on your site, but also grow your sales and conversions.
  • Interactive Features – Another area that helps to improve user experience on your website is to provide interactive features that engage customers, such as the ability to comment on, share, like, download and recommend your content, interact with your staff via a responsive helpdesk, support forum, live chat, schedule appointments, make reservations, etc … You also want visitors to be able to navigate quickly within your site and access your information without waiting around for pages to load, so having your site optimized for page loading speed is important.
  • Reassurance – One of the most important and often most neglected aspects of creating a great user experience is to make users feel confident doing business with you online. To reassure your visitors that you are credible, trustworthy, secure and professional to deal with, make sure to add legal compliance pages like a contact page, privacy statement, terms of use, security information, affiliate disclaimers, etc.

WP website design

As you can see, there are many areas that can contribute to a poor user experience and negatively impact your business success online. If your web site isn’t designed in a user-friendly way, you run the serious risk of not only losing prospective clients, but also some of current clients too.

Now … what if you have arrived on this site because you have an existing site with design issues that are affecting your business?

First, keep in mind that getting problems fixed on an existing site can take time and can also be fairly costly depending on the problem and what kind of site you have, especially if it requires a lot of web code editing.

If you are considering having a new website developed or redeveloping an existing web site, then we suggest that you consider using the WordPress website publishing platform.

WordPress tips

We plan to publish more articles about WordPress on this site, but here are just some of the things to keep in mind about why you should choose WordPress:

Themes – Inexpensive Website Design

WordPress themes are unique web site design templates that let you easily change the look of your entire website without affecting the website’s content and modifying any of the core site functionality.

There are literally thousands of professional themes for WordPress site owners available that can be downloaded. Many themes are either free, or they are extremely affordable, saving you hundreds, even thousands of dollars on the cost of website design.

WordPress web site design

Most WP themes nowadays are fully responsive and provide users with flexible and customizable features for changing your website’s design settings such as color, template elements like headers and footers, layouts and more. This is just part of what makes WordPress an ideal tool for helping you achieve a design for your website that ultimately helps your business.

WordPress Plugins – Virtually Unlimited Features

Another compelling reason to choose WordPress is that WordPress gives site owners scalable features through add-on applications called “plugins.”

WordPress plugins, like themes, integrate easily with your website to provide you with almost unlimited features and new functionality.

Earlier in this article we discussed issues like subpar functionality and feature limitations as part of the reason why a poorly built web site can lose you customers.

WordPress plugins can help you overcome these issues and limitations quite easily and inexpensively. If there is a feature that needs to be integrated with your site, just install a plugin that will do exactly what you need to get things done.

Need a plugin that will let you know about any problems with your site like hyperlinks not working, videos not streaming, images that aren’t displaying or even alert you if your entire web site is down? No problems … there are WordPress plugins that can help you fix that, or notify you about problems so you can take immediate corrective action!

Need a plugin that will let you turn your website into an online store or provide you with a complete e-commerce system? Again, no problem! There are several inexpensive WordPress plugins that will help you sell goods or services online and provide your visitors with full e-commerce functionality that allow them to choose and add items to a shopping cart, use coupons, complete purchases with credit card or PayPal, receive purchase notifications, receipts and email confirmations, etc.

And just like WP themes, there are literally tens of thousands of fantastic WordPress plugins that you can download and easily install on your website at no cost, or that are extremely affordable, once again, saving you thousands of dollars on the cost of website development.

WordPress website design

You can learn more about plugins here: Using WordPress Plugins Enhance Your Website’s Features

WordPress – A Rich Web User Experience

In addition to being able to address issues caused by a poorly-constructed web site, WordPress can also help you give site visitors a great user experience.

WordPress provides beautifully-designed and visually-exciting themes that cover all kinds of uses and applications and feature-rich plugins that allow web users to contact, engage and interact with you. With the right combination of a WordPress-driven site, WP themes, plugins and great content, you can create a very rich and engaging user experience that will keep your visitors returning for more.

WP website design

As stated earlier, consumers will do extensive research online before making purchasing decisions. If your website isn’t designed to provide your visitors with a rewarding user experience, consumers will simply move on to another business that does provide them with a better website.

