After all, people all over the world have nothing better to do. Catering to the quarantined ones or even those that aren’t with plugins for eLearning is always a welcome concept. This can be done regardless of whether your website is primarily about eLearning or not. If it’s the latter, then including some eLearning courses will certainly be appreciated by your visitors.

Either way, we’re here to present you with some of the best choices you can have for plugins for eLearning. These will surely help you in your endeavor to bring digital knowledge to everyone in this day and age.

LearnDash

First up is one of the (if not the) most popular choices for an eLearning plugin for WordPress. That would be LearnDash. One of the reasons why LearnDash managed to stay on the top is due to how easy it is to use. It requires little fiddling around to get working and comes with many different compatibilities as far as plugins go.

You can use it to build your tests, quizzes, assignments, and video or photo courses. As for the admins, it gives plenty of options for monetization integrations such as Paypal or Stripe. It also integrates well with other platforms like WooCommerce, etc. Of course, being one of the best, it comes at a hefty cost of $159 for a single site license. Thankfully, there’s a demo.

LearnPress

If you want a more affordable option that’s also competitive enough, then LearnPress might be right up your alley. This one’s a free option that allows you to create quizzes and curriculum aids for students along with the usual video, audio, or photo courses. It’s a good choice if you don’t have as much capital to spare for the more expensive premium options here.

However, we do have to warn you that while LearnPress is free, you might have to purchase its premium LearnPress theme which comes with the functionality of an eLearning plugin and its add-ons. After that, you can access the numerous free add-ons which can augment your eLearning course creation experience and make more dynamic material for classes.

WP Courseware

WP Courseware is another premium eLearning plugin for WordPress that’s a lot less expensive than LearnDash. It is a great alternative as the two-site license for WP Courseware costs only $99. It also has an on-site demo that allows you to check everything out before you commit. Meanwhile, the plugin itself is a thing of beauty that lets you be creative with your courses.

That beauty is then coupled with ease-of-use, namely in the form of a drag-and-drop function. This allows newcomers or beginners to easily build their own eLearning courses. In fact, you can even let the plugin protect your courses from being stolen or used by other websites in case you plan on monetizing them. Speaking of monetization, you do get plenty of integration compatibility with this plugin.

Lifter LMS

With the learning management system abbreviation in its name, Lifter LMS is serious and is all about eLearning. You can easily set it up on your WordPress websites and afterward, you’ll have access to the plugin’s impressive array of tools. These tools allow you to create multi-tiered courses which are awesome and can give your students a sense of vertical progression.

Whether you want short courses or digital translations of full-degree programs, Lifter LMS is with you if you decide to download it. As for the pricing, the plugin is relatively affordable and has a demo as well. If you want to get more dedicated with your courses, however, you’ll have to shell out $99 for an add-on or $299 for the complete package.

Teachable

Technically, this one isn’t a plugin but you can still add it to your website as a tool and it will pretty much work similarly. Setup is also effortless with this one and lets you get started with course creation right away. It doesn’t need many configurations to get working but still allows for a good deal of customization for when you want to tailor your courses to a specific audience.

The tool also allows for integration with Paypal or Stripe for easy monetization options. You can even customize the payment periods for your virtual courses or classes. As for the price, Teachable comes in at a reasonable $29 for the basic plan. It’s a lot more affordable than others making it highly recommended for beginners or startup blogs or websites.

Tutor LMS

Last but not least, we have Tutor LMS. It’s a free plugin that’s also part of a premium set of tools that go for $149. Still, if you only want the plugin, you can go download it separately. The plugin touts itself as a complete and feature-rich option and also one of the younger plugins on this list. It’s easy enough and you don’t have to bother with codes in order to use or set it up.

This one is also a lightweight plugin which is perfect for when you’re saving up the server bandwidth or trying to maintain your website speed. All in all, these plugins for eLearning are solid choices for your website and you can’t go wrong with any of them.

RELATED: 6 WordPress Plugins To Organize Your Work From Home Routine

The post 6 Best WordPress Plugins for eLearning & Tutorial Websites appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Because when all has been said and done, advertisements are still some of the most effective ways to monetize a site. There are many other methods too and you’re probably using some of them already but it shouldn’t hurt to mix and match methods. Do be upfront about it to your visitors and website consumers, especially with ads, especially if you’re heavily affected by the global pandemic one way or another.

First thing’s first though, you will have to find companies or businesses willing to advertise on your website. This can be anything from Google AdSense, Yahoo Publisher, Amazon Associates, etc. There are more and some of them are smaller or have fewer returns. We’re also assuming that you already have advertisers, if not, this link can help you enroll or attract advertisers.

With that out of the way, there are many ways to set up ads on your website and we’re to discuss them. These are the places or spots on your website or blog where ads can be used strategically to be made visible to your target audience.

Within the content

One of the most common places where one can usually see ads is within the content. This is more common for blogs or websites with written or readable content. However, it is also done in videos or sometimes in photo galleries too. It makes sense especially if you have a good statistic on how long the readers spend time on your website. That could well mean they’re spending a good amount of time on the content.

For best results, you can place these advertisements in the middle of the content so it won’t appear unnatural. There are also user behavior debates that argue on placing these kinds of ads in the first third or fourth portion. The reasoning is that some visitors only read the essential part of the content where information is more likely to be crucial.

Still, this does depend on what kind of content you produce. If it’s news or anything important, then you might want to place the ads early on. Otherwise, it’s up to you.

Widget Ads

Ads in the content might be effective, but they’re a double-edged sword. They can cause damage too especially if some of your audience have a dislike for them. Sometimes you will have to balance this out if you’re getting lots of complaints. Thankfully, you can tuck away these ads in the widget bar or section of your blog.

Most websites have these anyway, usually in the sidebar or topbar where loads of navigation options and information can be found. This makes the ad less intrusive for the content. The downside is that this sort of ads can ruin the aesthetics of your website. Some of them can even appear to clutter your website too much, depending on what they look like. If you do decide to make go with them, you can find many plugins that optimize their placement.

Admin Ads

This one isn’t exactly for the companies that you’ve partnered with and are responsible for your ad revenue, they’re for you. If you find that your website has grown a lot and is now worthy to be called an enterprise or even its own brand, you can resort to making your own ads. Of course, your regular visitors don’t need to see them as they’re already on your website.

No, these admin ads are for your clients and some of your users. They are usually placed on your WordPress or website dashboard. This way, you can subtly and visually promote your business to them. It also takes a bit less effort compared to selling yourself through emails or elevator pitches.

Banner ads

Widget ads can break your website’s web designs while content ads can annoy some visitors. For ways to set up ads without the negative aspects of those two aforementioned methods, you could try using banner ads instead. These ads are a lot more strategically placed on a page of your blog. Well, at least to the other two front-end options.

The banner ads are usually placed at the top of the content, before or after the title. Sometimes, they can also be placed at the end of the content. This way, they won’t ruin any user experience. Not much, at least. Other kinds of banner ads also sometimes appear at the very top of the website or the bottom, regardless of the content or the kind of page.

Popup ads

Now, if you’re confident with your current traffic and are transparent enough to your audience to not earn their ire, then popup ads are some of the best on this list. It can also be the most intrusive since they’re the ones that grab attention the most.

These can range from ads that welcome the visitors as soon as they enter the site (and must be closed manually) to the more conservative ones that pop up on the peripherals while they’re reading or viewing the content. Either way, they’re arguably the best spot you can allot for advertisements since you can place these popups anywhere.

Manually adding the Google AdSense code

The thing about the previous ways to set up ads on this list is that they require plugins. Plugins can take a toll on your servers, especially if you have too many. As an alternative, you can always just set up ads manually by adding the Google AdSense code. You can do this by following the instructions on this site.

This way, you can save up those plugin slots for something else. Do take into consideration the demographics of your audience and how lukewarm they are to ads and applying these methods.

RELATED: 7 Ways To Deal With AdBlock Users If You’re A Blogger

The post 6 Ways To Set Up Ads In Your WordPress Website appeared first on The Blog Herald.

After all, routine gives security and adds a sense of structure, something sorely needed during these troubling times with a global pandemic causing discord everywhere. These plugins are designed to help you managed your projects better or help you tabulate data so that you can quickly adjust to the work environment.

Even if you’re already used to such an environment, we still believe that these plugins can help to organize your work from home routine. Because when all has been said and done, no one is exempt from lockdowns and cabin fevers– not even seasoned stay-at-home bloggers. Any help is welcome, so make sure to take a look at these.

WP Project Manager

If you’ve searched for project manager plugins before, then you’re probably used to seeing this one at the top of the list. That’s because it’s quite possibly the best or most recommended option out there. WP Project Manager is an industry-standard for keeping track of everything going on that’s content-related on your website.

You can use it alone if you’re a solo blogger or share it with your team so you can collaborate easier and assign projects with better clarity. All projects are displayed on one page and it also allows you to easily see your projects’ progress. You could even celebrate milestones within the plugin in order to boost morale or productivity. The best part? It has a free option and a premium one for your varying needs.

League Table

Up next, we have a tabulation plugin that lets you keep an organized view of all your data. It’s not exactly a necessary plugin for some blogs, but those that run businesses or keep track of their SEO vigilantly can benefit a lot from this. League Table, is (as you might have guessed) a plugin made to make making tables easier.

It has 105 different settings for each table and can be a replacement for headache-inducing excel sheets. Speaking of excel, this plugin also has a built-in spreadsheet editor which allows you to effortlessly copy data from your excel files. This makes it easy to transfer tables from your work to WordPress. It can be a sanity-saver for some of us.

Kanban for WordPress

Are you a big fan of how the Japanese always keep things tidy and organized? Then you might want to try out Kanban, regardless. It takes after Taiichi Ohno’s Toyota manufacturing process improvement program (Kanban) and incorporates it in WordPress. Same philosophy, basically. This very well means you can improve your content output with this plugin.

Kanban for WordPress, for all intents and purposes, is still a project management system. However, you might find that its methods and interface might be preferable to others. As expected, this project management plugin uses digital Kanban boards for your tasks. You can also use them for other aspects of management from finances or sales or even hiring. It’s that flexible and also has a free version.

BuddyPress GTM System

Want a plugin that seamlessly connects with your WordPress dashboard and modifies it for a natural project manager? Then downloading BuddyPress shouldn’t hurt. BuddyPress is a collection of plugins for WordPress and has many different purposes. It just so happens that it comes with a GTM System to help you oversee tasks for the whole website.

These tasks can then include content and many other things from technical to financial. The GTM System also functions more like forum threads and should be simple to navigate to anyone who has been on online forums. It’s a similar experience to Basecamp except it all takes place within your WordPress installation.

TaskBreaker by BuddyPress

This one is also integrated into BuddyPress but its focus is more geared towards teamwork or team management. The TaskBreaker feature is all about managing projects and content creation with your co-workers or buddies (however you prefer to call them). It comes built-in with a graphical progress bar that’s jolly and visual indication of a task’s progress. It can be motivating.

You can also assign multiple users on a specific project whereas other project managers don’t allow this. Last but not least, it has an option for automatic sorting which uses the plugin’s algorithm to sort based on priority or deadlines or many other factors. On the flip side, you will have to have the Group Component of BuddyPress enabled in order to have this one.

Software Issue Manager

Site admins and developers also get their fair share of chaos even as a work-from-home professional. As you’re aware, websites frequently get bugs and glitches. This is where software engineers and experts come in. They too can make their jobs more manageable using a plugin for WordPress called Software Issue Manager.

The name is pretty straightforward and can be an advantageous tool for when you’re managing multiple websites. If you also manage a team of software professionals, you can easily assign issues and problems to them as “tasks,” making bug-fixing a painless challenge instead of a whack-a-mole ordeal.

Make sure to not overload your WordPress installation with these plugins; only pick the ones you need to organize your work from home routine based on your workload. As always, stay safe inside your home and we hope these plugins can help you.

RELATED: 4 Ways Your Internal Blog Can Help with Project Management

The post 6 WordPress Plugins To Organize Your Work From Home Routine appeared first on The Blog Herald.

You see, the Google Answer Box exists to save the users time and index finger muscle work. It contains the concise and exact answer to a question, usually specific but sometimes otherwise. It’s an indication of how useful or essential your content is for a particular niche or query from a group of users on the internet wanting to know the same thing.

Getting there, however, is a tough and uphill battle depending on the keywords you want to aim for. Usually, for the most common questions and searches, only the most competitive and already established websites battle it out for control with smaller sites having little to no chance. However, there also lots of searches and questions on the internet that are not too common or obvious.

Learning how to optimize your content for these ought to put your work in the Google Answer Box. Now, we have actually prepared some tips and tricks to help you along the way in your quest to launch your content at the top. Even if you don’t make it, these tips will at least increase your chances and they’re good to apply anyway regardless of your goals or the results.

1. Do your keyword research

Well, this one is pretty obvious as you’re probably doing this for most of your content, especially the written ones. Not doing keyword research for your content even if it’s organic is a good way to waste space on your website. Unless your website or blog is but a journal for your daily thoughts or is not being monetized, using the plethora of keyword tracking tools is a necessity these days.

Most of them are free anyway and you can even find some of the best of them in this particular article. Sometimes you might even want to take a look at long-tail keywords or even complete questions as keywords or keyphrases. Addressing those can be a good way to get your content to appear in the Google Answer Box especially if your keyword is popular enough yet uncommon at the same time.

