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Dividend WordPress Theme Review – Elegant Multipurpose Magazine Theme
Dividend WordPress theme Review

Meet Dividend, an elegant and highly customizable multipurpose WordPress theme from MyThemeShop. The fully responsive template is perfect for creating WordPress magazine sites, deals websites, stylish online shops, blogs and much more.

The theme comes with a wide range of features and functionalities, including custom post types for deals, 4 different homepage designs, over 10 custom widgets, beautiful social media icons, advertisement options, and 3 sliders and carousels for highlighting your best content.

Besides, the Dividend theme has an amazing Theme Options Panel with lots of easy-to-use customization options to easily configure the template according to your requirements and preferences.
Visit Theme Sales Page

Read on to learn more about this incredible WordPress theme.

Dividend Theme Features Highlight

Before who delve in, here is a summary of the features and functionalities you can expect from the Dividend WordPress theme:
- Custom post types for deals
- Easily customizable layouts
- 14 custom widgets
- Powerful Theme Options panels
- 3 sliders and carousels
- 4 pagination types
- Social media icons included
- Pre-designed call-to-action sections
- Optimized for maximum Adsense earnings
- 100% support for WooCommerce
- Beautiful parallax scrolling effects
- Translation ready
- Unlimited color and background options
- Off canvass mobilie menu
- Google fonts support and different typography settings
Theme Installation and Customization Options

The Dividend theme can be installed in just a few clicks. To install the theme, simply follow the steps below:
1. Download the theme files from your account on MyThemeShop.com
2. Go to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Appearance >> Themes >> Add New
3. Install the theme by uploading the Theme Zip file
4. Activate the theme
You now have the Dividend theme installed on your WordPress installation and you can now set up the different options by going to the Theme Options panel.

But wait – before you start customizing your site, the Dividend theme requires you to install a number of plugins essential for its proper functioning.

Install Required Plugins

As you can see above, the Dividend theme requires the following plugins to work properly:
- MyThemeShop Theme/Plugin Updater
- WP Review
- WP Shortcode
- WP Tab Widget
To install the plugins, simply go to your WordPress dashboard and click on “Install Plugins”. You’ll then be taken to the page with the required plugins. Additionally, you’ll find a number of plugins recommended by MyThemeShop that you can optionally use with the Dividend theme.

Importing Demo Data

The Dividend theme comes with MyThemeShop’s one click demo importer. This feature allows you to quickly import the theme options, theme options & widgets, or theme options, widgets & the right content that you’ll find for your theme on MyThemeShop.com, allowing you to get started with your site and customize it really quickly.

To use this feature, navigate to Appearance >> Theme Options, and click on “Import/Export”. You’ll then see the different layouts with different options for importing. The Dividend theme includes four layouts which you can preview before installing – Default, Deals, Minimal and Magazine.

You’ll find that you have three options for importing the demos:
- Import Theme Options – only imports the theme options and nothing else. You can then use the theme options to customize your site.
- Import Theme Options & Widgets – adds the theme options together with the widgets used on the demo at MyThemeShop.com
- Import Theme Options, Widgets & Content – does all of the above but also adds the demo content you find on MyThemeShop.com. You’ll want to use this option if you have a new site with no content on it already and you want to quickly add in demo content so you can then customize your site.
Besides, you’ll also have the option to remove the demo content (either automatically or manually) if you need to.

Dividend Theme Customization Options

One of Dividend’s most impressive features is the powerful theme options panel, which includes tons of easy-to-use customization options to help you achieve a unique site even without touching a single line of code.

Below is an overview of the setting options you’ll find in the theme control panel:
- General Settings – This section contains common setting options which will be applied to the whole theme. Allows you to upload your logo and favicon, enter your FeedBurner URL, place code in the header and footer sections, set pagination type, enable/disable Ajax quick search, and more.
- Performance – This tab contains performance-related options which can help speed up your website.
- Styling Options – Lets you control the visual appearance of your theme, such as colors, layout, backgrounds, custom CSS, patterns, and more.
- Header Options – From here, you can control elements of the header section.
- Footer Options – This sections allows you to control elements of the footer section
- Homepage – From here, you can control settings related to your homepage. You can enable/disable featured slider and featured carousel, homepage deals, select categories to appear on the homepage, set call to actions, and more.
- Single Posts – This section lets you control the appearance and functionality of your single posts pages.
- Deals – From here, you can manage the content displayed on the Deals section.
- Social Buttons – Enable or disable social sharing buttons on single posts using these buttons.
- Ad Management – Control everything related to the advertisements on your site.
- Sidebars – From here, you can manage sidebars and select one for each section of your site, or select a custom sidebar on a per-post basis in the post editor.
- Theme Typography – Here you can control the fonts used with different elements on your site. Includes 17 standard font sets, and you can also add from the Google Fonts Library, which contains over 600 fonts.
Related: SocialNow WordPress Theme Review – Modern Social Media Friendly Magazine Theme

Custom Post Type for Deals

Another great feature of the Dividend WordPress theme is the support for deals custom post types.

This allows you to easily create a deals website with special deals information.

For example, you can add call to action buttons and highlight deals expiry dates to entice potential customers to take action.

Beautiful Social Sharing Options

I love the attractive social media icons and buttons included in the Dividend theme. They fit elegantly with the other site elements and are strategically placed to help you gain more exposure on social media.

Above Image: Social sharing buttons as they appear on single posts above the content.

Better still, the theme options panel contains settings for you to easily enable/disable social sharing buttons on single posts. You can also choose the position for the social sharing icons – above the content, below the content or floating. In addition, you can enable the sharing buttons for pages too, and not just posts.

Another set of social media icons is strategically

Social sharing icons on the header.

displayed on the header section, designed to

effortlessly earn you more followers on Facebook and Twitter.

