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.

Attention Grabbing PSD Flyer Templates for Your Promotional Needs

About Author: Emily Heming is a professional WordPress developer for a leading company WordPrax Ltd. She also provides HTML to WordPress theme conversion services and many more. She has served many WordPress companies helping them in developing user-friendly website. So feel free to contact her.
 

Flyers are great marketing tools that help you draw the attention of folks to whatever kind of event you have planned for them. Used for advertisement purposes, they are a perfect way to convey the benefits, products or upcoming event to your target audience. Flyers are cost-efficient choice for getting the word out and make your marketing campaigns stand out.

In this article, we are providing you with a list of some best looking PSD flyer templates that help you promote your products in the manner most effective. All of them are high in quality, professionally designed, and are great for advertisement, Christmas, Fashion Brands, Parties and more.

So, without further ado, let's have a look at them:

1. Free Halloween Party PSD Flyer Template

http://www.elegantflyer.com/free-flyers/halloween-party-free-flyer-psd-template/

Give an extraordinary touch to your next Halloween event with this beautiful Halloween party template. The design of the template is very interesting and looks amazing with its carved pumpkins with evil faces on it. The skulls, flashlights, strands on the web, and the big black bat together creates a look that is perfect to enjoy a memorable Halloween day.

Not only this, but you can also change colors, text, content, images and color palette as per your choice.

2. Free Christmas Party Club PSD Flyer Template

http://www.designsave.com/2014/10/christmas-party-club-psd-flyer-template.html

This elegant PSD flyer is perfect for the upcoming Christmas celebration. The template is set up in 1275px x 1875px CMJN 300DP and looks highly well-organized with well coded code and layered names.

3. Excess Mondays Flyer Templates

http://www.facegfx.com/psd/excess-mondays-flyer-psd-template

This elegant looking flyer is a perfect choice for luxury or any other kind of high-end promotional event. This print-ready 100% CMYK / 300dp comes as PSD layered and includes both basic and advance version.

4. Disco Diva Flyer Template

http://flyerheroes.com/disco-diva-flyer-template/

Disco Diva Flyer Template is all what you need to effectively promote a joyful night dedicated to ladies. Its eye-catching pink color scheme is bursting with energy while 3D effect makes this free template an excellent choice for a female-filled event. The flyer allows you change colors, text, 3D elements to make it look more appealing for a ladies night.

5. Free NYE Flyer Template by Saltshaker911

http://flyerheroes.com/free-nye-flyer-template-saltshaker911/

Planning to make a thrill this new year? So, here is the free PSD flyer template for you. This classy flyer is perfect for those who are just excited to make this new year's eve truly exciting. Not only new year, but it's great for promoting birthday parties and fun-filled party nights. What is that makes this flyer stand out is the large 3D “NYE Render” on it. The 3D render is non-editable, although you can edit the title as per the event.

6. Special Guest- Free Flyer Template

http://www.elegantflyer.com/free-flyers/special-guest-free-flyer-psd-template/

Special Guest Flyer is a perfect choice for any place like night clubs, restaurants, or any kind of music venue where a special guest like DJ, pop star, rock star or a famous personality who is associated with the field of music or dance has been invited as a guest. The flyer looks well-organized and it's extremely easy to use, making it a great solution for almost any kind of event.

7. Free Styled Restaurant Flyer Template

http://www.designsave.com/2014/08/free-styled-restaurant-flyer-template.html

A very professional looking template perfect for advertising your restaurant and its delicious menu. The flyer is an ideal option for promoting your hospitality business and your services in the most elegant manner.

8. Sunset Sundays Flyer Template

http://flyerheroes.com/sunset-sundays-flyer-template/?ref=tommyngo

Although we have reached at the end of the summer, and fall is already at its peak, but we still have beaches hot out there in many parts of the world- and the flyer template has all the desired elements to make your beach parties stand out. So, make it your first choice to arrange a fun-filled party events on the terrace, gardens or beach.