It’s not just the keywords you want to use you should be researching, but also your competitors’ keywords too. Which keywords they are using or what questions they are answering could give you a good picture and example. You might also want to check which ones they haven’t answered or done yet.

2. Organize your content structure

Google simply loves structured content in any form (as long as it abides by community standards). You can see plenty of list articles from top sites getting the cut into the Answer Box along with being first or second place in the results. The usual word combinations that yield that sort of list answer are questions or searches that include “best” or “worst” or “to,” basically anything superlative.

Then, there are other Answer Boxes that paraphrase paragraphs including the keywords, sometimes even specific pictures. The bottom line is, they all have a structure that Google can easily index or recognize. List articles, for example, all have headings and subheadings to help search engines categorize and pull them up faster. Apart from lists and good paragraphs, tables and graphs also provide answers that Google likes.

3. Answer specific questions

Speaking of answers, answering specific questions and even writing your content around such queries is one good way to get into a Google Search Box. The “who, what, when, where, and why, or even how” of things are extremely helpful for people. It can be anything from fixing household stuff to cooking or who’s who when it comes to Hollywood and other spotlights.

Of course, we can’t stress enough how to accurate and credible you have to be in order to get featured. You can’t just start answering or adding opinions to your answers without the proper authority or study-based knowledge to back them up. This might work for some lists, but questions regarding medicine or food hazards, for example, can mean the difference between harm and help for plenty of people.

4. Use the correct HTML markups

In addition to organizing your content structure, you also might want to check your HTML markups. Thankfully, WordPress usually does this for you already in the visual or default editor interface. Still, it does pay to check the HTML text tab from time to time.

Sometimes, HTML can tangle itself and cause some wrong markups or codes especially if you have editor plugins installed. For this, you might want to check the accuracy of your HTML using a resource like this one.

5. Use Answer the Public and other resources

As for which other resources you might want to use to check out the questions everyone is asking, Answer the Public is a good one. It’s a free service that lets you know what people are asking Google or what they want to search. This way, you can check what questions already have their own Answer Boxes.

You can then surgically target niche queries or searches especially those related to your content. Even certain questions like “how to lose body fat without going to the gym” can easily be targeted with different answers in articles such as bodyweight exercises and the like. You just have to put yourself in the users’ shoes.

6. Be concise

Last but not least, being concise and straight to the point is what both Google and internet users prefer. You have to understand that most people who ask questions in Google want a quick answer and will not linger too long. If they want more details they will click your content and visit your page but you have to do them the service first of answering their initial search.

This way, you can gain their trust and show just how responsible you are as a blogger and content creator. Make sure to practice all these tips and you’ll be inching closer to the top eventually with each content.

RELATED: Google’s Perfect World: A New Technical SEO Framework

The post 6 Tips To Help Your Content Appear on A Google Answer Box appeared first on The Blog Herald.

After all, not everyone who runs a blog or a website has the luxury of doing everything from home. Travel bloggers come to mind as well as other business blogs who need to manage teams and have personal meetings. Suffice to say, even bloggers get their fair share of inconveniences and problems caused by COVID-19 lockdowns.

Thankfully, there’s a solution for every problem and while there hasn’t been one yet for the pandemic, there are plenty of tools for working from home. These can make your job easier as you transition or are forced to work in the confines of your home office until it’s safe to resume our normal lives once again. This doesn’t have to be exclusive for bloggers too, anyone working from home can use them as well.

Taiga

When working from home and you don’t have your good old-fashioned bulletin or corkboard or sticky notes to tell you what tasks you have in pending. Rather than go out and expose yourself to sickness by buying physical organization tools, you can try out Taiga instead. It’s an open-source project management software that will introduce you to Kanban-style task organization.

It’s similar to software like Trello or Asana but Taiga is more generous and more flexible. With this, no longer will you have to be confused with multitasking or prioritizing your individual tasks. You can even set it up for a group of people you’re working with so that tackling work or division of labor is more clear and less chaotic.

Zoom

Meetings are certainly inevitable when it comes to working with a team. Since you don’t have the resources or safety to conduct your regular face-to-face meetings in these trying times, you’re gonna have to go digital too. It’s not that bad, to be honest, tools like Zoom or Skype can make life easier for those that need to conduct regular meetings. In this case, we recommend Zoom.

What makes it better than other video calling or communication software is that Zoom only needs to be installed in one person’s device. You can then send out a link to them that will let them join the conference call. Apart from that, Zoom also has other features that will make online meetings a breeze and might even win you over regular conferences.

Slack

Email exchanges while working from home can get rather disjointed and counter-productive since they’re not really built for real-time communication. For that, you might want to use Slack instead. It’s one of the standard written communication tools out there and is favored by many companies.

Slack’s purpose is to effectively cut down any unnecessary email exchanges. It fills in on the functions of many email apps, for that matter, including file and image sharing. Moreover, Slack can serve as a message hub for your team or group where you can even dedicate a place for non-professional banter.

G Suite

Thanks to Google, you can forget about the usual premium collection of Microsoft Office tools as they are often offline and require heavier resources on your computer. Google’s online and cloud-based Office Tools such as Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc. can make your life a lot easier as lone as you have internet, which you should if you’re going through a home quarantine.

Even better, most G Suite applications let you share your work with others and even collaborate on tasks since everything is online. This makes project collaborations more possible online. It can even be worth looking into even if you have a WordPress website already.

Nextcloud

Nextcloud primarily functions as a cloud storage system similar to Dropbox or Google Drive. However, it’s a lot more versatile than that; it can also be used as an all-in-one software thanks to its plugin capabilities. Among the things you can add to Nextcloud are chat clients, email clients, video clients, and an officially-supported calendar app.

This calendar will then be integrated well into Nextcloud’s storage capability. You can fully maximize this calendar app in order to schedule meetings and project deadlines with your colleagues; this is on top of the storage it grants you.

Front

Multiple lines and apps for online communication can get messy and impair productivity. This gets even more chaotic the bigger a team is; so integrating all of them in one app can save your sanity when working from home. Front is the tool we’re talking about and can aggregate email, messaging, and call channels like a Swiss Army Knife.

This is also great if you’re running a commerce blog with its own customer service team. Front can easily integrate with Aircall, a communication software to make their job with handling customers more convenient.

Toggl

Last but not least, we have a time tracker software. If for any reason, you need to track your time or are used to 8-hour jobs in the office even as a blogger with their own website, then Toggl can easily count your or your team’s hours. This can also be a great tool to see how much time you spend on working from home.

Toggl has a free option that should be enough for most bloggers who aren’t running a fully-fledged company. It’s also a great way to pace yourself if ever you feel like you want to do something else at home other than work. Whichever tool you choose for your needs, make sure to stay safe and keep everyone safe by staying home if your city has a quarantine order.

RELATED: A New Blogger’s Guide to Working From Home

The post 7 Good Blogger Tools For Working From Home appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Think of getting hacked as a disease and your website as the physical body. Knowing how and why or even where the disease comes from is half the battle. In fact, you might have already won if you only knew how to address these shortcomings. Because if you knew, then you can fix the problem before it even starts rearing its ugly head.

You need not worry since we’re here to point out possibly why your blog is getting hacked. You might want to check out these WordPress oversights and symptoms in order to prevent any future hacking attempts and strengthen your overall security.

Outdated plugins and themes

We know you’re probably tired of hearing this one over and over again, but you have to update your themes and plugins. Outdated plugins and themes can introduce all manners of bugs and cracks to your website especially if their function is rather significant to the site’s operation or has a big impact.

Your website, if it was a person, will surely appreciate your periodically checking your themes and plugins if they’re up to date. This way, you can easily weed out the ones which are no longer compatible with your WordPress version; you can then replace them with something more competent or newer. It’s by far one of the easier steps you can do to prevent your blog from getting hacked.

Outdated WordPress

In addition to the outdated plugins and themes, an outdated WordPress installation or website is also more prone to attacks. You have to remember that cybersecurity is an ongoing process where each and every new improvement to software also introduces an exploitable weakness. Hackers and cybercriminals will eventually find these out.

That’s one of the reasons why your WordPress website should always be updated to the latest version. This should be easy to perform– a lot easier than the first entry above since WordPress sometimes updates automatically. However, other sites have customized options where you can hold off the updates in order to preserve some settings.

Using weak passwords

One of the most obvious reasons why people get hacked not just websites is this. You’ve probably made some accounts and were told that your passwords were weak and easily hacked. Such a warning should never be ignored since weak passwords can and will get you hacked.

So, make sure to think carefully first before setting your Administrator passwords in WordPress or even generating some passwords for user accounts. When it comes to hacking, one of the first things cybercriminals will test is how weak your password is. That means your password is the first line of defense and something that should never be taken for granted.

Lenient access to WordPress Admin

The WordPress Admin is where all the magic happens and it’s one of the most powerful places in your blog. As such, it makes sense that it will be the target of many hackers for access. Once they gain access to the WordPress Admin, it might as well be game over for your site. They can cause all sorts of damage and criminal activity there.

An unprotected WordPress admin is one that has only a few layers of security. Apart from having a strong password, some form of two-factor authentication or other methods of authentication and anti-bot countermeasures should do the trick. This makes it difficult for hackers to access the WordPress Admin in case they still manage to crack the password.

File permissions

This is something determined by your web server, meaning if they don’t outright tell you what their file permission settings are. File permissions help your web server control the files needed to run your website. Not having the proper file permissions means a field day for any hackers lurking out there looking to take advantage of loose website security.

In order to consider your website files secure, all WordPress files in your installation should have 644 as the Numeric value in the file permissions. Meanwhile, all the folders in your WordPress installation should have the Numeric value of 755 as their file permission. You can contact your web host provider if you need help changing this or someone who knows how to tinker with the directory files.

Insecure Web Hosting

This is mostly not your fault but you can still prevent it. As you know by now, getting a website up and running isn’t that easy; you need a web server where your website data is stored and loaded so that people can access it. These are called web hosts, the problem is, some web hosts are more secure than others. This can be a problem if you go frugal on your web host or server.

It just so happens that some web hosting services don’t go the extra mile to secure their servers. This makes your website open to all manners of cyber attacks and hacking attempts. Of course, the only way to fix this security issue is to get a better web hosting service with more secure servers. That means you might have to spend some extra cash to do it.

In the end, however, it will be worth it considering how getting hacked can be more costly for your website. Just make sure to observe and take note of all these security weaknesses so that your website doesn’t get hacked.

RELATED: How to Protect Your WordPress Site From Hackers

The post 6 Reasons Why Your WordPress Blog Is Getting Hacked appeared first on The Blog Herald.

However, we’re here to talk about the less manual method of adding related posts. That’s because you don’t always get to make the right and most optimized decisions when it comes to choosing related posts. A machine algorithm might see better potential in its own choices and these are quite efficient for related posts plugins.

Lucky for you, you don’t have to look that far, we’ve compiled some of the best related posts plugins you can find for WordPress. These can ensure that your old content gets the love it deserves and that your visitors spend more time on the site.

Contextual Related Posts

You won’t find many things to dislike in Contextual Related Posts. It’s one of the most functional plugins on this list. For text posts, it works fine and flawlessly without much tinkering too. One problem it might have is for related posts that feature images where the plugin will try to use images within the content if no featured image is found.

Of course, the plugin is also free but that comes with a caveat in the form of a lack of customization. The way the thumbnails or other elements of the post are presented are quite limited compared to some plugins here that have a premium option. Still, on its own, it’s quite the beauty and should work well for the majority of blogs out there.

WordPress Related Posts Plugin by AddThis

Some of you might have already heard of AddThis given how they provide bloggers with a host of good tools. You’ll be pleased to know that they have their own related posts plugin, which is named aptly so. They have even added it to the WordPress plugin store if you want the individual component instead of the full suite.

In any case, AddThis’ related posts plugin can give you a lot of options in how you present your related posts to your readers. You can have several presentation modes like slider, footer, or inline. You can even decide whether to display them horizontally or vertically; it also lets you pick how many articles can be displayed.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Next up is one of the most popular plugins on this list, Yet Another Related Posts Plugin or YARPP for short. The plugin has more than 200,000 downloads, meaning it’s tried and tested many times over. Like many others on this list, YARPP also lets you pick between thumbnail or text type related posts.

One of the best features of this plugin is how it allows you to have many templates. This basically gives you a good amount of control in how the plugin presents the posts. The developers themselves are also proud of YARPP’s own built-in algorithm. Do note that the free version is quite a resource hog.

RELATED: 8 Content Marketing Plugins You Need For Your WordPress Blog

Related Posts for WordPress by Bibblio

Speaking of built-in algorithm and advanced A.I.s made specifically for related posts, Bibblio is not one to back down from such a challenge. They have their own plugin which uses something they tout as cutting-edge AI for genuinely relevant posts.

They’re also proud to let you know that they use the same tech that some of the biggest websites also use today, such as National Geographic and Mashable. One thing that Bibblio excels in is the speed and how it doesn’t tax your website as much; Bibblio handles the heavy-lifting on their side. You also get many options in presenting the related posts.

Related Posts for WordPress by Never5

For ease of use, you might want to look into Related Posts for WordPress by Never5. It’s a simple and straightforward plugin that lets you incorporate a related post in your content using just one click; at least, that’s how the plugin developers put it. This 1-click philosophy also extends towards linking all your related posts to one another.

This plugin is all about doing the least amount of work as possible when it comes to related posts. All you have to do is let the installation program do its thing and then the plugin will take care of the rest.

