Despite the many benefits of WooCommerce, online store owners often face a myriad of challenges that can hinder the growth and success of their business. Understanding and overcoming these common obstacles is crucial for not only maintaining a seamless online shopping experience but also for ensuring a thriving and profitable e-commerce venture.
The post “Understanding and Overcoming Common WooCommerce Challenges: A Guide for Store Owners” first appeared on WP Mayor.
WordPress is a great platform for building a website for realtors and real estate agencies. All required features are readily available, and many themes have the features already built in. But, the vast number of themes can make finding the perfect theme for your real estate website challenging.
In this article, look at some of the best real estate WordPress themes available today.
The best themes for real estate agents and agencies include helpful features such as property listings, easy and advanced searching of listings, maps to show locations, galleries to show multiple images, multiple agent profiles, featured listings, and MLS/IDX integration.
These features can be added to most themes using plugins, but real estate themes would have them built-in and ready to use. The layouts are designed specifically to showcase real estate properties, and the integrations are smooth with no compatibility issues. However, it should be noted that for deeper features, you may want to look into the various IDX or real estate plugins available for WordPress. For a review of some of the top real estate plugins, see the best WordPress Real Estate Plugins. Additionally, check out these IDX plugins if you’re looking for MLS/IDX integration.
Here’s our list of the best real estate WordPress themes. They cover a variety of uses in the real estate field. For the individual realtor or the property manager, the mortgage broker, or the real estate startup, we’ve got a theme for you.
WPL Pro is a real estate platform by Realtyna that provides the most powerful real estate themes available for WordPress. In fact, we rated the Realtyna WPL plugin as the top pick for WordPress real estate plugins! Theme 28 and Sesame Theme are both native themes that come free with WPL Pro. But there are other premium themes as well. Each of the themes for WPL Pro has all the features and add-ons needed to create a robust real estate listing website that looks great and is easy to manage. The built-in listing management system allows you to manage all your data in one place.
Adding MLS functionality, advanced search, and agent/broker management are all easily handled with the WPL Pro platform and themes. The platform includes a dynamic location system for displaying listings on interactive maps. You can add new content using custom widgets for displaying custom listings, search bars, carousels, agents, and more throughout your website. And it has page views and templates for displaying property listing details dynamically by pulling data from the backend.
WPL Pro is also compatible with popular website builders like Divi and Elementor, which brings drag-and-drop functionality to your real estate website so you can focus more on sales and less on coding.
Pricing: $199 (one-time fee)
EstateEngine is a WordPress real estate theme that allows you to list, manage, and monetize your properties from your WordPress website. Easily manage various property listings and build a feature-rich real estate website. Its Google Maps integration allows for deep customization of maps at various points on your site. Users of your site can submit, claim and manage their property listings on your site. You can also charge a fee to list or claim a property. Alternatively, you can set up your ad network on your site, allowing users to pay you for ad space on your website. Regarding the best real estate WordPress themes, EstateEngine is a force to be reckoned with.
Key Features:
Pricing: Paid plans start at $89 per year
To build the best custom real estate website, we’d recommend using our powerful Divi Theme. In addition to being the ultimate website builder for WordPress, Divi’s flexibility and integrations can take your real estate website to greater heights.
When coupled with extensions like Toolset and Realtyna, you’re on the road to building a dynamic, unique real estate website for your next project. In this tutorial, we show you how to use Divi and Realtyna to add property listings to your Divi site. This tutorial also customizes several layouts within our Real Estate Layout Pack. With the power of WPL Pro and the freedom of design with Divi, you can build a real estate website that matches your needs and your branding.
If you want to take bookings on your website, our integration with Motopress will help you! The MotoPress Divi plugin helps users easily book, list, and handle rental properties on their Divi site. This lightweight add-on seamlessly converts MotoPress shortcodes into bespoke Divi Modules with its innovative functionality. These modules are convenient tools to incorporate and manage all your listings and booking content on your website.
Ultimately, with an arsenal of dynamic extensions and limitless design capabilities, Divi is the clear choice for the real estate professional who values functionality and form for their website.
Key Features:
Pricing: Paid plans start at $89 per year
For a modern take on the real estate directory theme, Listable is for you. With customization tools that allow you to switch your branding and typography, Listable combines beauty with functionality for your real estate website theme. Whether you want to build a site for your locality or are thinking global, this WordPress real estate theme can help you build a beautiful site. Monetization is also a key feature of Listable. You can charge a fee to users for listing. Or, you can claim a percentage of their service fee. In each case, you can generate revenue from your real estate website. Build a solid real estate website with Listable and enjoy the benefits of one of WordPress’s best modern real estate themes.
