How Will Gutenberg Change Your WordPress Workflow?

The way you develop for and create content with WordPress is changing. With the release of WordPress 5.0 and the new Gutenberg editor, there will be a lot of adjustments to make. They not only affect what we see on our screens, but also the underlying techniques we use to customize the back end. What’s especially important to note is that it’s not just web professionals who will bear the burden of a changed workflow. Everyday users will also have their own learning curve to deal with. The simple act of writing a blog post, for example, will look much differently with Gutenberg than with the Classic Editor.
That’s not to paint any of these changes as either positive or negative. Regardless of how you feel about them, they are changes nonetheless.
So, what’s changing? Let’s have a look at some areas that WordPress 5.0 will have its greatest impact.
Writing with Gutenberg
The most visible change with WordPress 5.0 is the block-based Gutenberg editor. Gone are the days of a single rectangular field to type away at your next blog post. Instead, virtually everything is contained with portable blocks – including text paragraphs.
The positive side of this
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/18247/how-will-gutenberg-change-your-wordpress-workflow

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/12/31/how-will-gutenberg-change-your-wordpress-workflow/

Elementor Year in Review 2018

It’s been one heck of a party! If 2016 was the year of Elementor’s birth, and 2017 the year of its growth, 2018 is the year Elementor exploded into the mainstream and became the new standard for WordPress web design. We managed to go beyond page building and create an industry-leading website builder that deals with almost every aspect of the site.
Before we dig into what happened in 2018, here’s a quick summary of Elementor by-the-numbers:
Features
Company
Elementor has quickly grown to be one of the largest companies in the WordPress world. Our dedicated team joined forces to accomplish our vision.
Our support team includes 33 supporters from around the world who speak 10 different languages, while our official language remains English.
We get an astounding average of 400 support tickets every day! 90% of our users are happy with the service they received from our support agents.
Education
Community
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/18246/elementor-year-in-review-2018

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/12/31/elementor-year-in-review-2018/

Best of Best WordPress Tutorials of 2018 on WPBeginner

The year 2018 is about to come to an end. It was a great year overall for WPBeginner, WordPress community, and for many of our users who started new websites and businesses. We want to thank all of you for your continued support of WPBeginner.

To continue our tradition, in this article, we will share our staff-pick of the best of best WordPress tutorials on WPBeginner. We will also share an overview of the success that our team had in 2018.

WPBeginner Recap 2018 by Syed Balkhi

Like every year, 2018 has been the best year ever for me both personally and professionally.

WPBeginner YouTube channel passed over 100,000 subscribers (currently at 122k subscribers). This was one of my goals for 2018, and I’m very glad that we met it.

We switched WPBeginner to HTTPS and added Browser Push Notification. In the last 6 months, we have added over 260,000+ users in our push list. This has been a great new traffic source for the blog.

In August, I launched the WPBeginner growth accelerator fund, which is the first-ever growth fund focused entirely on WordPress businesses.

Over 90 companies applied to receive investment and mentoring (which is quite humbling).

I completed the first round and invested in some amazing WordPress products including: MemberPress, Pretty Links, Affiliate Royale, Formidable Forms, and SeedProd.

If you’re interested in learning more, then check out this blog post where I shared some behind the scenes details.

2018 was a great year for WPBeginner’s family of products.

WPForms passed over 1 million active installs and it’s now one of the top 25 most popular WordPress plugins of all time. Considering that we only launched it in 2016, it’s amazing to see how far we have come.

We added a lot of powerful features in WPForms including: surveys & polls, form permissions (form locker), conditional form confirmations, Stripe recurring payments, Drip addon, rating fields, likert scale, NPS fields, image choice fields, custom input masks, better terms of service field, GDPR compatibility, Gutenberg compatibility, and so much more.

WPForms is the most beginner friendly WordPress form plugin, and that’s why it has continued to maintain a 4.9 out of 5 star rating average with over 3000+ five star ratings (read WPForms user reviews).

Not using WPForms yet? You can try the free version and then upgrade to Pro when you’re ready.

MonsterInsights, the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress, passed over 2 million active installs.

We launched a brand new Overview report inside WordPress dashboard. We also created customized reports for Publishers and Ecommerce websites, so you can see the stats that really matter. We added several other reports as well including: Search Console report, Form Conversion report, and Custom Dimensions report.

MonsterInsights has become one of my most favorite plugins in 2018 because it helps me grow our business with confidence. I sincerely believe that it’s easy to double your traffic and sales when you know exactly how people find and use your website. MonsterInsights helps me make data-driven decisions to grow our business.

OptinMonster, our flagship conversion optimization software, continued to push the limits in 2018. We launched version 5.0 which added a brand new drag & drop campaign builder and a revamped display rules engine, so you can create more personalized campaigns.

Aside from the big release, we also released several new campaign templates, email conversion summaries, a new beta program, and my favorite Smart Tags feature.

Smart Tags basically makes dynamic personalization easy. Previously OptinMonster offered this feature as part of our API, but it required coding.

Now you can add personalization like user’s name, location (country, city, state, etc), time, and other items inside your OptinMonster campaign to boost conversions without writing any code.

Our free plugin WP Mail SMTP also passed the 1 million active installs mark.

In October 2018, I sold my popular List25 blog, so I can better focus on our WordPress and software business.

List25 was a side project that I started in college as an experiment. In 2018, we passed 2.4 million subscribers on YouTube and had 570 million total video views.

This blog never fit into what we did at Awesome Motive, but I kept it for as long as I did for sentimental values. Not to mention, it did generate a pretty good side income.

As for personal life, 2018 was a great year for my family. My son, Solomon, turned 2 years old. It’s been quite fun to watch him grow. We traveled to 6 countries this year. Solomon attended 1 WordCamp in 2018 (WordCamp Miami). His two favorite letters in the alphabet are W and P. Surprisingly it took me a while to catch that, and of course that makes sense considering most of the shirts I wear are WordPress branded. Below is a picture of our family, since I know many of you often ask for it.