Inline Related Posts

Looking for something different? Then Inline Related Posts should satisfy that need for novelty. It’s similar to the other plugins here but it handles things differently. Instead of showing the posts at the bottom of the page, Inline Related Posts shows them, well, inline, squeezed between the text of your content.

That psychology here is that readers tend to be more invested in the articles or content while reading. In fact, some of them might not even finish reading the content anyway, making inline related posts a saving grace when it comes to prolonging the time they spend on the site. The downside is that you’ll need another plugin if you want the traditional related posts.

Related Posts by Taxonomy

How the developers handle this plugin’s algorithm is astounding and encapsulates what related posts should be all about. The plugin will add sidebars or widgets containing related posts; these are ranked based on the most common terms it has with the content. You can even customize how its related posts are picked depending on taxonomy or post type.

This does limit what gets revealed as a related post. How much more effective this is compared to other plugins’ algorithms remains subject to debate. However, this plugin’s five-star rating should be enough as proof of its performance. All that’s left is for you to take a pick which related post plugin you want or need.

RELATED: 7 Best WordPress Popup Plugins for 2020

The post 7 Best Related Posts Plugins for WordPress for 2020 appeared first on The Blog Herald.

As for how they can drive away your visitors, certain WordPress popup plugins simply handle their popups worse. As a result, some of these popups can get rather intrusive or disruptive to the user experience. A good popup plugin, for that matter, is one that balances out the website’s needs against user experience.

You needn’t worry too much because we have done the job of compiling which of these plugins is the best for any kind of blog or website that needs them. Here’s a list of the best of them for this year.

OptinMonster

Want something easy to use and doesn’t take much coding experience? OptinMonster might be the best option for you. Their plugin is called Popups by OptinMonster and has a free version in WordPress’ plugin store. Not only does OptinMonster help notify your visitors the first time they enter the site but it also prolongs the time they spend on the domain.

This is all thanks to the specialized popup templates it uses to keep visitors coming back or staying longer. These can be anything from promos to coupons. On top of that, OptinMonster makes its popup plugin a breeze to use with the drag-and-drop function, making it perfect for startup bloggers. Last but not least, it has a feature called Small Success which remembers what popups were shown to certain visitors so they get a different one each time.

TrustPulse

If popups that are less intrusive are what you need or want, then TrustPulse is something you can trust to do the job. Their popups notably take less screen real estate and are also discreet. Of course, TrustPulse is not your usual dedicated plugin– it’s actually a full suite of marketing tools you can use to grow your whole company or blog.

It just so happens that the popup plugin aspect of TrustPulse is one of the finest for this year. It even shows you real-time tracking, meaning whoever does interaction with the popup is noted and reported to you. The tool also uses a social proof system to tailor the popups to the right users at the right time, making for a perfect marketing approach.

Ninja Popups

It’s not free but even so, it’s still popular as heck– one of the most popular WordPress popup plugins, in fact. As for how their popups perform? Exceptional and commendable. They have some of the most responsive and snappy popups in the market. Theirs also works well in mobile phones which, as some of you will know, is not a platform users want a popup to appear because of how clunky those are.

Meanwhile, if you want your popups to appear more tailored to your website– as if you coded them yourself, then Ninja Popups is your friend in that regard. It also lets you have full control of the appearance of your popups; you can even implement different variations and styles of your popups.

Icegram

Icegram is another popup plugin that offers more than one function, meaning a suite of tools. It’s useful if you want to save some plugin space on your WordPress installation. Anyway, you’ll find Icegram a competitive tool and popup plugin source, especially when comparing with others on this list.

The tool’s interface is more text-based than some of the more user-friendlier options here, however. Still, Icegram lets you create your popups right from the WordPress dashboard, which is an unprecedented and useful luxury of a function. The tool also operates within its own set of parameters and triggers to keep your visitors more invested in your website.

Sumo

Another option for you would be Sumo. It’s a robust and generous popup plugin or tool that’s dedicated compared to the other two above. Sumo also lets you customize and pick your own popup style. It has a free and a premium version; the former being limited but still allows you to create popups and forms of all kinds.

Since Sumo also helps immensely in growing your own email list, it also integrates well with popular email marketing platforms for additional exposure for your blog. Depending on what you’re after, you might find that Sumo’s selection of styles enough. If not, you always get the option to go premium.

Elementor

Elementor is all about design and it extends its philosophy to popups as well. Hence, we have Elementor Popups, the dedicated plugin for, well, popups. What Elementor does differently is to make it fun for you in designing your own popups. The tool itself uses the Elementor Page Builder user interface, meaning it won’t leave you wanting or confused.

Moreover, it lets you pick between more than 100 templates for your popups. It’s like a popup designer’s dream come true. When it comes to functionality, Elementor also has it covered since it allows you to create targeting options specific to pages for the best user experience.

HubSpot

Sometimes all you want is something simple. Something that lets you create popups and then implement them in WordPress in the fewest clicks or actions possible. HubSpot’s popup tool lets you do just that. It has its own suite or WordPress all-in-one plugin collection that allows you to create plugins in the tool and then upload them to your WordPress site.

This eliminates the mess of having to work within WordPress yourself for that plugin. Of course, the tool is easy to use and simple enough but provides a wide range of functions comparable to other WordPress popup plugins. So, choose wisely and help yourself to these plugins, it’s all up to you at this point.

RELATED: 8 Content Marketing Plugins You Need For Your WordPress Blog

The post 7 Best WordPress Popup Plugins for 2020 appeared first on The Blog Herald.

In fact, you’re probably among them– many of use are AdBlock users since ads can get rather intrusive. However, there are still websites and blogs that respect the preferences and peace of their users so much as to limit their ads. Adblock can be a huge problem for those fair blogs and websites who follow the ethical unwritten rules when it comes to applying ads to your site.

The said browser extension can feel a little too absolute and inconsiderate for the smaller and fairer websites. That is why learning how to deal with AdBlock users can not only save a monetization attempt for your blog but also make your audience appreciate you more. Here’s how to coexist with AdBlock.

An app for your website

Currently, there is no way AdBlock can work on smartphones so there you go. Developing an app for your blog or website is the next big thing you can do for it while also adjusting for the mobile shift. After all, roughly 50 percent of all the people online do it on their phones right now. That number will only increase as the years go by.

Of course, there is a possibility that advertisements on mobile might also get restricted but at the moment, it’s still pretty much unregulated. There’s also the fact that an app runs on its own and does not need to utilize any browser. This in itself is an investment but can be worth it in the long run.

Whitelisting

Here’s a more direct and transparent approach: tell your audience and users how important the ads are to you and how they keep your blog or website up and running. First, however, you have to detect which ones are using AdBlock. You can easily do this with the plethora of plugins available in WordPress’ plugin store.

After that, all that’s left to do is to compose a heartfelt message detailing the sincerity of your motivations regarding ads. More often than not, you’ll find plenty of users willing to whitelist your website in their AdBlock. This way, you can have the best of both worlds, assuming your ads don’t annoy anyone too much.

How you handle those who don’t whitelist is up to you.

Block the AdBlock users

This one’s a more extreme approach; it is usually only reserved for websites that already have a solid and vast audience. The method involves denying access to your blog to any user who refuses to whitelist. It doesn’t even have to be a whitelist; sometimes you can block them as soon as you find out that they have AdBlock installed.

Depending on what your message is or how diplomatic you are, they’ll understand why you made it this way. A number of big-name websites like Forbes already do this kind of thing. If your website is nowhere near as big or as bold as that one, then move on to the next method; that’s because employing this one when your blog is still young is a sure way to decrease your audience.

RELATED: How Social Media Paid Ads Can Boost Blog Post Promotion

Redirecting

Instead of outright blocking anyone who has an AdBlock on their browser, you might want to be a little lenient and give them something else to look at. That’s the power of redirecting visitors. It doesn’t even have to be anything outside your website, you can redirect them to an inconsequential page or old content.

You can even redirect them to a page that explains why you need to be whitelisted. It’s a nice middle ground between blocking the users and asking them to let your ads run. You might want to try this if you find that either of those aforementioned methods doesn’t work well.

Premium and free content

In conjunction with redirecting AdBlock users, you can always split your blog into two parts for them. That would be the premium and free content. Many websites have already done this but in your case, the free content can be the ones that do have the ads in them and ask for whitelisting or redirections to premium content if they don’t want to whitelist.

Meanwhile, premium content will usually be devoid of ads and are far more polished or special. Of course, it still depends on your preference as a blog owner. This is simply one of the more efficient ways you can handle AdBlock users on your website.

Know which ads your users tolerate

In addition to being polite or straightforward, you can actually communicate two-way with your audience regarding what kind of ads they actually want to see or will tolerate. You can send them a survey or exam in which they will voluntarily send their data to you so you can tailor and customize the ads to their liking.

If your audience finds your ads to their liking, the chances are, there’s nothing to complain about much. After all, it may be a product or service that they need and something they expect to find that is related to your website.

Ditch the ads

As a last resort, we’re not saying you should abandon the ads completely, but maybe find something a little less intrusive as a monetization method for your audience. Affiliate marketing, online stores, or coaching, etc. Ads are not the be-all, end-all when it comes to monetization.

Also, you’ll find other methods less shunned by your audience and not affected by AdBlock users. All in all, it might be better to consider what your audience likes or dislikes on your blog, even the AdBlock users.

RELATED: 4 Reasons Why In-Image Advertising Converts Better Than Traditional Banner Ads

The post 7 Ways To Deal With AdBlock Users If You’re A Blogger appeared first on The Blog Herald.

It just so happens that WordPress has no shortage of content marketing plugins to choose from. Many of them are standard for blogs and some of these you probably already have. These plugins all have different purposes as well and aren’t really comparable with one another, meaning you might need them all, depending on the kind of blog you have.

Hence, to shorten your search for content marketing plugins, we have made a list of must-have tools to keep your content marketing game exceptional.

1. Yoast SEO

We did mention that you might already have some of these, right? Yoast SEO is one of the most prominent plugins ever in WordPress and for good reason. It helps immensely in turning a jumble of words and paragraphs into a marketable content that abides by Google’s algorithm standards. It’s safe to assume that you’re probably handicapping your blog by not having Yoast SEO.

Yoast SEO has two important aspects. The first is the SEO meter that allows you to see how favorable your content is in the eyes of search engines as you make the content. The second is the Readability meter that focuses on making your written content more presentable to the majority of the online audience. Together, these two will make your written content creation and marketing a breeze.

2. Inline Related Posts

Picking out related or internal posts to link in your content looks easy enough but can get rather tedious in your checklist. Letting a plugin do it for you can save you a bit of time and brainpower; that’s because the plugin we recommend for that is the Inline Related Posts for WordPress. It pretty much does what it says and will automatically insert a related post in each and every content once installed.

Inline Related Posts also automatically chooses related posts based on the keywords and the title of your content. It’s also a good way to increase your audience engagement or even prolong the time they spend on your website. You can even customize how the inline post shows up on each and every content.

3. Shared Counts

One of the best ways to propagate your content is by sharing it on social media. This way, you get to invite a wider audience than just loyal or organic visitors to your website. Of course, this does depend on how strong your following is on your social media pages but you can always improve that with a plugin like Shared Counts.

Simply put, Shared Counts is a way for you and your audience to share your blog with social media. It also allows you to keep tabs on how many times the content has been shared on a specific social media platform. The best part is that Shared Counts doesn’t slow down your website speed that much so it’s one of the lightest content marketing plugins on this list.

4. OptinMonster

One of the biggest detriments to content marketing is a high bounce rate. Because when visitors leave as soon as they enter your website, then all that content will have gone to waste. Plugins like OptinMonster can help with matters like that as it allows you to catch these kinds of users and halt their sudden exit.

The plugin can potentially convert high bounce rate contributors to subscribers or a part of your email list by presenting them with a variety of prompts to stop them from leaving. It’s basically like hitting two birds with one stone as it will not only lower your bounce rate but also add email subscriptions and increase engagement.

RELATED: 7 Best Archive Plugins for Your WordPress Blog

5. Thrive Leads

One of the best ways to go about with content marketing is by building your email list. This ensures you get loyal or repeat audiences and readers for your content. Thrive Leads offers blog owners the usage of any type of opt-in form.

It also has a nifty drag-and-drop editor that allows you to design any kind of form easily. While its main focus is generating email subscribers or building the email list, Thrive Leads also has a similar mechanic to OptinMonster that halts leaving visitors with exit-intent popups.

6. Thirsty Affiliates

If your blog is under an affiliate program, then a plugin like Thirsty Affiliates can certainly help protect your affiliate marketing returns. One of the best features of this plugin is cloaking long affiliate links to make them more secure and look appealing in everyone’s eyes.

You can also get the option to automatically link affiliate URLs to keywords to save you the trouble. It’s one of the must-have tools for making your content marketing cleaner and making your affiliate marketing more efficient.

7. Analytify

Google Analytics is one of the most important tools you can have when it comes to improving your SEO and ranking. As such, it’s a treasure for content marketing especially in regards to tweaking your content. Analytify is a plugin that can help you bring Google Analytics to your WordPress dashboard.

Of course, it’s easy enough to set up in your blog. The plugin can also simplify the management of your marketing campaigns. You’ll easily and quickly analyze your traffic data and what kind of content does better than others with this plugin.

8. Revive Old Posts

Turns out taking advantage of your old posts is also an effective way to do content marketing. After all, if you have a treasure trove’s worth of archive, it’s worth going back those to let them handle the heavy lifting. So dust them off with the Revive Old Posts plugin; it helps you by sharing your old posts again in social media.