Hopefully this information has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about using the WordPress website publishing software please see our related posts section.

Comments? Questions? Feel free to add your thoughts below or share this post with your friends.

The post How A Poorly Designed Web Site Can Cost You Prospective Customers And What To Do About It appeared first on Quick Click Hosting.


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Tuesday, February 9, 2016

What is WordPress – A Quick Click Hosting Video

Quick Click Hosting are extremely passionate about WordPress as a CMS. We offer it as a dedicated web hosting solution and are now building a set of tutorials around WordPress to provide some useful tips and tricks, with the occasional product review.

Check out the useful video below and also our Quick Click Hosting YouTube channel.

 

 

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Monday, February 8, 2016

Master Using WordPress Fast With WP TrainMe WordPress Step-By-Step Tutorials Plugin

Do you have a WordPress website and need to learn how to use WordPress?

WordPress

WordPress currently drives millions of websites globally, including websites for many leading companies, educational institutions and world-famous celebrities.

WordPress also enables you to quite easily build and manage powerful, professional and visually stunning websites. The truth is, you can utilize WordPress to create everything from home business sites, individual blogs, online affiliate marketing and / or service review websites, to ebusiness sites, membership program web sites … even social media sites!

WordPress is not just the world’s most popular content management system (CMS) and web-based publishing platform, but it is also totally free!

The BAD News …

You could pay someone like your web developer, or a webmaster to work on your website whenever something needs doing, but that can end up costing you a lot of money, especially if you are running a small business on a tight budget and the things that need to be done take very little time to do and require no technical expertise, like adding or editing content, installing plugins and themes, etc.

You can save time and money learning how to use WordPress. You can manage things that don’t require knowledge of editing code quickly yourself, and bring in a professional only when you need help (e.g. technical support, custom web development involving coding, web consulting, etc.)

Save time and money learning WordPress yourself!

(Learning how to use WordPress can save you a significant amount of time and money!)

When it comes to learning WordPress, however, there are also some challenges.

Although there is a ton of content on the internet on the subject of using WordPress, a great deal of it is disjointed and consists mainly of tutorials and helpful hints designed for technology-savvy folks like web developers. You could end up spending a ton of valuable time searching on the internet to get answers, yet still find yourself confused.

And then, of course, there are many things which YOU DON’T KNOW when it comes to WordPress! Stuff like how to configure WordPress to bring more targeted traffic cost-effectively to your business site or blog, plus time-saving strategies, applications and techniques you can employ (commonly for free) to deliver your business BIGGER, BETTER, and FASTER results, and a whole lot more!

There has been no comprehensive step-by-step system that you can follow to teach yourself how to use, manage and grow an online presence fast and effectively using WordPress, especially if you are not technologically savvy … until recently!

The Excellent News …

WordPress lets you completely manage your small business online, with little to no technical expertise required … and for almost no cost!

Presenting …

WPTrainMe – WordPress Step-By-Step Tutorials Plugin

WPTrainMe - WordPress Screenshot Training Plugin

(Learn WordPress easily inside your own WP dashboard with hundreds of detailed step-by-step WordPress tutorials!)

Plugin Description

WPTrainMe is a complete and easy-to-use WordPress A-Z training plugin. The WPTrainMe plugin provides you with access to 100s of detailed step-by-step online tutorials covering all aspects of working with WordPress from your WP admin.

WPTrainMe lets you access hundreds of step-by-step tutorials directly inside your WordPress dashboard!

(WPTrainMe tutorials can be instantly accessed directly from your dashboard!)

The plugin shows you the simplest way to install, set up, configure, customize, use, manage, grow and earn money with WordPress without making you jump all over cyberspace in search of answers.

WPTrainMe includes many hundreds of practical step-by-step tutorials with lots of screenshots, downloadable check lists, templates, relevant video lessons and more.

Best of all … absolutely no techie knowledge is necessary!

Learn WordPress quickly with comprehensive step-by-step tutorials!

(Learn how to use WordPress fast with detailed tutorials!)