Key Features:
Pricing: Paid plans start at $85 per year
Integrations are where Oikia stands strong. Use your favorite plugins like WPForms, Yoast SEO, Toolset, and more to amp up the power of this WordPress real estate theme. You can visually build your real estate website with the Block Editor or the popular page builder plugin Elementor. As such, you have access to an extensive library of elements and block patterns that you can use to create custom post, page, and listing layouts for your site. Create unique property page listings and utilize the extensive list of taxonomies that Oikia has made available. Users can browse through the listings of realtors or agents on your site and go on to contact them directly.
Key Features:
Pricing:Â Paid plans start at $49 per year
RentalHive makes it easy to create a rental marketplace website. If you want to build a website similar to Airbnb, RentalHive is the real estate WordPress theme you need. RentalHive makes it easy for your users to book their rentals on your website. They can search listings by distance, location, and availability. They’re able to message listings owners and leave feedback after their stay. As an admin, you can make it simple for your vendors to manage their bookings and listings. With a front-end management dashboard, your vendors will be happy that they chose to use their site for their short-term listings. As the admin, you can modify the RentalHive theme to make it your own. And you can do all this without using a single line of code!
Key Features:
Pricing: Paid plans start at $178 per year
PremiumPress’ WordPress Real Estate Theme lets you make a website similar to Zillow. The theme comes with advanced search and filtering functionality, making it easy for your users to find the properties they are searching for. This theme has a powerful search and filtering system that you can customize to turn features on and off. Alternatively, you can add your custom fields to match your business case. The theme is also mobile-friendly and will work on various screen sizes. You can personalize the members’ area for agents and users of your site easily. Property listing pages can also be customized using the native drag-and-drop builder or crowd favorite Elementor. With 1,000 components, more than 250 page sections, and 300+ admin customization options, this theme is for you if you want to build a complex real estate-focused site quickly.
Key Features:
Pricing:Â $99 per year
Get WordPress Real Estate Theme
Houzez is a full-featured real estate WordPress theme with powerful customization features for search, profile pages, and more. Of all the themes on our list, Houzez takes customization to the highest level. Take, for example, the Houzez Search Builder. This tool allows you to build a custom search bar with the specific queries, options, and taxonomies you need. Secondly, this theme has numerous calculators, customizable email notifications, and a built-in CRM.
Houzez has a library of pre-built websites for real estate brokerages, individual agents, or real estate professionals. All of which can be edited without coding via the popular page builder Elementor. Truly, Houzez is one of the best real estate WordPress themes available today.
Key Features:
Pricing: $138 per year
WP Residence was designed for both independent agents and real estate agencies. You can place property location markers on Google Maps. It has an advanced properties search feature with custom fields and a dynamic URL. Agents can submit properties and floor plans through the front end. You can allow users to upload for free or by a fee-based membership system that’s included. Payments can be accepted through PayPal or Stripe. Property searches can be filtered using AJAX filters. Users can receive email alerts for saved searches. It also has 37 included full-site demos for you to build your real estate website quickly. WP Residence is integrated with Elementor, so you can use the page builder to fine-tune each demo and build beautiful, expansive property listing pages and other aspects of your site.
Key Features:
Pricing: $118 per year
RealHomes is another popular WordPress real estate theme from the Themeforest marketplace. More than 30,000 users call RealHomes the best WordPress real estate theme for their uses, and with good reason. The theme is a powerhouse for real estate developers, agents, agencies, or anyone who wants a real estate booking solution. RealHomes allows you to monetize your site by charging a fee for accepting listings, among other ways of revenue generation from the site. Additionally, RealHomes has a robust property management system. This allows frontend property management by your website users, acceptance of payments through WooCommerce, and deep frontend dashboard features. Powered with Elementor, you can build your headers, footers, listings pages, and more with the visual builder chosen by many. This theme suits those who want a high level of features that they can customize with little to no code.