With it, no part of your blog is wasted and you also get to engage more with your audience. For better effect, combine all these content marketing plugins together and you’re on your way to a bigger and more popular blog.

RELATED: 8 WordPress Plugins for Better User Experience

The post 8 Content Marketing Plugins You Need For Your WordPress Blog appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Luckily, SEO keywords metrics are not as confusing as some of the broader subject matters in SEO. For the record, SEO keyword metrics are what you use to measure the quality of a keyword before you use it in your content. Each of them indicates different ways or factors that can affect your SEO or how well your content does.

You might have already seen some of these keyword metrics in the very keyword tracker tools you’re using. Here’s the explanation for those so you can better understand how to pick your keywords wisely.

Cost-Per-Click

If your keyword tracker tool is elaborate or sophisticated enough, then you’ll probably see this abbreviated as CPC. It’s short for Cost-Per-Click. The metric name is pretty straightforward; it’s an indication of what you’ll be paying for each click in your marketing campaign, assuming it’s a Pay-Per-Click campaign.

This is applicable to those who use banner ads or other advertisements or monetization methods in their blogs. If the keyword you chose is also an AdWord, then Cost-Per-Click is a metric you might want to prioritize compared to the others. Another name for Cost-Per-Click is Pay-Per-Click as the two are sometimes used interchangeably by many tools and websites.

Competition

This right here is one of the most (if not the most) important SEO keyword metrics. It shows you how popular a specific keyword is in its own way. Because you know you can’t just use whichever keyword comes up as the most popular. Chances are if it’s too popular, then someone else has used it already and had the same idea as you. That’s where the competition metric comes in.

It indicates how many people, websites, or businesses are already using a particular keyword. The reality is, only top sites can compete for this keyword and it’s a tough SEO world out there. Finding a good balance between popularity and keyword competition is key (no pun intended) to having a healthy growth that’s not hindered by the biggest players in town. If the competition metric works against you, then your content or site usually won’t be displayed on the first page of Google. This means it will be relegated to the succeeding pages and let’s be honest, almost nobody goes there if they’ve already found what they’re looking for in the first few pages.

Search results number/Volume

In addition to viewing the competition of a particular keyword, how many searches for it can also play a big role in determining how healthy a keyword it. The search results number shows this numerically, as implied by the name. You might, however, see millions of search results for a particularly well-hidden keyword, this is because the tool that includes this metric also shows pages or websites that are not actively optimizing for that keyword.

In any case, all of them can also represent competition for your content since they can also take space in Google’s search engine results page. Making sure that you find a healthy balance between this metric and the competition metric is an ideal way to pick your keywords. However, it’s also worth noting that your biggest competition for keywords is pages who optimize for the said keyword. That very well means this metric can sometimes be ignored in favor of competition.

Search trend

Volume is not enough as an indicator of popularity, of course. One of the best ways to analyze the popularity of a keyword is to look at how people are searching for it on a certain scale of time. This is a good way to gauge whether your content can take advantage of the sudden overnight boom of a keyword or not.

Because if you take too long to create the content or use the keyword to full effect, your site or page will end up underperforming. If you see that the search volume or number is still high but the trend is already going to a downward slope, then that keyword or topic might already be dying fast. This means that the keyword is spoiled already and it’s time to find a new one; preferably, you’ll want one with a rising trend or at least a plateau.

Ranking

This is probably the very first metric that you will notice right away. Some tools have a ranking system already in place for which keyword is the best or is the most popular; still, you might have to check what exactly the ranking means for some tools. In any case, the keyword at the top usually is the best. Certain nuances exist like how much competition it has or the CPC; these need to be taken into account and considered carefully in some cases.

For the most part, however, the closer the keyword is to the top spot, the better it is and the more popular it will make your content. This is also applicable and even more important when it comes to searching keywords in niches or industries instead of searching using the keywords themselves. The tools will usually sum up a keyword’s rankings based on how well it does in each of the other metrics; if you prioritize other SEO keyword metrics, then you can reconsider what the ranking tells you.

For better effectiveness, make sure to take all these SEO keyword metrics in mind and compare which one works best for you. You’ll get used to it in no time.

RELATED: Keywords Are for Users, Not SEO Abusers

The post 5 Most Important SEO Keyword Metrics, Explained appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Of course, 100 percent is the highest and best number a WordPress website must aspire for in the site health score. This ensures that your website is not only clean but also secure and safe for your visitors. If you do find that your score isn’t at the highest, you always check what you can do to improve it.

However, we believe that prevention is better than cure, so to speak; for that matter, we also believe in doing whatever pre-emptive measures you can to improve your site health score in WordPress before even checking. If that’s what you want, then do try out these methods below.

Update

You probably don’t need to do this already if you’re attentive to your WordPress website. Still, this is one of the most basic and effortless steps in ensuring that your site health score remains favorable. Updating your WordPress website (either manually or automatically) is a sure way to increase that score.

So, if you have a habit of ignoring that update notification for WordPress which can be annoying for some people, then you might want to practice being more attentive. This is even more important if it’s WordPress itself that suggested the fix in order to increase your site health score. The same goes for your plugins and themes.

Clean your plugins and themes

Speaking of plugins and themes, cleaning them or making sure they are being fully utilized is also a rather important step. You might even need to make this a priority especially if you’re the type of website owner who liberally downloads plugins or themes.

All of those can add up and might even hamper your website or servers. This happens even if the plugins or themes are not being used. The solution is simple, of course; you can clean your plugins and themes– the ones you’re not using anymore. There are bound to be some, sometimes they can even be outdated or unsupported ones.

Get SSL certificate or HTTPS

For most website builders or developers, this is already a standard procedure. If you’re unsure, you can check your site’s URL to see if it’s preceded by “https.” If not, then you have some work to do. Luckily, you can easily do this by contacting your web host for SSL certificates and then moving to HTTPS.

Not only will this improve your site health but it will also make your website look easier on Google’s eyes. Apparently, Google has already started marking non-HTTPS websites as not secure which can and will scare off visitors from checking your site.

Use the latest database software version

For most WordPress websites, there are only two database software options. The first one is MySQL and the second one is MariaDB which is a variant of MySQL. Whatever you might have, having and using the latest version of either is crucial to a health site score.

Doing this is not as simple as enabling automated updates. You might need to contact your host’s support and discuss with them about the latest version of database software, whether it’s MySQL or MariaDB.

RELATED: 3 Tips for Being a Healthy Blogger

Latest PHP version and modules

In addition to ensuring you have a good database software and an up to date WordPress, you also have to update your PHP. It’s the programming language that powers WordPress and its functions. For some, this is also standard procedure as having the latest PHP version also guarantees better security.

Moreover, you’ll also want to make sure you get all the required modules for PHP. This ensures a fully functional WordPress website that’s also secure. Sometimes WordPress will even tell which PHP modules are missing. Again when it comes to this, contacting your host’s support is the most efficient action.

Turn off debug mode

WordPress usually has a built-in debugging tool to better help developers with messages. Most of the time, you don’t need these debugging tools in a live site as it can reveal some unwarranted information about your visitors, potentially making it a security risk. One of the most prominent of these tools is WP_DEBUG.

Configuring your debug mode is quite easy. You only need to access your wp-config.php file in your WordPress installation and look for the line

define( ‘WP_DEBUG’, true );

Change “true” to “false” and you can disable debug mode. Alternatively, you can also just delete the whole line to disable the function.

Enable WP Cron

The WordPress cron system is a vital tool for many automated routine tasks. It’s a special technology utilized by servers to handle scheduled and recurring actions. In fact, many plugins even use it. However, those plugins can also tend to tax the cron system. This can lead to improper functions sometimes.

You can do two steps to ensure that the cron system is enabled. First is to download a checker plugin for cron. It will show you whether cron is enabled or disabled. If it’s the latter, then open the wp-config.php file again and look for the line:

define(‘DISABLE_WP_CRON’, true);

Change “true” to “false” or just completely erase the line altogether.

Enable REST API

Like the cron job system, WordPress’ REST API is also a system that’s inherently enabled. It provides WordPress with the ability to communicate with various online applications. REST API also helps WordPress store and present content. The problem is, some security plugins or tools can disable this.

Developers might also do this for our WordPress website. The reasoning for this is to help protect the website against brute force attacks. However, it’s up to you to decide how to balance this. If your site is not prone to brute force attacks, then you can leave this on. Some plugins and tools even let you do this.

Perform all of these tasks and your site health score will be perfect in no time.

RELATED: 5 Beginner’s Tips to Building a WordPress Blog

The post 8 Ways To Get A Perfect Site Health Score In WordPress appeared first on The Blog Herald.

404 error pages will only be like that or viewed negatively if you leave them alone in their current state. As a blogger or website owner who has pages on their website with 404 error pages, you can transform them into something positive. Think of it as turning trash into treasure (a bit hyperbolic but it can happen) or making good use of setbacks.

There are many ways you can make good use of 404 error pages; you’re in luck because we’re here to enumerate them for you. So don’t delete or ignore them, get creative with these methods:

Redirection page

One of the most obvious things you can do to a 404 page is to have it redirect to other pages, especially the relevant ones. Depending on what the visitor is looking for when they stumbled onto the 404 page, they just might change their course; if you have enough content, they might become interested in what alternatives you have to offer.

This can be anything from your list of best articles, related content, your homepage, or the actual content which migrated to another page or server. Whichever you pick, it’s a good use of an otherwise empty and useless page. Plus, your visitors will thank you for it. In other instances, it can also double as a way of letting visitors know that your website isn’t dead despite having a 404 page.

Generate leads with it

Another trick in the book would be to turn your 404 page into an email subscription. You can do this by turning the error page into a lead magnet or somewhere people can leave their email addresses to you as some form of subscription. This ensures that you can get a hold of them and maybe turn them into loyal visitors.

Now, how do you make a lead magnet? Simple things like eBooks or content subscriptions can do the trick. The more rewarding it is, the better. The trick is to make people think they’re getting something else in return for the 404 page; the only thing they have to do is to leave their email addresses to you to complete the transaction. This is also a good way to convert visitors that would otherwise be part of the bounce rate.

Coupons, freebies, or discounts

Lead magnets are one thing; actual freebies and promos are another. However, you don’t exactly have to outright give it away once the visitor sees the 404 page. These freebies, coupons, or discounts in any form can be exit-intent popups. Instead of letting them leave the 404 page empty-handed, why give them something worthwhile?

This is more viable as a strategy when it comes to eCommerce websites or online stores but any blog can do it nonetheless. Think of these exit-intent freebies and coupons as compensation for annoyed visitors. Of course, that would be assuming you have something free to give. If you don’t then it’s high time you get to work on your free stuff– those convert well.

RELATED: How To Avoid Being On The Google Blacklist

Transform it into a search box

This might look like a simple method to squeeze the last drops of benefit from a 404 page; however, it’s actually quite clever, we’ll get to why later. Do note that including a search bar in place of 404 error pages is a welcome courtesy in the eyes of visitors. This way, they can easily search for alternative keywords that are related to what the 404 error used to have.

Now, this is also why it’s a clever method. You can easily turn this 404 page search box into an SEO gauge. Since it’s a search box on your website, you can collect data via Google Analytics regarding what people were searching for. This is regardless of whether the search box you placed is for Google or within your website’s archives. To do this, simply head on over to the Site Search section in Google Analytics.

Use humor or references

This can be a polarizing way to benefit from your 404 error pages. On one hand, some of your visitors who have been presented with a 404 page could be frustrated already; on the other hand, a bit of humor or references done right might just cool their hot heads.

The humor part can be anything from jokes, puns, and even memes. If you want to play it safe, references are pretty harmless; so anything from movies, pop culture, or the internet of things can add a bit of lightheartedness to your annoying dead end 404 pages. Certain plugins let you redesign your 404 pages quite easily.

Use it to show off your branding

Apart from humor or references, a 404 page can also be a branding or advertisement opportunity for you. Turning your 404 page into a personalized art page custom-made for your website conveys a lot more dedication and care compared to a 404 page with just the basic HTML or browser template.

Sites like Reddit, for example, have customized 404 pages that show their mascot or site brand. This makes the 404 page more welcoming and also leaves an impression on a disgruntled visitor about the care you put into your pages. If you don’t want the humor or reference route, then this paired with maybe a search box, lead magnet, or redirection page ought to do the trick.

Contact form

Apart from generating leads, giving visitors a way to directly contact the site owners or bloggers makes it easy to communicate or report the error page. This is handy in case the 404 error was something you can fix or remedy quickly.

As we stated earlier, you also don’t have to stick to one method. You can combine these methods in order to make good use of 404 error pages. Just be careful not to overwhelm your visitors with too many alternatives.

RELATED: How To Bring Your Old Blog Posts Back From The Dead

The post 7 Ways To Take Advantage of 404 Error Pages appeared first on The Blog Herald.

The WordPress live chat, or just live chat, is a function or widget for websites that allow direct communication between the website proprietors and the visitors. This makes it easy to ask questions and obtain more specific information.

You’re probably already familiar with live chat too; they merely look like a social media app messenger and also function like one but with less security.

Not all websites should have this, of course; certain blog types benefit more from live chat modules.

A good example of which blog need a WordPress live chat would be a business website. Anything that sells products, services, or software to visitors could use the added benefit of live chat; many businesses connect their live chat to sales or customer service personnel so they can handle the queries faster than with emails.