Everything you need to master using WordPress is included in the WPTrainMe training. And you can access each of the tutorials instantly from your private WordPress dashboard each time you require assistance with WordPress.

To learn more, go here: WPTrainMe

Benefits Of Using WPTrainMe

Here are just some of the various advantages of choosing the WPTrainMe plugin to teach yourself about how to use WordPress:

Perfect WordPress Training For Non-Geeks

The WordPress tutorials are especially written for non-technical end users, not web site builders or tech “geeks.” All tutorials are laid out in logical sequence with navigation menus and search tools which makes WPTrainMe very easy to use and find what you are looking for. All the written training content and info has been made easy and simple to grasp and delivered using many detailed screenshots and instructions.

Links to related content are also provided at the end of each tutorial, together with related “over the shoulder” video tutorials if you need to review the information. Even better, no coding skills are required to apply what you learn in the tutorials.

In-Context WordPress Help

The plugin provides you with context-related instructions, so whenever you require assistance with whichever section you’re working on, simply click on the help tab within your dashboard and a selection of lessons appropriate to that area displays, making sure you have instant access to timely information on how to proceed.

Plugin Content Gets Updated As WordPress Functions Change

WordPress is constantly growing and evolving. With WPTrainMe, tutorials can be maintained up-to-date to reflect any new WP application and functionality changes. Brand new tutorials are regularly being uploaded to the plugin to help you fully understand all that can be achieved with WordPress. As soon as new WordPress lessons are updated in the WPTrainMe plugin server, these become immediately available to you within the admin panel.

Some additional benefits include:

  • Save time: Everything you want to know to master using WordPress you can find in a single location and can be accessed with a couple of clicks inside the WordPress admin area.
  • Save money: WPTrainMe can save you hundreds of dollars on WordPress coaching. WP users are going to be hard-pressed to discover another WordPress learning product that offers so much information and so much value for money.
  • Learn WordPress within your own schedule: The tutorials are available 24/7 in your admin area, allowing you to go through the material in your own time frame and at your own pace.

WPTrainMe's training modules are organized in logical sequence and each module contains dozens of detailed tutorials!

(Training modules are arranged in logical sequence and each module contains dozens of detailed step-by-step tutorials!)

WPTrainMe Plugin Features

The plugin’s tutorials teach you all the main WP features and address all areas of working with WordPress.

Plugin users have access to hundreds of comprehensive online tutorials arranged into ten instructional course modules:

  • Introduction To WordPress
  • Installing WP
  • WP Configuration
  • How To Use WordPress
  • WP Plugin Tutorials
  • WP Customization
  • Managing WordPress
  • WordPress Optimization
  • WordPress Security
  • WordPress Strategies

Additional features include things like:

  • Works on every device: WPTrainMe was designed on a fully-responsive platform, making it possible for you to gain access to the tutorials from your personal computer, laptop computer, PC tablet or smart phone.
  • Written by WordPress experts for general WordPress users: All tutorials are especially created for non-expert individuals, delivered in logical order and totally interlinked with relevant subject areas.
  • An in-depth WordPress instruction system: WPTrainMe tutorials feature 500 screenshot tutorials with step-by-step instructions, related videos, flowcharts, templates, check lists, additional downloadable information and more!
  • One-click access: Everything you would like to know in order to develop and manage your own company’s web presence is quickly displayed with the click of your mouse in your own website or blog’s admin area.

Screenshot tutorials with helpful instructions make learning WordPress fast, simple and easy!

(Screenshot tutorials with helpful instructions make learning WordPress easy, simple and fast!)

User Feedback

Below are some of the testimonials and comments that plugin users have provided regarding the WPTrainMe WP plugin:

“This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!” – Monique, Warrior Forum

***

“This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!” – Kim Lednum

Useful Plugin Tips

If your company needs to teach your staff how to use WordPress, then the WPTrainMe plugin is a valuable and time-saving teaching system. Rather than spending at least an hour teaching your new staff members how to use WordPress, you can just install the plugin on your domain and then show them how to access the training instead. This way, you’ll be encouraging them to learn about everything they need to know to use WordPress efficiently in your business anytime they need it.