If you want to see more of my personal journey, then please check out my 2018 Year in Review blog post on my personal blog. It has everything that happened to me in 2018 both personally & professionally along with lessons that I learned, and my goals for 2019.

With that said, let’s take a look at the best of WPBeginner in 2018.

Best WPBeginner Tutorials in 2018

We published some really useful guides, tutorials, and how-tos throughout 2018. Here are some of our favorites.

January

What’s the difference between domain name and web hosting – We started the year with a beginner’s guide explaining the difference between domain name and web hosting. Many beginners often confuse the two terms, so we thought it is about time we explain the difference to help users understand the web basics.

How to send email in WordPress using the Gmail SMTP Server – Often WordPress websites fail to send emails because of poor configuration of email functions on their WordPress hosting servers. In this article, we showed an easier solution to the problem by sending WordPress emails using Gmail SMTP server.

Shopify vs WooCommerce – Which is the better platform? – Many beginners who want to start an online store often struggle in choosing between two of the most popular eCommerce platforms, Shopify and WooCommerce. In this article, we compared both platforms side-by-side for their features, ease-of-use, pricing, and flexibility to help you choose the best eCommerce platform for your online store.

16 Best Alternatives to the WordPress Jetpack Plugin – As your website grows, you will likely need to expand beyond the basic functionality of the Jetpack plugin suite. That’s why we created a list of the best Jetpack alternatives for specific features.

February

How to create an online course with WordPress using LearnDash – Selling online courses is becoming a common way for bloggers to make money online. In this guide, we explained how to easily create an online course using LearnDash with step by step instructions.

How to create a survey in WordPress – Surveys are a great way to gather valuable information from your users and use it to grow your business. In this step by step guide, we showed you how to create a survey in WordPress with beautiful interactive reports.

How to create a micro-job website like Fiverr with WordPress – Fiverr is a popular marketplace. This tutorial allows you to create a micro-job website like Fiverr and allow users to offer their services on your website, so you can earn a commission when jobs are completed.

How to fix the Mixed Content Error in WordPress – Mixed content error in WordPress is caused by incorrect HTTPs/SSL settings. While it may not affect your website’s functionality, it can have adverse affects on your website’s SEO and user experience. This guide helps you fix that.

How to add a stats dashboard on your WordPress site – Step by step guide on how to see your website stats inside your WordPress dashboard.

March

How to create an online marketplace using WordPress – A marketplace website allows your users to buy and sell items by setting up their own mini-stores within your eCommerce website for a fee. It is one of the fastest growing eCommerce categories with many opportunities for small niche marketplaces. In this guide, we showed you how to create your own online marketplace using WordPress with step by step instructions.

How to build an auction site like eBay using WordPress – An auction website allows users to bid on products to purchase them. This helps you to maximize profits and you can even allow other users to run their own auctions on your website for a fee. In this article, we showed you how to easily create an eBay like auction site using WordPress without any special technical skills.

How to sell ads on your WordPress blog – Online ads are one of the most popular ways to make money from your website. In this step by step beginner’s guide, we showed you how to properly sell ads on your WordPress blog and how to maximize your ad earnings.

Best online grammar checker tools for WordPress – Modern browsers come with built-in spellcheck but there is no way to check for grammar or readability. We hand-picked the best online grammar checker tools to help you write better blog posts for your website.

11 most important pages that every WordPress blog should have – Ever wondered what are the most important pages that you must have? As you go into 2019, make sure you have these important pages on your blog.

April

The ultimate affiliate marketing guide for beginners – Affiliate marketing is one of the most successful ways to monetize WordPress websites. In this beginner’s guide, we explained affiliate marketing, how it works, and showed step by step instructions to get started with affiliate marketing.

How to enable customer tracking in WooCommerce with Google Analytics – Customer tracking helps you understand user behavior and improve shopping experience on your website for maximum conversions. In this guide, we showed how you can enable WooCommerce tracking with Google Analytics and unlock this invaluable information.

Best WordPress job board plugins and themes – We hand-picked some of the best plugins and themes that you can use to add a job board to your WordPress website.

Revealed: Which are the most popular types of blogs? – This is one of the most commonly asked questions we get from new users who’re looking to start a blog. This article should help you find the best niche for your website.

May

The ultimate guide to WordPress and GDPR Compliance – The EU’s GDPR law made most website owners concerned about how it would affect them. In this guide, we explained everything you need to know about GDPR compliance in plain English.

How to easily accept credit card payments in WordPress – Many beginners want to accept credit card payments on their website without adding a shopping cart. In this article, we showed you how to easily accept credit card payments in WordPress without using a full-fledged eCommerce platform.

Best content marketing tools and plugins for WordPress – Content marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to get search traffic to your website. We shared our pick of the best content marketing tools and plugins for WordPress to create a killer content strategy for your website.

Ultimate list of WordPress stats, facts, and other research – Need to convince your boss or someone else in your organization to use WordPress? Here some stats, facts, and research that will help.

How to register a Domain Name (+ tip to get it for free) – Beginner’s guide on what is a domain name, how to register one, and a bonus tip on how to get it for free.

June

How to do keyword research for your WordPress blog – In this article, we explained what is keyword research and how you can use it to find blog post ideas, improve SEO rankings, and get more traffic for your WordPress blog.

Wix vs WordPress – Which one is better? – Wix is a popular website builder that helps you create websites without any programming skills. In this article, we compared Wix vs WordPress with pros and cons of both platforms to determine which one is better.

How to create a free business email address – A business email address uses your company name and looks a lot more professional than a generic Gmail or Hotmail account. In this step by step guide, we showed you how to easily create a free business email address in 5 minutes.

Best analytics solutions for WordPress users – Website analytics help you find out where your users are coming from and what they do on your site. In this showcase, we shared our pick of the best analytics solutions that you can use on your WordPress website.

How to allow users to upload images in WordPress comments – By default WordPress doesn’t let users upload images in comments. If you want to allow your readers to upload images in comments similar to Facebook comments, then here’s a step by step tutorial to do that.

July

18 most important things you need to do after installing WordPress – Starting a new WordPress site? Here’s a checklist that we recommend you follow after you have installed WordPress.

