Why Should You Hire a WordPress Developer and How?

Running your WordPress site in today's highly competitive virtual world is not an easy task, and requires you to put in a lot of efforts and time in coming up with a solution that can facilitate you a competitive advantage. So, despite having little knowledge about WordPress, there is a greater likelihood that you might fail to create a rock-solid web presence.

Especially if you are a non-tech savvy user, you cannot expect to make it big online merely by making a pre-built WP theme up and running. There are several other aspects that need your due consideration, during WP website development. But, what if you don't have the time or skills needed to get the job done? In that case, choosing to hire WordPress developer can help address your project needs efficiently. 

Below are a few crucial tips to help you understand how you can hire a credible and trusted WP developer:

1. Check out Developer's Proficiency in WordPress

Analyzing your developer's proficiency in WordPress is crucial in getting a result-driven solution. Remember that not all the developers have the same skill set. While a few may excel in some areas of WordPress development, but might fail in other areas (that match your project requirements).

So, be clear whether the developer you are about to hire can provide the exact services based on your preferences or not. Getting familiar with the basics of WordPress can help you in analyzing your service provider skills in a better manner.

2. Experience in WordPress Development/Customization

Ask how many years of experience your developer possesses in offering WordPress development or customization services. That is not to say that you shouldn't consider hiring a developer with less experience in WordPress projects, but selecting a highly experienced professional (with at least five years of experience), you can get assured outcome.

Also, make certain that your service provider has worked on the latest technologies essential for performing WordPress development.

3. Match Your Project Requirements With Developer's Portfolio

Today, almost every professional WordPress developer or a web development firm include a portfolio page to help users get an idea of what sort of work they can deliver to them. Check out your developer's portfolio as well, so as to make out if he/she has worked on any project that matches your project requirements.

4. Ask For Development Cost and Delivery Time

Your development budget can be an obstacle in hiring a service professional – that can deliver the quality of work you're expecting. But, you can still get first-class development services by choosing to outsource your project to an offshore web development company. But, be wise to select a company having a good reputation in the market.

Also, make sure that the company holds a good track record of delivering projects within discussed timelines.

Conclusion

Taking up an experienced WordPress developer services can help you address all your specific project requirements in the most effective and efficient manner possible. Reading the points above will further help you in finding a reliable development partner for your project.

10 Reasons Why You Should Use WordPress for Your Website

Unarguably one of the best CMS platforms in the world; WordPress is the ideal platform for business websites. Many people ask why businesses should use WordPress, isn't it a blog platform for bloggers? Yes, WordPress is used by hundreds of thousands of bloggers across the world but it's also the most advanced and well-equipped Content Management System that powers million of regular websites. Nearly 50% of the world's website that use any sort of CMS use WordPress as their CMS system. 

 

 

 

If you're having second thoughts about whether to choose WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Adobe CQ; here are the 10 reason why you should be using WordPress:

#1. It's Easy to Use


It wasn't long before when you needed to add something to the website you had to call your web designer to do it. If you needed to add something or edit some content you, would have to go to your web designers and pay them to make the change. Today, staying up to dated means whether you stay in business or not, so websites are constantly updating pictures, adding more content, writing blogs to reach as many as possible and more importantly you save money on making changes to the website. This is where WordPress has the advantage over its rivals, the ease of use. Really, anyone can do it. But I prefer to hire a WP developer in the initial stage as they make theme more user friendly for the users.

#2. It's Free


Whether you've started blogging or started your business website; WordPress is absolutely free and you get 3 GB of storage in the free package, you can upgrade to Premium or Business depending on your need for $99 and $299 per year respectively. In business package you get unlimited storage, custom domain, advance customization, 50+ premium themes to choose from, live chat support, and Google analytics.

#3. Flexibility


It's an all-rounder for sure, and that's what you get with WordPress. Apart from the flexibility of adding different functionality, it can be used for adding portfolio site, or run ecommerce website, it works for almost everything with the ability to schedule the post.

