As the usage of WordPress continues to grow exponentially on a global level, so does the need for proper multilingual capabilities on WordPress websites. Luckily, WordPress can be a joy to use when creating multilingual content, chiefly due to the presence of a fantastic plugin, aptly named WPML (WordPress Multilingual).
The post “WPML Review: WordPress Multilingual Plugin” first appeared on WP Mayor.
WordPress core committer Pascal Birchler has published a Periodic Table of WordPress Plugins to celebrate the software’s upcoming 20th anniversary. The table showcases 108 of the most popular free plugins on WordPress.org.
Ten years ago Birchler created a website that showed the most popular plugins in a similar table layout, ranking them by number of active installations. This chart has been updated and is now available at plugintable.com.
“Today, I am actually ‘re-introducing’ this project, complete with a modernized look and feel, more curation, and more useful information than before,” Birchler said.
The website is interactive, so cards can be expanded to see more information about each plugin, including the author, install count, star rating, and the date it was first published.
Approximately 57% of the plugins included have 1 million or more installs, so it gives you a chance to see all of the most successful WordPress.org extensions at a glance. 600k is the lowest number of active installs for plugins included in the chart.
After making the chart, Birchler noted that he was impressed by the stats for the Really Simple SSL plugin, which has more than 5 million active installs and a 5/5-star rating. He also highlighted Site Kit by Google as being the youngest “element” first released in October 2019, with 3+ million active installs in just over three years in the directory. The XML Sitemaps Generator plugin is the oldest among those included, released in 2005 just before Akismet.
“Another plugin that has caught my eye is WP Multibyte Patch by @eastcoder, which offers improvements for Japanese sites,” Birchler said. “With over 1+ million installs it makes me wonder why WordPress core itself doesn’t have better support for multibyte characters.”
If you like the Period Table of WordPress Plugins and want to see it hanging on your wall, Birchler has set up a Shopify-powered store where you can purchase a high-quality print version. The poster comes in light and dark modes and is also available framed. He plans to donate the proceeds of the store to the WordPress community.
WordPress contributors are making progress on officially supporting SQLite in core, a project that would benefit less complex sites (small to medium sites and blogs) that don’t necessarily require WordPress’ standard MySQL database. In a recent update, Yoast-sponsored core contributor Ari Stathopoulos said the SQLite Database Integration feature plugin has been rewritten, with the help of Automattic-sponsored core contributor Adam Zielinski, to be a more future-proof implementation.
“The code has been completely rewritten to use an SQL Lexer and is now stable and able to handle all WordPress queries properly,” Stathopoulos said. “The SQL Lexer is part of the PHPMyAdmin/SQL-Parser project (licensed under the GPL 2.0) and it was adapted for WordPress, effectively implementing a MySQL to SQLite translation engine. This provides improved security, as well as compatibility.”
Stathopoulos contends that the next step is to implement these changes in WordPress core “instead of using a plugin,” because in its current form it can only be tested on pre-existing websites that already have a MySQL database.
“Using the featured plugin is a great way to allow users to test the implementation and iron out any issues etc,” he said. “However, long-term, it doesn’t make sense to use it as a plugin.”Â
Stathopoulos created a draft Pull Request and an accompanying Trac ticket proposing the new implementation be merged into core.
Although the effort has received positive feedback and support from the community and WordPress lead developer Matt Mullenweg, the feature plugin has only 30 active installs and the new implementation has received very little testing.
Multiple participants in the discussion, including core committer Aaron Jorbin and lead developer Andrew Ozz, expressed concerns about the proposal’s call for merging the changes to core as the next step.
“Talk of merging to core feels incredibly premature for a couple of reasons,” Jorbin said. “The plugin now only has around 30 installations. I think there needs to be much higher adoption in order to understand how the near-infinite number of plugins will work with this deep underlying change to WordPress.”
Jorbin also referenced WordPress’ philosophy of building things for end users who don’t want to have to make decisions about the underlying tech but simply want things to work.
“Assuming that a user is going to understand different database engines and the potential tradeoffs feels far stretched to me,” Jorbin said. “Therefore, any implementation really needs to be rock solid and extremely thoroughly tested.”
Jorbin also echoed concerns of other contributors in previous conversations, about SQLite’s bizarre religion-infused “code of ethics.”
Ozz suggested the plugin could be added to WordPress as a mu-plugin or a “drop-in” similar to how caching add-ons are implemented, pushing back on the rigidity of the requirement to fully merge it into core.
“Both of these methods are also better/more suitable for the users as they can be done by the hosting company or the script used for WordPress installation,” Ozz said. “There are some other benefits like independent updates, etc.”