How to properly move WordPress from HTTP to HTTPS – In July, Google announced that Chrome browser will mark all websites without an SSL certificate as insecure. This beginner’s guide shows you how to properly switch WordPress from HTTP to HTTPS.

How to choose the best domain registrar – Domain registrars are the companies responsible for registering and managing all domain names in the world. Choosing the right domain registrar will help you avoid additional costs and have full control of your domain. In this guide, we shared the best domain registrars that you can choose from.

Proven and easy to start online business ideas – If you are looking for a business idea that you can start online and start making money, then this guide is for you. We shared easy to start online business ideas that actually make money and do not cost much to start.

How to import external images in WordPress – Extremely useful guide for those who’re switching domain names or moving websites from another platform to WordPress.

August

How to create an IDX real estate website using WordPress – Many of our users wanted to build a functional real estate website using WordPress. In this tutorial, we showed how to easily build an IDX real estate website using WordPress without spending a fortune.

How to protect your WordPress site from brute force attacks – Brute force attacks can slow down a website, make it inaccessible, and even crack passwords to install malware. In this article, we showed you how to effectively protect your WordPress install against brute force attacks.

How to fix common SSL issues in WordPress – Some of our users wanted to know how to fix issues when moving their website from HTTP to HTTPs. In this beginner’s guide, we shared how to fix common SSL issues in WordPress.

Best WordPress caching plugin to speed up your website – One of the fastest ways to speed up your WordPress site is to install a caching plugin. This article highlights the best WordPress caching plugins.

How to create an Etsy-Like store with WordPress – Tired of paying Etsy’s high transaction fees? Here’s a step by step guide on how to create an Etsy-Like store in WordPress, and how to properly move an existing Etsy store to WordPress.

September

How to switch from Blogger to WordPress without losing Google rankings – We did a massive rewrite of one of our most popular articles on the website. Want to switch from Blogger to WordPress? We’ve got you covered.

How to take a screenshot for your blog posts (Ultimate Guide) – This step by step guide covers 6 different methods to taking screenshots for your blog posts. Bonus Power Tip that helps you quickly create screencasts and animated GIFs.

Top reasons why WordPress sites get hacked – One of the most common myths about WordPress is that it is less secure. WordPress is the most popular website builder in the world, and that’s why it is often the biggest target of any hacking attempts. In this guide, we shared the top reasons why WordPress sites get hacked and how you can easily prevent it from happening on your site.

How to properly move from Squarespace to WordPress – Many people who start their websites using Squarespace quickly realize the limitations of that platform and want to move. In this article, we shared how to move your website from Squarespace to WordPress.

How to disable Gutenberg and keep the WordPress Classic Editor – A lot of users are not happy with WordPress 5.0 block editor (Gutenberg). This article shows you how to disable Gutenberg and keep the classic editor.

October

40 most common WordPress errors and how to fix them – This ultimate guide is worth bookmarking because it has solutions for fixing 40 of the most common WordPress errors.

How to style the WordPress comment form – This guide is theme designer’s dream come true. It covers all the things you need to customize your WordPress comment form.

Ways to recover WooCommerce abandoned cart sales – More than 67% of users on an eCommerce stores abandon their carts without checking out. In this guide, we showed you how to recover those WooCommerce abandoned cart sales and grow your business more efficiently.

How to move your site from Joomla to WordPress – Joomla is a popular CMS software, much like WordPress but with a much smaller user base. In this step by step tutorial, we showed how to easily move your site from Joomla to WordPress.

How to check keyword rankings for your WordPress blog posts – You work hard on improving WordPress SEO and creating great content but how do you know if your site is doing well? In this beginner’s guide, we showed you how to check if your blog posts are ranking for the right keywords.

How to show your business review from Google, Facebook, and Yelp in WordPress – Want to add social proof to your business website? This plugin easily lets you display positive reviews about your business from social media right on your WordPress site.

November

Ultimate WooCommerce SEO Guide – Search is the most important source of traffic for most online stores. In this beginner’s guide, we showed you how to improve WooCommerce SEO with step by step instructions to rank higher in Google.

10 website marketing data you must track on your site – Instead of relying on your best guesses to make important marketing decisions, we showed you which website marketing data you must track on every WordPress site from day 1.

How to use user-generated content in WordPress – Use generated content allows you to add content created and generated by user activity on your website. In this tutorial, we showed you how to properly utilize user-generated content in WordPress to grow your business.

15 tips to grow your business online with a small budget – Most businesses who are just starting out don’t have big marketing budgets. In this guide, we shared our expert tips on growing your business online without spending a lot of money.

How to clone a WordPress (in 7 easy steps) – Moving a WordPress site to a new web host? Switching to a new domain? Or just want to create a staging site? Here’s a step by step guide on how to easily clone your WordPress site.

December

Using Google Search Console to grow website traffic – Google Search console is an incredibly powerful tool that offers tons of useful information that you can use to grow your website and get more traffic. In this beginner’s guide, we showed you how to properly use Google Search Console to grow your website traffic.

Best free website hosting compared – Many beginners who just want a quick website often want to start with a free website hosting company. In this article, we shared our pick of the best almost free and free website hosting companies and how they stack up against each other.

How to properly move from Medium to WordPress – Medium is a free writing platform but it is not exactly a flexible website builder like WordPress. In this step by step tutorial, we showed you how to easily move from Medium to WordPress.

How to use the new WordPress block editor (Gutenberg tutorial) – In WordPress 5.0, the classic content editor was replaced by a brand new block editor called Gutenberg. To answer user questions, we published the comprehensive Gutenberg block editor tutorial that walks you through the new editor and how to use it like a pro.

Best live chat software for small business – Our expert comparison of the best live chat software for small businesses.

These were some of the best WordPress tutorials on WPBeginner in 2018. We hope that you found them helpful.

We want to thank all WPBeginner users, who visited our website, offered feedback, left comments, and shared it with others. We truly appreciate you.