#4. SEO Friendly


Google loves WordPress, so do we. In fact in the year 2009 Google's Engineer Matt Cutt endorsed WordPress in 2009 during Wordcamp and his own blog is also powered by WordPress. Not only that, it optimizes the content fast, title tags and headings, permalinks, and so many more features make it more SEO friendly.

#5. WordPress is constantly evolving


Yes, WordPress started out as a blog engine, but it has become so much more. With each new release new possibilities are added. And since it is "Open Source" there are thousands of developers writing plugins to extend its functionality.

#6.Customizable


What you get with WordPress is a huge array of free themes to choose from and you can pay $20 to choose from their premium themes. Because of the thousands of themes and plugins, you can make your website according to your need and preference, and plugins certainly are the best part about WordPress. The best part is most of them are free and easy to download and install. WordPress theme customization isn't a difficult task but will require some time to understand basic principle of web designing.

#7. Mobile Friendly


Well, that's one thing off your list to be worried about. Google has already made it clear about the important of websites being mobile-friendly, if not, it can affect their ranking on mobile search engines. WordPress is already a responsive platform and its themes support mobile optimization also.

#8. Multi-user Capability


There's a very good chance that there are a number of people working on your business website to keep the site updated and running. WordPress understands that and has made it easier by assigning different roles to different individuals, here's that:

•     Super Admin – somebody with access to the site network administration features and all other features.
•     Administrator – somebody who has access to all the administration features within a single site.
•     Editor – somebody who can publish and manage posts including the posts of other users.
•     Author – somebody who can publish and manage their own posts.
•     Contributor – somebody who can write and manage their own posts but cannot publish them.
•     Subscriber – somebody who can only manage their profile.

#9.Saves Money


Apart from being free to download and install, it's an open source CMS which means you don't need to hire a professional to look after bugs and issues. WordPress does that already.

#10.Support


That's one more thing you get with WordPress is a lot of support, If you find yourself stuck somewhere, visit the WordPress forum and you can post your question there.

Wrap Up

Well, there are definately more than 10 reason why would use WordPress for your website. But it's ease of use and adding functionality to it with ease, makes life so much easier for non-technical people.

Things to Consider When Making a Responsive WordPress Site

At present, the majority of users' own devices with an Internet connection. In fact, people today access the web using mobile devices (like tablets and Smartphones) more compared to desktop computers. With time, the need for these smart-devices is only going to increase, because of the ability they render to browse the web and perform virtually almost any task using lightweight devices that can be used on the fly.

While it's true that Smartphones make it easy for us to access the web content without having to stick to a computer desk, but one problem that you might encounter is that the text may be too small to read on small displays. One great way to make your site adjust and adapt to almost any device screen size and resolution is to create a responsive layout. Perhaps, you may choose to install and activate a WordPress responsive theme to achieve such an objective.

But, using a pre-built theme will enable you to present yourself as a unique brand. Moreover, there is no guarantee that the theme will be truly responsive. And thus, a more viable alternative is to opt for PSD to responsive WordPress conversion service. There are many great web development companies that help turn your design files to a responsive WordPress theme format.

The best thing about opting for PSD to a responsive WP theme is that it will not only help in making your site responsive, but will also help you establish a unique online identity. Of course, converting your own design into a theme will give you the benefit of offering a different online experience to users compared to your competitors. The biggest advantage of the conversion is that, you will get better control over your converted site. This means, you can easily make the changes to the design elements to make them perfectly suit your requirements.


In order to come up with a successful responsive WP site make sure to take into considerations below listed key points:

Know Your Target Audience Preferences

Designing a responsive layout for some of the major devices and platforms that your audience uses will help you provide better user experience. But, to accomplish such a need, you will first need to know the preferences (i.e. the mobile device) of your users. One excellent way to know exactly about the devices that your audience use to access your site is to install the Google Analytics tool.

Communicate Your Exact Needs to Your Service Provider

It is imperative to communicate what all you expect from your converted WP theme to your service provider. This will help them better understand your requirements and accordingly develop a solution that match up to your expectations.