Another kind of website would be those that dabble in coaching where the webmaster or blog owner can grant you time for one-on-one tutorials. Now, if you think that your website can benefit from a live chat, then by all means.

We’ve prepared a good selection of live chat plugins or software for you to choose from. No need to code and go about it the hard way.

LiveChat

LiveChat is the most popular method or plugin on this list. Even its name is pretty straightforward and will just about pop up in many search results. As one of the leading industry standards for, well, live chatting, LiveChat allows for maximum compatibility with many different operating systems.

That means you or any of your chat support representatives can use LiveChat on phones and tablets without having to go to the WordPress dashboard. LiveChat also handles business quite well and allows users to create and send support tickets in case of disputes or any other needs. The downside is that LiveChat is not free and only has a 2-week trial.

FreshChat

For those who are starting out and don’t have the capital for big tools like LiveChat, FreshChat might come in handy. It’s a free plugin that also gives your website a decent live chat. Every account you have in FreshChat can have as many as 10 agents handling the support and talking.

The good part about FreshChat is that it doesn’t skimp on integration despite being free. You can connect it to Slack and many other communication tools with messengers. This way, they can easily reply to any visitor or user with a query or concern.

Sendinblue

Sendinblue isn’t exactly a plugin but more of a custom code that is still just as easy to install and set like a plugin. In any case, it provides a ton of features and then some; Sendinblue is not just a live chat but also a good email marketing tool for business-level transactions.

Think of it as more like an all-in-one marketing tool with a live chat. It’s perfect for those that require marketing aid from an app but also a live chat function. The live chat feature in the meantime, despite not being dedicated compared to the others in this list, is good enough. Now, bear in mind that Sendinblue does not offer free services and can get pricey.

SmartSupp

SmartSupp is another tool that you ought to look at if you’re in the market for some free live chat tools. It’s a chat support plugin at its core with a built-in analytics system that records your message exchanges with customers and visitors.

Apparently, this lets you study or re-read those messages so you can better plan on improving your business. While SmartSupp is free, costs will start the more agents you bring in behind the live chat; if that’s the case you’ll have to pay the tool’s premium which is around $8 per agent you add at the receiving end.

Olark

Olark is originally not plugin but is nevertheless easy to install as a WordPress live chat. It will give you a code that you can copy and paste on your WordPress sidebar widget and voila. Now, because some users are not this techy enough, Olark was kind enough to provide some bloggers with a plugin version which is even easier to install.

Apart from the standard fare or live chat, you also get good integration with many services like Zendesk or even Salesforce. Olark can also be connected with many third-party apps so you can access it and its messages from your smartphone, it works with both Android and iPhone.

Tidio Live Chat

Tidio Live Chat is among the easiest to activate in this list and that’s saying something for a plugin. Managing your chats is also done easily through apps downloadable in iOS and Android. Even if you’re offline or can’t reply, the messages will then be sent to your inbox so no query gets left out.

Last but not least, you can customize the chat boxes in Tidio, making them appear more unique and appealing in your visitors’ eyes. Tidio Live Chat is free for one agent and requires a pricey $16.90/month for each additional agent.

Zendesk Chat

The name Zendesk definitely rings a bell for some of us. It’s a leading help desk software provider in the industry and only recently has it acquired its own WordPress live chat from a company named Zopim. They have since changed Zopim to their very own and personalized Zendesk Chat.

How does this new kid on the block fare? Smoothly! It has some of the most flawless support software integration among live chat modules. You’ll also be pleased to know that they offer A.I. chatbots and advanced analytics. It’s free if you only have one agent but any more than that and you’ll have to get the premium.

Now, take your pick and start communicating well with your visitors!

RELATED: Should You Add Live Chat to Your Blog?

The post What Is WordPress Live Chat and How Do You Implement It? appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Trust us when we say that you need these affiliate marketing plugins; because on top of managing the content and SEO, the added layer of micromanagement that comes with affiliate marketing can get rather chaotic. These plugins can help automate certain tasks associated with this income practice.

So, once you’ve finally set up your affiliate marketing agreements for your blog, it’s time to see how to make it even easier with these plugins.

Pretty Links

Affiliate links are often long, ugly, and bloated, making them look a lot less appealing to the eyes of users. Moreover, shorter and cleaner website URLs tend to be a big help to SEO. That’s why cleaning up your affiliate links is recommended, and for that, Pretty Links is one of the best.

It lets you modify affiliate links with ease, making your links easier on the eyes especially when you have no anchor text for them. If you do, however, you can also set up Pretty Links to automatically fetch the affiliate links for certain keywords. This puts the plugin easily at the top of the list for blogs with written content.

Thirsty Affiliates

While Pretty Links can manage your affiliate marketing to a certain extent, you’ll most likely want a dedicated affiliate marketing management tool or plugin. This is a job for plugins like Thirsty Affiliates. It’s a plugin that touts itself as a powerful affiliate link management tool.

After installing it, you get a dashboard or control center for any affiliate marketing-related task. Apart from being capable of some of the actions Pretty Links does, Thirsty Affiliates also allows you to categorize your affiliate programs and even check how each link is performing based on SEO metrics.

WP RSS Aggregator

Writing content with included affiliate links is easy enough. However, might be focused on your main content instead of that. Thankfully, you can relegate a certain percentage of affiliate product or service hunting to this next plugin; it’s called WP RSS Aggregator and it acts as an automated affiliate link finder.

Of course, you do have to have your own list of affiliate partners first. What WP RSS Aggregator does is automatically fetch some links and add them as posts in your WordPress blog. You can then edit or modify these posts and publish them later. This saves you a lot of time to focus on writing instead.

WPForms

Custom forms also have plenty of other purposes outside affiliate marketing but in this case, it’s quite a valuable tool. Simply put, WPForms allows you to create your own customized affiliate marketing forms so that potential partners can seek you out and invite you into a program easier.

That, or blogs, podcasts, artists, and even online businesses can propose affiliate marketing plans to you with ease. You can even integrate it with other plugins so you can easily send automated replies in case you get too many requests and propositions. All in all, it’s a useful all-around tool.

RELATED: How to Turn Your Blog into an Affiliate Marketing Site that Actually Makes Money

Google Analytics by MonsterInsights

Other plugins in this list like Thirsty Affiliates already have their own analytics for affiliate links but it never hurts to have a more dedicated plugin. For that, we recommend Google’s very own Analytics plugin as it lets you get a good picture of how well your affiliate links do based on Google’s own algorithms.

Of course, when not using it for affiliate content, you can take full advantage of this plugin by checking out how well each and every content performs as well as how finding out visitor behavior on your website.

AdSanity

Sometimes affiliate links you get from programs or from proposals are not enough. You can always increase your site income with a plugin like AdSanity which incorporates banner ads along with your affiliate links. This plugin also lets you customize the location of your ads so that they don’t ruin the user experience too much.

Additionally, you can splice affiliate links into your ads to increase conversion for those links and for the content itself. As with some of the other plugins in this list, AdSanity is a Swiss army knife; you can also utilize it for other programs like Google AdSense; some of you might even have it already in that case.

Affiliates by itthinx

Contending with Thirst Affiliates for the affiliate marketing management tool is the aptly named Affiliates by itthinx. It’s a smaller yet similar tool that helps you manage the majority of your affiliate marketing exploits and work. It’s younger than some of its competition and therefore more modern.

Affiliates allows for developer customization which is a huge plugin as far as affiliate marketing plugins go; it allows webmasters to tailor the tool to their liking. Moreover, Affiliates takes good advantage of the more late WordPress update features such as blocks; it then integrates it well with its own affiliate management system.

YITH WooCommerce Affiliates

Now, if you’re the one on the other end of the affiliate marketing program, basically the eCommerce website, then you certainly wouldn’t want to do business without this plugin. It’s called Yith WooCommerce Affiliates and caters to online stores and similar online businesses.

With this, you can create affiliate program member profiles and manage commissions as well as partnerships easier. This plugin can even do the math for you even when refunds are taken into account.

Regardless of which of these affiliate marketing plugins you choose, we hope that it improves your site income in 2020 and beyond.

RELATED: 5 Ways Bloggers Can Find Marketing Inspiration

The post 8 Best Affiliate Marketing Plugins For Your Blog appeared first on The Blog Herald.

The Google blacklist or any search engine’s is a loose term used for websites that are potential security threats for any online user. Hence, they’re not exactly published nor are they an official list; however, Google usually de-indexes these websites, making them practically invisible unless you specifically search for them or go to their URL.

As you can guess, this is a huge hit on the website’s traffic, just as Google wants it. Now, the way Google (or most search engines) blacklist sites is by looking for some key indications. If you’re not careful, and don’t know which of these can cause your website to be blacklisted, then Google might bring your website down.

Hence, we’re here to discuss which actions, kinds of content, or other elements can cause your website to be blacklisted. Think of these as the stuff you need to avoid to keep Google’s strict eyes off your website.

Avoid malware and viruses

One of the most surefire ways to get into Google’s blacklist is an unattended and low-security website. These websites are more likely to be targeted by chain-spreading malware or viruses made for specific criminal purposes. Once these things have managed to penetrate your website, they can easily infect your computer or the computers of anyone who visits the infected domain.

As such, you can see why Google or any other search engine needs to approach such issues with absolution. The best thing you can do to avoid a malware attack or infection on your website is through a combination of competent security plugins and good backup practices. As always with malware, prevention is better than cure.

However, if the damage has already been done, then refer to this guide on how to remove malware infections; you’ll want to address the matter immediately before Google decides to take matters into their own hands.

Avoid low quality/Pornographic content

One of Google’s priorities in security is ensuring the safety of online users; this means the punishment for websites that disregard that aspect of the internet can be quite severe. In this case, it would be getting blacklisted. Now, what kind of practices does Google consider harmful to the online ecosystem? Low-quality or illegal content, in general.

It just so happens that pornography is one of those (unless you run a licensed or registered porn site). Be careful not to accidentally link to a shady pornsite or remove anyone in the comment section linking to such domains.

Now, as for other low-quality content, this can range from:

• Duplicated/plagiarized content from other sites
• Any content that violates a copyright law
• Junk content that is unrelated to your niche

The last one is a bit of a grey area but do note that content like that can lower your domain authority; this could potentially lead to a blacklist.

Avoid spam or phishing pages

Apart from malware or viruses, spamming or phishing baits on your website are also a quick trip to the Google blacklist. If it wasn’t obvious enough already, these are unjustifiable attempts to inflict direct harm to online users. Now, regardless of how safe you think your website or blog is, there will be no shortage of spammers or even phishing attempts.

They might not come directly from your content but could easily plague your comment section. Sometimes they can even masquerade as advertisements on your website if the hackers were good enough. This is problematic though still avoidable if you’re vigilant or generous with your website security.

RELATED: A Quick Guide on Beefing Up Your WordPress Security

Avoid linking to blacklisted pages

One of the more overlooked facets of website security is vetting which websites you link to. This can have some serious consequences if ignored especially when you find yourself consecutively linking to some shady websites or those with low domain authority. External links are what you ought to watch out for.

You might want to check them from time to time to see what has become of the website you linked to. Maybe it’s now a 404 page; maybe it got blacklisted, or maybe it got hacked and is now full of spam. Not doing this can potentially make Google see you as a dangerous website; this is applicable even if your intent wasn’t malicious at all. All in all, avoid linking to any blacklisted site at all.

No link selling and buying

This past decade, Google has been hard at work in purging some old and dirty SEO tactics that were abused to heaven and back. Among these notorious practices is link buying or selling; this is the act of offering paid backlinks to other websites for an artificial SEO boost. It’s still happening today but not as rampantly or as destructive.

Needless to say, Google definitely wouldn’t appreciate it finds out that your website is still involved in that. The penalty for this might not be as heavy as having tons of spam or phishing activities on your site but you’ll have to adhere to Google’s preference for organic growth if you want to avoid the Google blacklist. In any case, that’s a better way to grow your website.

No shady SEO activities

Link link selling or buying, abusing direct SEO practices is a huge red flag for Google. They made their algorithm adjust over the years in order to penalize those who tend to be aggressive with SEO. One of the most notable examples of this is stuffing everything with keywords like they’re cheese and your content is the pizza.

You might even be surprised where Google looks for stuffed keywords; it’s not just in the text body but also in the headers, metadata, and even images or captions. Again, it’s a lot safer to adhere to Google’s organic standards. Anyway, stay out of trouble and do you blogging diligently. That coupled with these tips should be enough for you to avoid the Google blacklist.

RELATED: Top 5 WordPress Plugins to Kill Spam

The post How To Avoid Being On The Google Blacklist appeared first on The Blog Herald.

After all, years of getting used to the WYSIWYG or Classic Editor can make you less accommodating when it comes to WordPress changes. Still, the Gutenberg Block Editor can be your new best friend in WordPress; that is if you just give it the time and patience. Of course, learning some Gutenberg tweaks to help your productivity also makes the experience more tolerable.

So without further ado, we give you some of our favorite Gutenberg tweaks and tricks in order to speed up your article writing. Once you get used to them, it’s hard justifying going back to the Classic Editor.

Drag and drop images

One of the clearest advantages Gutenberg has over the old WordPress is how it handles images better. You can no drag and drop images either from their source website (or in Google image search results) or on your own desktop.