We look forward to adding even more useful WordPress tutorials in 2019. Have a Happy New Year.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post Best of Best WordPress Tutorials of 2018 on WPBeginner appeared first on WPBeginner.

source https://www.wpbeginner.com/showcase/best-of-best-wordpress-tutorials-of-2018-on-wpbeginner/

Search industry news and trends: Best of 2018

It’s that time of the year again: reflecting on the year that’s past as we prepare for 2019 lurking around the corner. In this article, we have a roundup of some of our fan favorite pieces from 2018 on news and trends from the search industry.

From alternative search engines to future trends, best online courses to algorithm updates, these were some of our highlights from the past year.

We also have a roundup of our top articles on SEO tips and tricks here.

1. No need for Google: 12 alternative search engines in 2018

While many of us use “googling” synonymously with “searching,” there are indeed a number of viable alternatives out there. In this article, we try to give some love to 12 alternative search engines.

Most of us can name the next few: Bing, Yandex, Baidu, DuckDuckGo.

But some on the list may surprise you — how about Ecosia, a Co2-neutral search engine? With every search made, the social business uses the revenue generated to plant trees. On average, 45 searches gets one more tree for our little planet.

2019 might be a year for a little more time spent with some G alternatives.

2. Which is the best search engine for finding images?

Human beings process visuals faster than they do text. So it makes sense that in the last decade, the number of images on the internet has ballooned.

In this post, we compare the best search engines for conducting three categories of image search on the web.

First, general / traditional image search, looking at Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Then, reverse image search, looking at TinEye, Google, and Pinterest.

Third, free-to-use image search, looking at EveryPixel, Librestock, and the Creative Commons.

3. The 2018 guide to free SEO training courses online

As all good SEOs know, this is a never-ending process. The SEO world seems to be constantly evolving, and nearly everyone in the field has learned their snuff largely through online material.

For anyone who’s new to the scene, this can be an encouraging thought. We all started mostly just poking around on the interwebs to see what to do next. And happily, a lot of the best SEO material is freely available for all.

In this article, we look at the best online, free SEO training courses. From Google to Moz to QuickSprout and more, these are fundamentals that anyone can start with.

We also highlight a number of individuals and businesses to follow in the industry.

4. Video and search: YouTube, Google, the alternatives and the future

One third of all time spent online is accounted for by watching video. And, it’s predicted that 80% of all internet traffic will come from video in 2019.

This year was further proof that videos engage growing numbers of users and consequently have an impact on the SERPs. In fact, video has been seen to boost traffic from organic listings by as much as 157%.

In this article, we explore how the ways in which we search for video are changing. From YouTube to Google Search, Facebook to Vimeo, video — and how we interact with video content online — has seen some interesting changes.

5. Are keywords still relevant to SEO in 2018?

Sneak peak: this one starts out with, “What a useless article! Anyone worth their salt in the SEO industry knows that a blinkered focus on keywords in 2018 is a recipe for disaster.”

We go on to explore why focusing on just keywords is outdated, how various algorithm updates have changed the game, and what we should do now instead.

Ps: the snarky take sticks throughout the read, along with the quality overview.

6. Google’s core algorithm update: Who benefited, who lost out, and what can we learn?

This was an interesting piece following an algorithm update from back in March. There were suspicions, Google SearchLiason tweeted a confirmation, and everyone had to reassess.

Via a simple query, “What’s the best toothpaste?” and the results Google outputted over the course of half a dozen weeks, we can trace certain changes.

What pages benefitted, what can those insights tell us about the update, and how do we handle when our content visibility nosedives?

7. A cheat sheet to Google algorithm updates from 2011 to 2018

Who couldn’t use one of these hanging around?

Google makes changes to its ranking algorithm almost every day. Sometimes (most times) we don’t know about them, sometimes they turn the SERPs upside down.

This cheat sheet gives the most important algorithm updates of the recent years, along with some handy tips for how to optimize for each of the updates.

Well, that’s it for SEW in 2018. See you next year!

The post Search industry news and trends: Best of 2018 appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

source https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/12/31/search-industry-news-trends-2018-best/

Gutenberg Components: Autocomplete

The Gutenberg Component Autocomplete is an interesting one. You can use it to show a list of posts to choose from or any other list possible. In this tutorial we are going to learn the options for it and how it is used inside of Gutenberg. If you’re interested in a more advanced tutorial on this, you can watch one which I made using the Autocomplete.
Do note that this was done on an older Gutenberg version so some of it might not work although I did test it out recently.
The Gutenberg Component Autocomplete can be found on their github repository.
Autocomplete Properties
Autocomplete Component accepts completers which are objects defining their usage.
completers – Array of completers,
onReplace – Optional. A function that will be used if the used completer configuration has the property getOptionCompletion set and the action is set to replace,
record – Used for context.
Do note that record is causing issues as of 4.0.0 and this can be tracked at this Github issue.
I have overcome the issue by passing an empty record= to the Autocomplete component. Others have used RichText component with completers.
Completer Properties
There are several properties for each
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/18245/gutenberg-components-autocomplete

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/12/29/gutenberg-components-autocomplete/

SEO tips, tools, and how to’s: Best of 2018

It’s that time of the year again: reflecting on the year that’s past as we prepare for 2019 lurking around the corner. In this article, we have a roundup of some of our fan favorite pieces from 2018 on SEO.

From how to’s to tips to tools, these were some of our highlights from the past year. SEW spark notes, if you will.

If you missed these pieces throughout the year, they’ll be worth a read. And if you’ve already read them, never hurts to refresh!

On Monday, we’ll have a roundup of our top articles on search industry news and trends.

1. How to force Google to recrawl your website

If you have launched a new website, updated a single page on your existing domain, or altered many pages and/or the structure of your site, you will likely want Google to display your latest content in its SERPs.

While Google’s crawlers are obviously pretty good at their job — indexing countless new pages simply from natural traffic and links from around the web — it never hurts to give Googlebot a little assistance.

In this article, we look at a few ways to alert Google’s crawlers to new URLs on your site.

2. How to set up event tracking in Google Analytics

Because one can never have enough Google Analytics insight, right?