Test Your Design on Real Devices

Once your service provider had finished converting your design files into a WP theme, make sure to test it on real devices to get assured that it will scale or contract depending on your users' device. This will save you from spending huge chunks of money – that you might otherwise have to spend in case you find out that your design is not truly responsive at a later stage.

Conclusion

Hope that this article will help you understand some of the key considerations that can help you in creating a winning responsive WordPress site.

How to Create a Strong Verification for your Maintainable WP Meta boxes?

In order to give strength to its hook system, WordPress leverages event-driven pattern for designs. Though, we know that the design patterns are certainly dependent on each other , thus it is highly unlikely to recognize a design pattern. This is what which makes WordPress flexible.

Apart from achieving exclusiveness, other thing which WordPress developers look for is to create a code which is easily maintainable. As with the advancement of technology and enhancement in the features the codebase of any web app tends to grow more complex. Thus, with passing time it becomes difficult to preserve the clarity and maintainability of the code.

This is equally applicable on WordPress, be it a plugin, an extension, themes or any other project type. The thing which is important is to write a maintainable code.

That's it!

No! certainly not!

This is where developers go wrong, as they make sure that they have followed all the steps to a write maintainable code. Let's for instance they apply meta box, apply options and also apply tabbed navigation in the WordPress dashboard, but they forget to check whether the code they have written works for real or not.

In this blog we will go to the server side in order to apply code which can verify that whether the user has the authority to save the meta data or not .

How to verify that the permissions are granted?

You need to incorporate a security check during the serialization process so as to check whether the user has the ability to save post meta data and to publish. To do this we can use nounce value so as to implement this. This is a number which is used once in order to protect URLs from the scope malicious users.

1. How to add a Nounce?

To add a nounce in the meta boxes, you need to implement the functionality in the markup which will render the post template. For this you need to load admin/views/authors-quick-tab.php and then after you need to update the template so that it contains wp_nounce _field.

<div id="authors-quick-tab">

<h2 class="nav-tab-wrapper current">

<a class="nav-tab nav-tab-active" href="javascript:;">Tab 1</a>

<a class="nav-tab" href="javascript:;">Tab 2</a>

<a class="nav-tab" href="javascript:;">Tab 3</a>

</h2>

<?php

// add tabbed content

include_once( 'tabs/tab1.php' );

include_once( 'tabs/tab2.php' );

include_once( 'tabs/tab3.php' );

// Add a nonce field

wp_nonce_field( 'authors_quick_tabs_save', 'authors_quick_tabs_nonce' );

?>

</div>

The code written above has introduced a nonce which has the functionality for saving the authors quick tabs (which we've named authors_quick_tabs_nonce) . This was also linked with a value which is figured out by authors_quick_tabs. This won't load on the very first go when you will load your web app on browser, as these values are displayed in a hidden field.

Those people who are intrigued can launch a suitable bowser's development tool in order to check the meta box, and you would get something like this and of course with a different value of nonce.

<input type="hidden" id="authors_quick_tabs_nonce" name="authors_quick_tabs_nonce" value="q4df212f34">

2. Check the Nonce

To make sure that the permissions of saving the post assigned to the user is implemented properly or not, you need to check the following three things:

• User must save the data on the 'post' post type
• Users must actually have save permission
• Post must be not automatically saved by WordPress

In order to incorporate the first two we can write a helper function and for checking the third one you can go for an intrinsic function. Primarily, you need to establish the hook as well as the functions that can make use of the helper functions and then you need to save your meta data. Now you need to add some piece of code in the Authors_Quick_Meta_Box which is given below.

<?php add_action( 'save_post', array( $this, 'save_post' ) ); ?>

The next step is to define the function. You can make use of the following code in which we have called two functions.

<?php

public function save_post( $post_id ) {

if ( ! $this->is_valid_fnc() || ! $this->user_save( $post_id, 'authors_quick_tabs_nonce', 'authors_quick_tabs_save' ) ) {

return;

}

}

?>

In the given code, it is written to run the save_post function when we call a save_post action. The function is written to verify that the saved post is not of the 'post' post type, and if the user do not has the authority to save then function should exit.

