SpeedHost.in Blog Hosted on WordPress

There is no doubt that WordPress is the most loved CMS out there. One of the reasons for its popularity is the availability of thousands of plugins. They just improve the functionality of WordPress ten folds. We have compiled a list of the most popular plugins for all you aspiring WordPress Developers. Check them out right here:

1] Debug Bar: This plugin adds a debug menu to the admin bar that displays cache, total queries, total queried time, and memory usage that will be very useful in the debugging process. This makes it a must have plugin for all WordPress developers. In addition to this if the function WP_DEBUG is enabled then it also helps to track PHP warnings and Notices to make them easier to find.

2] Theme Check: If you’re a WordPress theme developer then this plugin is a must have. It measures your theme against the current WordPress coding standards and best practices. Your theme also needs to be checked for required elements such as licenses, author information and screenshot which this plugin does with ease.

3] User Switching: If you want to swap quickly between multiple user accounts in WordPress then User Switching is the plugin to get. This allows you to quickly move from one user account to the other with the click of a button.  This comes in super handy for test environments where you regularly have to log out and in between different accounts or for administrators who have to switch between multiple accounts.

4] WordPress Beta Tester: This plugin lets you update to the latest Nightly version or the Release Candidate at the click of the button using the built in upgrader. This comes in handy especially when you want to test the compatibility of your plugin or theme with the upcoming WordPress versions.

5] Query Monitor: Query Monitor adds a new toolbar at the WordPress admin bar and shows query data such as HTTP Requests, Ajax Call, Redirects, Hooks, Transients and PHP Errors. This is a very good pick since a lot of the features included in this plugin have not been found with other debugging plugins.

So if you are game to become the next best WordPress theme or plugin developer, don’t forget to give these masterpieces a try.

Do leave a comment below if you have any similar WordPress plugin that you wish to share with us.

Your website is the face of your business online. Anything you display on it will create the impression that you want your visitors to have about you. So important is a good website for your business that it can make or break the online reputation if you don’t get it right. More importantly, you will need to focus on creating a great user experience on your website and keep building on it to get your visitors to keep coming back. However, if you are stuck and in need of ideas to improve your website experience, then here are some to get you moving.

1] Improve Website Speed: Everyone loves a cool looking website with fancy widgets and loads of images, but this would mean compromising on your website load speed. With the rate of information consumption growing steadily these days, a slow loading website could spell disaster for your website. It only takes a few extra seconds of page load time for a user to click on the back or exit button of the browser. Put your website on a diet, compress your images with many awesome tools online like Smush it or Tinypng . Minimalism is the new Design trend and helps a lot to cut down your website fat and give you a clean fast loading website; in fact some of the most popular websites online today have taken this route and are enjoying a much better visitor count.

2] Improve Navigation or Get a Search Bar: We must all agree that we are now a search friendly society. We are constantly in search of great content online and what makes it easier is the search bar on Google or the one on your website. If your website has a lot of content or if you are an ecommerce giant like Amazon or Flipkart then you totally need a search bar. You might have loads of epic content but what’s the use if your visitor can’t search for what he/she wants. We highly recommend that you get a search bar applied to your website. Alternatively, if you do not have a ton of products or articles then you may want to focus on a great navigation bar. Provide all that you have to offer right to the visitor in an easy to read bar with all the information. After, you do want the visitor to be on your website for a long time but the question is, is the visitor staying for the right reasons or is just lost in the maze of content you have created.

3] Make your Home Button VISIBLE: If your content is good the visitor would definitely like to explore your website even more but where would one start? Ideally the tendency is to get to the main/home page and then branch out.  A golden thumb rule of good designers is that you need to make the website logo clickable which will always get you to the starting point if you get lost or at least make your home button stand out from the rest of the menu. Remember the world is in need of quick information and if you give your visitors even the slightest of the stress to find it then you might as well say goodbye to them.

4] Simplify the Design: Content is king and you need your visitors to focus on your content. No one likes a cluttered website and your visitors will drop out even if your content is worth a read. Keep it simple and take off any element on the website that does not give value to the visitor. For example pop up windows are a BIG No No, keep banner ads to a minimum and offer a small subscribe button for those who wish receive your content.

5] Test your website: Functionality of your website will be key to the success of your website. We always have the tendency to add more stuff to the website but avoid testing it. Even if you do test, it is generally for large updates. You should always test the flow of the website after every update to avoid any embarrassing moments. Also if your website is built to support cross platforms then you must make your testing efforts even more aggressive.

These points are just a few in the long list of items you need to create and maintain a great and profitable website. We hope these tips will help you to get started in improving the user experience of your website. Do drop in a comment if you need any questions to be answered. We will be happy to help.

Also don’t forget to share any of your ideas that you personally use to improve the user experience of your website.