WPTrainMe tutorials can be viewed on your mobile device

(All tutorials can be viewed on your mobile device)

WPTrainMe Plugin Support

Because the WPTrainMe plugin acts as an interface to an online membership site where all of the training content is actually located, the plugin is extremely light-weight and utilizes almost none of your server’s resources. Nonetheless, the plugin is technically well supported and comes with a comprehensive online step-by-step user manual and videos showing you how to install and use it, plus FAQs and access to a user support help desk.

Product Price

WPTrainMe is available in 4 editions:

  • FREE – This option lets you access dozens of detailed ‘step-by-step’ tutorials on using WordPress. Cost = Free.
  • BASIC – This license lets users access 70 detailed WordPress step-by-step tutorials on how to use WordPress and all of its features and functions. Cost = $37 (one-time).
  • BUSINESS – The BUSINESS license lets users access 250 step-by-step tutorials aimed at teaching you how to use WordPress and grow your business online. Cost = $6.95 p/month.
  • PRO – This lets you access the entire WPTrainMe library, which includes hundreds of step-by-step tutorials. Price = $9.95 p/month.

Please Note: Pricing for the WPTrainMe plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin is being retailed for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the software developer if you visit the plugin website.

Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details: WPTrainMe – WordPress Training Plugin

Additional Info

The WPTrainMe plugin allows the training information to be easily updateable whenever WP functionality is significantly updated, as all of the tutorials is stored externally and then accessed via the plugin.

(WordPress tutorials can be easily updated in the plugin when WordPress introduces new features or makes important software changes!)

(WordPress tutorials can be easily updated in the plugin whenever important improvements are made to WordPress!)

To learn more about how the WPTrainMe plugin works, check out the slideshow and product info pages on the WPTrainMe website.

Our Recommendation …

The WPTrainMe WP plugin is a complete WP training tool. The tutorials are really well-written and provide you with a terrific investment in your WP education. You will be getting one-click access to years of expertly-crafted training information in a simple and easily accessible format.

If you are planning to build, develop or run a WordPress website, then we recommend that you subscribe to the PRO version of the WPTrainMe plugin, which gives you full access to a growing library of step-by-step tutorials and additional training content.

As an added bonus, PRO users get a downloadable 250 page step-by-step PDF guide showing you how to install WordPress on your own domain, which is a very handy thing, as you have to install WordPress first before you can access the WPTrainMe plugin on your website.

A detailed step-by-step WordPress Installation Guide is included for PRO plugin users!

(A detailed WordPress Installation Guide is included for PRO plugin users!)

For more details, check out the plugin here: WPTrainMe – WordPress Step-By-Step Tutorials Plugin

The post Master Using WordPress Fast With WP TrainMe WordPress Step-By-Step Tutorials Plugin appeared first on Quick Click Hosting.


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Saturday, February 6, 2016

Using WordPress Plugins Enhance Your Website’s Features

WordPress1 of the primary attributes of WordPress is definitely the capacity to easily expand your WordPress web site’s functionality using plugins.

What Are Plugins?

Like most of us, you most likely use a device like a mobile phone. What happens when you would like to get into something new on your device such as a new program, game or productivity tool?

You download and install an app!

An app is a little software application that is really simple and easy to install and adds new features and functionality to your smart device.

A Basic Guide To WordPress Plugins

(Just like you can find social sharing apps for smart devices …)

A WordPress plugin is similar to an app. You install and activate an application that provides new functionality to your website …

A Basic Guide To Understanding WP Plugins

(… there are also social sharing plugins for WP sites!)

Generally, if you want to add new features to an already-built website, additional cost is involved. Depending on the complexity of the feature or enhancements, things could get quite expensive, especially if it involves website development.

This also applies when developing a new web site. Businesses often pay for features and options they may probably never need.

For this reason, we suggest a modular approach when setting up your website and WP plugins are ideal for helping you achieve this.

Imagine being able to:

1) Start simply and inexpensively. Get a website up and running fast, then …

2) As new features are needed, install new software modules with a few clicks of the mouse directly from your administration section, to give your website an entirely new and expanded range of useful features, and also …

3) Cost not one cent extra to install on your site?