Definition of the function is must so as to make the logic work. Then we need to write the is_valid_fnc function as this function checks the $_POST array to ensure that the saved post type is a 'post'.

<?php

private function is_valid_fnc() {

/**

* check valid post type or not

*/

return ! empty( $_POST['post_type'] ) && 'post' == $_POST['post_type'];

}

?>

After this we need to add the user_save function, to make sure that the whether the saved post is automatically due to the WordPress or not. Further , if the user is saving the function so there should be a proper nounce value for that particular post.

<?php

private function user_save( $post_id, $nonce_action, $nonce_id ) {

$is_var_save = wp_is_post_autosave( $post_id );

$is_var_revision = wp_is_post_revision( $post_id );

$is_var_valid_nonce = ( isset( $_POST[ $nonce_action ] ) && wp_verify_nonce( $_POST[ $nonce_action ], $nonce_id ) );

// Return true or false.

return ! ( $is_var_save || $is_var_revision ) && $is_var_valid_nonce;

}

?>

Notice here that we're passing in the nonce_action and the nonce_id that we defined in the template in the very first step. We're also using wp_verify_nonce in conjunction with said information. This is how we can verify that the post that's being saved is done so by a user that has the proper access and permissions.

One thing you should note is that we are passing nonce_id and the nonce_action which were defined at the very beginning. Moreover, we will also use wp_verify_nonce conjunction in order to make sure that user who has proper authorities only can save the post.

Maintainable code is certainly an indispensable need of the modern development world. Thus, verifying it becomes a crucial task.

Feel free to share your queries!

Tips To Ensure That You Have An Adept VA For Your Web Development

If yours is an entrepreneurial business, Virtual Assistants (VAs) can help you boost your business. They can make your job amazingly simple by taking care of several tasks and thus, allowing you to concentrate over other essential that can lead to your enterprise growth. For instance, they can help manage calendars, an array of emails, handle campaigns to make sure that everything is working smoothly.

No doubt VAs can augment the website development process, but there are some crucial areas that must be dealt with utmost precision and thus, demand expert guidance. You can't simply hand over the sensitive controls to your VAs without getting yourself involved in them. However, by investing in some result-driven WordPress web development services, all the concerns related to web development will be managed by professionals. The adept WordPress developers can, thus, deliver a prolific web solution that can boost your business values.

Although, VAs are not that experienced to handle the crucial web development processes or maintain a business site, many business owners ask their VAs to put up a requisite website. The only apparent reason for this could be that this makes a cost effective way or enterprises want someone from their team to accomplish it.

For the folks who really want to put the responsibility of their website on their VA, it is essential to kick around and ensure that the chosen VA is appropriate for the job. Here I have enlisted a list of questions that can help you analyze the capabilities of your VAs and streamline your choice accordingly.

• Are they capable enough to analyze and create a chart to represent insights of target market, so that your target audience will be clear. Thus, a site can be designed keeping them in mind.
• Do they have branding and graphic design skills? Do they know the absolute way for optimizing images so that images can be instantly downloaded from any device?
• Do they know about the latest web trends and have insights to choose the best suitable layout that can leverage your target market and business?
• SEO is quite essential, Do they know how to achieve a search engine optimized website?
• Do they possess any programming skill so that if something went wrong that can be handled and fixed appropriately? Other than the premium products, if any custom design is required, would they be able to customize your site without leaving the quality behind?
• Do they know how to turn a site into a responsive site so that your business can reach myriads of devices with a flair.
• If they are writing content for the web, do they aware of the ground rules of copywriting?
• Do they belong to marketing field? If yes, what is their education and how many years of experience do they have in the field? Is it sufficient for your business.
• Do they know about all kinds of feature and functions that can be integrated to deliver an enhanced website? Are they aware of a few plugins for particular categories?
• Are they aware of other CMS platforms that can offer a superior experience than WordPress (like is Magento is better than WordPress if you want to develop an eCommerce website)?