Multiple Custom Widgets

The Dividend theme comes with over 10 custom widgets, which provide a simple and easy-to-use way to add useful features and functionality to your site. The widgets allow you to easily display things like advertisements, author posts, deals popular posts, Facebook like box, hottest deals, latest tweets, popular posts, social media icons, and more.

Moreover, the template contains many well-thought-out widget-ready areas such as “after the single post content of single posts”, “featured area of deals page”, “featured area of homepage”, etc.

Dividend Theme Documentation and Support

The Dividend theme comes with extensive documentation to guide theme users. The documentation contains step by step instructions for installing and customizing the template.

Besides, your purchase grants you access to round-the-clock support from the team at MyThemeShop, who are known for their excellent technical support.

Dividend Theme Pricing and Offers

The Dividend WordPress theme costs $69 but you can grab it now at MyThemeShop.com for only $59.
Get Dividend Theme Now

Extras
- Unlimited Domain Usage – You can use the theme on multiple websites
- Install with just one click
- One year of premium support and updates
- Accompanying video tutorials to guide you
- 30 day money back guarantee
Final Thoughts

Overall, the Dividend theme is a great option for anyone who wants to establish a modern online magazine or deals website – whether you’re an experienced developer or you are just a WordPress beginner. The template includes many useful features and customization options, and support is just a few clicks away in case you need it. Furthermore, the strategically placed social media icons will help you gain traffic from different social platforms.
October 4, 2017
WP Profit Builder Review – Create High-Converting Marketing Pages in WordPress With Ease [2023]
WP Profit Builder is a game-changing tool that has transformed the way businesses create high-converting landing pages and sales funnels, and in this review, we’ll explore its features, benefits, and drawbacks.

Just imagine if you could effortlessly build awesome Lead and marketing pages just like how the marketing gurus do.

Different types of pages, from Lead capturing pages, Sales pages, Facebook giveaway pages, Teespring special pages, Authority blog pages, eCommerce sites, about me pages, and product review pages, just to mention a few.

Also read: 25 Best Amazon Affiliate WordPress Themes to Create Micro Niche Sites

Today I’m going to review a WordPress marketing site creation system that can provide you the easiest way to create epic marketing pages that are proven to convert.

The best part is that you do not need to have coding skills or be a design guru to achieve all this. We’re looking at a drag and drop system that will give you freedom to play with your imaginations.

This is a system that was only launched a week ago and it’s getting a lot of attention and reviews in the internet marketing space.

What are we talking about here?

WP Profit Builder Review

What Is WP Profit Builder?

WP Profit Builder is a new Drag & Drop Marketing Site Creation System that lets you easily create high-converting lead pages, sales pages, member portals and other guru level marketing pages.

Basically, it is a WordPress Plugin that is pre-loaded with some great marketing features and can be installed to work with any theme. The team behind profit builder additionally offer a theme that can add in more power to the core software.

If you happen to know OptimizePress, this is a very similar tool but with more flexibility.

Click here to visit its official page

Who is WP Profit Builder for? Do you need it?

This marketing site creation suite can be used by almost anyone, from online marketers, bloggers and website owners, product owners and reviewers, affiliate marketers, and anyone else who wants to easily create marketing pages for their business.

If you’re struggling to create your sales pages, high converting optin pages, product review pages, webinar pages or a training area for your members, you might find a great companion in this tool.

However, it’s not so different from OptimizePress, so, if you already use the later, don’t expect big surprises here.

Why Did WP Profit Builder Create a lot of buzz in the Internet Marketing space?

WP Profit Builder received a lot of reviews and talk even before its launch and many internet marketers seem to have jumped on board.

Many people are excited by the possibility to easily create guru-like high-converting marketing pages that can skyrocket their profits?

I know why you’re excited…We all want something that’s easy-to-use with which we can hit the ground running fast and focus on our business.

Anyway… this product is still in its early days and it will be interesting to see how it competes against the other names in this line.

WP Profit Builder Features

WP Profit Builder is easy-to-use yet it’s packed with many powerful marketing features…
1. Ability to create guru-like professional marketing pages in just a few clicks
2. A collection of over 60 pre-designed marketing layouts to choose from
3. You can create a page from scratch or customize one.
4. You don’t need any coding skills and you don’t have to be a designer
5. Boost your conversions, leads, sales and profit using proven strategies used by elite pros
6. You can install it on any WordPress site
7. Optimized for mobile and tablets so you can easily tap into mobile traffic
8. 100% SEO optimized for high rankings
9. You can easily integrate it with all leading list management systems like Aweber, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Rapid Mailer, etc.
10. You can also integrate with payment processors, membership systems, webinar systems WooCommerce, and many others
How Does WP Profit Builder Work?

I think the best way to learn how Profit Builder works is to watch it live in action.

Here is a Video Walk-through:

>>Click Here to Get WP Profit Builder Now

What Type of Marketing Pages Can You Build with WP profit Builder?

You’re going to be amazed by Profit Builder’s incredible flexibility and massive library of pre-done marketing pages which allow you to build any type of marketing page in just a few clicks.

Here are some types of marketing pages you can make using Profit Builder:
- Opt-in/Lead generation pages
You probably agree that the real dough is in the list and appreciate the power of email marketing. With Profit builder you can create professional lead capture and opt-in pages that can attract your visitors and grow your email lists.
- Webinar Pages
You can create webinar pages and leverage the power of marketing online events. With webinars you have the potential to reach a large target audience and grow your business.
- Authority Blogs
This plugin can help you create high quality pages on your blog that will enhance your authority.
- Sales pages
If you’re selling products on your site, you can use profit builder to create high-converting sales pages to attract visitors and make them buy your products.
- JV pages
If you have your own products and are looking for partners and affiliates to help you promote, Profit builder can help you easily create the JV pages.
- About me pages
You can also create about me pages. About me pages are vital for communicating your values, business, personality, and strengthening your connection with your visitors.
- Review pages
If you’re an affiliate, product reviews are great for boosting your commissions. With Profit builder you can easily create in-depth product reviews for your site.