9. Free Flyer Friday #16 – St Paddy’s Day Flyer Template

http://flyerheroes.com/free-st-patricks-day-flyer-template/?ref=designmaz

This freebie is awesome in the way it provides a perfect party theme options to your Irish clients on the occasion of St. Patrick’s Day. The template is fully editable and comes complete with both RGB and print-ready CMYK files.

10. Winter Wonderland Christmas Flyer

http://flyerheroes.com/free-christmas-party-flyer-template/

Make your this year's Christmas truly exciting with this beautiful PSD flyer. The template is an ultimate choice for X-mas themed parties, no matter whether you are organizing it in a nightclub or at your home.

Wrapping Up

So, there we have it all, choose your most loved template and make your party and business planning process easier and faster.

What Makes WordPress An Absolute CMS

 

If you are seeking a web development tool that can help you maintain your site without any prior tech knowledge and want to efficiently reach a wider audience base, WordPress is an absolute choice. It is a brilliant content management system that can support development and management of the websites of diversified shapes and sizes. This open source platform not only leverages blogging sites but also helps create e-Commerce sites.

There are several big brands that are reaping the benefits of this blooming CMS. For instance, BBC America, Forbes, CNN, The New York Times, Sony music, and Samsung are a few of the big companies that are promoting their products and services across the globe via a prolific WordPress site. Although there are numerous CMS are available out there, but the majority of users considers the WordPress as a much sought after choice.

There is a myriad of reasons that makes WP stand out of the box. It offers a plethora of benefits, and here are a few of them.

1. Overwhelming list of plugins and themes: One can easily integrate a function in their site by simply installing and activating a desirable plugin. Even the look and feel of a website can be efficiently improved by using a suitable theme on the site. There is no dearth of plugins and themes (including premium and free) in the WP repository. And, if you have a certain design in your mind, you can even create that by using the services like PSD to WordPress theme conversion. There are several web development companies that offer such services at affordable prices.

2. Versatile Platform: With a WP-enabled website, you can conveniently stay ahead of your competitors. This is because it facilitates customizability. You can integrate a desired functionalities and lend a preferred visual appeal into your site to cater to your business needs in a proficient fashion. This will help you efficiently compete with others under your niche.

3. Works seamlessly: Ease of use is the USP of this content management system, which has influenced a whopping number of users across the globe. No prior programming knowledge is required to run a WP site. However, setting it up does demand expertise, but that can also be accomplished by hiring a well-versed WP developer at an affordable price.

4. Facilitates easy Search Engine Optimization (SEO): SEO is one of the most important aspect of a website. If your site is search engine optimized, you can efficiently attract the potential traffic. And, the WordPress CMS offers easy SEO. You can maintain SEO-friendly web content and layout that can augment the allow the search engine bots to easily crawl through your site and index it with better rank.

5. Multiple users support: The administrator of the WP site can easily set multiple users to a website. He/she can even define the capabilities and access level for each user.

You can also convert your existing website into an equivalent WP site, by hiring the HTML to WordPress conversion services. These services are easily available, however, it is advisable to review the portfolio and user's testimonials before choosing a company.

The aforementioned are a few of the blissful features of this incredible platform that helps it top the best CMS chart. You can improve your business values and generate higher ROI by appropriately implementing the WordPress.

Reasons That Make PSD to Wordpress Conversion an Obvious Choice

In the midst of intense business competition, craving for a robust business website has become a common phenomenon just about in every field and sector. Gone are the days, when merely having a website was enough to conduct business operations. Today, businesses have come to realize that to win over their customers, they have to keep themselves abreast of the latest industry trends and develop products and services that score well on the top of their customers mind.

Today, there are a myriad of platforms available, which can be used to develop dynamic, content-rich, and customizable websites. But the most sought-after platform adopted by developers is to convert PSD to WordPress format. The platform has gained immense popularity, owing to its rich and outstanding features.