If you get positive response for all the aforementioned questions, your chosen VA is ideal for developing your enterprise website. Otherwise, it is advisable to hire WordPress developer and reap the benefits of this blissful platform.

There are numerous web development companies that offer invaluable development services at competitive prices. Therefore, you can easily seek one that best suits your project needs and business objectives.

WordPress 4.3 is Here: What All You Need to Know?

If you are a WordPress user, then you will be happy to know that the new WordPress version 4.3 has been released. The version is named after an admired Jazz singer, “Billie Holiday”.

WordPress “Billie” introduces some exciting changes that will make the process of formatting the content of a WordPress site and customizing the site a lot easier. Let us now have a quick glimpse of the major features that the new version brings about:

Menus Have Been Added to the Customizer

With each new WordPress release, small improvements are introduced to the Customizer. And with version 4.3, you will be able to create, update and assign menus and can preview them in real time. However, you can still use the traditional way of creating navigational menus. But, thanks to the new improvement, creating and managing menus has become easier and faster. So, if you have been taking up WordPress Theme Development, and want to streamline the navigational structure of the theme, the new menu addition in the Customizer will help you achieve such need in the best possible manner.

Help Create Better Passwords

When it comes to hardening the security of a WordPress site, creating strong passwords is one of the recommendations that you'll probably hear every now and then. However, WordPress wasn't much concerned about user passwords. But, the new version introduces a new approach towards maintaining users’ password security. It gives suggestions to users about creating strong passwords, at the time of setting up a WP install and changing the password.

Rather than receiving the password through email, from the new version onwards, you will be getting a password reset link. Whether you are adding some new users, or editing any existing user profile, WordPress will auto-generate a secure password for you.

Favicon (or Website Icon)

 

Users often forgot to add website icons (also referred to as favicon) from the admin dashboard screen in the previous WordPress versions. However, the new version of WordPress “Billie” resolves such an issue, as it comes with a built-in option that will allow you to add an icon (or favicon) directly from the customizer. This is a huge benefit for users involved with WordPress site development projects, as they cannot only customizer their theme layout from the customizer, but will be able to apply a favicon as well.

Formatting Shortcuts

 Have Been Introduced in The Editor

Now writing in WordPress will become even better and faster, thanks to the introduction of new formatting shortcuts in version 4.3 of WordPress. Some of these shortcuts are:

• You can choose to use asterisks (*) for creating a bulleted list.
• Use numbers such as 1. or 1) for the numbered list. 
• Create a heading using the number sign (#). For example, use ## for H2, ### for H3 and so on.
• Transform your text into blackquote using the greater sign '>'. 
•  

A Few Other Improvements:

• In WordPress version 4.3 editor section, at the time of linking the text to an URL, you will be able to view a “link preview wizard” under the linked text.
• Improvement has been made to the word count style in the newest version of WordPress, which will now get updated when the user stops writing. You no longer will have to click on the “Enter” button to make the updates to the word count style.
• In the latest version of WordPress, comments on the page will be “turned off” by default.
  

Wrapping Up!

Whether you are just a WordPress developer or a user , you should not ignore getting to know about the latest WordPress version 4.3, and the features it offers such as the ones discussed above.

The Best Ways to Build a WordPress Website

Holding 60.2% CMS market share, WordPress is undoubtedly one platform you can't miss to ignore for your website development project. Of course, there are many other content management systems (both open-source and paid) out there – that can be used for website development as well. However, the ease that the WordPress CMS provides in creating, editing and managing a site is something you may not experience with any other CMS-system.

So, in case you are convinced to build a WordPress-enabled site, here are some of the best ways that will help you in making a successful WP website:

1. Markup Conversion

Now-a-days, most of the WordPress users prefer to choose PSD to WordPress conversion services offered by web development companies for their project. In fact, this is one of the most recommended ways to build a WP site, because of the following benefits:

It provides a custom design that help set your website as a “unique” brand and helps in getting instant recognition.

It generates clean and semantic code. Most importantly, your code is W3C validated and thus make your site accessible across all browsers.