WP Profit Builder Cons:

As with any review, it would be unfair not to mention any possible issues you might face with this product.

Since you’re paying a one-time fee, you cannot be certain about the future support for this tool. I’m not saying there will be no support in future, what I mean is sellers who have a recurring plan set up tend to provide much better support and it gives them incentive to provide frequent improvement updates..

Since this is still a fresh release, expect to come across some minor bugs.

And as I mentioned earlier, this product has many similar features to Optimizepress. If you happen to use Optimizepress already, don’t expect to be blown away by this new tool.

WP Profit Builder Packages and Pricing

There are 3 packages you can choose from depending on your needs:

There’s also a 60-day money back guarantee. This means you can try Profit builder risk-free for 60 days and ask for a refund if you’re not happy with it.

One more thing you might like about Profit builder is that you won’t be paying monthly fees . You only need to pay once for this product.

Check more details

Final Opinion:

If you’re looking to grow your online business by creating effective marketing pages that convert, profit builder is a good choice to go for.

It has the potential to transform your marketing. Its easy-to-use drag & drop interface allows you to create high quality marketing pages with just a few clicks without any coding.

You also get a 60-day money back guarantee which means if you’re not happy with it you can immediately ask for a refund.

Click Here to Get Your Copy of WP Profit Builder
June 19, 2017
11 Premium WordPress Travel Themes Worth the Investment
Looking for awesome premium WordPress travel themes for travel agencies, hotels, spas, resorts, tour operators, travel blogs, or other travel related websites?

According to statistics by the World Travel & Tourism Council, the travel and tourism industry in 2016 grew faster than the global economy.

Figures forecast that by the end of 2017, the travel and tourism sector will contribute(directly or indirectly) more than US$7 trillion to the global economy – a growth by 3.7%, and will account for 284 million jobs on the planet.

Moreover, data from leading statistics company, Statista shows that the worldwide online travel bookings revenue was US$340 billion from 2006-2011.

Everyday, thousands of people are searching for travel related information online and making transactions as a result.

Also read:
– Best WordPress Themes for Travel Blogs

– Best WordPress Themes for Hotels

These figures certainly make the travel industry an enticing option for those interested in online business in this sector.

And what better way to get started than with a premium WordPress website with beautiful design and impressive functionality?

Keep reading to discover some elegant WordPress travel themes you’ll really love and want to use for your travel website.

Premium WordPress Travel Themes

Travelo

One of the highest rated hotel/tour booking themes in the market, Travelo combines an elegant design with tons of features notably a powerful booking system for a hotel, travel, or tours related website.

Besides a powerful booking module, the theme includes many great travel related features such as a reviews & ratings system, Maps integration, advanced search, room availability check, currency management, and ajax – based photo galleries.

With this theme, you get plenty of customization options to give your site the look and feel you want. It offers flexible page layouts, custom styles, 10 site skins, 8 header styles, 6 footer skins, 8 homepage versions, custom sidebars, and custom widgets.

Because the theme adheres to modern web standards, it is search engine friendly, optimized for speed, and mobile responsive to ensure your website functions superbly on any device such as smart phones, tablets or desktop computers.

Travelo comes packaged with 2 very popular premium slider plugins – Revolution slider and Layer Slider – that you can use to create unlimited fully responsive and animated sliders for your travel website.

In terms of customer response, this theme is the highest rated among travel themes on the world’s most popular theme marketplace (Themeforest) with an average buyer rating score of 4.78 out of 5 (at the time of writing this post).

It has garnered a lot of positive user feedback with many people delighted with its design and code quality, stable functionality, and the “extremely impressive customer support” from the team behind it.

Other features: Convenient theme options panel, Paypal payment integration, Visual composer integration, Multi-language support, Property owner user role, Sign up/Sign in module, 55+ useful shortcodes, Dashboard pages, Mega-menu, Sticky menu bar, Ajax pagination, Custom avatars, Custom icon pack, Font awesome icon integration, CSS3 animations, Bootstrap3 based.

Explorable

Explorable is an elegant location-based WordPress travel theme great for building travel blogs, local listings, travel guides and more.

It comes with a ratings system for visitors to easily rate locations (visitor ratings add more interactivity and credibility to your site), a filterable listings search for visitors to quickly browse through your listings, and Google maps integration that lets your users explore your site via an interactive digital landscape.

The theme assigns each of your posts/listings a physical location on the world map allowing your visitors to easily select places on the map or engage in a journey-like adventure.

With Explorable, you get a wide a range of customization choices to align your site with your requirements. The theme’s customizer allows you to toggle on and off features, change layouts, colors, fonts, and more.

You can also improve your site’s functionality and content variety without touching complex code thanks to the theme’s large collection of shortcodes.

And to make your life even easier, this theme comes with elegant pre-made page templates for you to quickly create different types of pages – search pages, galleries, sitemaps, blog feeds and more.

Other features include:
- free theme updates and support
- Responsive and compatible with popular browsers
Tour Package

Tour package is a neat, retina-ready WordPress travel theme for stylish travel websites that looks perfect on any device.

It includes package post types, booking forms, and a package discount feature for those who wish to promote and sell travel packages. Your users can easily search through packages using the themes package filtering system.

The theme features an advanced admin panel so you can easily control and manage your site along with a drag and drop page builder for quick creation of pages.

As for customization options, the theme provides different page layout styles, unlimited color options, different sidebar choices, 6 footer layouts, 3 blog styles, 500+ Google fonts, thumbnail options, and 6 custom post types-gallery, portfolio, testimonial, package, price, & personnel.

Tour package is one of the best selling travel themes on Themeforest with slightly under 5k sales. It has also gained a solid reputation with a 4.7 out of 5 average buyer rating based on more than 300 ratings – at the time of writing this post.

Other features:
- Google maps integration
- Paypal integration
- Layer slider integrated
- SEO optimized
- Responsive
- multi-language support
- social shares integrated
Soho Hotel

Soho is a widely popular responsive hotel WordPress theme complete with a fully functional booking system and a room availability checker.