Key Features:
Pricing: $138 per year
When building a powerful real estate booking site, WP Rentals is one of the best WordPress real estate websites you can use. For starters, the customization options for your booking calendar are endless: you can set pricing per day or hour; you can require a minimum number of days per stay… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Additionally, this is one of the few real estate themes that integrates with Google Maps and Open Street Map, providing you with an open-source map alternative. Like many themes on our list, you can get creative with your pages using popular drag-and-drop builders Elementor and WP Bakery. WP Rentals is truly a powerhouse of a theme for those who want to maximize their options for setting up rentals for their properties.
Key Features:
Pricing: $138 per year
That’s our list of some of the best real estate WordPress themes. All these themes have what you need to build a great-looking real estate website with WordPress and get your website running quickly. Whether you need a website for a few rental properties or a fully staffed real estate agency, you will find what you need from this list.
| Themes | Price | Free Option | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | Realtyna WPL Pro | $150 (one-time fee) | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| 🥈 | EstateEngine | $89/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 🥉 | Divi | $89/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 4 | Listable | $85/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 5 | Oikia | $49/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 6 | RentalHive | $178 | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| 7 | WordPress Real Estate Theme | $99 | ⌠| Visit |
| 8 | Houzez | $139 | ⌠| Visit |
| 9 | WP Residence | $118 | ⌠| Visit |
| 10 | RealHomes | $138 | ⌠| Visit |
| 11 | WP Rentals | $138 | ⌠| Visit |
Consider using Divi as your theme (since it is so flexible) and a real estate plugin (instead of a theme) to get you all the necessary functionality. This may be an excellent way to future-proof your website. If you’re looking for a solid directory theme for your real estate business, EstateEngine is your theme. For the more modern among us, check out Listable. Its attention to detail, vast branding options, and unique style make it a top choice for those looking to build a sleek, feature-rich real estate website.
Do you have a favorite theme for realtors and agencies? Let us know in the comments.
Article thumbnail image by Boyko.Pictures / shutterstock.comÂ
The post 10 Best Real Estate WordPress Themes in 2023 (Compared) appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.
WordPress is 20 years old today, an estimable milestone for open source software running on the web. Parties are happening all over the world – in Geneva, Los Angeles, Istanbul, Bangkok, Lahore, Jakarta, Mumbai – in over 150 different locations.
The software has been downloaded more than 2.8 billion times but the most impressive stat is the project’s staggering 112,000 contributors, past and present, who have improved and energized WordPress with their passion, talent, and hard work.
None of the global collaboration we enjoy today would exist without the inspiration and leadership of co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. They worked in a distributed way from day one, having never met when they started WordPress. This way of working created the foundation for a global contributor base that now supports 43% of the world’s websites.
WordPress has had a profound impact on the lives of millions of users, giving them a voice on the web and the tools to launch businesses, create jobs, and bring ideas to life. The #WP20 hashtag is replete with stories of how WordPress and its community have given people a place of belonging and launched them into successful endeavors.
Congratulations WordPress – 20 already
I discovered WordPress at the lowest point in my life back in 2012 when I was homeless and jobless in the new city. I was desperate to get back to tech but as a college dropout – there were no jobs for me in IT.
From building my first… pic.twitter.com/Um1Sbcl7RQ
— Rajendra Zore (@rajendrazore) May 27, 2023
Does WordPress have 20 more years in its future? Two of the biggest challenges ahead are capturing the hearts of the next generation of builders and maintainers, and preserving the open web where WordPress has thrived. The project’s 2022 annual survey showed that the respondent demographic is aging. The percentage of respondents under age 40 has decreased every year, as WordPress enters its third decade.
Ensuring that WordPress remains resilient and relevant to future generations has required some courageous leadership decisions, like introducing the block editor, and may bring some significant shifts down the road, as we enter a new era of AI-powered innovation.
Major milestones are are a good time to acknowledge the efforts that made all of this possible. Thank you, dedicated contributors, for lending WordPress a little bit of your fire and a lot of your patience, nurturing, and support. The code under the hood may look very different from the early days in 2003, but WordPress is still that same scrappy, irrepressible force of good on the web that users can count on for years to come.
If you’re not using WordPress dynamic content on your website or blog, you’re missing out! Dynamic content is a great way to keep your site fresh and engaging, and it can help you attract new readers and followers. This article covers everything you need about it and how to easily implement it on your website using free plugins.
The post WordPress Dynamic Content: 3 Best Plugins to Set It Up appeared first on Themeisle Blog.
While age is just a number, we couldn’t be more excited about the 20th anniversary of WordPress on May 27, 2023.