Wordpress is one of the best content management systems available and since its inception, it has progessed very impressively and gained popularity among its users. It gives you ability to write, edit, manage, and organze your content just the way you want. Not only this, it also offers a host of useful plugins and themes, which help you to boost the functionality of your website to a great extent.

What Are the Benefits of Using Wordpress

1. Wordpress is an Open-source Platform

Since, Wordpress is an open-source platform it's quite clear that it has a lot to offer to the developers and business owners. There is a large churn of people working on Wordpress site and developing themes, plugins, hosting etc. Its open nature also makes it compatible over a myriad of browsers and platforms, thus enabling you to provide a better overall experience to your users.

2. Wordpress Makes You Think of Your Users

When you develop a website based on Wordpress platform, you're actually using something that will serve the needs of an average Wordpress user. Means, Wordpress has the interface that fits the needs of your users and thus provide them an impressive experience on your website. Finding a balance between the user workflow and the interface, while keeping codes in mind, you'll come up with a website that understands your users needs and preferences better.

3. Wordpress Enhances Usability

Opting for Wordpress means better performance and enhanced usability. It's very simple to use and whether you're a beginner or a seasoned developer, it makes easy for you to add or edit your content any time you want.

4. Wordpress has a Host of Themes and Plugins

In Wordpress, there are plenty of themes and plugins available for you to get started without any having any need to go too expensive. Everytime users can see the latest updates and integrate them to their website after going through the prior website specifications. And even if you face any doubt or have any specific need, you can get involved in the Wordpress community of developers, who constantly work on Wordpress related projects and help you to hone your skills. The more feedback you gather from them, the quicker your site will progress.

5. Wordpress Offers Learning Opportunities

Someone has rightly said that “you are never too smart to learn”, and when it comes to Worpress, you can never have enough of it. Worpress is vast, and thus offers a myriad of opportunities to its users to learn and expand their skills. Users can learn anything related to its usage of themes, plugins, security features and a lot more through its tutorials, communities, and thus learn something new everyday.

Conclusion:

Wordpress is a indeed a great choice for many people as it helps them to improve the functionality and performance of their website. With so many options to choose from, Wordpress is certainly a great choice, which is easy to use, maintain, and grow as you business grows

Speed Up Your WordPress Website Performance With Varnish Cache

Lets face it, WordPress standard installation is slow. And installing a number of plugins, themes and images makes it a lot more slower. You can minify your CSS and JS with help of “Better WordPress Minify” plugin, or you can use EWWW Image Optimizer plugin to reduce your images file size. However, there are lot of other factors that affects your WordPress site performance.

Possibly by now, you'll be thinking to Hire WordPress Expert to get the job done. But, there's another viable solution. Wondering, what's the solution? Varnish Cache is a web-application accelerator which is designed for dynamic websites with heavy content.

Varnish Cache – A Foreword

This caching system stores copies of pages for readers who aren't logged in into WordPress admin. Whenever users requests for something it reaches to Varnish instead of the server. And then, Varnish looks for what user has requested and then forward the request to the server. The server sends the response to Varnish, which in turn sends that response to user's original request. But if Varnish would only perform such function, it wouldn't be much of help to us.

However, Varnish also help improve performance by storing the responses it has received from the server in the virtual memory. And so, Varnish is able to quickly send the next response to the user instantly from its cache, and thereby the load on server to process users requests is reduced significantly. This eventually help improves the response time and your process requests can be carried on great speeds.

How to Install Varnish Cache?