Stathopoulos responded to these concerns, saying that he sees the merge to core as a long-term goal, although the proposal communicated more of an urgency that confused participants in the discussion.
“It is premature,” Stathopoulos admitted. “However, looking at the bigger picture, it is not premature to plan for the future and get ready for it.
“It may be premature now, but it won’t be 2 years from now… The problem is that we won’t be able to do it in the future unless we start working on it now.
SQLite is not something that can – or should – happen in Core now, or even a year from now. It’s a long-term goal, and should be treated as such.”
Stathopoulos agreed that the plugin needs more adoption to see how it works with plugins across the ecosystem. He also responded to concerns about users not fully understanding the implications of the database engine they select on installation.
“The proof-of-concept UI I put in place in the Core PR is just that – a proof of concept,” Stathopoulos said. “Something to trigger discussion and allow us to find solutions. It can be anything, even installation scenarios (do you want to create a blog? A small e-commerce site? A large news outlet? The next Amazon?) That is a discussion that will need to happen when the time is right to discuss UI, but it’s is a bit too early for that, I don’t think we’re there yet.”
Stathopoulos recommends contributors test the new implementation with all the plugins they normally use, via the SQLite Database Integration plugin or by testing the draft pull request in WordPress Core.
Embedding Instagram posts into your WordPress website is an excellent strategy to enhance social media engagement. This way, you can provide a visually appealing gallery, encouraging visitors to become your Instagram followers. Thanks to WordPress Instagram plugins, you can quickly connect multiple social media accounts and create feeds without any coding knowledge. However, choosing the […]
The post 10 Best WordPress Instagram Plugins appeared first on Hostinger Tutorials.
WPML is the ultimate solution for creating a multilingual website effortlessly. With an improved WordPress core, WPML manages translated content effectively, allowing you to share your website’s content with readers worldwide in their preferred language. WPML’s added functionality expands your website’s reach, making it more appealing to a broader audience with minimal effort.
The post “Creating a Multilingual Website Using WPML” first appeared on WP Mayor.
Yoast SEO 20.5 was released this week with several security fixes and an improved Google SERP preview. The preview shows mobile and desktop snippets with Google’s current styling so users can see exactly how their snippets will look and tweak how they optimize them for Google Search results.
Another highlight of this release is that Yoast SEO has dropped compatibility with PHP 5.6, 7.0 and 7.1. The plugin now requires PHP 7.2.5 or higher (along with WP 6.0). While this may seem extreme at first glance, approximately 89.9% of WordPress sites are running on PHP 7.2+. WordPress doesn’t cross-reference these stats with WP version numbers, but it’s possible sites running on much older versions of WordPress are also on unsupported versions of PHP.
Getting WordPress sites to update to the latest versions of PHP is a slow-moving process, but historically Yoast SEO has been a force for change in pushing users to upgrade their PHP versions. In version 4.5, released in 2017, Yoast SEO threw the weight of its estimated 6.5 million user base behind the movement to push hosts to upgrade their customers to PHP 7. That version of the plugin introduced a large, non-dismissible notice urging site administrators to upgrade to PHP 7.
“To move the web forward, we need to take a stand against old, slow, and unsafe software,” Yoast founder Joost de Valk said at that time. “Because web hosts are not upgrading PHP, we have decided to start pushing this from within plugins.” He contended that the WordPress ecosystem was losing good developers because the project was moving too slowly and also made the case for security and speed.
Although the latest version 20.5 will be incompatible with approximately 10% of WordPress sites running unsupported versions of PHP, this move forward is necessary for maintaining a healthy and secure ecosystem.
Having a brilliant website isn’t enough. Even if your business came with a substantial, pre-existing customer base (and let’s face it, most don’t), continuing communication is essential for retainment and growth.
Running a successful business means building and maintaining a connection with your clients – existing and potential.
There are, of course, many ways to reach your business prospects in today’s digital world: paid ads, social media, real-time messaging platforms, chat, and more.
But would you be shocked to learn that email – approaching its 45th birthday! – remains the most used, most successful platform for customer engagement?
According to Tom Wozniak, of OPTIZMO Technologies: As audience tracking and targeting become more challenging, the email address will continue to be the most valuable piece of audience identification data. [Forbes]
In this article, we’re going to look at why email is the most effective way to promote, proffer, and position your business for prime growth. Plus, we’ve hand-picked a selection of WordPress plugins that handle the various outreach tasks quite effectively.
Keep reading, or jump ahead to any section:
Okay, off we go to the electronic post office…
The ways in which you reach your audience are your customer acquisition channels. They are also the avenues for increasing your customer base.
Though some might rule it out because it’s the oldest, email remains one of the best acquisition channels available. [Lesson: Don’t throw the baby granddaddy out with the bathwater.]