It’s designed for hotels, hostels, service apartments, and any other accommodation website that requires a booking system. You can also easily list events and customer testimonials for more credibility.

With this theme, your users can make room deposits via Paypal or bank transfer and easily find directions to your location thanks to its integration with Google maps.

The theme supports different customization styles, color schemes, left/right sidebar, typography options, and shortcodes.

On Themeforest, Soho had sold over 4 thousand times and garnered a 4.5 out of 5 average rating based on 271 customer ratings at the time of writing this post.

Other Features:
- Seasonal pricing filters
- Multi-language support
- Fully responsive
- Integration with flickr and social networks
- Ready for newsletter subscriptions
Book Your Travel

Just as the name suggests, Book Your Travel is a highly sophisticated booking theme for the travel and tourism industry.

Its powerful booking module includes an advanced search, an availability checker, and bookings can be created by visitors from the front-end or by admin in the back-end.

This theme is designed to work perfectly for tour operators, travel agencies, car rental companies, and other players in the tourism industry.

To add interactivity and boost your credibility, the theme makes it easy for your users to leave reviews and ratings – you can build different parameters to be reviewed.

The theme comes with 10 different widgets to help you easily add different functionality on your site such as to display accommodation lists, car rental lists, cruise lists, tour lists, location lists, and more.

In terms of reputation, Book Your Travel has sold over 3800 times on Themeforest, received more 6k comments, and an average buyer rating of 4.3/5 based on 271 ratings.

Additional Features:
- Front -end management for partners
- 100% responsive
- 9 different color schemes included
- Multi-language compatible
- supports user accounts
- supports paypal, bank transfer, and cash on delivery
- page templates
- premium sliders
- ready for newsletter subscriptions
Nice Hotel

Here is another pleasant WordPress theme dedicated to hotels, hostels, resorts, spas, and other businesses that require a booking system.

With this theme, your customers can view your hotel facilities and reserve a room/services with ease.

It allows you to easily add descriptions and images of rooms/services, add your latest events to your website with a built-in events manager, and to automatically add customer testimonials to your homepage.

The theme is multi-lingual ready so you can easily translate your website into other languages, responsive so it can be used on mobile devices, and integrates with Google maps so people can easily see your location and directions.

Also, there are various customization options available to make the theme your own along with an easy-to-brand theme options panel to help you configure your website with minimum effort and time.

This theme comes with free support, has sold over 3000 times on Themeforest, and got an average buyer rating of 4.41/5 based on 306 ratings (as per the time of writing this article).

Other features:
- Easy to configure pages
- Ready to integrate with your social networks
- Integrates with flickr and supports photo galleries
Midway

Midway is a vibrant responsive WordPress travel theme that comes packed with powerful tools to easily manage tours, galleries, testimonials and slides.

With this theme, your users can quickly search and book tours, view your photo galleries and services, and contact you using custom user forms.

The theme makes it easy for you to customize your website. Using a versatile theme options panel, you can easily configure settings, styles, layouts, create sidebars, edit forms, and more.

This theme also comes with 2 slider types and 3 built-in widgets for integrating your newsletter and twitter feed and showing selected posts.

Midway comes with free support and future updates, has sold almost 3000 times on Themeforest, and is highly rated – 4.59 out of 5 average rating based on 282 customer ratings at the time of writing this post.

Additional features:
- Responsive layout so visitors can use your site anywhere, on mobile devices.
- Integrates social media
- comes with a shortcodes editor
- supports unlimited sidebars
- create forms quickly with the user form builder
- integrates with google analytics
Hotec

Looking for a smoothly designed yet versatile responsive WordPress theme for your spa, resort, or hotel business?

Hotec is a theme you might want to give a try.

This theme has a layout that looks beautiful on different devices and comes with many advanced theme options including unlimited sidebars, unlimited colors, 500+ Google fonts, event, posts and room options, background uploader, social integration, and multi-langauage support. You’ve got plenty of customization choices with this one.

The theme makes it easy for you to highlight your rooms and amenities, feature your upcoming events complete with a calendar page, and for your visitors to quickly find your location and directions with Google maps and make reservations.

As for its reputation, Hotec has sold over 2000 times on Themeforest and received a 4.44 out of 5 average rating based on 169 buyer ratings(at the time of writing this post).

Other features:
- Different layout options
- Supports portfolio, rooms, and gallery filtering
- Supports multimedia posts-posts with slideshows, embedded video or featured image
- Packaged with premium slider plugins so you can easily create responsive slides for your site
- comes with 10 pre-defined color schemes
- compatible with popular browsers
The Place

The place is another versatile theme designed to build websites for hotels, Bed & Breakfast businesses, guest houses, inns, and more.

It comes with a simple yet effective booking system that allows you to display the availability of your rooms, manage reservations, and that sends you email notifications whenever your users make requests.

The theme supports unlimited color options, custom backgrounds and headers, unlimited sidebars, and thanks to a powerful theme options panel, you can easily configure and customize your website to your liking.

Like many modern themes, The Place is responsive so it looks great on different screen sizes.

To help you build your posts/pages the way you want, this theme offers additional post or page options on top of the standard WordPress posts and pages functionalities.

And with more than 2000 sales on Themeforest along with an average rating of 4.4/5, this theme is definitely worth checking out.

Additional Features:
- Multi-language & translation ready so you can easily use with the language you want
- Various layout options
- Different types of sliders
- Works with shortcodes so you don’t have to mess with complex code
- Easily integrates with your social networks
Love Travel

Love Travel is a modern, flat and clean multipurpose WordPress travel theme designed for travel agencies, tour operators, travel blogs, and other tourism related services such as hotels, resorts, honeymoons, cruises, and more.

The theme includes various travel page templates to help you build custom pages for your travel business – build maps, destination pages, tour package pages, photo galleries, booking page, and more.