Meetups, WordCamps, and a call for block art submissions are being held to honor the platform’s first release two decades ago. These activities are nicely mapped and documented on WordPress’s official anniversary website, so WordPress community members across the globe can see how they can get involved in the festivities.
Here at Hostinger, we celebrate this anniversary by contributing to the Five for the Future project. With this post, we also want to celebrate our customers who use WordPress to elevate their online presence. We talked to four of our inspiring customers about how WordPress and our services help them succeed online.
At Hostinger, WordPress users get the best out of their favorite CMS with our optimized WordPress hosting plans. Thanks to LiteSpeed servers and the LSCWP cache plugin, all plans are built for speed, helping users achieve better UX, better SEO, and higher conversion rates.
On top of that, there are plenty of ready-to-use advanced features to help anyone start their WordPress journey in no time. These features include a 1-click installer, automatic WordPress updates, a staging tool, and security measures like automated daily backups and a malware scanner.
Let’s see how our clients make the most of WordPress with Hostinger.
Since 2014, the Norwegian government has stipulated a law that deemed inaccessible websites illegal. This means websites that are designed or redesigned after 2014 must follow most of the A and AA criteria in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.
Lotte Johansen, who was working as a developer in marketplace Finn.no at that time, instantly thought about how the company would apply this new policy in their work. She noticed there wasn’t much done regarding web accessibility, so she took matters into her own hands. That was how the accessibility group at Finn was formed and the beginning of Lotte’s journey as an expert in the field.
“Web accessibility is good for everyone. That’s what I like about it,” she explains about what motivates her to delve deeper into web accessibility. The goal is to offer everyone the same experience when accessing a website, regardless of their ability or disability.
Since the advent of the accessibility group, Lotte’s interest in the field has kept growing. She started doing presentations and workshops, first internally at Finn and then externally. Nowadays, she is still working at Finn as the Engineering Manager, and her public speaking role has become her side job.
It only made sense for Lotte to create a website to present the topics she can speak about and to display where she’s been featured in.
Since she’s more of a back-end developer, it became important for her to use a website-building platform that can help her tackle the front-end side quickly and beautifully. And that’s where WordPress stepped in.
Hostinger’s 1-click WordPress installer made her site-building experience fast and easy. That, combined with the well-priced three-year hosting plan and the included domain-based email addresses, solidified her choice to use Hostinger.
And naturally, Lotte’s WordPress site is all about accessibility. She ran her site through several accessibility tests, passing them all with flying colors. That being said, she hopes there can be a way to easily adapt and test accessibility in WordPress in the future.
We’re positive the accessibility features will continue to improve in the future. After all, WordPress is committed to it, even having a dedicated Accessibility Team to ensure the best practices are applied in the platform.
Verônica Naka is an architect from PeruÃbe, a city on the south coast of São Paulo, Brazil. In 2021, with more than 10 years of experience in architecture and interior design, she decided to venture out and found her own company.
She named her new project Nakasa, based on her Japanese last name, Naka, which means “inside”. Also, “casa” means “home” in Portuguese, so it was a great fit for the company.
Nakasa specializes in combining the sophistication of contemporary style with the well-being of its clients’ environment. “As architects, we need to help our client to find their style, what they like, and to translate all their needs into an environment,†Verônica explains.
Now, Verônica’s team consists of 14 people, including architects, civil engineers, interior designers, and administrators.
The team has proved that a small city company like Nakasa can work as hard as a big city business, with equally excellent quality services and effective workflows. There are not many architecture and interior design agencies in PeruÃbe, and the team often has to face clients who don’t yet understand the value of interior design and the service price. Many think of interior design as merely adding pieces of furniture to a space. However, Verônica sees this as both a challenge and an opportunity, since her company is a pioneer in the field.
To expand Nakasa’s audience reach, the team created a website to showcase the agency’s portfolio – something very important for architecture agencies. The website is also used as the point of contact for clients: they can fill out a contact form, allowing the team to learn more about the project and set up a meeting with the client.
Initially, Verônica wanted to put as many pictures on the website as possible, but then she realized she must prioritize the overall user experience. She decided to collaborate with a developer to create Nakasa’s website, and the developer chose WordPress as the platform.