Email is simultaneously simple yet powerful in terms of content that can be delivered. And it’s separate from third-party elements (eg, social media, search, etc); meaning, there’s no algorithm to work around. It’s a straight shot into the hands (ie, inboxes) of your customers.
Here are some telling stats:
Email is also extremely cost effective, allowing for a minimal investment in a tool/platform that will likely have most of the important features that mirror its high-end counterparts. It’s also easy to scale as your business grows.
With consumers averaging an online time of 397 minutes daily – giving you a golden opportunity of 6+ hours for engagement – there is simply no better way to speak directly with your customers than email. [Oberlo]
Three more stats on email’s impressive reach: [OptinMonster]
Repeat: Four hundred million MORE. If those numbers don’t convince you, I don’t know what will.
Now that we understand the value of email as a customer acquisition channel, let’s look at the different types of emails you can employ to build relationships and drive sales. Plus, one very important bit of housekeeping that needs attention first.
Whether you run a simple website or a large eCommerce store, reliable email-sending is a necessity. As fantastic a CMS as WordPress is, it has multiple limitations when it comes to sending emails.
Because WordPress uses PHP mail functionality to send emails:
Luckily, there’s a simple solution.
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (ie, SMTP) provides an easy way to improve successful sending of WordPress emails, increasing email deliverability by using authentication and assuring that your intended audience receives what you send.
SMTP can be set up manually using the PHPMailer library (more difficult), or connected through the use of a plugin (easier).
There are a number of plugins for setting up SMTP in your WordPress email. After looking at the most popular, here are the five we like best.
1. WP Mail SMTP
This plugin sits at the top of this list, allowing over three million WordPress users to send their emails reliably.
When using one of WP Mail SMTP’s built-in SMTP mail provider integrations (see below), emails are sent using the provider’s direct API. This means even if your web host is blocking SMTP ports, your emails still send successfully, helping you fix the not-sending-email issues that are prevalent in WordPress.
An easy-to-use setup wizard and detailed documentation will guide you through the process, and for most options, you can specify the “from name†and “email address†for outgoing emails.
You can send emails using your own or third-party SMTP email server, or by using integrations with popular email providers, such as:
Instead of having to use different SMTP plugins and workflows for different SMTP providers, WP Mail SMTP brings it all into one, providing the ideal SMTP solution for WordPress.
They also offer paid plans, which include additional features (like one-on-one support, white glove setup, and native integrations for Microsoft, Amazon SES, Zoho Mail, etc).
2. Easy WP SMTP
With 700,000 active installs, Easy WP SMTP resolves email deliverability issues using transactional mailers or an SMTP server.
The plugin offers configuration from a number of popular mailers, including SendLayer, Mailgun, Sendinblue, and more.
Easy WP SMTP also allows you to debug events that log any failed email sending attempts and the error that caused them, and the ability to specify a Reply-to or BCC email address.
Premium, paid versions are also available, and add more features (like shopping cart plugins, priority support, and reports).
With active installs at 300,000 and climbing, Post SMTP Mailer is a next-generation WP Mail SMTP plugin that improves email deliverability for your WordPress websites, sending emails to millions of users worldwide.
Post SMTP has a smart setup wizard that covers everything from getting started to sending test emails. It uses a commercial-grade connectivity tester to better diagnose server issues, has a built-in email log that can help with any failed email problems, and uses OAuth 2.0 security to increase the protection of email passwords.
Post SMTP also offers premium upgraded integrations, through a number of pro extensions. These are: Zoho Mail Pro, Mail Control, Twilio, Office 365, and Amazon SES.
4. Branda
WPMU DEV’s Branda plugin, known as the White Labeling wunderkind, also has an easy SMTP tool built right in, and is completely free. Setup is a cinch with our easy-to-understand documentation.
Branda allows you to customize every aspect of WordPress to fit your brand. Transform your dashboard, customize system (default) emails, quickly toggle maintenance mode and “coming soon” landing pages, change every aspect of your login screen, remove or replace logos, create color schemes, and much more. Branda has everything to rebrand WordPress for free without touching any code or hacking modifications.
There is also a pro version of Branda, if you’d like to get the full collection of 30+ modules, along with a membership that includes an entire suite of plugins, premium 24/7 live chat support, and more.
WP Offload SES Lite is trusted by more than 20,000 sites to send their email, with good reason – it works exceedingly well.
This plugin is different in that it’s not sent over SMTP. They believe that going the SMTP route makes you prone to hitting rate limits, and is also missing some key features (like an email queue).
WP Offload SES Lite gives you the high deliverability, powerful managed infrastructure, and low cost of Amazon SES, with the support of a quality WordPress plugin that’s easy to set up and notifies you of sending failures.