With a filterable search system, your users can quickly search trips/tours by destination, price,season, type, and duration of trip. You can also add your own custom search filters.

At the time of writing this post, this theme had sold over 2000 times on Themeforest with an average rating of 4.3/5 based on 154 customer ratings.

Other Features:
- Multi-lingual ready so you can present your site in the languages you want
- Packaged with the premium Revolution slider plugin so you can easily create fantastic slides for your website.
- Retina ready and responsive so your website displays perfectly on different devices
- Comes with a sticky main menu plus a left menu ensuring your visitors can easily navigate through your site
- Various styles and layout options
Nation Hotel

Nation Hotel is another vantage responsive theme targeting hospitality businesses like hotels, bed & breakfast services, resorts, spas, guest house, hostels, and more.

The theme provides you a build-in booking system that allows you to manage your booking requests, configure booking calendars, and build check out forms. This booking system also integrates with Paypal so your users can easily pay after they finish reserving.

With this theme, you get plenty of customization options so you can easily align it with your requirements.

It includes a whooping 48 different theme options and 14 widgets so you can configure different aspects of your website without diving into a deep sea of code.

For instance, you can easily switch between different layout styles, choose between different background images, patterns, and color schemes.

Last but least, the theme is multi-lingual ready so you can easily translate your website to any language you want.

At the time of writing this post, this theme had been bought over 1900 times on Themeforest with an average buyer rating of 4.6/5 based on 131 ratings.

Additional Features:
- Integrates with Google maps to display your location and directions
- Includes premium responsive slider plugin to create awesome slides for your website
- Packaged with awesome fonts to enhance your site’s graphics
- integrates with twitter and flickr feeds
- 14 build-in page templates
- compatible with various browsers
March 4, 2017
How to Start a Blog Successfully

Blogging is an incredible marketing tool and money-making opportunity if implemented successfully. With blogs, you only need to capture the interest of a targeted group of people and build a community around them.

Also read: How to Start an Anonymous Blog?

However, it’s not always that easy to start blogging successfully and get loyal readers for your blog. Blogging is a long-term venture and your blog won’t become successful overnight. You need to have patience and be committed to your blog just like you would in an offline business. Use the tips below to a start your blog the smart way.

How to Start

If you’re completely new to blogging, start with free blogging platforms like Blogspot and WordPress.com. They will help you get your feet dirty with all the basics of blogging.

These platforms are free and you won’t face the risk of losing money.

After you get some experience, you can simply upgrade to a paid platform.

Choose a Good Niche

The niche you settle for is important and will go a long way in determining the success of your blog. Your niche should be a specific topic that targets a particular group of people, or a product/service that targets a particular group of people.

The niche could be any topic that affects people e.g. Dog Training, Personal Finance, P.C Maintenance, etc.

A good niche for you will be a niche that is popular and one that you’re knowledgeable or passionate about. It’s important to have passion in your niche so that you don’t get bored blogging about it. It’s also important to have enough knowledge about your niche to offer useful information to your audience.

Understand Your Audience

Research and analyze your audience and understand what they want. This will help you produce content that satisfies their needs. That’s the secret to hook readers to your blogs.

Interact with your visitors through the comments they leave on your blog. Answer any questions they ask and respond to their emails. Some people won’t leave comments but will instead contact you with queries via email.

Make an effort to know what kind of people visit your blog. Are they old people or young people? This will help you present information that suitable to them.

How much disposable income do you think they have? That might affect how you monetize your blog. Their gender, geographical location, etc. Such information will help you understand your audience.

Social media is also a good way to learn about your audience. After you understand your visitors’ needs, you can easily target them with content that suits them.

Update Your Blog Regularly

The secret to a successful blog is regular fresh content that is informative to your readers. This is a proven strategy that has helped many gurus start blogging successfully. You need to find time to dedicate to your blog.

Start by posting on your blog daily or at least 3 times a week. It does not matter whether you’re writing the posts yourself or getting other people to write them for you. As long as you update your blog regularly with good content, your readers will love it. Remember it’s your readers who will make your blog successful.

In the beginning, you can write the posts yourself to give your blog a personal touch and improve your blog writing skills. You can get other people to write for you once you have established yourself.

Make Your Blog Attractive to Visitors

Successful blogs are always attractive to their visitors. The first step to making your blog attractive is providing content that visitors enjoy reading and offer solutions to their problems.

Remember, people browse the internet to find solutions to their problems. By providing these solutions in an easy-to-follow way, you’ll be sure to attract and win over many visitors.

Another way to make your blog attractive is using an attractive design. Remember to use a design that resonates with your niche.

Other ways to make your blog attractive to visitors include using free gifts and incentives.

Promote Your Blog

How you promote your blog will largely affect its success. Blog promotion starts with the very content on your blog. Before you reach out to readers make sure your blog is filled with quality content. Content that is engaging and solves the problems of your readers. If people find your blog useful, they’ll promote it for you.

Visit other blogs in your niche, read them and leave comments with a link back to your blog. You’ll benefit by getting traffic to your own blog and a backlink. Also, the owners of those blogs might reciprocate by visiting your blog and leaving comments.

Use social media to promote your blog. It’s one of the best tools for blog promotion. Create profiles for your blog on the major social networks and share your content, take part in conversations and generally engage your followers in a natural way. But you need to draw up a solid strategy so you don’t get sucked up in it.

Also, make it easier for your visitors to share your content by having buttons for sharing on your blog. WordPress has many plugins to simplify these tasks for you.

Promote your blog through link building. Links form the basis of the internet. Incorporate link building in your daily action plan and start building links steadily. Links will grow your authority in the eyes of search engines and your audience.

The key thing in blog promotion is to let people know that your blog exists.

Monitor The Performance of Your Blog

After you start promoting your blog, people will start visiting. That’s exciting. People are taking notice.