“It’s intuitive and easy to use. Now my team manages most of the website content, like adding photos of our new projects in our business portfolio,” Verônica says. “Now we are focusing on the SEO side, too, with the help of a digital marketing agency.â€
Verônica agrees that her WordPress website really helps her company to grow. This is because, due to the price and complexity, people tend to search for architectural services on search engines, not social media.
She emphasizes further, “Your website stays there as your storefront. It won’t go away after 24 hours. It will appear when your customer searches for your product on Google.”
People generally associate NFT with one-of-a-kind visual digital assets, such as artwork. But the future is here: please welcome literary NFTs.
Phoebe Poon and her colleagues established Liker Land in 2017, pretty early in the blockchain space. The company positioned itself as a decentralized publishing infrastructure. The platform has an NFT bookstore where visitors can collect NFT books and content, and writers can publish their work. There’s also a WordPress plugin called Web3Press that publishes blog posts as NFT content.
The team aspired to bring blockchain technology into publishing after realizing that the Internet is very centralized. When content creators post their work on social media, the content does not actually belong to them – they’re actually controlled by the platform being used. And when the platform is gone, so is their content.
That’s why Phoebe and her team wanted to empower creators to have more ownership over their content and provide another option to monetize it.
They created International Standard Content Number (ISCN), which works like International Standard Book Number (ISBN). It’s a registry protocol for digital content. This identifier contains metadata that includes the author, title, and the place and time of publication. The ISCN is publicly available for anyone to verify or check whether a specific person actually owns that content.
Moreover, Liker Land and WordPress’s missions are basically running in the same vein – Liker Land with the goal of “decentralizing publishing” and WordPress with the plan to “democratize publishingâ€. It’s actually one of the reasons why Phoebe and her team create Web3Press for WordPress users.
The team has also worked with a lot of independent media. These media outlets faced censorship issues, and the team wanted to offer them a tool that could help them create archives for their websites. WordPress enabled the media outlets to do just that, as well as have full freedom with site customization.
Meanwhile, as a WordPress plugin, Web3Press enables users to store their site archives as decentralized storage IPFSs. This makes it harder for a centralized authority to wipe out online content since it is already public on a peer-to-peer network.
In the future, Phoebe wishes to see the option for applying the ISCN system across WordPress’s native site. This way, whenever people open their WordPress site, they already have the option to register their writing on the blockchain. She suggests this will be beneficial for people who want full ownership of their content and retain their right to the freedom of speech.
Web3Press’s website itself is powered by WordPress and hosted on Hostinger. Phoebe loves that you can share the hosting account with other team members without limitations, making her team’s workflow more efficient.
She also loves the stability and ease of setup, maintenance, and troubleshooting. Plus, her Hostinger plan integrates with the necessary SaaS. “I think for the fast-paced tech environment, you just want to have the best user experience so that you don’t need to spend too much time finding your way around,” says Phoebe.
In the words of Matt Mullenweg himself, Michelle Frechette is “the busiest woman in WordPress”. And for a good reason – she’s been making waves all around the WordPress ecosystem for a while.
In addition to her work as the Director of Community Engagement, she’s also the president of the board of a nonprofit organization, an author, a business coach, a frequent organizer and speaker at WordPress events, and a co-host for several podcasts. One of her podcasts, Audacity Marketing, aims to help businesses succeed with bold, community-led marketing strategies.
Michelle hosts Audacity Marketing together with fellow marketing professional Hazel Quimpo. Hazel and Michelle publish a new episode every couple of weeks, discussing how people can make big, bold moves in marketing and how to pivot if things aren’t going well.
“Making a bold move doesn’t always guarantee success,” explains Michelle. “Sometimes we have to have backup plans and determine what we will do if a certain way doesn’t work out. How will we redirect ourselves, our efforts, and our resources into a more profitable direction?”
Besides being a podcast, Audacity Marketing is also a consulting service. People can sign up for a session to pick Michelle and Hazel’s brains or hire them to work on projects like creating a marketing plan or a brand audit.
One of the reasons why Michelle loves WordPress is because it’s so flexible. Whatever theme is being used, there are many possibilities for the look and feel of the finished site. The custom post type feature and content organization by category and tag also enable her to neatly showcase Audacity Marketing’s podcast content and information about the consultation services.
Audacity Marketing’s website is hosted with Hostinger, and Michelle loves how easy it is to start setting up and using WordPress with Hostinger. She doesn’t even remember if she ever had to contact support.