Some of WP Offload SES Lite’s top features include:
There is also a pro version, which gives you additional features like premium support, open and click reporting, engagement analysis per specific emails, filter/search functionality, and more.
With your WordPress email primed and ready for most effective delivery, let’s turn our attention to the best ways to engage with your audience using email.
First, you need to collect that all-important contact information (email addresses and names, at the very least), so you have a concrete way to reach interested parties.
Second, you’ll want to offer something of value, to establish a sense of fairness/generosity and drive interest in what you do. This free offering to potential customers, in exchange for a piece of their personal information (e.g. an email address or social media follow), is a tried-and-true marketing technique.
Common incentives – like a discount coupon, downloadable, or other item of interest – can be offered as compensation for providing an email address, in order to attract potential customers. Hence the name: lead magnets.
Finally, you’ll want to measure and track which campaigns or giveaways get the best results. That will give you a sense of how your site is performing; the number of visitors to your different pages, and where you’re getting conversions from. All of which help you understand which content performs the best.
This is where lead generation tools come in. They are specifically designed to identify, capture, store, and analyze leads – with the goal of turning visitors into paying customers, and paying customers into repeat business.
Employing tools and services specific to lead generation is a great way to collect the desired information, without requiring any manual work on your part. The tools automate the process, allowing you to focus on other areas of your business.
Various methods for lead capture include:
It’s not a bad idea to experiment with different options from the methods above. But for the purposes of this article, our focus will be on-page, opt-in forms, as they are the simplest to employ and incredibly successful.
Why? Well, you’re collecting contact details from people who already have an interest in your business, even if it’s at the most basic level. They’re on your site, and therefore the most likely to provide you with their contact information. After all, they came looking for you, not the other way around.
Additionally, studies have shown that most people are receptive to emails that come from companies they’ve already shown an interest in.
Here are our top 5 picks for lead capturing plugins.
1. Forminator
Of course we’re partial to our very own contact form, payment form and custom form builder, Forminator, but it’s more than just us who think so, with more than 400,000 happy users.
Forms, polls, quizzes… nothing’s off limits with Forminator. Create new campaigns in minutes with the easy-to-use, drag-and-drop form builder, using pre-fab templates or starting from scratch – with the ability to customize settings, style, and behavior.
Forminator is the easiest way to create any form, such as a contact form, order form, payment form, email form, feedback widgets, interactive polls with real-time results, Buzzfeed-style “no wrong answer†quizzes, service estimators, and registration forms with payment options.
Speaking of payments… take donations, down payments, full payments, sell merch and more with the included Stripe and PayPal integrations. (No Pro upgrade required!) SCA-compliant Stripe and PayPal come included. Just enter your publish keys to activate the Forminator payment module for both fixed and variable payments.
Forminator comes stacked with crowd-favorite third-party integrations – email services, CRM, storage, and project managers such as HubSpot, Google Sheets, Trello, MailChimp, AWeber, Slack, and any generic webhooks (such as Zapier).
But wait – there’s more! Forminator also has these amazing features:
There is a pro version as well, which contains all the same features as the free version, plus the additional “E-Signature†and “Stripe Subscriptions†features.
Formidable is a solutions-focused WordPress form plugin. Use drag and drop to create a contact form, survey, quiz, registration form, payment form, lead form, or calculator form.
Formidable is 100% mobile responsive, so your forms look great on all devices (desktop, laptop, tablets, and smartphones). It’s also optimized for speed and maximum server performance.
This free version of Formidable comes with a variety of features, like advanced email subscription forms, multi-page forms, a smart form with conditional logic, stack on repeater fields, payment integrations, form templates, relationships, and cascading dropdown fields.
Submissions are stored in your WordPress database so you won’t lose any leads, and quiz and survey entries can be viewed right from your WordPress dashboard. Also, the form generator is GDPR-friendly (even though entries are saved), and you can turn off IP tracking or stop saving submissions entirely.
Create a payment form and accept credit card payments right from your website, with seamless integration with PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net. You can even create a WooCommerce form with custom fields.
There is a pro version as well, that includes many more features and functionalities that help you build more powerful and larger applications.
3. Ninja Forms
Design beautiful, complex forms with a dedicated support team at your back.
Easy drag-and-drop fields, row and column layouts, multi-page forms, conditional forms… you don’t have to be a designer to create forms that will blend beautifully with your WordPress website.
You can accept PayPal and credit card payments securely and easily from any of your WordPress forms: single payments, subscriptions, fixed, variable, or user entered amounts. Give your customers or donors all the options, or just one with a PayPal form, Stripe form, and more.