Well, this is just what a WordPress plugin allows you to do!

Benefits & Advantages Of Plugins

Earlier, we compared plugins with apps. In a similar way that some apps are free to download and some apps may cost a little money, the same applies to WP plugins.

In fact, thousands of plugins can be downloaded to your site for free.

WordPress plugins that you have to pay for are called “Premium” plugins. The good news, is that when compared to the price of purchasing web development solutions to get the same features and functionality on your site, most Premium plugins are priced quite low.

Also, since WordPress distributes its software as an Open Source application, anybody can create, edit and customize any part of the WP code. This has allowed many third-party software developers to create more new tools that “plug into” the WordPress platform than you can possibly imagine.

  • Plugins let you get started with only a simple yet professional online business presence and expand as necessary.
  • Plugins allow you to add practically endless features to your web presence easily and quite inexpensively.
  • WordPress plugins give you practically endless expanding capabilities.
  • WordPress plugins allow “non-techies” to have a site that they can self-manage.
  • Most plugins will typically work “right out of the box” and only require installation and activation to provide your website with immediate capabilities, enhancements and functionality.
  • Some plugins offer more extensive options and require some initial configuring.

WP Plugins – Powerful, Flexible … And (Many Of Them Are) Completely FREE!

Like many themes, loads of plugins are available to WP users … often at no cost!

You can view and download thousands of plugins from the Free WP Plugin Repository

A Basic Guide To WordPress Plugins

As previously mentioned, you can find WordPress plugins that will do almost everything you can imagine.

WP plugin categories cover:

  • Blog Administration
  • Content Distribution
  • Traffic
  • User Engagement
  • Social Connectivity
  • Uploading Media – Video, Graphics & Images, Podcasts, Multimedia, etc.
  • e-Biz And Online Sales Automation
  • Increasing Website Conversions And Lead Generation
  • Data & System Analysis Tools
  • Optimizing Your

For example, you can expand a business online presence with plugins like the following:

  • Contact forms
  • Polls and quizzes
  • User Surveys
  • Managing banners
  • E-commerce (from managing single ordering with PayPal buttons, to complete e-commerce with online shopping carts, payment processing, recurring billing, coupon codes, etc …)
  • Social sharing buttons
  • Private Membership sites
  • Newsletter subscription forms
  • Sales workflow
  • Mobile conversion
  • Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization
  • Image galleries (including rotating images, lightboxes, etc.)
  • Customer testimonials
  • Language translation (e.g. you can instantly change your site’s content from English to Portuguese)
  • Statistical reporting (e.g. number of visitors, pages visited, keywords searched, etc.)
  • Custom navigation menus
  • Customer engagement – contest, live chat, currency conversion, etc.
  • Offline storage management
  • Faster page loading
  • Managing events & bookings
  • Business listing directories
  • Automatically sell and manage advertising on your site
  • Set up appointments and reminders
  • Manage reservations and bookings
  • Detect broken links and email you reports
  • Redirect website pages
  • Monitor what other sites are posting about your business
  • Make your pages printable or downloadable as a PDF file
  • Add a site map
  • Hide specific from showing on areas of your site (e.g. site maps, feeds, etc.)
  • Hide post content
  • Import data from different CMS applications
  • Perform bulk content replacements
  • Block SPAM commenting
  • Customize guest discussions (e.g. displaying Facebook posts)
  • Insert code and code elements into your site’s header and footer
  • Add tables
  • Add animated graphics and advanced text formatting options
  • Create and manage QR codes
  • Improve your local search listings on Google
  • Add a map of your business location
  • Publicize your content automatically on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and many others
  • Display countdown timers (for special offers, discount coupons, etc …)
  • Display personal greetings, timed offers, etc …
  • And so much more!

As it’s clear to see, plugins give you virtually limitless possibilities. If you plan to build a web site, or your existing website isn’t built with WordPress, then consider getting one in the future, or you could be missing out on some serious functionality.

If you’re still wondering just how powerful and flexible WordPress plugins are, let me show you some practical advantages of installing a plugin on your web site.