That means no more going to the media library in WordPress to manually upload everything. This arguably takes more clicks. Now, you can simply look for an image, drag it and drop it in the block; it will stay there with no problem or conflicts. Granted, you can also do this with the Classic Editor (minus the URL image uploading) but it won’t be as successful or as fast.

So, do away with the manual media library uploads and utilize image dragging and dropping in order to maximize time.

Using “/” for new blocks

Adding new blocks and tailoring what kind of block you want them to be might be daunting at first; however, it gets easier as soon as you find out a shortcut. You can actually put “/” at the start of a new paragraph block to change it to a specific block such as a Heading, Custom HTML, or even Image block.

This way, you can easily control which block will appear after every new paragraph or every time you section off your articles into Headings. It’s a nifty little trick that will save you a ton of clicks and searching time; it can also save you some frustration in customizing blocks.

Keyboard shortcut list

WordPress notably scrapped the old keyboard shortcuts most of us have gotten used to in the Classic Editor. Now, you have to re-learn and get used to the new ones in Gutenberg. You needn’t worry, however, as WordPress has included a hidden little tab that gives you a full list of keyboard shortcuts.

You can access this tab by pressing Shift+Alt+H. That’s the quickest method. Alternatively, you can check it by clicking on the three vertically arranged dots at the upper right corner and selecting Keyboard Shortcuts near the bottom of the tab.

RELATED: 7 Things Gutenberg Block Editor Does Better Than The Classic Editor

The Document Outline tab

One of the immediately noticeable differences between Classic and Block is that the word counter is gone on the latter. As you might have guessed, WordPress moved that somewhere hidden. You can find it in the “i” with the circle near the top-left corner of the user interface. Not only that, but it also shows how many paragraphs, headings, and blocks you have.

Additionally, that tab features a Document Outline function which lets you see the overall structure of your article or content. You can also click on the sections to quickly go there and make changes. All of them are divided into different kinds of Headings and Subheadings to make your search and writing process easier.

Editor View Options

One of the things Block Editor does better is to make editors’ lives easier. Whether it’s proofreading, improving the article structure, or customizing blocks and texts, Gutenberg makes is quite a breeze. This is all thanks to the Top Toolbar, Spotlight Mode, and Fullscreen Mode options tucked away in the three vertically arranged dots at the upper right corner.

Top Toolbar makes the text formatting and paragraph control options always visible, like in Classic Editor. Spotlight Mode blocks out the editing and access of any block you’re not selecting or working on; this makes editing a lot easier visually. Last but not least, Fullscreen Mode hides WordPress’ dashboard to minimize distractions.

You can activate all three at the same time, individually, or none at all.

Reusable Blocks

Do you find yourself reusing the same introductory or ad text over and over again in different articles and want an easier way to include them in your future articles without copying, pasting, and reformatting? Then Reusable Blocks, courtesy of Gutenberg, just might make your work faster in that regard. You can do this by clicking on the three vertically aligned dots on the top toolbar and selecting Add To Reusable Blocks.

This Block Editor function is pretty straightforward; it lets you save any block into a Reusable Block which you can then incorporate later into your future articles. This can be anything from a disclaimer, acknowledgments, advertisements, or even hyperlink collections. It lets you cut the writing or formatting time quite significantly.

Removing blocks

Removing blocks can be annoying and the usual first instinct of a WordPress user new to Gutenberg for that action is to select all the text in a block and delete them all along with the empty block. It doesn’t have to be that frustrating; all you have to do is click those three vertically arranged dots on the top toolbar and select Remove Block at the bottom.

Alternatively, you can also press Shift+Alt+Z on the keyboard in order to quickly without using the mouse. If you manage to do this accidentally, there’s an Undo and Redo option near the top-left corner of the user interface.

Easy line break

If you want two or more paragraphs in one single block and keep getting frustrated because pressing Enter on the keyboard leads to a new block creation, you can press Shift+Enter instead. This does a line break and leads to a new and separate paragraph for your text without leading to a new block.

The shortcut is handy for wanting conserve block usage or if you want multiple paragraphs to stay in one block so you can save them into just one Reusable Block.

Now that you’re a little more familiar with Gutenberg, hopefully, it’s only a matter of time before it wins you over the Classic Editor.

RELATED: Top 5 Pros and Cons Of The WordPress 5.0 Gutenberg Editor

The post WordPress Gutenberg Tweaks to Make Blogging Faster appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Now, if there’s one thing that universally acts as a new visitor repellent for blogs, that would be advertisements. Be it Google Adsense, banner ads, or other in-your-face methods, some of your visitors just can’t help but feel like you’ve sold your soul even if you haven’t. In their defense, ads can be quite annoying and can break immersion and ruin the user experience.

To help you get the best of both worlds, however, we’ve prepared some ways to monetize your blog without ruining the user experience for your visitors or audience.

Premium content

Making content is difficult; some of your content are bound to be tougher to and take longer to make than others. For these kinds of more laborious-than-usual tasks, you might want to be a bit more generous to yourself. Keeping them premium and to be unlocked through a paywall is a good way to monetize your blog.

Depending on how good the premium content is, your visitors will understand why they must be locked behind for more dedicated users. This can be anything from online courses to content with higher production values than usual. If you introduce those on top of your free content, then it’s a more welcome and voluntary way of them supporting your blog.

This element of choice for the users is something that ads will never replicate; they’ll surely appreciate you better for it.

Sponsored posts

Sponsored posts or reviews have always been one of the more staple methods of monetizing your blog without bothering much of your audience. These can be more difficult to pull off, however, since it requires your blog or website to have respectable traffic.

Basically, the usual prerequisite for this method to monetize your blog is to amass views and regular visitors. Only then will your blog be big enough in the eyes of bigger companies or corporations that they’ll partner with you to create some posts about them. It’s up to your audience whether they’ll view it or not; again, that element of choice is key.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is similar to sponsored posts or reviews except you have to enroll in a partner program first. This means that the traffic threshold for affiliate marketing is lower than for sponsored posts. The catch is that how much you earn in affiliate marketing is also tied to views; since you’re essentially peddling another company’s products to your audience.

In a sense, affiliate marketing is also the opposite of sponsored posts since it would be you asking another company or website to promote their content. If their product or service sells thanks to your affiliate post, then you get the commission.

Initially, the returns might not be that significant; still, they tend to pile up over time and also won’t bother your audience too much; that’s assuming you still write regular posts for them instead of just sticking to affiliate marketing posts.

Kontera ContentLink

A Kontera ContentLink is practically an ad but don’t worry about that too much; they are stealthily tucked away in your content’s text, like a hyperlink. They only show their ad once the user mouses over a highlighted text where a Kontera ContentLink is integrated.

It’s one of the more subtle ways to hide your monetization and make it voluntary for user viewing. Users can easily ignore any Kontera ContentLink if they’re not interested and continue reading. Of course, it’s only viable for blogs or websites with written content.

RELATED: How to Monetize a Personal Blog

Digital/physical products

Selling your own products or services is another good way to monetize your blog. These can be anything from artwork, eBooks, discounted items, and even physical merchandise if you have the capacity.

You do have to make it clear to your audience that the practice will help you sustain your website or create better content. That statement usually goes in your blog disclaimer or other legal sections of your website.

Paid memberships

If you find yourself consistently making premium content and that it might be getting too expensive for your audience (this can actually go against your monetization), then perhaps a membership might be a better option.

You can throw in some additional benefits apart from premium content such as elevated privileges or custom user accounts which they can tailor to their preferences. This is a lot more important especially if you’re running a video or podcast blog; individually pricing and locking content can be counterproductive and might turn off your audience.

You’ll find plenty of membership plugins at the ready in WordPress plugin store to help you in this endeavor.

Coaching business

If you’ve been blogging for quite a while now, then chances are, you’ve already accumulated some valuable wisdom. This wisdom will surely be valuable to most beginners and maybe even more digestible for them compared to bigger bloggers’ inputs.

What we’re getting at is that you can try your hand at offering coaching services or being a blogging guru. This can be a lot more acceptable for your audience especially if your blog belongs in a specific niche about blogging, marketing, or other related subject matters. The more experienced you are, the better you can charge.

Donations

Donations might sound like a word or practice that some of you want to avoid; however, this day and age, it’s a lot more prestigious than you think. In fact, it’s quite the rage especially for websites and content creators that don’t want to shower their audience base with ads or aggressive monetization.

Websites like Patreon and Kickstarter have made it possible for many creatives and aspiring indie businesses to pursue their passion. If your passion is your blog or website, then asking for donations is a valid way to keep it afloat or to help you at least.

RELATED: Why Having Multiple Blogs is a Better Strategy for Monetization

The post 8 Ways To Monetize Your Blog Without Driving Away Visitors/Users in 2020 appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Anyone who has built and experienced WordPress websites can surely tell you that how WordPress handles the archives is less than optimal or preferable. Both you and your website visitors don’t exactly get a good view of the post archives; this is because of how WordPress handles it.

That’s why grabbing some much-needed WordPress archive plugins can help you address this less than stellar bonus of WordPress websites. We’ve listed some of the best of them to narrow down your search.

Simple Yearly Archive

As the name implies, Simple Yearly Archive is an easy-to-use and straightforward plugin. Its primary goal is to change your WordPress archives to be a lot more organized and accessible to the vast majority of your audience. It’s based around an annual category for all your past content or posts.

Of all the archive plugins in this list, Simple Yearly Archive works most similarly as the default WordPress archive format. The difference is that the posts are all separated by their year of publication; a better form instead of the jumbled mess of pages. Those who prefer a different categorization of posts will also be pleased to hear that Simple Yearly Archive also allows other formats.

smart Archive Page Remove

Instead of adding more archive pages or widgets or overhauling them entirely, smart Archive Page Remove’s solution is a lot more blunt yet effective. It allows the users to remove any undesired archive page created by WordPress by default. For example, certain archive pages categorized by author names lead to 404 errors, smart Archive Page Remove lets you deal with this.

To that end, it’s more of an archive cleaning plugin that most of the customized archive plugins in this list. Even so, it allows you to keep the best of both worlds; that is, keeping the default WordPress archive format and category while also having a hand in order to improve your website and minimize past content getting buried.

Annual Archive

Like Simple Yearly Archive, Annual Archive gives WordPress’ default archive an overhaul to be more presentable to the eyes. It specifically targets the WordPress archive shortcode and widget to make the improvements. Once you install this archive plugin, you can group your old content daily, weekly, monthly, or annually.

If you don’t want your archive sorted by age or time, you can even choose to group them alphabetically for specialized purposes. Moreover, the customization options you can have are also extensive; you can even tweak whether a text is displayed or how many items are displayed in the archive list.

RELATED: How To Bring Your Old Blog Posts Back From The Dead

Collapsed Archive

Collapsed Archive is yet another simple WordPress archive improvement that lets gives your website a widget to display archive links. Its strength lies in the fact that it doesn’t take much real estate or space in your website’s user interface. Moreover, the widget is made purely with CSS-based collapsing, no Javascript involved.

It has the usual collapsible widget controls with the “+” sign indicating expansion and the “-” indicating collapse. Do note that you only get a handful of archive categorizing options with his plugin. While Collapsed Archive’s customization options are a lot more limited than other selections in this list, it more than makes up for it with the space you save.

Compact Archives

If you want another one of those space-saving archive plugins but not in a widget form, then Compact Archives might suit your needs better. It’s similar to Collapsing Archives but gets its own dedicated space in the frontend. Compact Archives will display your old posts in a monthly format. This is then also divided into years.

This allows for an easy access to your old posts especially for established blogs with tons of content. The number of clicks on needs to do to access monthly archives is also minimized, with the way Compact Archives is also set. The downside for this plugin is that it only works on a self-hosted website. That means your site needs to be in WordPress.org not “.com” to use this one.

Ajax Archives Calendar

Want a calendar and an archive at the same time? Then Ajax Archives Calendar gives you the best of both worlds. It basically turns WordPress’ own default calendar into your blog’s archive, eliminating the need for WordPress traditional clunky archive. Additionally, you get the added bonus of saving plenty of space in your blog pages.

Ajax Archives Calendar is highly-rated despite not being as popular as the more conventional options in this list. The plugin itself also gives you an option to easily get to the year and the month you want. It makes searching for old posts easier and more convenient without taking much work. Since it’s also a calendar, you can simply select the specific day you want to look for.

Archive Control

If you want full control of your old post taxonomy or categorization, then Archive Control can give you that much. You’ll find not many plugins can match Archive Control’s attention to detail when it comes to your archives. With this plugin, you can easily edit even your blog’s pages to include their own custom archives; you can then tailor each archive for the page itself.

For easier visual cues, you can also add featured images to an archive page or list. Meanwhile, the plugin even features certain archive categories such as Date Published, Comment Count, Author, and even Meta Value.

Regardless of which of these archive plugins you pick, make sure that you know your audience well enough to cater to their preferences and needs, especially when it comes to viewing older content.

RELATED: How to Drive Blog Readers Towards Older Posts

The post 7 Best Archive Plugins for Your WordPress Blog appeared first on The Blog Herald.

True, there are limitless plugins available for free on WordPress, but cramming them all in your backend will surely affect your website’s speed. That’s why it’s better to rely on some Google Chrome extensions for SEO; with them, you can divert the bandwidth and memory load onto your browser or computer, which helps in a faster website.

Of course, this might increase your Google Chrome’s memory consumption but the same can be said for having too many window tabs with your software tools open anyway; those are also clunkier so it’s better to have Google Chrome extensions for SEO purposes at the very least.