Grow your mailing lists and bring in new leads using integration with MailChimp, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, Salesforce CRM, Zoho CRM, Insightly CRM, and more.
Ninja Forms is also GDPR compliant, as it doesn’t collect or store personally identifiable information, or any information, from your forms. Easy-to-use templates are included for Right to Be Forgotten and Data Export requests, and tie into native WordPress GDPR features for automated compliance.
Includes pre-built templates for a contact form, registration form, application form, MailChimp form, quote request form, PayPal form, Stripe form, and more. Also mobile responsive and design-adaptable to fit in with any theme or brand.
Ninja Forms offers additional features and upgrades in two ways: per add-on, or through a membership (different tiers vary in the number of allowable sites and add-ons).
At five million+ active installs, Contact Form 7 is the OG WordPress plugin for contact forms.
It has stood the test of time, still able to create simple and multiple contact forms, while allowing for the customisation of the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup.
Forms support Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering, and do not track user data or use cookies. However, activation of certain features may invoke personal data to be sent to service providers (eg: reCAPTCHA, Stripe).
While the plugin boasts massive numbers and is still popular, it is becoming less so as more advanced, feature-rich competitors have become available. Especially since most of these are free to use as well.
Additionally, unlike newer plugins, an additional plugin is needed (they make one called Flamingo) just to save submitted messages from contact forms in the database.
They have also started requesting contributions from users, citing the difficulty in continuing support and development of a free plugin.
5. Hustle
Hustle in the ultimate marketing plugin for building a mailing list and converting site traffic.
Incredibly versatile and engaging, Hustle has a myriad of options and customizations.
Easily grow your mailing list or display targeted ads across your site with popups, opt-ins, slide-ins, widgets, and shortcodes.
Build a social following with Hustle’s diverse social sharing capabilities.
Choose colors, animations, layouts, drop shadows, and display conditions for all your marketing modules from easy-to-use design settings. (There’s even CSS if you really want to go all out.) All a cinch with Hustle’s flexible appearance settings.
Default layouts and templates are fully mobile responsive, while allowing for granular adjustments (margins, padding, borders, container sizing) so you can make every module your own.
Target visitors with email opt-ins or ads using Hustle’s behavior and condition settings, and set up intelligent conditions if desired as well (e.g. specific pages/posts, visitor device/browser, country, browser cookie, etc).
Smart triggers allow you to set up a range of options for popups and slide-ins, including time on page, scroll, exit intent, and more.
Schedule when you want your marketing modules to deploy by selecting start/end dates, or show them on specific days of the week, time of day, along with custom time zones.
Easily follow up on user engagement with manual or automated email messages, and build your following on social networks with floating widgets and shortcodes to add followers.
Hustle smoothly integrates with popular form builders (like Forminator), to embed those forms/polls/quizzes into popups and slide-ins for interactive lead generation.
While you’re at it, integrate Hustle with an email service; 19 of the most popular are offered (including AWeber, MailChimp, Sendinblue, MailPoet, Zapier, and more).
Rounding out the additional features you get with Hustle:
There is also a pro version of Hustle, which gives you all the same settings and options as the free version does. The difference is, Hustle Pro offers unlimited opt-ins, custom content, and social sharing, whereas the free version allows three of each type (popups, slide-ins, social share bars, and embeds).
Once you’ve got those all-important email addresses collected, it’s time to set your sights on the various campaigns you can use to turn casual interest into a revenue stream.
There are a number of ways to use email campaigns to engage your audience and increase sales.
Blog posts can help by specifically targeting your audience, catering your content to them. It’s a proven way to align with your audience by providing (free) information of value to them, while keeping the connection warm. Plus, they can be kept in a devoted section of your website, making it easy for both old and new customers to partake in the historical canon unique to your business.
Newsletters and announcements are great for keeping your audience up to date on any site changes, or to promote particular products or discounts. Announcements could include down-time notices (for example, planned changes where your site will be offline briefly), or information about sales, coupons, special offers, etc – anything that is a change in your ‘norm’ that falls within a specific timeframe.
We looked at some email plugins early on, where the purpose was to improve email delivery by directing through SMTP servers or transactional mailers.
There is another category of full-featured email plugins/services that provide additional marketing, campaigning, and analysis features on top of trustworthy delivery. These can be quite handy if you want to avail yourself of pre-designed email templates, auto sending schedules, and tracking customer journeys.
Here are our favorites in this category.
1. MailPoet
More than 600,000 websites use MailPoet to keep in touch with their subscribers, delivering 30 million+ emails each month to inboxes, not spam boxes. Enjoy high open rates with their unmatched deliverability rate and rock solid infrastructure.