But it’s important to monitor your blog. You want to know what people are doing on your site, how long they’re staying on your blog, where they’re coming from, and much more. This will help you know what to improve on, what’s working, and what’s not.

You’ll realize many people visit your blog even though they don’t leave comments. That’s normal since many people are only interested in reading the information.

There’re many tools to help you monitor your blog including Google analytics and stat counter. They give you plenty of data about your blog. For Google Analytics, there’s a wordpress plugin that makes it easy for you to insert the tracking code on your blog

Leverage Your Traffic

Once your blog starts attracting good traffic, you can leverage that traffic. In online business, traffic is one of the most sought after things. The type of traffic you attract to your blog will determine how viable your blog is as a business.

You can leverage your traffic in different ways depending on the goals you set at the beginning. That means you can use your blog to grow a subscriber list, monetize it with ads, grow a community or expand your client base.

Conclusion:

The tips above will make your blogging efforts more successful. However, it is important to realize that building a profitable blog or any online business doesn’t happen overnight.

It requires a lot of hard work and commitment. More times than not, you’ll encounter frustrations and if you’re not self-disciplined, you might find yourself giving up. Also, it’s important to have a step by step action plan to guide you towards your blogging goals.

March 2, 2017
10 Best Free WordPress Plugins for Every WordPress Blog

plugins are what make WordPress the powerful CMS it is. They add more functionality to your basic WordPress install. However, with thousands of free and paid plugins to choose from, you can easily get overwhelmed especially if you are just starting out.

To help you with your selection, I have compiled a list of 10 free WordPress plugins I find essential for any blog. All these plugins are designed to add a different functionality to your WordPress blog and can be installed or downloaded from the Wordpress plugins repository.

10 Essential Free WordPress plugins You Should be Using

#1.Akismet

Demo & Download

Spam is the last thing you want on your blog. But fret no as there is Akismet. Akismet is the industry standard for keeping spam away from your WordPress blog.
This plugin identifies and blocks comment and track-back spam. It works by compiling information about spam captured on all participating blogs, and then uses that data to block future spam. That means it gets stronger with each spam captured.

Also read: 7 Best Akismet Alternatives

#2.Google Analytics for WordPress

Demo & Download

The best way to know your audience is through your traffic stats, and this is basically what google analytics provides.
Google Analytics for WordPress makes it easy for you to add Google’s web tracking script to your blog so that you can easily monitor your blog traffic using Google analytics.
It also offers a host of other features like automatic Google Analytics site speed tracking, outbound link & downloads tracking, and so much more.

#3.All in One SEO Pack

Demo & Download

If you want to optimize your WordPress blog for search engines, you definitely should be using this plugin. All in One SEO Pack automatically optimizes your WordPress blog for search engines-helps you insert the right meta keywords, define your home description, post title, etc.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a newbie in SEO or an expert; this plugin saves you a substantial amount of time you dedicate to your blog’s SEO.

#4.W3 Total Cache

Demo & Download

The developers of W3 Total Cache describe it as “the most complete WordPress performance framework”. Simply put, this plugin improves your readers experience by improving the performance of your server, caching your site, reducing page load time, and so many other features.

#5.Google XML sitemaps

Demo & Download

XML sitemaps are important if you want your blogs to be indexed faster by search engines. That said, a plugin that helps you easily generate a sitemap for our blogs will always come in handy. Google XML sitemaps also notifies all the major search engines-Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com-every time you create a new post.

#6.Contact Form 7

Demo & Download

It’s important that you make it easier for your readers to get in touch with you. Contact Form 7 WordPress plugin makes it easier for you to set up a contact form on your blog. One great thing about it is that it provides flexibility when it comes to designing your contact form.

#7.WordPress Database Backup

Demo & Download

It’s essential to always backup you WordPress blog since you never know when something might go wrong. WordPress Database Backup makes it easy for you to backup your database-gives you the option to save the backup on your server, download it to your computer or have it emailed to you on a regular basis.

#8.WPtouch

Demo & Download

With more and more people accessing the Internet from their smartphones, it’s important to have a mobile-friendly version of your blog. WPtouch formats your site with a mobile theme for visitors on Apple iPhone /iPod touch, Android, Blackberry Storm and Touch, and other touch-based smartphones.

#9.Sociable

Demo & Download

With social media so important in today’s Internet, a WordPress plugin that allows your readers to easily share your posts is useful. Sociable allows you to automatically add links on your posts, pages and RSS feed to your favourite social bookmarking sites.

#10.G.A.S.P

Demo & Download

GASP stands for GroWMap Anti-Spambot Plugin and it could be used as an alternative to Akismet. I decided to add it to the list due to its simplicity and effectiveness in fighting comment spam.
Well, some blog owners also complain that Akismet deletes some legitimate comments before they get a chance to view them. GASP adds a checkbox to your comment form asking users to confirm they are not spammers.
There are thousands of plugins some which perform the same functions as the ones above. Also, the plugins you use will largely depend on the functionality you want for your blog.

So, which plugins do you primarily use?

February 28, 2017
15 Best WordPress Security Plugins for Website Protection

About 30 000 websites get hacked each day (!). That’s an average of 20 websites each minute. The sad truth is that your WordPress site could be next if you do not take the necessary steps to secure it.

WordPress sites can be an easy target because of Theme and Plugin vulnerabilities, weak passwords, or obsolete software. And a hacker might only need a few seconds to destroy many years worth of your hard work.

Fortunately, many awesome plugins exist that you can use to secure your WordPress site from hackers and malicious intruders.

In this article, you’re going to find some nifty WordPress security plugins which can help you block malicious code injections and other hacking attempts on your site.

Also read: 15 Best WordPress Anti-Spam Plugins to Keep Your Website Safe & Secure

Use these plugins to avoid hack or phishing attempts, malicious attacks, injections, corrupting scripts, and many other security threats.

15 Awesome Security Plugins to Help Secure Your WordPress Site from Hackers

1. Wordfence Security

This is currently one of the most comprehensive WordPress security plugins out there. It has many features that can help you secure WordPress, and also improve the performance and speed of your WordPress site by up to 50 times.