Page Analytics by Google

As the name says, this browser extension was made by Google for you guys. That means you can expect it to be quality due to the “home-court advantage.” In any case, Page Analytics is a robust tool you can use to check how users are interacting with your blog’s pages.

It displays information such as where your users click, how many customers are interacting with your website, and how many users are active at any given time. Of course, it also displays the usual metrics such as page views, bounce rate, and other useful information in a simple click.

Keywords Everywhere

Keywords Everywhere is also available for Mozilla Firefox should you prefer a less memory-hungry beast. Regardless, the extension offers bloggers the baseline metrics they need to keep track of in regard to SEO such as the monthly search volume, cost-per-click, and competition.

Moreover, with this extension installed, you no longer have to open a new tab, go to your favorite keyword tracker website or software, and type in the information. All it takes is a click on your browser and arguably fewer actions to perform.

SEMrush

Now, if you want something more comprehensive than what Keywords Everywhere has to offer, SEMrush has something similar and more serious. The SEO website/software has its very own browser extension that displays and reports nearly everything you need to know about your site’s SEO.

This doesn’t come cheap, however– it actually only comes at a premium price of $99 per month. Still, the testimonies speak for themselves; it’s also worth looking into especially if you have the budget for it or are ready to graduate into a bigger blog or company.

RELATED: Most Downloaded Chrome Extensions That Will Make Your Life Easier

Bit.ly

Long and messy website URL’s and domain names are disorienting; they can throw off search engine algorithms especially when calculating website authority. In turn, this can affect SEO. Hence, when using links that are long and obnoxious, Bit.ly can fix those for you by shortening them.

Now, does this also affect SEO negatively? Apparently not, so feel free to use a URL shortener when it comes to links or any other sharing opportunities. In fact, shortening URL’s is even recommended. It’s also a free browser extension and isn’t too heavy either.

Redirect Path

Ever wanted to have your very own corrective software like an automated proofreader but for SEO and technical stuff instead? Redirect Path might be what you’re looking for. What it does is to look for the most obvious SEO and coding mistakes you’re doing for your content.

After that, this browser extension will highlight those mistakes for you and then correct them. This includes Javascript errors, three-digit error codes, and more. It’s similar to Yoast’s readability and SEO metric plugin in that regard but more attentive.

Hunter

Collaboration and blogger communication is key to a harmonious blogosphere and also essential to learning. That’s why knowing how to contact bloggers or website owners is important. Hunter is browser extension that can help you immensely in that task.

When you happen upon a website with this extension installed, it can list or find the contact details of the owner for you. You can even do a domain search where Hunter will fetch a domain’s owner information and contact details. It definitely lives up to its name.

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is like Google Trends but more handy and fun. It’s a great tool for marketers; it lets you search for the most popular content currently available for any topic at any time. You can even check how a particular website’s content is doing in terms of SEO or views.

You can do this without leaving the browser tab you’re in; it also takes minimal effort compared to using a website or a standalone software on your computer. Let’s not forget: you can use BuzzSumo to see how well the competition is doing so you can replicate their success.

LinkMiner

One of the best ways to get backlinks from other websites is by looking for broken links in a particular site and then offering up your own content links as a replacement. Such a practice is time-consuming and is best left up to Google Chrome extensions for SEO. LinkMiner can do that for you.

Linkminer makes the task of broken link-building a breeze. It will automate the hard work for you and present you with potential backlink opportunities. All that’s left for you to do is to reach out to the website owners. It’s that easy.

Page Load Time

Every millisecond of your page speed counts especially these days with rapid internet connections and short attention spans. That means keeping tabs on your website speed and ensuring that it remains quick is paramount; Page Load Time makes this task less tedious.

Page Load Time’s job is simple: to measure the site speed or page speed in with you using the fewest clicks possible. It doesn’t get more valuable than that. With these Google Chrome extensions for SEO, you’ll be on your way to a better blog or website.

RELATED: 20 Best WordPress Plugins Going Into 2019

The post Essential Google Chrome Extensions For SEO appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Apart from the usual spring cleaning you do after a long marathon of crunch times and reaching deadlines where you eventually neglect all the food plates on your desk and you now have house fly co-workers, it also doesn’t hurt to do a little bit of renovation. The more comfortable you are with your home, the better.

That’s why we’ve prepared this home improvement blogs list for you. This way, you can craft the most suitable home office for your line of work. From dividing your bedroom and workspace to even installing a new home elevator, these home improvement blogs will surely aid you.

The Home Depot Blog

If you need ideas or instructions into fixing many aspects of your home, then you’ll find not many home improvement blogs can match The Home Depot Blog. It’s a complete and elegant catalog of many DIY house plans for improvement, renovation, and expansions.

The website can even give you whole sections dedicated to seasonal styles or categorized by rooms or room types in case you only have small projects in mind. Even simple things like redecorating your closet or even updating the bathroom lighting are covered in The Home Depot Blog. Of course, the blog also covers clearing up messy spaces, like home offices.

Designer Trapped

Now, for a more personal blog experience and DIY instructions, you can turn to Designer Trapped. It’s a blog run by Tasha, a North Carolina mom and her husband who admitted that the only way they could renovate their house was through DIY methods due to many constraints. Even so, these guys know their craft well enough.

They have been featured in magazines and TV shows thanks to Tasha’s quirky design choices. Her colorful selection of aesthetics and room makeover ideas will surely bring joy and life into your home or at least its rooms. She guarantees that she has something to offer for your home regardless of your budget.

Young House Love

Another personal DIY house improvement blog you can subscribe to would be Young House Love. Like Designer Trapped, Young House Love is run by a young couple; they made it their passion to design real estate interiors. Hence, their content can instruct you on putting up proper wallpapers to cutting down unnecessary furniture or appliances.

They’re also veterans in their field and have completed over 3,000 DIY projects across all their five houses. These improvements are also well-documented; you can certainly take your cues from them and even listen to their podcasts about home renovations.

Centsationl Style

A few ideas about a beautiful home can go a long way. Californian Kate Riley has proven this many times over with her blog, Centsational Style. She not only dabbles in interior home improvements but also in customizing your own furniture to suit your needs.

In that regard, you can check out some of her concepts and galleries for improving desks or storage spaces for a better workspace. Kate Riley also knows a lot about garden design; she can share her knowledge to you in case you want a nice green place to tend to. Especially, after a long and stressful day cooped up in the home office.

One Project Closer

One Project Closer is all about stepping up your DIY dad (or uncle) game. It’s a blog run primarily by a husband and wife team but focuses more on the husband work, meaning they also cover some power tool usage and heavy lifting.

In that regard, you can turn to this blog for some heavy tasks involving home renovation. They even review and endorse some tools for construction and carpentry.

Improvements Catalog

The thing about home renovations is that you can’t actually do it without furniture or appliance. Hence, one of the most immediate things you should look for before starting your own DIY project or room renovation is a supplier. HSN’s home improvements catalog is a great place to start with.

There, you’ll find no shortage of furniture and appliances to purchase, some of which are even on clearance sale. That means you’ll get some pretty good deals and beautiful house decorations without spending much. Looking at some of them, you can even think of your own ideas for home or room renovations. They fit in well with most interiors.

Remodelaholic

Remodelaholic is run by blogger Cassity. She has a husband and two daughters and is all about turning a house into a home fit for a family and their pets. She not only shares her interior design secrets and expertise but also some of her recipes for great desserts and food.

Both Cassity and her husband have already worked on several houses successfully. Her topics range from the simple such as spice rack designs to indoor playhouses for the kids so you have a place to detain them in while you work on your freelancing projects. Some of them also come in video format for more hands-on instructions.

DIY Doctor

The DIY Doctor takes a more technical approach to DIY house renovations but nevertheless should provide you with some straightforward and quick insights into house projects. It covers a wide range of topics from electrical layouts of your house to even cleaning.

Moreover, the blog also publishes reviews of products and tools from time to time; so you know which to avoid or utilize in your quest for a better and more livable home. If you’re new to all of this, you can even ask them some questions personally and they’ll answer expertly.

Houseance Blog

Houseance Blog straightforward blog that gives simple yet valuable advice on both maintaining homes and even improving them. From plumbing issues to design philosophies for your house of rooms, Houseance Blog will surely deliver.

They also have a great team of experts in case you want personal advice. Moreover, some of their recommendations include energy-saving options for your home and not just with interior design.

Reddit – Improving Homes

If you’re really new and have no idea where to start, asking questions is always a good first step. For that, you can join one of the biggest forums on the internet, specifically Reddit and its home improvements subreddit. There, you can post your query and get some answers from the people who have experience with the same thing.

You’ll find many people eager to help and need not worry since this subreddit is a lot less toxic than others. You can even check some of the most common DIY questions and projects to get ideas or experienced opinion.

Whichever blog you pick, all of them should help you have a much better home.

RELATED: 5 Tips for Creating a Home Décor Blog

The post 10 Inspiring Home Improvement Blogs appeared first on The Blog Herald.

As it happens, discussions within the internet regarding your blog content is a healthy way of making your blog more engaging. Then again, getting more comments for your blog posts is easier said than done. It’s not really that easy to gauge what will spark people’s interest or dispel their shyness enough for them to comment.

That’s why we’re here, to discuss certain content tactics that allow your content to generate more buzz. Of course, these are clean and honest tricks to make your content more engaging, not some dubious comment ploys like clickbait or misleading headlines. Read on to know more.

Don’t publish too often

First off, make sure that you pace your content’s appearance on the front page of your blog or website. That means publishing sparingly until you’re sure that a content post has had the spotlight long enough. That’s because people are more inclined to comment on whichever’s the most apparent on your website.

Publishing too often will replace what’s in the spotlight of your blog; it essentially makes your content cannibalize one other’s views and comments. This is even more important if you run a video blog or are a YouTuber too. Learning to gate content and when to release them can make or break site engagement.

Make commenting easy

Have you ever wanted to comment on one website’s post only to get annoyed by its comment plugin that you forego commenting altogether? Then you can probably imagine that the same effect will happen to other people.

Having them go through too many hoops like authentications, email verifications, and needing a non-social media account to comment is just daunting busywork. Make it easy for them by choosing a proper comment section plugin that doesn’t get in the way of social engagements for your blog. Your audience will thank you for it.

Ask the community for backlinks

This will only work if there are blogging authorities bigger than you (which is most of the time). Getting an expert on a certain niche or subject matter link back to one of your contents can be a sure way to get more comments for your blog posts like those precious long discussion threads or praises at the very least.

That’s because bloggers who might have a bigger audience than you are basically recommending your blog, sharing some of their viewership numbers to you. They have to be alright with this, so practice on that rapport of yours and don’t be shy– ask the community for help and give help back in return.

Write conversationally and passionately

Your writing, whether it’s for a video blog script, news, or storytelling in a written blog post reflects how interested you are with what you do. Never underestimate how people will notice this; because they are bound to notice the work you put in your writing and be more inclined to comment.

At the same time, you don’t want to intimidate them or think that you’re a bot. As much as possible or allowed, do make your writing style easy on the eyes, meaning conversational and fun; make it so like you’re talking to them and are expecting their replies. If that’s not possible, then at least put some energy into your content by using more verbs or fewer adjectives.

RELATED: How to Moderate Blog Comments

Bust some myths, start some arguments

Going against the flow is a good way to get attention, especially when done right. You’re probably aware that there are certain standard beliefs or notions within each culture or society, right? Like how fat doesn’t actually make you fat but sugar does? Initiating discussions like those in your content will surely get you more comments for your blog posts.

Busting some traditional notions can have a revelatory effect on many people that once believed such myths to be true. This generates a feeling of awe. However, you have to remember to keep it constructive and don’t offend anyone, especially in matters concerning religion, politics, or gender, etc.

Tug their heartstrings

Ever seen those viral Twitter or Facebook videos about heartwarming feel-good stuff with tens of thousands of likes? Their comment sections are also endless. Now, there’s a common denominator to them that you can use to get more comments for your blog posts and that is the emotional pull.

If you can add some emotions to your storytelling or something relatable for your audience, then some of them will not shy away from sharing similar sentiments in the comment section. Make your audience cry, laugh, depressed, angry (not at you, of course), or happy and they’ll be discussing away faster than you know it.

Freebies!

Now, it’s time for you to give back to your audience. Do reward them if you can with coupons, discounts, or even free items from some of your partners. Before you know it, they’ll be swarming your comment section. It’s free stuff, after all, and everyone will want it.

Not only are you being generous, but you’ll also be building your own community in your blog full of regulars who might even frequent your site, not just for freebies. This is also another way to boost your subscriber numbers so by all means, be a bountiful god– er, blogger.

Respond

Once you have seen some comments on your website, it’s time to unleash your public relations skills. We’re talking about replying to each and every comment as long as you can or as long as the discussion is relevant. This gives you and your readers or viewers a better relationship.

In turn, it also increases your blog’s engagement and the likelihood of getting more shares or being more visible on Google. Just ensure that no one is spewing out any toxicity, you included; as a rule of thumb, keep your comment section healthy.

RELATED: Leveraging Reviews, Comments, and Opinions in a Corporate Blog Setting

The post How to Get More Comments For Your Blog Posts appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Because let’s face it, as an Android or iOS user, viewing and opening websites in Chrome for mobile or any other browser can be annoying. There’s the fact that browsers usually take more screen space and also consume much memory. An app version of that website, meanwhile, has a more seamless transition and smoother operation.