We’ll be setting up Varnish to listen to all web requests on port 80, while Apache will be supporting Varnish on port 8080. So, when Varnish will ask for a page that needs to be built manually, the request will get passed on to the Apache port 8080. Let's look at Varnish installation on our instance:

Edit Apache’s ports.conf file to listen on port 8080:


sudo nano /etc/apache2/ports.conf

You'll get the following outcome:

NameVirtualHost *:8080

Listen 8080


Next, you need to edit your “Apache” website config file in order to respond to port 8080:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/wordpress

Now, change the virtual host from *:80 to *:8080

<virtualhost *:8080>

You'll require to change your Apache default website to listen for web request on port 8080 or need to disable it:


sudo a2dissite 000-default

In case, you've decided to review your original Varnish configuration files later, you'll have to move those files to your home directory in the form of backups.

sudo mv /etc/default/varnish ~/default-varnish-old

sudo mv /etc/varnish/default.vcl ~/varnish-default-vcl.old


Replace your default Varnish configuration file with the one given below (copy and paste).

sudo nano /etc/default/varnish


Let's look at the configuration file that needs to be replaced:

/etc/init.d/varnish expects the variables $DAEMON_OPTS, $NFILES and $MEMLOCK

# to be set from this shell script fragment.

#
# Should we start varnishd at boot? Set to "no" to disable.

START=yes

# Maximum number of open files (for ulimit -n)

NFILES=131072

# Maximum locked memory size (for ulimit -l)

# Used for locking the shared memory log in memory. If you increase log size,

# you need to increase this number as well

MEMLOCK=82000

# Default varnish instance name is the local nodename. Can be overridden with

# the -n switch, to have more instances on a single server.

# INSTANCE=$(uname -n)


How to Configure Varnish?

Once Varnish is installed, edit your port and change it to 80. Just remember not to change your Apache port yet, and keep it running till you're sure that everything complies properly. Moreover, if you're not sure about your configuration files, configure Varnish for port 81, and the perform a side-by-side test without losing your users:

nano /etc/default/varnish

DAEMON_OPTS="-a :80 \

             -T localhost:6082 \

             -f /etc/varnish/default.vcl \

             -S /etc/varnish/secret \

             -s malloc,256m"


Next, make you'll need to make copy of the original VCL file:


mv /etc/varnish/default.vcl /etc/varnish/default-old.vcl

Configuring Apache

After configuring your Varnish cache, edit your Apache (or HTTP Server) so as to use some other port. (8080) Make sure to verify whether virtual host also configs or not.

nano /etc/apache2/ports.conf

NameVirtualHost *:8080

Listen 8080

Now restart the HTTP Server and Varnish. Varnish will listen to HTTP (web) traffic on port 80, and Apache in 8080.  But, how does Varnish will come to know where it needs to look for the HTTP Server? For this purpose, look at the top of default.vcl file.


/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

/etc/init.d/varnish restart

Getting Rid of Content from WordPress

In case you need to purge your WordPress website content manually or automatically when the posts are saved, install the Varnish HTTP Purge extension to your site. For doing so, add the following line of code to your
wp-config.php file:

define('VHP_VARNISH_IP','126.0.0.1');

Wrapping Up!

Adding plugins, images and other elements to your WordPress site makes it sluggish. However, you can make your WordPress site performance faster with help of Varnish Cache. This post will help you gain insight on Varnish cache, it's installation and configuration. 

A Comprehensive Guideline on managing coupons with WooCommerce

As an owner of a WooCommerce enabled e-store you'd have definitely enjoyed multiple features and functions that come with the WooCommerce tool-kit. Coupons are one of the best-known tools for making your customers come back to you on a repetitive basis. If you are planning to offer discounts and rewards to your customers then learning about the WooCommerce Coupon Management utility is something you'll regret missing.


If you've ever chosen to hire WordPress developer, you might be well familiar with the pros associated with building a coupon website using WordPress. Through this blog, I intend to share with you all the key steps that mark efficient handling of various discount coupons which are being made available to the product purchasers.