MailPoet works seamlessly with your favorite CMS so you can start sending emails right away. Quickly add content and images directly from your media library. No need to upload files to third-party services when it’s all right there, ready to use in your WordPress dashboard.
From first hello to loyal customer appreciation, send emails to the right people at the right time. Welcome new subscribers with an automated series of onboarding emails and enjoy open rates of 40% and higher.
Automatically send email updates to let subscribers know about your latest blog posts, in your choice of sending schedule (daily, weekly, monthly) and bring them back to your website.
Create email updates and newsletters your subscribers can’t wait to open with beautifully designed templates you can customize to match your personality (and brand). With plenty of design options and advanced features, you can choose from a template, customize whatever you need, then send it out. Quick previews allow you to always see how your emails look before hitting send.
MailPoet is available via paid plans as well, which add features and functionality like more subscribers, unlimited emails, advanced analytics, the ability to remove branding, priority support, and more.
2. HubSpot
HubSpot is an extremely popular, all-in-one CRM platform with tools and integrations for marketing, sales, and customer service.
The CRM in HubSpot’s WordPress plugin is your site’s command center, with 360-degree views of your customers, where you can easily:
You’ve also got full-service email, newsletter, and marketing automation software, from which you can build professional emails in minutes, then send them to your entire contact database.
Features here include:
Forms and popups are included, with a variety of templates (contact us, newsletter signup, ebook download, etc) and display options (embed, standalone page, pop-up box, dropdown banner, etc). Choose from a variety of settings, color schemes, and fonts — or start from scratch.
HubSpot also allows for integrations with other WP form builders and lead generators (like Forminator and Hustle 
).
And there’s much more, such as:
In addition to their free version, which offers a taste of limited features, HubSpot offers a number of paid version packages – Starter, Starter CRM Suite, Business, Professional, and Enterprise – with many different combinations of features and services to suit all needs.
3. OptinMonster
OptinMonster is a customer acquisition and lead generation plugin. As a SaaS, its use requires an OptinMonster account, but that’s quick to set up.
OptinMonster’s popup maker allows you to create popup campaigns, email subscription forms, sticky announcement bars like hello bar, gamified spin-a-wheel opt-in forms, and other types of interactive popups for your site. Use the drag-and-drop editor to customize the look and feel of your campaigns, or choose from hundreds of templates.
OptinMonster also offers mobile popups so your marketing messages look great on all devices (mobile, tablet, laptop, and desktop). It’s also optimized for both web and server performance.
Popup options include:
OptinMonster also has targeting behaviors, like page level targeting, geolocation targeting, popup behavior automation, and WooCommerce. Plus trigger behaviors, like exit intent, scroll trigger, and time-on-site popups.
There are also quite a few email and CRM integrations available, such as Constant Contact, MailChimp, AWeber, and more.
A free account includes three campaigns and up to 500 campaign impressions, which never expire.
OptinMonster also offers premium, paid versions which include more features and remove the limits imposed in the free version.
4. Sendinblue
Sendinblue is a powerful all-in-one marketing platform, trusted by more than 165,000 companies around the world to deliver their emails and SMS messages.
Sendinblue optimizes deliverability using a proprietary infrastructure over SMTP, with options that include email, SMS, Facebook, chat, CRM, and marketing automation.
The Sendinblue WordPress plugin uses their own API to synchronize contacts, send emails and get statistics. Synchronization is automatic, so it doesn’t matter whether your lists were uploaded on your WordPress interface or on your Sendinblue account: they will always remain up-to-date on both sides.
Sendinblue’s free account takes less than two minutes to set up, and allows you to send up to 300 emails per day on their free (forever) plan.
Sendinblue integrates with most lead capture and advanced form builder plugins, but also contains their own native subscription forms, with the following features:
The following additional options are included as well:
Sendinblue offers a free (forever) plan that includes 9000 emails per month and unlimited contacts, with no hidden costs.
They offer premium, paid plans as well, which remove the limits, and include additional features (like removing the Sendinblue logo, A/B testing, marketing automation, priority support, and more).
Lead generation is often the difference between the smashing success or abject failure of a business.
And while there are many components that go into lucrative marketing, you can tap into WordPress’s generous supply of free plugins to eliminate the heavy lifting.
As shown in this post, email still holds the #1 spot when it comes to customer acquisition channels, with significant reach and conversion rates.
Determine the plugins that best meets your needs, and get going on cultivating your contact lists, securing good delivery with SMTP sends, and setting up email campaigns that drive customer engagement, traffic, retention, and loyalty.
If you want to really ensure best results, make sure you have trusted, dedicated hosting (we’re a top pick for web developers), speed and SEO optimization (our memberships come with a suite of premium plugins, including performance and security), and world-class, always-on support.