“I don’t think ever we’ve run into any issues. It’s all been very seamless,” Michelle says.
There’s another aspect that Michelle loves about WordPress. “Part of me wants to use WordPress because of the community. I’m myself part of this community because I like how the software works,” she says.
She loves how people in the WordPress community help each other to make the most of the CMS. To commemorate the platform’s 20th birthday, Michelle wishes WordPress continues to grow and improve by ensuring diversity and inclusion in its ecosystem. She would love to see more people from all walks of life represented.
“Every product and every service gets better when we are taking into account all human experiences and not just isolated, homogenized groups. If we’re not seeking to always improve, then we stagnate, right? So we need to make sure that we are a diverse group of people, gender-, ethnicity, and abilities-wise, no matter the shape, size, or age,” Michelle elaborates.
Everyone can chip in – it’s easy to start contributing or simply attending a WordCamp. “It can be scary to be the first person that looks like you in a new space. But to know that it means other people look at that space and see that it’s including you, too – to me, that’s what’s super important,” she says.
After all, WordPress is for everyone – it just takes some courage for new faces to take the first step.
So, after the party hats have been retired and the cake has been cut, what can we expect to see from WordPress in the near future? The major development to look forward to this year will be Phase 3 of the default block editor of WordPress, Gutenberg.
This new phase will address one of WordPress users’ main concerns: collaboration within the editorial workflow. This update will enable asynchronous editorial collaboration à la Google Docs, making it easy to suggest edits and tag other team members inside the editor. These features will definitely streamline workflows, making online collaboration better than ever.
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The post WordPress Turns 20: Empowering People to Success Online appeared first on Hostinger Blog.
WordPress is turning 20 years old, and we can’t help but reminisce on all the years so far. Our favorite CMS has come a long way since its beginning, celebrating its 20th anniversary on May 27, 2023. A content management system (CMS) can help its users create a great website, and WordPress is the one we keep returning to. This blog post offers a brief history of WordPress and describes Yoast’s significant role in the WordPress project and community.
Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little started and announced WordPress on May 27, 2003. In those days, it was a simple blogging platform built on the b2/cafelog software. Its popularity grew due to its user-friendly interface, customizability, and flexibility, letting users easily create custom themes and plugins. This made it a top choice for bloggers, freelancers, and small businesses. This was when competitors like Joomla and Drupal were doing pretty well.
WordPress 1.5 was launched in 2005. In this release, users could change the design of their blogs without needing to know HTML or CSS. Over time, WordPress further grew in versatility. The 2010 release of WordPress 3.0 added custom post types. Users created various content types beyond posts and pages thanks to custom post types. The feature enabled SEO experts to design custom landing pages and product pages. They could also optimize URLs for better search engine visibility. Additionally, WordPress 3.0 allowed site owners to create multiple sites using a single installation with its multi-site feature.
In 2018, the Gutenberg editor debuted with the release of WordPress 5.0. This new editor has improved the user experience by introducing drag-and-drop blocks. Thanks to these blocks, users create visually appealing and engaging content that gets more website traffic and engages visitors. Today, the block editor powers the full site editing feature slowly rolling out in WordPress.
We can partly explain WordPress’s success due to its open-source license, which is core to its development philosophy. The license allows users, designers, and developers to access, modify, and improve WordPress’s source code. As a result, it created a vibrant and inclusive community that propels its growth and accessibility.
Thousands of developers worldwide contribute to WordPress, creating plugins and themes that enhance the platform’s functionality. This approach has made WordPress the preferred platform for businesses of all sizes. It also helped stimulate best practices among its users and developers.
The open-source model has become the foundation of WordPress’s success as a leading content management system. The community working together to create a powerful, easy-to-use, and adaptable platform for everyone has made it one of the most recognizable open-source projects in the world. The philosophy of openness and inclusivity will continue to drive WordPress’s growth and development into the future.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the significant moments in the history of WordPress.
WordPress launched in 2003, marking a pivotal moment in the history of the web. It also started a new era of sites. Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little co-founded it as a fork of the b2/cafelog blogging system. They wanted to offer something more user-friendly and flexible than what was already out there.
Designed to be modular and adaptable, WordPress gained popularity as a CMS for bloggers of all skill levels. Developers were attracted to it to create custom themes and plugins. Its simplicity set it apart. The intuitive interface and basic features made publishing and managing content online easy, even for users lacking technical skills.