So, let's come to the steps now:

Step 1- Activate the use of coupons on your WooCommerce e-store

As the very first step, you need to inform WooCommerce that you'll be using coupons on your e-store. For this, you simply need to go to your WooCommerce admin dashboard where you need to click on the 'Settings' option available within the left hand sidebar. Now, click on the 'Checkout' tab available on this page and against the label 'Checkout' simply select the check-box for “Enable the use of coupons'. The screen-shot for this step is displayed below:

 

Step 2- Add new coupons

In order to add a new coupon, simply scroll down within the left-hand sidebar and click on 'WooCommerce'. After this, click on 'Coupons' . A page similar to the one shown below will be displayed:

On the Dashboard, scroll down the left-hand sidebar and click on “WooCommerce”, before clicking on “Coupons” from the dropdown that appears. The coupons page consists of a box that shows all of the coupons you have created so far. To create a new coupon, click “Add Coupon” at the top of the page. Thanks to the quick availability of WordPress plugin development professionals, we can easily get access to a wide range of plugins custom-made for performing tweaks to a WP-powered site/blog.

Coming back to the tutorial, on the above page, click on 'Add Coupon' button. A page similar to the one shown below will be displayed:

On this screen, you'll be required to enter values for the following fields:

• Coupon Code- Use this textbox for specifying the code that the users would need to enter in order to apply for the respective coupon.
• Description- Use this text-area for entering a brief description for the coupon. This information would be displayed along with the coupon on the front-end.

Once you're done with inputting values for the above fields, proceed ahead with specifying coupon data which is being segregated into the following sections:

• General

The screen for this section is similar to the one shown below:

 

So, the fields covered on this form include:

• Discount Type- Use this dropdown for selecting the discount type in relation to the respective coupon. You may choose from the following options available within this drop-down list:

1. Cart discount- Select this option if you want to offer a fixed total discount for the entire shopping cart.

2. Cart % discount- Select this option if you want to offer a percentage discount for the entire shopping cart.

3. Product discount- Select this option if you want to offer a fixed total discount for only a selected group of products.

4. Product % discount- Select this option if you want to offer a specific percentage discount for a chosen group of products.

• Coupon amount- Use this to enter a fixed value or percentage discount on the basis of the discount type chosen above. Here, please note that a value entered without the currency unit or percentage sign will be automatically added, for example: a value entered as 20 will be treated as 10% or $10.
• Allow free shipping- Select this checkbox if you want to enable free shipping(i.e. Zero shipping cost) for the product(for which the respective coupon has been used)
• Apply before tax- Select this checkbox if you want the discount coupon to be applicable on the product well before the tax calculation for the same.
• Coupon expiry date- Use this date picker for selecting the data which when passed will make the coupon invalid for use.

• Usage Restriction

The screen for this section is similar to the one shown below:

The fields covered within this section are explained below:

• Minimum spend- Use this textbox for setting a minimum sub-total that the user needs to have in order to avail the respective coupon. The customer's cart sub-total+tax will be compared to the value entered here.
• Individual Use only- Select this checkbox if you don't want the coupon to be used in conjunction with other coupons.
• Exclude sale items- Select this checkbox if you don't want the coupon to be applicable for products put on sale.
• Products- Use this textbox for selecting products that must be added to the user's cart in order to enable him/her to apply for the respective coupon.
• Exclude products- Use this textbox for selecting products that must not be added to the user's cart in order to enable him/her to apply for the respective coupon.
• Product categories- Use this textbox for defining a list of product categories that the user's cart must contain in order to be eligible for availing the coupon.
• Exclude categories- Use this textbox for defining a list of product categories that the user's cart must not contain in order to be eligible for availing the coupon.
• Email restrictions- Use this textbox for specifying all the email addresses which are allowed to use the respective coupon. Values defined here are compared to the customer's billing email address.

• Usage Limits

Screen-shot for this coupon data section is displayed below:

Fields covered here include:

• Usage limit per coupon- Use this dropdown for choosing a maximum usage limit for the coupon before it expires.
• Usage limit per user- Use this dropdown for choosing the number of times for which the coupon can be used by a user before it becomes invalid for him/her.

So with that you're done with the task of adding and managing coupons for your e-store.

Final Thoughts

If used appropriately, coupons can actually help you in boosting the visitors' count and conversion rate for your e-store. Hope the above mentioned steps would enable you to make the most of the 'Coupons' feature available with your WooCommerce e-store.