Translating a website is not a small task. Depending on the size of the site, the process can take anywhere from hours to weeks or even months. That’s without factoring in the technical aspects of translation, such as how to guide users to translated pages.
Fortunately, with WordPress, translating websites is much simpler from a technical standpoint. That’s because translation plugins for WordPress enable you to easily create new versions of your site in other languages. Plus, most plugins will take care of technical elements like language switchers.
In this article, we’ll discuss how translation plugins work and why you should use one. Then, we’ll introduce you to five of the best (and latest) translation plugins for WordPress. Let’s get to it!
A WordPress translation plugin is an extension that helps you create a multilingual website by translating your content into different languages. These plugins can drastically simplify the process of translating your material. Many offer automatic translation, manual translation, or a combination of both.
If you’re not sure what the difference is between manual and automatic translation, here’s a quick breakdown of how each method works:
Your choice of WordPress translation plugin will likely come down to two factors. These are the type of translation you want to use and the user experience you’re looking for. Now, let’s discuss why you may want to use a translation plugin for WordPress.
The primary goal of using a translation plugin is to make your site available in other languages. Generally speaking, this makes it more accessible and allows you to reach a larger audience. Using a WordPress translation plugin comes with its own set of benefits, including:
You don’t need to use a plugin to translate your WordPress website. However, using one can certainly help streamline this process. Even if you have the budget to pay for a developer and translators, a plugin still may be worth it – for simplicity’s sake.
Next, we’re going to discuss some of the best and latest WordPress translation plugins. We’ll tell you what makes each plugin unique. This way, you can get a sense of which option is the best fit for your website.
First, let’s discuss Translate WordPress with GTranslate. This is a popular WordPress plugin that uses Google Translate to automatically translate your website content into multiple languages. It offers a customizable language switcher which can be added as a widget, shortcode, or menu item.
The plugin has both free and premium versions, with the paid option offering additional features. For instance, the paid plugin includes neural machine translations, search engine indexing, manual translation editing, and URL translation.
Keep in mind that this version doesn’t come with a yearly license (as most premium WordPress plugins do). Instead, you’ll need to pay for a monthly subscription to use the plugin’s premium version.
Pricing: Translate WordPress with GTranslate is free. However, you can get the premium version with advanced features starting at $9.99 per month.
TranslatePress is a user-friendly WordPress translation plugin that enables you to create a multilingual website with ease. One of its main selling points is the ability to translate content directly from the front end. Plus, it uses a visual translation interface, allowing you to see changes in real-time.
The plugin supports both manual and automatic translating, integrating with Google Translate for machine translations. Furthermore, TranslatePress is compatible with various themes and plugins, including certain page builders and WooCommerce. This helps ensure seamless integration with your website.
Additionally, with TranslatePress, you get access to SEO-friendly features. You’ll be able to translate metadata, URLs, and create separate sitemaps for each language. With the free version, you can translate your website into one additional language. Meanwhile, the premium version offers support for unlimited languages and additional features like translator accounts and automatic user language detection.
Pricing: TranslatePress offers both free and premium versions. Prices for paid plans are only listed in euros on the company’s site and start at €7.99 per month ($8.50 USD at the time of writing).
WPML (WordPress Multilingual Plugin) is a powerful and widely-used WordPress plugin for creating and managing multilingual websites. Its main selling points include support for manual translations and integration with professional translation services.
Additionally, the plugin offers advanced translation management, allowing you to assign translation roles and track translation progress. What’s more, it provides extensive translation options, supporting the translation of custom post types, custom fields, widgets, and menus.
WPML is also SEO-friendly, enabling the translation of metadata, permalinks, etc. It also generates language-specific sitemaps. Even better, the WPML plugin offers a user-friendly interface and a dedicated support team to ensure a smooth user experience.
This WordPress translation plugin doesn’t offer a free version. Still, its features and compatibility make it a popular choice for those looking to create a professional, multilingual website with high-quality translations.
Pricing: WPML licenses start at $39 per year.
MultilingualPress is a unique WordPress translation plugin that leverages the WordPress Multisite feature to create separate sites for each language. This option enables you to manage translations independently for each site, gain greater control over the translation process, and avoid any performance loss.
By creating separate sites, MultilingualPress ensures that each language version functions independently, reducing the risk of compatibility issues with themes and plugins. The plugin also supports automatic hreflang tags, which improves SEO by informing search engines about the available language versions of a page.
MultilingualPress offers a user-friendly interface for connecting translated content across sites. This makes it easy to manage and navigate your multilingual website. The plugin may require more initial setup due to the WordPress Multisite configuration. However, its unique approach to handling translations offers a flexible and efficient solution.