Although it had its initial issues, the efforts of Mullenweg and Little paid off. The WordPress community grew, improving the platform’s flexibility and refining updates to fix bugs. Developing plugins and themes further enhanced its capabilities and drove its popularity.
2005 saw the release of WordPress 1.5. This significant update introduced themes, revolutionizing how users could personalize their WordPress sites. Before themes, altering a site’s appearance required creating CSS stylesheets, a time-consuming and elaborate process only feasible for expert users.
Themes introduced an accessible and practical way for WordPress users to modify their sites’ designs without learning HTML or CSS. The update marked a turning point in WordPress’s history, further boosting its popularity and user-friendliness.
The update came with a default theme, Kubrick, by Michael Heilemann. This became the go-to choice for users due to its groundbreaking design and easy customization. Additionally, WordPress 1.5 had a new database structure that offered better performance and scalability. This allowed faster, more efficient handling of more extensive data storage.
With the introduction of static pages, users could create pages beyond the prior limit of posts in chronological order. Now, we see the addition of standard pages like About us, Contact us, and more. Themes empowered non-developers to personalize their sites, making WordPress 1.5 more accessible than ever.
The concept of plugins was introduced in WordPress 1.2. The launch of the WordPress plugin repository in 2005 marked a turning point for the platform. The repository vastly expanded its capabilities and popularity. Before the repository, WordPress users were limited in customization options, relying on built-in functions alone.
The plugin repository changed everything. It enabled developers to create and share their plugins with the WordPress community. This opened up limitless possibilities for expanding and personalizing functionality. The library now offers users a broad range of plugins, from social media integration to eCommerce, to enhance their WordPress sites.
The plugin repository streamlined the installation process. It replaced the considerable effort of downloading files and transferring them through FTP with a single-click installation from the WordPress dashboard.
One plugin that greatly impacted site owners was WordPress SEO, later called Yoast SEO. After all these years, our plugin is still the most important tool for optimizing on-page content and doing SEO. This plugin provides features like content analysis, XML sitemaps, and social integration to enhance visibility and increase website traffic.
The plugin repository also fostered and strengthened the WordPress community by encouraging sharing, communication, and collaboration between enthusiasts. Today, it is a vital cornerstone of the WordPress ecosystem. It has a broad selection of over 60,000 plugins, continuing to enrich WordPress’s capabilities and development community.
The WordPress community is very active online but also loves to come together offline. Instrumental in this was the introduction of WordCamps, which are events that focus on everything related to WordPress. WordCamps are informal conferences that are organized all over the world, by people from the community. And this is still very much happening to this day.
During these events, WordPress enthusiasts come together to meet like-minded people, share ideas and work together on improving WordPress. And one of the reasons for its ongoing popularity is that everyone’s welcome, from developers to casual users. Every contribution is welcome and everyone can contribute!
WordPress 3.0 was a significant moment in the platform’s history. This release featured many new tools that gave users greater website control and flexibility. Custom post types were among the most critical introductions, removing the previous post and page limitations. This made creating product pages, event listings, and the like easier. It reduced the complexity or requirement of hacking the platform.
Multi-site functionality was another significant update, allowing users to create multiple sites with a single WordPress installation. This made site management more accessible and more centralized for owners. Additionally, WordPress 3.0 offered an improved menu system. A more sophisticated site design is now possible, giving users greater control over arranging individual menus. The update enhanced performance and security, providing better caching, response time, and security features.
In 2010, Matt Mullenweg founded the WordPress Foundation, a charitable organization to further WordPress’ mission. Which is to democratize publishing through open source. The goal was (and is) to keep ensuring free access to the software projects that WordPress supports. To create a stable platform for future generations and to make sure the source code doesn’t disappear when the current contributor base changes.
This means that the foundation is responsible for the protection of the WordPress and WordCamp trademark (and related trademarks). But it also focuses on educating the public on WordPress and the importance of open-source software.
The Five for the Future project is an initiative that promotes contributions to the WordPress platform. It encourages organizations to contribute five percent of their resources to WordPress development. Being the open-source project that it is, WordPress benefits from and relies on people all over the world contributing to it. Five for the Future helps make this happen, with participation more than quadrupling since its launch in 2014.
As is often (if not always) the case with WordPress, everyone can contribute. There is always a way to get involved, regardless of your experience level. This gives people the opportunity to learn alongside other, more experienced contributors who enjoy sharing their knowledge. It’s possible to contribute to Five for the Future as an individual or with your organization.