One of the most useful features in GA, event tracking lets you capture all kinds of information about how people behave on your site.

In this article, we go step by step through two different ways you can set up event tracking: first, by adding the code manually, and second, by using Google Tag Manager.

This is a great tutorial for anyone looking to familiarize themselves with the task.

3. A quick and easy guide to meta tags in SEO

Meta tags help search engines and website visitors determine what the content of your page is about. 

They’re placed in the <head> section of a HTML document and need to be coded into your CMS. Depending on the platform you use, this can be quite less intense than it sounds.

Many “out of the box” solutions provide extremely user-friendly, labelled sections such as “meta description” calling your attention to exactly what goes where.

In this article, we take a look at why meta tags are important, along with the six main types of meta tags to focus on for SEO.

4. An SEO’s survival guide to Single Page Applications (SPAs)

For anyone who’s ever had questions about what SEOs should do with Single Page Applications (SPAs), this article is for you. Long, thorough, entertaining, and full of resources.

We start out looking at how the popularity of SPAs, Angular, and React have spiked in the last several years. Many developers eagerly embrace JavaScript for website development — and while that may have been rather inconsiderate of SEO ease (what else is new), it seems JS really is here to stay.

This article is bit of a coming to terms with that reality, accepting SPAs as part of our SEO future, and even dipping our toes in, if you will.

We look at what developers like about JS, how it was never intended for web page content delivery, common SEO problems of SPAs, and a host of other questions you might be asking.

Finally, we end with eleven recommendations for further reading — really, this could become the whole rest of your holiday break — on how Google treats SPAs, core principles of SEO for JS and for SPAs, and more information than you could want.

5. How to check your Domain Authority: 4 tools to use

Domain Authority (DA) serves as a handy heuristic in the SEO industry. It helps tell us how likely a site is to rank for specific keywords, based on the SEO authority it holds.

Many SEOs use Domain Authority to sense-check the quality of their inbound links and to understand how these are affecting their own’s site’s SEO health.

In this article, we round up some of the best ways to check out domain authority. We look at what factors go into DA, and how these tools go about calculating it.

‘Domain Authority’ was devised by Moz and they have naturally taken ownership of this name. Their suite of tools (some of which are discussed in this article) will reveal the authority of particular domains, but dozens of other free tools use Moz’s API to show these scores too.

6. 15 actionable SEO tips to improve your search rankings

This is another quite popular deep dive into SEO tips. We know “improving search rankings” gets a lot of fluff, but this is not that.

Here, we look closely at what makes RankBrain tick, and 15 ways to use that to your fancy.

Sections cover tips around optimizing keywords, optimizing title tags, optimizing descriptions, and reducing bounce rates and dwell times. Fun fact: research by HubSpot and Outbrain found that titles with brackets performed 33 percent better than titles without.

Questions about how to add LSI keywords? How long should long-form content really be? Benefits of long-tail vs medium size keywords? How much difference in clicks will a few characters too long in a headline actually make? All of that and much more (along with lots of screenshots) here.

7. 30 ways to market your online business for free

This article is a roundup of exactly what it sounds like — 30 ways to market your online business for free. It covers everything from emails to social media, from Google Analytics to Search Console, from forums to guest posting, from metadata to Schema.org.

While a few of the ways could be updated — posting to Google+, for instance, might be less helpful anymore — the list still provides some hefty inspiration to anyone needing a little boost of ideas for what to do online.

8. Four tools to discover and optimize for related keywords

This was a quite recent article that has soared. As we know, for SEO these days we need content that includes related concepts, satisfies intent, and provides value. The days of exact keyword matching are far behind us.

In this article, we have four great tools to use when optimizing for related keywords — and of course, how to use them.

For instance, the first tool in the list is TextOptimizer. It takes a term you give it, looks at the Google search results page, extracts snippets, and applies semantic analysis.

With that, it ouputs a list of all the related topics, terms, and concepts that form your topic cluster. From that cluster, it recommends you choose 15-25 of the words for a higher rank.

9. How to optimize your Google My Business listing

Lest we forget: local search.

For those looking to rank higher in searches tied to a user’s location — i.e. users that might be quite near your store and itching to buy something — a Google My Business listing is an essential first step.

This article gives a how to guide for first setting up your listing, claiming and verifying your business, filling out the information, and adding photos. From there, we go over gathering reviews, posting updates, monitoring your profile, and tracking data from Insights.

Of all the many, many things to do in SEO, optimizing a Google My Business listing is very straightforward. It can have a profoundly positive effect on your SEO — a whole wealth of ranking opportunity up for grabs.

The post SEO tips, tools, and how to’s: Best of 2018 appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

source https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/12/28/seo-tips-tools-how-tos-best-2018/

What’s with the New WP Scheduled Posts 2.0?

So, the moment you all have been waiting for has finally arrived with the release of WP Scheduled Posts 2.0. First of all, we would like to thank you for being among our 3000+ active users. Thanks to all your suggestions through surveys, we are being able to take this plugin to the next level. Therefore, our success couldn’t have been possible without your immense contribution. So, Thank you again. This is the opportunity to give you guys something in return with our latest release. With the 2.0 version, you will now have plenty of controls over how & when you want your contents to be published on your website. You can have your own nicely designed calendar, set your preferred day & time to be scheduled and so much more. In this article, we are going to give you a brief about what’s new with WP Scheduled Posts 2.0.
Aside from the existing features, we have completely revamped our interface. The 2.0 version is offering a beautifully designed “Schedule Calendar” to plan your contents as per your preference in an organized way. It also has the drag & drop capability to help you get started quite easily.
The new WP Scheduled Posts will let authors to schedule a content
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/18244/what-s-with-the-new-wp-scheduled-posts-2-0

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/12/28/whats-with-the-new-wp-scheduled-posts-2-0/

12 Best Live Chat Software for Small Business Compared (2019)

Did you know that more than 67% of users on eCommerce websites abandon their shopping carts without checking out? Customers want their questions to be answered instantly, and any uncertainty with their purchase can result in losing a sale.