Landing pages can be a big deal when your company’s profit and sales figures are internet-driven. Imagine you have a decent budget to run Search engine Marketing campaigns, a great ad copy and tight ad groups – but you’re still paying really high CPC. The most probable reason could be a bad (un-optimized) landing page. A great landing page can give great impetus to your quality score – resulting in low CPC, higher ad position and eventually high conversions.

And yes, by a good landing page, we DON’T just mean a well-designed or beautiful-looking page, but a well structured and planned landing page. We have listed 7 points to keep in mind while creating a landing page.

1. A big NO to cluttered layout:
Keep things simple. Simple things work the best. Cluttered layouts don’t just look ugly, but also exhibit the least chance of your prospect being converted into an actual sale. Sit with your landing page designer, content writer and SEO person. Take their inputs and prepare the best combination of a neat page that has SEO-rich content. Cluttered pages will make your prospect dislike your page and he might just never visit it again. So be very careful when you zero down to the layout of your landing page.

2. One Page Per Purpose:
Don’t confuse the visitor who has landed on your page with the intention of taking the desired action. Have a dedicated landing page per purpose. Don’t feed in too many purposes on a single landing page. For example, if you are currently giving 20% of all women apparels, then prepare your page focused on that single purpose. Don’t mix up the page for men’s new formal wear collection with that. If needed, create a separate landing page for men’s new collection. This helps you focus on your sale, and does not disappoint the woman who has come on the page to see the discounted apparels.

3. First Things First:
Prioritize. That’s the key to a conversion-centric landing page. Always mention important things first. Sit and analyze what is more important for your customer to know. If there are 3 major things that you want them to see, prioritize and de-prioritize between those 3 things too. Rank and place them on their order of importance. This helps you leave an impact in the mind of the visitor.

4. Provide Social Proof:
Testimonials work – provided they are genuine. People hate being the first ones to try. They want an approval or recommendation by a person who has already used your product or service. Testimonials make your pitch believable. But be careful about which testimonials to publish on the landing page. Moreover, Google gives more importance to the pages that has genuine testimonials and ranks them high. So, provide social proof. It’s crucial

5. Call To Action Buttons:
The placement of your call-to-action has a major impact on conversions. And no, placing it above the fold is not automatically the best solution – despite what many best practice believers out there want you to think. Experiment with different placements of your call-to-action and see which one performs best. Try different versions with the CTA either at the top, the middle, or the bottom of the page.

You also could try a combination where you place the CTA both at the top and the bottom. We’ve seen this combination work well on very long landing pages, where potential customers end up scrolling all the way to the bottom of the page.

6. Edit, edit & edit:
Marketers seem to be divided into two groups here: those who swear by short-form landing pages and those who prefer long-form landing pages. So depending upon your purpose of the landing page, we suggest you prepare a mock for both the styles.

Review your landing page and ask yourself these questions:
1. What do my prospects need to know in order to accept my offer?
2. Is there any special/important information that’s critical to the offer?
3. “Are there any specific points of anxiety or friction that we need to moderate?”

If your landing page is very short, think whether there’s any important information you’ve left out. But, if your landing page is very long, check if there’s any information that is not necessary.

Try experimenting with different amounts of information until you find the fit for your offer. So the key is to remove everything that is over the top. So edit, edit and again edit till you get what is just right for you.

7. Be sociable:
Let them share your content. If the visitors like the content on your page, they would want o share it on their social circle. This, eventually gives you a free publicity. So always give an option to your users to ‘share’ your content on other social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. Higher number of shares leads to more page visits and high conversions. So be sociable.
So that was our secret 7- step checklist that we shared with you! Use it, and share with us your landing page success stories!

Below is a list of some of the most popular Free WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) HTML Editors for both Windos and Mac.

1. CoffeeCup Free HTML Editor for Windows which is best suited to Newcomers to Web Design. Download Here: http://www.coffeecup.com/free-editor/

2. HTML-Kit is a text editor for Windows best suited to Professional Web Developers. Download Here: http://www.htmlkit.com/

3. KompoZer is a WYSIWYG web editor for Mac that allows you to build websites in an easy way, using a visual interface. Download Here: http://www.kompozer.net/

4. Seamonkey for Mac, the web browser suite from Mozilla, comes with a WYSIWYG web editor that allows you to quickly code web pages using a wordprocessor-like interface. Download Here: http://www.seamonkey-project.org/

At times clients like to show a under construction page before they actually go live with their website.

We have made it very simple for you to show an under construction page without you having to write any HTML.

Just follow the simple steps and you will see a simple under construction page on your website.

1. Download our Under Construction HTML Page.
2. Login into your account via File Manager from cPanel or using FTP
3. Open the directory called public_html
4. Delete any existing index file
5. Unzip the file which you just downloaded and upload the content to the public_html folder.
6. Now go to your domain name and press the refresh button on the browser.

You should now be able to see a simple Web SIte Under Construction Page on your hosting.