Hence, to convert your website into an app is a courtesy to most people. It’s the absolute next step into embracing the “mobilegeddon,” the first being the requirement for websites to have mobile versions. In any case, here are some plugins and tools that can easily convert your website into an app.

AndroApp

If you want a website to app converter that just works and has a free version, then AndroApp is there for you. It’s a simple and easy converter; it also comes with some handy customizations such as unlimited scrolling, unlimited push notifications, and offline support. As the name implies, it’s only available for Android.

Once the plugin has converted your website, you can then configure then download the app to submit to Play Store. If you’re not too confident about this, you can also hire the plugin developer to do it for you. Do note that the free version of the plugin mandatorily places its own ads on your website app.

appful

Now, if Android and iOS compatibility is what you’re after in your website apps, the humbly-titled appful might be more your speed. Many also consider appful to be the best when it comes to tools that can convert your website into an app. The developers of this tool have also proven themselves many times over by helping publishers and magazines with digital needs.

appful includes support for offline reading, YouTube integration, live editing, Twitter profile integration, Google Analytics integration, and more while also promising awesome app speed thanks to caching. It’s a relatively new plugin but the free version should make it more than welcome.

Appmaker WP

Appmaker WP promises a quick conversion of your website into an app and in turn, saves you a lot of time. After installing the plugin, all you have to do is input your website’s URL, and then give a name and icon for your app. Afterward, Appmaker WP will handle everything. It’s that quick and simple. The developers also highly recommend this plugin for news websites.

With that in mind, it’s WooCommerce or e-commerce website viability is quite limited. In any case, it’s compatible with Android and iOS and also sports an easy-to-use interface that also presents templates familiar to WordPress in case you want to go deeper with the customization. Last but not least, the plugin also has it’s own CMS that you can access even in the free version.

RELATED: Top Mobile Technology Trends for Bloggers

AppPresser

AppPresser is not exactly a dedicated tool but a suite of tools for WordPress; it does have a dedicated WordPress mobile theme that lets you convert your website into an app; that’s regardless of whether it’s a blog, WooCommerce website, or BuddyPress domain. Like appful, it’s also compatible with both Android and iOS.

In that regard, changing the appearance of your website app is quite easy and simple in AppPresser– almost as easy as customizing WordPress themes. It lets you add custom pages, grab WordPress content directly, and also add push notification integration. The downside? AppPresser is not exactly free and costs $249/year for the basic app package.

MobiLoud

For a website app that looks like it was straight up made as a native mobile app, MobiLoud has you covered. At least, that’s what the developers promise for when you avail of their tool. It’s not free, by the way, and will set you back $199/month for the basic (essential) package. There is a free demo, of course, if you find that too pricey and want to test first.

For the price, you get one of the most uniquely customizable and feature-rich website-to-app converters on this list. It has the standard fare of offerings like offline support, push notifs, and social media sharing integration but also lets you customize how articles appear down to the layout and also comes with a smooth image gallery and video player.

WPMobile.App

A feature rich plugin with a premium version but won’t break the bank would be WPMobile.App as stark contrast to the more expensive premium options above. WPMobile.App lets you make a mobile app version of your website that comes with all the features of a full desktop website. The developers also promise a smooth operation on any screen size whether it’s for Android or iOS.

The plugin comes with a free or test version but if you want all the bells and whistles, you’re going to need to fork out a minimum of €79 for one operating system. As a special feature for websites converted by WPMobile.App, you’re given a 12-stat panel or graph that tracks the important aspects of your website app.

Do remember that most of these plugins and tools pretty much perform the same task with little variations. Others simply give you better elegant options. As always, it’s up to you to pick which one best suits your needs or wants for your website.

RELATED: Blog On The Go With These Mobile Apps

The post 6 Handy Tools That Can Convert Your Website Into An App appeared first on The Blog Herald.

These plugins can ensure that your users are real and dedicated to your website. Moreover, user profile plugins just look great if you have a website membership since they give faces to your users. As such, these plugins work better when they let users customize their profiles while still giving you good control over moderation.

So, without further ado, here are some of the best user profile plugins you can find for WordPress. Some of them are paid and some are free, but we’ll help you weigh your options nonetheless.

Profile Builder

One of the most popular options here that won’t break the bank would be Profile Builder from Cozmoslabs. The developers tout Profile builder as an all-in-one option for managing your users among the audience. It lets you have your own user profile dashboard or control center in the front end and even comes with a drag-and-drop function for profile fields.

Profile Builder also comes with both a free version and a Pro version that costs $69 at the most affordable. The Pro version lets you make multiple forms or profiles for each member, and sync with other applications and software among many others.

Notes:

• Has a free version
• Pro version costs $69 for one website and one year of updates
• Pro version allows for many customizations for each user
• Drag-and-drop function

Ultimate Member

A more popular option compared to Profile Builder would be Ultimate Member. It has more than 100,000 active installations and is also highly-rated as user profile plugins go. The developers of Ultimate Member promise a smooth membership for your audience– something that can make or break their membership experience.

It also lets your users add some stylish profile pictures so they can customize their profiles to their hearts’ content. It also has a drag-and-drop function that makes it easy for the admin to organize. Last but not least, you can add some paid extensions for this plugin which makes it even more powerful.

Notes:

• Has a free version
• Premium version starts at $249/year and gives access to all extensions
• Drag-and-drop function
• Easy to use for the audience
• Extensions can vastly improve the plugin

ProfileGrid

ProfileGrid appears like a relative newcomer to the user profile plugins scene as it’s not as popular as the previous two plugins, however, it’s still highly-rated, making it a solid option. It’s a handy all-in-one profile plugin with some elegant added features like private messaging where your users can communicate with you directly.

The interface of ProfileGrid is also quite beautiful and classy. On top of the standard fare functionalities of the user plugin, ProfileGrid also allows users to submit and share their blogs, ensuring a great level of interactivity for your blog community.

Notes:

• Has a free version
• Paid version starts at $79 for a single website
• Beautiful interface
• Private messaging feature
• Allows better interactive freedom for your users
• Allows many layers of moderation for admins

RELATED: Membership Services: Worth The Effort to Create and Develop?

Ultimate Membership

Not to be confused with Ultimate Member, Ultimate Membership is a premium-only user profile plugin that boasts itself as the “most complete” profile plugin you can have. It allows for many layers of membership levels for your users and also lets you split them into free members or paying members.

Setup is easy enough and you can have an unlimited number of subscription packages should you want to be creative with your types of memberships. It also lets you have your own dashboard for easier control and the plugin easily integrates with many other software.

Notes:

• No free version
• Regular License starts at $49
• Unlimited number of subscription levels or types
• Your own member admin dashboard
• Vast integration network with other software

UserPro

UserPro is another premium-only option if you’re feeling extravagant enough. It gives more incentives for your users to actually engage or interact with the content, the blog, or each other through badges and other colorful digital milestone prizes.

You can even track what your users are doing on your website with a dedicated activity feed featured within the plugin. Last but not least, UserPro creates an interface for your users similar to social media where they get followers and can follow each other. It’s like having your own miniature social media community within the blog.

Notes:

• No free version but comes with a demo
• Pricing starts at $39 for a regular license
• Beautiful social network-esque front end interface for your users
• Incentivises user interaction, increasing engagements in your website
• Activity feed
• Vast integration network with many other software

WP User Frontend

WP User Frontend is another relative newcomer to the playing field but comes with its own twist in the formula. The plugin comes with an added feature that makes it easy for blog owners to accept content from their users, meaning having third-party and audience-created content can be easier with this plugin.

That’s because on top of the user profile feature, the plugin also couples it with a post-submission feature or interface for your registered users. You then edit their submissions (assuming you allow them to submit or write) thanks to the plugin’s own built-in submissions editor.

Notes:

• Has a free version
• Pro version starts at $49/year
• User submissions functionality
• Built-in user submissions editor that can also allow files and images to be uploaded
• Drag-and-drop functionality

Theme My Login

Sometimes the thing that can intimidate your audience from continuing the registration and login is your website reverting back to the WordPress interface for registrations or logins. Theme My Login remedies this by making your registration or login interface akin to your website’s theme.

You might find Theme My Login’s free version a little too limited, however, as it only allows for registrations and logins. You’ll have to go purchase one of its extensions if you want to give your users the luxury of customizing their own profiles. It’s basic, but it works like all the plugins in this list. Choose wisely.

Notes:

• Has a free (but limited) version
• Profile extension can be treated as the premium version and allows users to have profiles; costs $15
• Blends in well with your website theme
• Limited functionality even with the profile extension

RELATED: 8 Best WordPress Membership Plugins

The post The Best User Profile Plugins For WordPress appeared first on The Blog Herald.

SEO, comments, and reception, these are just some of the few worries a newbie blogger usually has. More often than not, they’re unfounded and can easily be dealt with– more so if you have a helping hand. So, in order to speed up your progress and to lay your blogging worries to rest, we’ve come up with a list of things you shouldn’t be agonize over if you’re new to blogging.

These are quite common and most bloggers have experienced this at one point or another in their careers. Sit back, relax, take it slow, and cross these out of your worry list.

Lack of SEO knowledge

The thing about search engine optimization (SEO) is that it is never constant. Rather, it’s on a constant evolution (or mutation) and can abruptly change depending on the search engine’s whims. That’s why you really shouldn’t think or overanalyze too much about SEO when you’re new to blogging.

More often than not, any information you obtain about SEO will either be replaced or go obsolete next year, probably sooner, probably later. In reality, if you’re new to blogging, you’re just a few SEO articles away from being on the same level as a lot of the “experts” of the blogging community; they’re not exactly hard to remember and neither are they too technical for a layman to perform.

What you need to do then, is to find the latest in SEO tools or guidelines and you’re good to go. You’ll want to keep checking periodically, though; it’s a constantly changing ruleset.

Lack of experience

Similar to your lack of SEO knowledge, your blogging experience– or lack thereof isn’t something you want holding you back. You’ll have to remember that back in the internet’s infancy days, most bloggers relied on trial-and-error, and even so, most of what they learned don’t apply these days anymore because of the rapid changes brought about by new tech.

If you want to be on the safe side of things, do ask for advice or do some research on blogging do’s and don’ts but also take your own leap of faith as trial-and-error can be the best teacher when it comes to blogging. In any case, you can learn to blog along the way and undoing some wrong things isn’t exactly that difficult when it comes to the blogging industry.

The reception

Perhaps you’ve thought too much ahead and worried about how your content or blog will be received? If so, take a breather and consider whatever kind of reception you receive from your audience as part of the learning process. How your blog is received will be the end result of the actual things you should worry about when new to blogging.

Those would be the content, your niche, and your website’s appearance among a few other things. After that, how your intended audience reacts should be worth monitoring yet also shouldn’t dishearten you. Take their criticism, filter out the constructive ones, and build upon those.

If there’s no reception at all, don’t be shocked; beginner blogs which were made from scratch usually don’t get traction at first. Worry about your content first, the reception will come later as a reward.

Gaining audience

As we stated earlier, a new blog is most likely an unknown blog; that is, unless you’re already a known blogger or the website you made was for a popular brand. Hence, don’t stress out too much about your initially low views. Unless you bought your website’s domain name or bought the website altogether, then your views will be reasonably low.

You’ll amass your audience once you start getting consistent with your content and implement some simple SEO rules along the way such as using keywords or links. Often, however, it’s the content’s quality and frequency of posting that can dictate how many will visit your website and stay. Just focus on making at least decent content and the readers or viewers will come.

Your writing style

Now, for blogs with written content, your writing style is both something you should and shouldn’t worry about. As a rule of thumb, remember that your readers should have a smooth time understanding your content. That means writing that is too technical or lacks a conversational tone usually puts many people to sleep. Such is the case these days.

Hence, if you’re writing is like that, then perhaps it’s time to worry and start changing your tone to something more friendly and less encyclopedic. Meanwhile, those who write in a conversational tone and use simple terms should find no trouble encouraging reader discussion or interaction, even shares.

Either way, almost all people know how to talk, meaning writing conversationally shouldn’t be too hard a method to apply. Don’t worry as long as you get your point across and your readers understand what you’re saying.

The blogging community

Finding friendly faces in the blogging community isn’t something you’ll lose sleep over. There are many bloggers just like you who have just started out and might even be willing to collaborate. Meanwhile, veterans, at least some of them, can be rather friendly and might even give you a free boost or a shoutout.

All you need to do is reach out to the blogosphere and become a member. Most of the time, people will welcome you with open arms. Interaction is mostly online anyway so being introverted or antisocial isn’t an issue. Don’t be too shy to ask for help and give help back as well. You’ll find that the blogging industry has one of the friendliest communities ever.

Making money

Here’s the thing about making money with a website, if you want fast returns right way, then you’re better off establishing an eCommerce blog or website instead of one whose bread and butter is content. Assuming you’re starting your blog from scratch (no bought domains or second-hand websites), then you first have to deal with a lack of audience.

As such, making money immediately with your very first blog shouldn’t be your main concern. Again, focus on the content and build and audience-base first before being a bit more aggressive with website or content monetization (unless you sell affiliate products and are a merchant blog from the get-go).

Once you’ve gained enough popularity (at least 100 visitors per day), then you can start exploring your options. Don’t worry, those monetization options are always there, waiting for you.

RELATED: Blogging for Dummies in 2019: The Only Cheat Sheet You Need

The post 7 Things You Shouldn’t Worry About If You’re New To Blogging appeared first on The Blog Herald.