Using a live chat support software helps you instantly answer user questions and convert them into paying customers. In this article, we will share our pick of the best live chat software for your small businesses. These live chat services work perfectly with any WordPress site.

Why Add Live Chat Support to Your Website?

According to eConsultancy, live chat has the highest satisfaction levels of any customer service channel at 73%, compared to 61% for email and 44% for phone.

It is a no brainer that live chat has such a significant impact on online sales and marketing. It allows customers to get instant answers without leaving your website. A positive live chat experience can effectively help customers make the buying decision.

Adding live chat support can definitely reduce cart abandonment, increase sales, and boost conversions. But a lot of it depends on the live chat software that you use.

A poor live chat support experience can have an adverse impact. You can lose sales, customers may leave with a bad impression of your brand, you may end up paying too much for the service, or fail to utilize the live chat app due to technical skills.

Basically, you want to find an affordable live chat service, that is easy to use, works with WordPress, and comes with all the features to help you make more sales.

That being said, let’s take a look at our expert pick of the best live chat software that you can use to grow your business.

1. LiveChat

LiveChat is the industry leader in live chat software. It’s very easy to set up and install with their free LiveChat plugin for WordPress.

LiveChat also offers beautifully designed live chat support apps that you and your agents can use on your laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. That means you can chat with customers while on the go, without having to login to your WordPress dashboard.

You can add survey forms before and after a live chat session, so you can evaluate how your support team is doing. During your off-hours, your users can also conveniently send a support ticket directly from live chat.

LiveChat integrates with dozens of other services like popular CRM software, Google Analytics, Zendesk, all the top email marketing services, and many more. This will save you time since you won’t have to enter customer details manually into your other systems.

Perhaps the best feature of LiveChat is speed. It loads extremely fast, works on all devices, and offers a much better user experience than most other live chat software.

We use LiveChat on our eCommerce websites.

Pricing: LiveChat has different plans for businesses of all sizes. Their starter plan starts from $16 per agent per month billed annually, or $19 for month-to-month. Each plan comes with a 30 day free trial.

Special: WPBeginner users get 30% off the first payment when you use our LiveChat Coupon.

2. Olark

Olark is a popular live chat solution for online businesses. It’s easy to use, and adding Olark to a WordPress site is simple. All you need to do is copy and paste a code snippet into your WordPress sidebar widget or in your child theme.

If you’d rather not work with code, then there is also a free Olark Live Chat plugin which makes setup even easier.

Olark offers integration with other services such as Salesforce, Zendesk, Highrise, etc.

There are third-party mobile apps which allow you to connect to Olark chat from almost any iOS or Android device, so you can chat with customers on the go.

Pricing: Olark offers simpler pricing plan starting from $17 per agent each month. There is a 12% discount if you choose annual billing and 29% discount for two-year billing. They also offer 2-week free live chat support trial.

3. Zendesk Chat

Zendesk is the leading help desk support software provider. They recently acquired an existing company called Zopim to enter the live chat support market and rebranded it as Zendesk Chat.

If you are already using Zendesk, then the best advantage you get is that it already integrates with your existing support software. It also works smoothly with WordPress, Salesforce, and a number of other third-party services.

Zendesk Chat also offers real-time chats, advanced analytics, and AI-powered chat-bots to automate the process when no live agents are available. They have beautiful templates and customization options to create attention-seeking chat widgets.

Pricing: Zendesk Chat offers a limited free live chat support account for 1 concurrent chat session. Their paid plans start from $14 per month per agent.

4. Chaport

If you are looking for a free live chat support software for WordPress, then you may want to checkout Chaport. They offer a free forever plan with unlimited chats, history, notifications, unlimited registered operators, and up to 5 operators online at the same time.

Their software covers all the basic requirements. They have live chat support apps for mobile devices, beautiful multilingual chat widgets, reporting and analytics, third-party integrations through Zapier.

Paid plans give you access to more features like typing insights, visitor notes, saved replies, file sending, auto-invitations, and more.

Pricing: They offer a free plan and a Pro plan starting from $9.80 per agent / month.

5. SnapEngage

SnapEngage offers live chat service to businesses of all sizes. It is a bit expensive than some other live chat companies on the list but offers some unique features and add-ons to justify the cost.

They offer integrations with popular CRM software, call back request, automated chat invitations, and customizable chat widgets to match your site.

SnapEngage also offers a SMS to Chat feature as an add-on service to their live chat software, so your visitors can directly communicate with your support team via text. Their OmniChannel chat solution allows you to help customers across different channels like Facebook, Twitter, SMS, WeChat, Zalo, and more.

Pricing: Their essentials plan starts from $16 per user / month, with minimum 3 users and it is billed annually with 7-day free trial.

6. Intercom

Intercom is a flexible tool that helps you capture leads, engage users, and boost conversions. It offers messaging services with live chat widgets that you can automate with your own flows, add chatbots, and engage customers.

It is not just a live chat support software. It can be used as an onboarding tool, support assistant, lead generation tool, marketing automation, and user-engagement software.

If you are just looking for a live chat software, then you may not be able to utilize Intercom’s full potential. On the other hand, if you want your live chat support software to do all these tasks, then you’ll love Intercom.

It is easy to use, integrates with Google Analytics, CRM software, Slack, email marketing services, and more.

Pricing: Their essential plan starts from $136 / month, after which pricing is calculated based on your usage and add-ons you purchase.

7. Freshchat

Freshchat is another good live chat support service with awesome features that rival some of the more well-known companies on this list.

Designed to be a conversation and messenger app, it allows you to start real-time chats with customers using agents or AI-powered bots. It also offers customer timeline views, live profiles, in-app campaigns, and customizable bots for automated conversations.

You can connect chats to support tickets on Zendesk or on a slack channel. Your team can use smart plugs, canned responses, labels, private notes, and desktop notifications to be more productive.

Pricing: They offer a free live chat support service plan for up to 10 team members. Their paid plans start from $15 per user per month and are billed yearly.