When you install Wordfence, it will first check to see if your site is already infected before doing a deep server-side scan of your source code and securing your WordPress install.

Key Features Include:

• WordPress caching using Falcon Engine. Improves your site speed.
• Real-time blocking of Known attackers
• Two-factor authentication to improve login security
• Ability to enforce strong passwords among your administrators, publishers and users
• Firewall to block security threats
• WordPress Multi-site compatibility

Download Wordfence Security

2. iThemes Security

Another comprehensive security plugin which offers more than 30 ways to secure WordPress. It can help you stop automated attacks, fix common loopholes, strengthen user credentials, among other things.

Key Features and Benefits Include:

• Malware Scanning
• Network Brute Force Protection. Bans users who have tried to break into other websites from breaking into yours.
• Prevents attackers from learning too much about your site
• Blocks bad users and increases the security of passwords and other key information.
• Monitors your site and reports changes to your file system and database.
• Regular backups of your WordPress database
• Multi-site compatibility

Download iThemes Security

3. BulletProof Security

This is a top-notch WordPress plugin that offers among others protection against different hacking attacks, login security monitoring, and database backups of your WordPress.

Key Features Include:

• htaccess security and firewall
• Login security and monitoring
• Database backups. You can schedule or do manual backups
• Website performance optimized. Does not slow your site
• Suports FrontEnd/BackEnd maintenance mode

Download BulletProof Security

4. All In One WP Security & Firewall

All In One WP Security & Firewall is a comprehensive plugin that helps secure WordPress by checking for vulnerabilities and implementing the latest WordPress security best practices and techniques.
Key Features Include:

• User accounts security
• User Login Security
• Database security and backups
• File system protection
• htaccess and wp-config.php File Backup and Restore
• Block Ip addresses
• Firewall protection
• Whois look up
• Security scanner
• Comment spam prevention
• Front-end text copy prevention

Download All In One WP Security & Firewall

You might also like: 10 Essential Free WordPress Plugins You Should be Using

5. Centrora Security

Centrora is a powerful security plugin that helps protect your WordPress Sites from attacks and hacking, and is available for multiple sites.
It uses a built-in Malware and Security Scanner to help you identify any security risks, malicious codes, spam, virus, and other security vulnerabilities.

Main Features Include:

• Firewall Protection
• IP management (allow, block and track IPs)
• Antivirus
• Database security checks
• Ability to report security to owners or security analysts.

Download Centrora Security

6. WP Security Audit Log

WP Security Audit Log is a WordPress plugin that helps you identify security issues on your site before they can become serious threats.

This monitoring and auditing tool works by keeping a security audit log of what is happening under the hood of your WordPress site. This way, you can easily track suspicious user activities that would later harm your website.

Among other things, the plugin generates alerts when:

• A new user is created
• A user changes the role, password or other profile settings of another user
• A user creates a new post, page, category or a custom post type
• Failed login attempts
• When WordPress users log in or out
• And much more…

This plugin also contains wWordPressand php error monitoring tools and is available for multi-site installations.

Download WP Security Audit Log

7. 6Scan Security

This is a plugin that provides a comprehensive solution to secure WordPress by finding and automatically fixing security vulnerabilities.

Features Include:

• Frequent site scans
• Firewall protection
• Automatic back ups
• Automatic vulnerability fix
• Automatic malware removal
• Protection against brute force attacks
• Email or SMS notifications
• Blacklist Monitoring

Download 6Scan Security

8. SmartFilter Security

This plugin is designed to help keep your wordpress site safe from malicious code injections in your comments and posts.

It employs modern algorithms which can understand how content behaves so it can detect code injections and filter out the threats immediately. This way you can focus on enhancing your blog without worrying about such security threats.

SmartFilter helps protect against threats that can:

• Hack your comments
• Hack your posts
• Break themes or templates

Download SmartFilter Security

9. WangGuard

WangGuard is a WordPress security plugin that helps keep your WordPress site safe from spammers and sploggers -fake blogs created solely to promote affiliate programs.

Once you install WangGuard you need to obtain your API key from wangguard.com which you’ll use to activate the plugin.
WangGuard will then check user registrations against a centralized database to find out if they’re spammers or sploggers. You can also flag spam users directly from your admin panel.

Key Features Include:

• Centralized database of sploggers/spammers
• Clean your installation from unwanted users and spammers
• Block users by domains
• Configure security questions for users
• Support for multi-sites, buddypress, bbpress, and woocommerce

Download WangGuard

10. NinjaFirewall

NinjaFirewall is a stand-alone web application firewall that can be installed like a WordPress plugin and shield your site from attacks by hackers. It can scan and reject any Http/Https requests before they reach your pHp scripts or plugins thus keeping your WordPress install safe.

Some Key Features Include:

• Firewall protection
• Multi-site support
• Protects against code injections, SQL injections, brute-force scanners, etc
• Real-time detection
• Activity log and statistics
• Debugging mode
• Brute-force attack protection
• Email Alerts and event notifications

Download NinjaFirewall

11. Login LockDown

This nifty plugin will help secure your WordPress by limiting the number of login attempts from a given IP range.

It records the IP address and timestamp for each failed login attempt. It will then block the IP address if a certain number of attempts are detected within a time period you set. This helps prevent brute force attacks.

The plugin also allows you the option to unblock IP ranges manually.

Download Login LockDown

12. UpdraftPlus Backup and Restoration for WordPress

This plugin is a personal favorite of mine. I use it along with Wordfence Security. It can be a lifesaver if one day you get hacked (God forbid).

It makes it easy for you to perform a complete backup and restoration of your WordPress site whenever need arises.
Moreover, you can perform the backups manually or schedule them to email or popular cloud services like Dropbox, Google drive, Amazon S3, and many more.