You have complete control over the layout of your site, thereby giving you the flexibility to make your site tailored based on your preferences.

2. Install and Activate a Responsive WordPress Theme

Choosing a markup conversion service can help you create a great website, but isn't a viable option for start-ups or small businesses tied to a limited development budget. If that's the case, then you can install and activate a pre-built WordPress theme. It would be better if you will install a responsive theme, as it will make your website look and function great on all the devices.

You can get access to free themes from the official WordPress Theme Repository. Or else, you can even choose a premium WordPress theme – that are usually available at a  nominal rate. But, the problem with choosing a ready-made theme is that it may contain faulty code. Also, such themes restrict from making customization.

3. Use a Page Builder Plugin

If you want to add more pages to your existing WordPress site, you can choose to use page builder to achieve such an objective. Thankfully, there are many great plugins that helps in building a page for your existing site. For example, the Visual Composer is one of the most popular page builder plugin that helps in building pages for the front-end.

Using this plugin, you add things such as sliders, color schemes, columns, and a lot more. The best part is that you can view how all these elements look when adding them to your site in real time.

Wrapping Up!

If you want to build a WordPress site, then you will be overwhelmed with the plenty of choices available over the web. To make the task easy for you, we have presented three of the most commonly used and recommended ways for developing a WordPress enabled site.

Why WordPress is a great for Non-profit organizations ?

WordPress has recently celebrated its 12 birthday and has emerged as a leading content management system for websites and blogs. WordPress plugin development services plays a crucial role in maintaining the zest of WordPress alive by providing high performance plugins for extendable functionalities. There are a lot of organizations which have chosen most professional WordPress website development firm to build their websites in order to cater their audience in the best possible way. Being an open source software WordPress is widely used by a lot of non-profit and social organizations to make their mark in this open source world. Though there are a lot of content management systems present in today's world but WordPress is the most widely used CMS in the market preferred by this social service group and NGO's. Let's dig deeper!

WordPress provides quick service and being an open source software is free. You need no money to purchase its license, no money to upgrade the software and no other extra cost regarding commissions are required. It is estimated that organizations spend around $500 only while paying for the license and other stuff related to the content management system let alone the cost of hiring a WordPress developer. Furthermore, WordPress offers ample lot of template designs and themes with easy integration steps which helps the organizations to save the cost they invest to hire designers or web programmers.  Moreover, there are a lot of free themes specially tailored for non-profit organizations. Moreover, it offers quick installation and setup procedures which plays a crucial role in its success. This further helps you to establish your website on internet within a very short period of time. WordPress has some where or the other has played a crucial role in decreasing the time taken to build websites.

Perfect model for NGOs

As we are well aware of the fact that most of nor-profit or social service organizations function with the help of donations and thus have a revenue model for getting non-conventional income.  WordPress works as one of the best CMS for these sites as it allows very easy integration of Payment gateways, which accepts online transfers and other regular payment modes. There are numerous plugins such as PayPal, 2CO, Stripe and many other which fosters the payment model which these websites need. Everything is ready made and handy to use and all you need to do is to fill in the bank details of your organization and start the process. We further have plugins which allows these organizations to spread their work with ease.

Add extra features via Plugins

No CMS can provide all the features which you need in your website. Thus, it becomes necessary for you to use tools which allows a wide range of extendability. WordPress stands tall in offering this functionality as it allows simple integration of plugins which helps you to improve the credibility of your website. One can install various features such as  Statistics Tools ,Social Networking Buttons, Payment Plugins , Audio Players and Video Galleries in your website with just few installation steps and no programing acumen.

Gives organic traffic

NGO's and social service organizations need websites which have the functionality to conduct online polls, surveys, feedback and other tools which can carry forward interactions with a large community or a target audience.  WordPress being a highly competitive CMS offer all such tools which embarks on interactions which are quite favorable for the admin of the website.  Thus, it helps you to organically generate traffic and further get attention of people and voluntary donors.

With such a low setting-up cost and affordable maintenance cost, WordPress seems to be the  most viable option for NGOs and social service organizations. I am sure there must be queries regarding the development and other things. Feel free to drop us your queries, we will be glad to help!