8. LivePerson

LivePerson is another powerful live chat support software with tons of awesome features to help you engage customers and increase sales.

It allows you to engage your customers via live chat on your website but also through SMS, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and more. You can use chatbots to create automated conversation flows and save customer information in your other third-party apps.

LivePerson is targeted towards medium to large businesses and enterprise level clients.

Pricing: You will have to request a quote to get pricing information based on your needs.

9. Userlike

Userlike is another neat live chat support software that you can use on your WordPress site. It is based in Germany and their servers are hosted in Europe. They offer GDPR compliant services, which makes them a particularly good option for businesses in the European Union.

Their software is beautifully designed offering a better experience not just for your users but also for chat agents. With a clean and clutter-free dashboard, your agents still have all the tools that you would expect from a professional live chat support service.

It offers beautiful chat widgets, chatbots, integrations with all top support, CRM, and email platforms. You also get meaningful analytics reports, which helps you improve performance and overall conversions.

Pricing: They offer free live chat support account for 1 user. Their paid plans start from €29 per month for 3 operators.

10. Smartsupp

Smartsupp is a low-cost live chat support software that allows you to track and record user sessions on your website. This helps you see how potential customers use your website and what’s preventing them from making a purchase.

It also helps you track chat conversations in Google Analytics to see your performance. It works with WordPress, Magento, Shopify, and other popular eCommerce platforms.

Pricing: A basic free-forever plan and their paid plans start from $8 per month per agent.

11. Pure Chat

If you are looking for a free live chat software, then Pure Chat is another good alternative. It allows you to easily add beautiful live chat widgets to your websites and the free plan allows you to add 3 operators with unlimited chat history.

It comes with mobile apps so that you can stay connected with customers. Your customers can send you email messages when you are offline and pre-chat form helps you collect user information to reach out later.

Pricing: A basic free plan, and their paid plan starts $79 / month billed annually.

12. Drift

Drift is a conversational marketing platform that combines the power of live chat with an automated chat bot to help you save time and increase conversions. It comes with powerful features to help you convert more website visitors into sales leads.

Drift integrates with all popular CRM and email marketing services.

They offer several powerful features including Drift bot, anonymous visitor intelligence, account based marketing, scheduling for meetings, and more.

While it has a lot of powerful features, Drift is not affordable for small businesses.

Pricing: The Standard plan starts at $50 / month billed annually, and it comes with 2 seats. If you want the bot feature, then you will have to upgrade to the Pro plan which starts at $500 / month billed annually, and it comes with 5 seats.

Our Pick: Best Live Chat Software

For small businesses, we recommend LiveChat Inc. They’re the top rated live chat software in our list, and we use them on our business websites. It has all the necessary features for the right price.

If you’re looking for a complete platform and cost is not an issue, then we recommend that you look into Intercom.

If you’re looking to hire live chat agents, but not sure where to start, then we recommend using LTVPlus. We use them to hire affordable 24/7 live chat agents for our eCommerce website.

We hope this article helped you choose the best live chat support software for your WordPress site. You may also want to learn how to enable customer tracking in WooCommerce with Google Analytics.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 12 Best Live Chat Software for Small Business Compared (2019) appeared first on WPBeginner.

source https://www.wpbeginner.com/showcase/7-best-live-chat-support-software-for-your-wordpress-site/

Facebook is expanding into Search Ads. What will this mean?

Facebook has decided to test Search Ads in selected industries in the US and Canada. What does this experiment mean for the search advertising industry?

Facebook is always eager to try out new monetization ideas. This time there’s a really interesting one with an attempt to test search ads.

It was back in 2012 when Facebook tried Sponsored Results for the first time, but the experiment didn’t last long.

This time, Facebook is re-introducing Search Ads in its search results and Marketplace, which takes them into direct competition with Google.

More details about the experiment

Facebook has decided to test a small set of advertisers from the automotive, ecommerce and retail industries in the US and Canada.

These advertisers are able to pick the placement of ‘Search Results’ in Ads Manager and they are currently not charged for the specific placement. A business cannot currently run a search ad without running a news feed ad first. Thus, it currently serves as an extension to an existing ad, but it can still offer useful insights to Facebook about the success of this experiment.

Moreover, there is no option yet to target specific keywords or phrases in the beta phase, which could change in the future if search ads roll out to more advertisers.

Image: Techcrunch

The ads are repurposed news feed ads of image or carousel format since videos are not currently supported. Search ads won’t appear on desktop and they will have a clear label of ‘Sponsored’ tag to help users understand why they are seeing the specific result. Users are currently able to opt out from seeing the ads but they are able to hide them temporarily.

Facebook has not shared screenshots yet of how the ads look like.

The idea is to test the search ads to a selected audience before it rolls out to more advertisers globally.

Is Facebook competing with Google?

This is an interesting move from Facebook and we’re expecting more similar experiments to come from the big social network. Google may be dominating the search advertising industry, but Facebook is not shy of its attempt to increase its advertising revenue.

With an advertising revenue that exceeds $33 billion worldwide in 2018, Facebook is looking for new ideas of monetization. As its user base grows, there are more searches taking place every day. Although not all searches are commercial, there is still an opportunity to capitalize its popularity.

Source: Statista

Instagram ad revenue seems to be on the rise and Stories are quickly turning into an engaging type of content. Search ads can now open a new path for revenue growth that will bring Facebook in direct competition with Google.

Should Google worry then?

There is no indication yet that Google should be threatened. It’s not clear yet if this experiment will quickly roll out to all countries and advertisers. However, it gives us an indication of Facebook’s next plans and they cannot be ignored.

Going beyond Google, it can be an interesting disruption in the search advertising industry. More advertisers could be willing to try out Facebook’s beta phase to reach an audience that goes beyond Google and Bing. Facebook has already established a powerful position in social advertising so it shouldn’t be really hard to expand its services in new territories.

After all, showing search ads in the Marketplace can enhance the ecommerce marketing tactics in the platform, right before the decision process.

Keeping both users and advertisers happy

Facebook users have already adjusted to seeing ads in the news feed, which means that there may not be a hard time adjusting to another placement.