Pricing: MultilingualPress licenses start at $99 per year.
Last but not least, let’s discuss Google Website Translator. This WordPress plugin utilizes Google Translate’s machine translation service to instantly translate your website content into multiple languages. Its main selling points include ease of use, quick setup, and broad language support.
Additionally, the plugin offers a customizable language switcher, allowing users to choose their preferred language from a dropdown menu or widget, which can be placed anywhere on the site. It also supports inline language switchers, enabling language selection within the content itself.
Another key feature of the Google Website Translator plugin is its ability to preserve the original formatting and layout of your website during translation. This helps provide a consistent user experience across different languages.
Keep in mind that the plugin relies solely on machine translations. If you want to edit translations, you’ll need to pay for a premium license.
Price: Free with premium licenses costing a one-time fee of $50.
Translating a website takes a lot of work. However, if you’re a WordPress user, you get access to plugins that can simplify this process. Some plugins make it easier to translate content manually. Other options leverage automatic machine translations. Meanwhile, some tools combine both approaches.
What approach you choose to use will depend on the languages you want to target and whether you want to review translations manually. With that in mind, here are our top plugin suggestions:
Do you have any questions about translation plugins for WordPress? Let’s talk about them in the comments section below!
The post <strong>5 Latest Translation Plugins for WordPress</strong> appeared first on Torque.
ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) version 6.1 was released this week with support for creating Custom Post Types and Taxonomies. This is a long-awaited feature that users have been asking for since the earliest days of the plugin when it was still developed by its original author, Elliot Condon.
When Delicious Brains acquired the plugin, the ACF community reiterated this feature request. WP Engine kept it on the roadmap when they acquired ACF in June 2022 and has finally been able to deliver. Registering post types and taxonomies is now available through a simple interface that works in a similar way to creating field groups and fields.
After registering the CPT, users can then add an existing or new field group for it or create a taxonomy, and move on from there. The advantage is that users don’t have to break their workflows and use a different plugin for this functionality. For those managing client websites, it is one fewer plugin required.
“We know there are a large number of ACF users registering custom post types (CPTs) and creating custom fields for them,” WP Engine Senior Product Manager Iain Poulson said. “But they have to register the CPTs either manually with code or using another plugin. The overarching workflow of modeling the data needed for a site build is fragmented between different plugins, UIs, and user experiences. We wanted to fix that!”
The ACF development team has also created a dedicated import tool for users who want to migrate post types and taxonomies from the Custom Post Type UI (CPTUI) plugin to ACF in order to manage them all from one plugin. ACF has also built in the ability to disable post types and taxonomies from the plugin admin in case users do not require this feature in the update.
ACF reports more than 4.5 million users, so it will be interesting to see how having this built in will impact the CPTUI user base, which is active on more than a million websites. Some users simply need custom post types but won’t require all of ACF’s capabilities, but there is certainly a large overlap between the two plugins.
After expanding well beyond the creation of custom fields with this and previous updates, Poulson said they will be referring to the plugin as “ACF” more going forward. The plugin’s admin sidebar menu has been updated from “Custom Fields” to ACF.
Version 6.1 also includes the following highlights and important changes:
All of these new features are available in both the free version and ACF Pro. Check out the changelog for the full rundown of everything included in version 6.1.
Twitter suspended WordPress.com’s access to the Twitter API without notice yesterday. Representatives at WordPress.com do not know why their access is currently blocked but are working to regain it.
The API enables features like Jetpack Social’s Twitter connection. Users who rely on this Jetpack module to auto-tweet their published posts will see errors in the dashboard until this issue is resolved.
WordPress.com advised that reconnecting will not work at this time, nor will trying to establish a new connection. Connections to other social networks are still operational.
On large publishing sites some authors may not be aware that the auto-tweet functionality is broken. For the time being, the solution is to manually tweet published posts.
Jetpack users reported the issue in the plugin’s support forums 10 hours ago, as some of them are Jetpack Social paid subscribers. In October 2022, Jetpack announced a paid plan for its Social plugin and limited the free version to 30 social shares per month, a controversial monetization decision that left many users in search of alternatives.
Several users asked if refunds will be coming their way if the fix for the issue is not forthcoming, as auto-sharing to Facebook and Twitter is one of the main reasons customers subscribe to the service.
“We are aware of issue and are looking into it with Twitter, but at this stage we don’t know when it will be fixed,” a Jetpack support representative responded to customers. “We’re working with Twitter to find the best solution possible.”
Twitter launched its new API access tiers on March 29, 2023. Access to the Enterprise tier requires an application process. Over the next 30 days Twitter is deprecating its previous access tiers and is encouraging developers to migrate to the new tiers as soon as possible to avoid disruption.