A Noteworthy Checklist To Consider While Making Your WP Site Go Live

WordPress is admired for its blissful features by a whopping number of individuals, including developers as well as users. What makes it a much sought after choice is its intuitive interface and amazing web development features.

WP is an open source CMS that allows one to customize the look and feel of his website by tailoring the theme in a desired manner. Moreover, to integrate the requisite functionalities, you can seek a suitable plugin from the WordPress repository and install it on your site. All these great features of this platform have encouraged many to invest in WordPress website development and efficiently leverage their businesses.

If you are also interested in creating a prolific WP website, it is advisable to thoroughly go through its official guidelines and adhere them while developing your site. Today, in this article, I will uncover the imperative steps that must be followed to before launching a WordPress website to ensure its smooth performance. Without any further ado, let's have a look into them.

1. Test for cross-browser compatibility

When you are sure that your design is pixel perfect and ready to be released, it must be tested over browsers beforehand. Although it need not to be pixel perfect on all browsers, but it must run smoothly throughout. Don't forget it to check on all the popular browsers, including Opera, Safari, IE, Firefox and Chrome.

2. Block Search Engine

As, no one wants to display ant junk content in a search, it can be stopped by not allowing the search engines to index your site content. This can be proficiently done by accessing the Reading  tab under the Settings tab, check mark the option that is saying - block search engine. This process works proficiently and thus, once you are done with your website content editing, make sure that you have unchecked that box.

3. Resize the thumbnails

If you have tried a few different themes on your site, it is paramount to ensure that your thumbnails are properly sized. You can ensure that by installing and activating the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin. Don't forget to run it before you launch your website.

4. Test your site over mobile

In this mobile age, it has become more than imperative to ensure a seamless and breezy performance of your website. Although dummies offer a way to test the design, but real time testing on different devices can ensure flawless performance. Thus, it is better to test your website on all the targeted mobile devices, including smartphones and tablet.

5. Degrade it gracefully

Since users often run websites with turned off JavaScript for some security reasons, it is worth to make it certain that your site is accessible even in that mode. It is advisable to test your forms and identify whether it is performing server-side validation check or not.

No doubt, the WP platform allows even non-tech individuals to control their website with ease. However, to develop or customize some functionality of a website, it is better to hire WordPress developer and ensure a surefire performance.

I hope this checklist will help you make your website go live with ease and run without any glitches. However, you may add your own points to this checklist, but these are the most essential key points that must be considered before announcing your online presence to the world.

WordPress turns 12! Yet the journey begins now

With a rich clientèle inclusive of top names from various industries and fortune 500 companies viz UPS upside, eBay, CNN, Fortune.com, TechCrunch, NBC sports, DowJones and many more WordPress have now turned 12.

Last recorded on 14/3/15, statistics states that WordPress has a share of 23 % of the total websites which means 190,558 websites in total. 409 million people view WordPress blogs and 61.8 million post are added monthly. With such a wide acceptance WordPress has certainly gained a strong foothold hold in the market. Apart from web development companies now go on for WordPress Plugin development of their own. What all things culminate to help WordPress attain this zenith?

Lets find out.

1. WordPress is for Free!

It is but natural that every one has an inclination towards stuff which is available for free. Who wouldn't love to take their business online using ready to use technology without spending a dime. Plus, when it offers high customization as per the needs of your eCommerce store. Well i would accept it with alacrity. 

 

Though people will certainly give free things a try but they take them for granted as they think that free things do not offer quality. However, this open source world has confuted all these conceptions or rather I would say misconceptions. WordPress being an opensource software is free and is not only equally competent but is superior to its paid counterpart and it has proved its mettle as it holds the maximum number of top 1 million websites and has the largest share in the market.

2. Less technicalities involved

WordPress has created a revolution in the tech world by providing easy to use interface which requires minimal or even no technical expertises. Anyone who has a little common sense or is used to use simple computer softwares can work on WordPress with any difficulty. One can easily add a post or page using the basic MS Word like functionalities in their WordPress site.