For example, if you need content protection, you can install plugins to make just a couple of paragraphs on your post inaccessible, or transform your WordPress site into a professional membership site with customized login details for every member …

A Practical Guide To WP Plugins

As mentioned before, free plugins can be used to improve your site in lots of different ways. From adding new features that can improve your business, your web users’ experience and your understanding of what is taking place on your site …

A Guide To Understanding WP Plugins

To extending your site’s visibility across various social media and search engines …

A Useful Guide To Understanding WP Plugins

You can also add advanced functionality to your site using inexpensive premium plugins. For example, you can download plugins that automate tasks on your website like user feedback and event bookings management …

A Useful Guide To WordPress Plugins

And also set up a custom-branded bookings and reservations system on your site … all for a small fraction of the cost of hiring web developers to design these functionality for you …

A Basic Guide To WP Plugins

Additionally, you can take advantage of built-in WP commenting features and plugins that will allow you to engage better with web visitors, clients and registered site members …

A Guide To Understanding WP Plugins

For example, your visitors can easily:

  • Post comments on your blog posts (which can turn into online discussions) using either the native WP commenting function, or integrated Facebook comments (which are then displayed throughout your visitors’ Facebook pages, giving your site additional exposure).
  • Bookmark your content on various social sites.
  • Contact you via contact forms
  • Engage online directly with your team using forums or even set up an online social network on your own domain.
  • Engage with your support staff via live chats
  • Call your business directly from their mobile phones while visiting your site
  • Open support tickets
  • And so much more …

A Guide To Understanding WP Plugins

You can even integrate complex “back end” solutions with a WP “front end”. This lets you control your business sales and marketing, while the 3rd-party application handles the technological areas …

A Guide To WordPress Plugins

WP Plugins – Some Useful Tips

  • There are many WordPress plugins to choose from. Be careful not to overload your site with too many plugins, as this can begin to affect your site’s performance and site loading times. It can also mean more maintenance work for you resulting from possible conflicts.
  • Only keep those plugins you really need. Delete any plugins you don’t need from your site, as these utilize server resources.
  • Many free plugins normally receive very little to no support from the plugin author. When choosing premium plugins, ensure that you do a little research first to understand what kind of reputation the plugin developer has when it comes to providing support, updates, new features, etc. Be sure to check some of our plugin recommendations for additional useful information.
  • If you see that an unsupported plugin has not been updated for a while (e.g. two years), then think twice before using it. WordPress is updated often and older plugins that have not been updated can cause conflicts.
  • Make sure to always update your plugins. Older plugins not only can cause errors, they may also have security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and malware.

A Non-Technical User's Guide To WordPress Plugins

As you can see, WP plugins are an important feature of WordPress and contribute to making WordPress the most preferred CMS available. Plugins also provide WordPress users with an easy, simple and inexpensive way to add new functionality to their web presence without having to spend thousands of dollars on web developers.

One last thing regarding WordPress plugins:

Whatever feature or functionality you need for your website, you can be sure that a someone has probably already created one that will do just what you need, and that it will either be available for FREE, or if it’s a premium plugin, that the price will be reasonable.

And, if by any chance such a plugin has not been created yet, then one can probably be developed for you for a reasonable price.

Hopefully now you have a better understanding of WordPress plugins – what plugins are and how they can help improve your website. See our published posts to learn about more popular WordPress plugins that we recommend using.

Do you have any comments or questions about this post? Please tell us what you think below and feel free to share this post with your friends.

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Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Lack of Support to All Web Technologies Can Hamper Your Business

As a host, you ought to support all the web hosting technologies that your customers may require; otherwise you can be rest assured that more than half of your customers would soon think about switching their host!

One can also use a PC as a server in which case, the website can be hosted by corresponding ISP… However, the Internet connectivity and security are two major issues that prevent most of the folks from doing so.

On the other hand, if someone wants to build and host an efficient, strong website in a rather professional manner, which can serve thousands of requests at a time, it must be handled by a professional web hosting service provider.