Key Features Include:

• Quick Restore
• Backup to the cloud
• Manual or Scheduled Backups
• Back up both files and databases
• Large sites can be split into multiple archives
• Select the components to backup and restore

Download Updraftplus Backup and Restoration for WordPress.

13. Antivirus

Antivirus is a useful WordPress security plugin that can help protect your site against exploits, malware and other malicious injections. The plugin automatically scans your theme templates on a daily basis to ensure it is safe.

Features Include:

• Virus alerts
• Cleaning up after plugin removals
• Daily scans with email notifications
• Database notifications
• Manual check of template files

Download Antivirus plugin

14. Ultimate Security Checker

Ultimate Security Checker is a wordpress security plugin that helps you identify security problems within your installation.

This plugin scans your site against hundreds of known threats, and then gives you a ‘grade’ based on how well-protected your site is.

However, this plugin only identifies but does not automatically fix the problems. You can fix the problems yourself or login to the official plugin site to have them fix the issues for you.

Main Features:

• One click installation and activation
• Automatic security scans
• Grading based on how well-protected your site is

Download Ultimate Security Checker

15. Rename wp-login.php

Rename wp-login.php is a simple security plugin that allows you to easily and safely customize your login page and prevent brute force attacks that are targeted specifically to wp-login.php.

Important! When using this plugin, remember to bookmark or take note of your new login url since wp-login.php page will become inaccessible. Nevertheless, you can easily undo this by deactivating the plugin.

This plugin is also compatible with multi-site installations.

Download Rename wp-login.php

Conclusion – the best security plugins

While all these plugins are great for securing your website, you still need to have other WordPress security best practices in place to ensure you’re completely safe.

Small things like avoiding use of admin as your user name, changing the default database prefix, updating wordpress, checking your themes, and keeping your plugins updated will go a long way in keeping the bad guys off your site. You can also use online tool offered by top VPN providers to strengthen the security of your WordPress site.

Also, there is this good resource on wordpress.org that highlights some common vulnerabilities and the things you can do to harden your WordPress installation.

Finally, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Which plugins do you use to secure your WordPress? Any other that you think we should have included in this list?

February 28, 2017
How to Choose the Right Web Hosting for Your Blog
One of the first steps when starting your new blog is to find a good web hosting service. This should not be difficult once you know what to look for.

But with so many web hosts and features available, you may find yourself overwhelmed.

There are several considerations to take into account. In this post, we highlight the factors that can help you choose the right web hosting service for your blog.

Also read:
Reliability

A web host’s reliability is crucial because it affects your blog’s availability. Look for a provider with a strong uptime record and a clear service-level agreement. Many hosting services advertise 99.9% uptime, but guarantees often exclude scheduled maintenance and certain outages, so check the terms rather than relying on the headline figure.

A reliable hosting service should also deliver consistently fast performance. This helps your blog load quickly and provides a better experience for readers. Page speed is also one of the factors search engines consider when evaluating user experience.

Customer Service

A good hosting company should provide responsive customer service and reliable technical support. Look for support through channels such as live chat, tickets, or phone, with availability that matches your needs.

One way to assess a hosting company is to contact its support team before signing up. Ask a practical question and see how quickly and clearly they respond. Also check independent reviews for feedback from current customers.

Supported Features

The hosting features you need will mostly depend on the type of blog you run. For example, if you’re starting a WordPress blog, you’ll need a hosting service that meets WordPress’s current requirements, supports HTTPS, and makes it easy to keep WordPress, PHP, and your database up to date.

Another feature to consider is bandwidth allocation, which some hosting companies call data transfer. Bandwidth is the amount of data your hosting account can deliver to visitors over a given period. For example, when someone views your website, the files and media sent to their browser use your bandwidth.

The bandwidth you need will depend on the type of blog you run, the size of your pages and media files, and the traffic you receive. Some providers advertise unmetered or unlimited bandwidth, but these plans still have acceptable-use policies and resource limits. Review the provider’s terms and choose a plan with enough capacity for your expected traffic.

Storage space/disk allocation is another important feature. If you’ll be storing large images, videos, downloads, or backups on your account, you’ll need sufficient storage and preferably a clear upgrade path. Most text-focused blogs need relatively little space, but “unlimited storage” plans are still subject to usage policies and technical limits.

Web Hosting Packages Offered

Basically, there are three common hosting categories to consider for your blog: shared hosting, virtual private servers, and dedicated servers. Cloud hosting is also widely available and may be offered alongside these categories.

The hosting package you choose will largely depend on your budget, technical skills, and the kind of blog you are starting. When starting out, shared hosting or a managed WordPress plan is usually sufficient.

Shared Hosting Packages are the most common. Many websites use shared hosting, which means multiple accounts share the same physical server and its resources. This can work well for most new blogs, but performance depends on the provider’s hardware, resource limits, server configuration, and approach to managing busy accounts.

Virtual Private Servers (VPS) use virtualization to provide your account with an isolated environment and allocated resources on a physical server. You still share the underlying hardware with other customers, but a VPS generally offers more control, predictable performance, and room to grow than basic shared hosting. A managed VPS can be a good option if you need more resources but do not want to administer every aspect of a server yourself.

Dedicated Servers give you an entire physical server for your website or applications, with no other customer accounts sharing its resources. Dedicated servers are suited to larger websites, high-traffic projects, or workloads that require substantial and consistent resources. They cost more and usually require more technical management, but they provide greater control, resource capacity, and customization than shared hosting.

Conclusion:

The hosting service you choose will depend on the kind of blog you’re starting, your budget, and the level of performance and support you need. Before settling on a web host, read recent independent reviews and check its renewal prices, resource limits, backup policy, security features, and cancellation terms. If you’re on a tight budget, look for legitimate introductory offers or discount coupons, and make sure you understand what the price will be after the promotional period ends.

Best WordPress Hosting

Check out our guide to choosing the best hosting for your WordPress website here:

BEST WORDPRESS HOSTING
February 28, 2017

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