3. Conducive Environment for SEP

Search engine optimization is one of the most in-demand feature of Web applications which one can easily get in WordPress web development. All you need to do is to have rudimentary a grasp of SEO and knowledge of simple plugins to get super fast results. Moreover, WordPress offers such functionalities which can incorporate SEO very easily with your WordPress site.

4. Stylish WordPress themes for super fast development

Functionalities are certainly necessary for a websites but are not sufficient for the success of a website. The look and feel of your website are extremely important for success as customers do get attracted to good designs. Your website is the face of your business in this techsavy world, so do make sure to keep it highly maintained so as impress the users. 

 

This is why WordPress is in demand as it comes with numerous themes which can change the look and feel of your website just by adding these themes. These themes give a 360 degree change to your website.

5. Easy support

WordPress is known for its vast community of developers thus you can easily count on them for support. There are numerous people who use WordPress and have shared their experiences in the mass media which enables you to know a lot about its intricacies.

There are numerous forums and blogs written by WordPress developers which helps you to know more about it in a very short time span. So, if you think that you are trying something experimental and you might get stuck somewhere in between, do not worry as we have ample lot of support out there.

As WordPress has now completed 12 years in the industry we wish that its community grows more wholesome with the passage of time. 

 

Feel free to add your views!

Creating a WordPress E-commerce Store That Invites Shoppers

E-commerce is a very fascinating industry, and thanks to WordPress, now anyone can become an imperative part of it and capitalize on our evolving online shopping habits. Thousands of businesses out there opting for WordPress to build an e-commerce website that engages users and stimulates them to shop.

However, designing an e-commerce website using WordPress is one thing, and planning right moves for traffic generation and revenue maximization is entirely another. After having WordPress e-commerce development , you also need to outline a competitive strategy for your online store, so that customers keep on returning.

E-commerce web design is a broader concept that isn't just limited to the aesthetics of a store. To influence the overall success of your business, it's important for you to follow some best of breed strategies, such as SEO, an inviting landing page, smooth transaction process, and much more, so that customers don't ditch you during the process. A remarkable e-commerce creates an environment that encourages its visitors to act and complete the process they've initiated.

Here are some key tips and tricks that you can implement when it comes to building and running a WordPress e-commerce website.

1. Go for Email Marketing

Email marketing can be an indispensable tool for any online business when it comes to maintaining a healthy and long-term relationship with its customers. It's a handy solution for entrepreneurs to gain an insight of their customers and thus interact with them accordingly. Creating email lists is a critical aspect for the success of any online store. Without an evoking email list, it will become difficult for you to encourage users for repeat sales. 

 

Mere traffic generation shouldn't be your ultimate goal, you need visitors that should be converted into promising customers. A thoughtful email list will help you achieve this objective in an efficient manner.

2. Embrace Blogging

If you are running an e-commerce channel that is based on WordPress, then you can easily supercharge your business with the addition of informative blogs and articles to your website. Blogging has to be a key strategy to influence your website growth and boost sales. 

 

Blogs attract traffic instantly and make users feel confident about your website. They inform customers about a range of products, so that they can make right decisions at the time of purchase.

3. Responsive is the Key

With the proliferation of smartphones and mobile devices, customers' expectations regarding online shopping have also increased. Today, the majority of online shoppers prefers to purchase from their mobile devices, thus resulting in increased mobile traffic and need for responsive websites. Therefore, it is important for online players to embrace responsive design to ensure a pleasurable mobile shopping experience. 

 

Failing to create a responsive website will not only provide a bad experience, but also results in lower search engine ranking. In order to avoid such issues, make sure your website is optimized to suit the growing needs of a variety of mobile devices. You can hire WordPress Expert and ask them to build a responsive theme for your website to cater your mobile audience. You can also download some pre-built themes from some leading theme markets for your site.

Conclusion

Creating an e-commerce website using WordPress is a big step, but if you are serious enough to make the most out of it, make sure you have implemented the above mentioned tips to get the user's attention towards your website.