Reliable hosting providers make sure that the files are served directly from a very powerful set of processors that also come with sufficient memory to easily tackle hundreds of simultaneously raised requests.

In a nutshell, customers are saved from the pain of fixing technical glitches that may arise every now and then. This way, you can be sure that any issue with your website will be taken care of, by the web host itself. Powerful VPS and dedicated hosts are capable enough to host hundreds of websites on a single server and the incoming traffic is properly directed to the intended website on the server. Now let us take a look at some of the latest hosting trends, and related technologies that are demanded by various customers –

  • Windows Hosting Support: Most of the popular enterprise apps run on Windows OS, so Windows hosting would be the best option if you want to develop your site on MS Expression Web or you are planning to make use of ASP, .Net, MS Access, and/or MS SQL Server.
  • Linux Hosting Support: When the site is hosted on a Linux box, security issues tend to be far lesser than Windows hosting. Most of the popular apps including the famous Wordpress blogging software run only on Linux, and Wordpress hosting is currently in very high demand, so it’s imperative that you offer the choice of Linux hosting to your customers too.
  • CGI: It is most common in Linux or Unix servers and is leveraged to design interactive and dynamic pages. Most of the Internet service providers offer CGI capabilities.
  • PHP: It is one of the most widely accepted rivals of ASP. It is the perfect option for web development, and can be directly integrated with HTML codes. The best part about PHP is that its syntax is quite identical to that of C and Perl. We see PHP being used with Apache on different kinds of Operating Systems, but hosts must ensure that they offer support to the latest version of PHP (currently 5.3.10)
  • Unix: It is reliable, stable and more affordable than Windows. It was used for making the first-ever web server OS.
  • JSP: It is developed by Sun and is similar to ASP in terms of functionality. With the help of JSP, dynamic web pages can be created by integrating Java codes into HTML pages. It is also independent of any particular server-specific platform, since it is Java-based.
  • Chili!Soft ASP: This software makes ASP versatile by making it compatible with UNIX and few other platforms, and does not limit its usage to just Windows platform.
  • Adobe Dreamweaver: Adobe Systems owns this website designing tool. It helps the beginners in designing websites even if they don’t have much experience in web development. The best part is that it is available both for Windows and Mac, so you must support Dreamweaver as a host at all costs.
  • Microsoft Expression Web: This website design tool is developed and owned by Microsoft. Just like Adobe’s Dreamweaver, this tool helps the beginners in developing websites; so, if you offering Windows hosting, you ought to support Microsoft Expression Web & MS Frontpage extensions.
  • Secure Server: The secure server assures transmission of data in encrypted form. If there are pages on your website for online transactions, then your ISP must provide you secure connectivity, and the web server must also be extremely secured too.
  • ASP: This Microsoft developed technology helps in creating dynamic pages by putting the suitable scripts in HTML pages of your site. It works with standard Windows OS.
  • Cold Fusion: This is yet another technology developed by Adobe that is used for making dynamic web pages.
  • Ruby-on-Rails: This is yet another fairly new web technology that has been making rounds on the Internet, and it’s frequently used by webmasters and web developers, so make sure that you offer support to Ruby-on-Rails app too.

Database Related Technological Support

Maintaining database is of utmost importance in case of any of the web hosting technologies. This specially comes into the picture when large amount of information needs to be updated on the website… Here are some of the best database technologies supported by the top web hosts around the globe.

  • MS-SQL: It is the language that is used for accessing the databases containing all the information. The web server you use for retrieving information for your websites should have a direct access to a system, which makes use of SQL database…MS-SQL is Microsoft’s proprietary program, while MySQL is open source.
  • MySQL: It is robust and a powerful open-source database software for all kinds of websites. The best part is that it is far affordable than Oracle and Microsoft.
  • MS Access: When there is a requirement of a very simple database, then MS Access is the best option for getting the job done seamlessly. It is not meant for high traffic websites and is less powerful compared to Oracle, MySQL, and SQL Server.
  • Oracle: It is also one of the very popular platforms for running websites that are database-driven and serve high traffic volumes.

The post Lack of Support to All Web Technologies Can Hamper Your Business appeared first on Quick Click Hosting.


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