It’s just on Facebook to make sure that there is a balance between user engagement and revenue growth. It’s critical to keep the ads in context with the searches to avoid having bigger problems with the trust among users.

2019 should be an intriguing year in the clash of the tech titans so we can’t wait to see how this experiment will turn out.

The post Facebook is expanding into Search Ads. What will this mean? appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

source https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/12/27/facebook-search-ads-implications/

Icons Factory review

When talking about attractive features of a website, blog or internet shop, it’s the details that make a difference between a mediocre and impressive site. That being said, a visitor will definitely be attracted to a site and appreciate the effort invested in it by the number of elements and minute adjustments made in order to make it more attractive and arresting. Such websites generally look more professional and leave the impression of being developed and managed by professional, high-budget, skilled experts. This can be achieved by using graphic details.
Since not everyone can afford a professional, experienced, skilled expert to achieve this effect, the majority of users rely on themselves to accomplish this. Fortunately, there are numerous plugins developed to assist in this work, and Icons Factory is one of the latest ones.
What is Icons Factory
This review will focus on the WordPress plugin developed for this purpose – Icons Factory. The article will tackle the features of the Icons Factory, how does it work, and in the end, the costs of the plugin. After reading this review, the reader will have a general impression of the plug-in as well as the reason why it may
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/18243/icons-factory-review

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/12/27/icons-factory-review/

How to Automatically Schedule Content Updates in WordPress

Have you ever tried scheduling a content update in WordPress? If you did, then you likely discovered that there is no easy way to schedule changes to a published post or page. In this article, we will show you how to easily schedule content updates in WordPress and improve your editorial workflow.

Why Schedule Updates for Posts and Pages in WordPress?

By default, WordPress allows you to schedule posts to be published at a specific time. However, you cannot schedule content updates for a post or page that is already published.

Many bloggers and website owners frequently make changes to their old blog posts, so they can keep their article up to date by adding new information.

Business websites may want to make scheduled changes to appear at a certain time. For example, when you are running a sales event or limited time promotional offer.

Normally, you will have to make changes at the exact time you want them to appear. Your changes become live as soon you hit the update button. Some site owners save their changes as a draft and then copy / paste them at the right time.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you can schedule your content updates just like you would schedule new posts and pages?

Let’s take a look at how to easily schedule content updates in WordPress to improve your workflow and keep your old content fresh.

Scheduling Content Updates in WordPress

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Tao Schedule Update plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Posts » All Posts page in the WordPress admin area. From here you can locate the post where you want to schedule changes and then click on the ‘Scheduled Update’ link.

The plugin will create a draft copy of your original post and open it in the post editor. You can now make changes to your post.

Once you are done editing, click on the date and time next to the ‘Publish’ option.

This will show the date and time settings. You need to enter the date and time when you want your changes to go live and then click on the ‘Schedule’ button at the top right corner of the screen.

Your changes will now be scheduled and will be published automatically at the date and time you entered.

Scheduling Content Updates in Classic Editor

If you are using the older classic editor, then you will see a new meta box in the right column labeled ‘Scheduled Update’

From here you can select the date and time and when you want to publish the changes. After that, you can schedule your changes by clicking the ‘Save’ button under the publish meta box.

Viewing and Managing Scheduled Post Updates

You can manage your scheduled post updates from the Posts » All Posts screen. All scheduled updates will be highlighted with their set release date.

From here you can delete or modify a scheduled update without affecting your original post. You can also immediately publish an update by clicking on the ‘Publish now’ link.

We hope this article helped you learn how to properly schedule content updates in WordPress. You may also want to see our tips on growing your website on a shoestring budget.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Automatically Schedule Content Updates in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

source https://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-schedule-content-updates-in-wordpress/

Niche Marketing Secrets – Build a Winning Money Making System – Theme Circle

It’s very easy to get excited about niche marketing. After all, how can you argue with working only a few hours per week while enjoying a full week’s (or even a full month’s) income? As impressive as the idea of online passive niche marketing income may be, achieving this reality is another thing entirely.
This guide dispenses with all the hype, exaggeration, and big promises.
Instead, you get the framework you need to achieve greater success with niche marketing.
How to Pick a Niche the Smart Way
Far from learning a collection of quick hacks you can use, you learn how to build a self-sustaining and self-reinforcing system that can ultimately lead to victory.
How to Pick a Niche the Smart Way
I hope it’s abundantly clear to you that a lot of people fail to make money online because they don’t know how to pick niches the right way. They end up building the wrong kind of business Regardless of how much time, effort and money they put into their business, nothing seems to work. At best, they’re forced to settle for cents on the dollar; at worst, they don’t make any money at all.
Picking a niche the smart way involves several filters. You have to make sure that you
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/18242/niche-marketing-secrets-build-a-winning-money-making-system-theme-circle

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/12/27/niche-marketing-secrets-build-a-winning-money-making-system-theme-circle/

A look back at Themeum’s 2018

The best way to welcome a new year is reviewing the year we are saying goodbye to. Last year, we promised to release new and exciting themes, improve plugins with modern functionalities, launch new products, and focus more on support & updates. Standing on the eve of 2019, we can proudly say that in 2018, we did way more than what we promised in most of the areas. With the arrival of 13+ new WordPress themes and plugins like WP Page Builder, WP Mega Menu Pro, Themeum is now a one-stop solution for your WordPress needs. Creating any website you think of is a reality with our powerful page builder and WordPress products.
Flashback at Themeum’s 2018
This year has not been just about releasing exciting items but about extending our team, supporting the WordPress community, sponsoring WordCamps worldwide and many more.
Redesigned website
The entire Themeum site has been radically redesigned in 2018. It’s not just a new website. It’s a completely new experience having the user is at the heart. After launching Themeum back in 2013, this year’s redesign is the most significant overhaul. We must admire each of the members in our team for their hard work behind this
Source: https://managewp.org/articles/18241/a-look-back-at-themeum-s-2018

source https://williechiu40.wordpress.com/2018/12/26/a-look-back-at-themeums-2018/