In 2018, WordPress 5.0 brought the revolutionary Gutenberg editor. Gutenberg introduced a block-based system to replace the traditional WYSIWYG editor, improving accessibility and democratizing website creation.
The block editor broke down content creation into blocks, allowing better template design and layout precision, separate from content styling. This enabled customization options like images, heading, and shortcode blocks to easily create complex content like charts, forms, and call-to-actions.
Initially, the rollout met some resistance due to significant change, but people slowly learned to accept it due to its superior user experience and versatility. It has since become a staple feature with the release of custom block-building capabilities. The block editor provides limitless design possibilities and improves website designs.
The platform has undergone further development with the release of reusable blocks, block patterns, and full-site editing, expanding customization options. Reusable blocks allowed the saving of frequently used blocks, while block patterns provided a selection of pre-designed blocks with customization options. Finally, full-site editing allowed users to create site designs using the block editor seamlessly.
The transformative addition of Gutenberg brought unprecedented ease, customization, and adaptability to WordPress, making it an essential tool for website creation and evolution. With its current state and potential for updates, Gutenberg will continue to play a crucial role in WordPress’s future growth and success.
Every new release of WordPress comes with its own release squad. In 2020, the squad for the WordPress 5.6 release only consisted of people who identify as women or nonbinary. This was done to increase the number of women and nonbinary people who have experience on a release squad and also return as a contributor to WordPress. The WordPress 5.6 release, named “Simone”, was the first ever to have an all-women & nonbinary release squad and this was quite a success!
It’s also good to mention that right now, the community is preparing for the next women & nonbinary release squad. So if you’re interested, make sure to sign up!
The main focus of the WordPress project is to build a full-site editing feature. With this, users create sites visually using the block editor. Full site editing debuted in WordPress 5.9. Users could choose visual options such as font combinations and image filters through the adaptive navigation block.
WordPress 6.0 followed and improved the user experience by introducing a block-locking UI and improved export theme functionality. Meanwhile, WordPress 6.1 brought improvements to the full-site editing functionalities. The latest release, WordPress 6.2, introduced a new Site Editor and additional functionality.
While ongoing concerns over stalling adoption rates, the legacy codebase, and UX issues, among others, exist, the WordPress project remains optimistic about the future. Performance has also become a new focus, making WordPress faster, with support from Google. Despite challenges, the WordPress community remains committed to enhancing the platform, cementing its position as a leading CMS.
Yoast and WordPress have a deep-rooted history, and their future is interdependent. Without WordPress, the Yoast SEO plugin and Yoast, the company, may not have existed. Joost de Valk, Yoast’s founder and ex-CEO, created the SEO plugin for WordPress. He actively contributed to the WordPress project and community from early on. Today, Yoast has a team of dedicated WordPress developers who have been prolific contributors to WordPress, closely following Automattic’s contributions.
We do everything we can to improve WordPress. For instance, we formed the WordPress Performance team with a team from Google. The team identified and addressed common performance issues to put performance front and center. The goal is to keep WordPress from falling behind competitors in performance. Making WordPress faster benefits everyone, from website owners to visitors, leading to increased engagement and revenue opportunities.
Of course, Yoast played a critical role in WordPress’ success in the SEO industry. Today, our plugin has over 14 million active downloads. It provides technical improvements, on-page optimization, content analysis, XML sitemaps, social media integration, and much more, simplifying SEO processes and enhancing online visibility. By sponsoring numerous WordCamps and meetups, we demonstrate our commitment to the WordPress community.
WordPress’s open-source platform allows us to create user-friendly products that meet the community’s needs. The dependency on the WordPress project and Yoast continue to shape our futures, evident in our commitment to the ecosystem. Yoast and WordPress are intertwined in history and remain pivotal to each other’s future. Together, we’ll continue to drive innovation, and growth, and develop the community.
WordPress has evolved incredibly since its inception. It’s now a dependable CMS that powers over 43% of the internet. Regular updates and new features continue to make it the best tool for publishing and optimizing content for search engines.
As WordPress celebrates its 20th birthday, we’d like to congratulate everyone who has participated in this success — whether as a contributor, a developer, or a user. At Yoast, we are particularly proud of our contributions to the success of WordPress and its community. WordPress has significantly impacted the internet by simplifying the process of developing, publishing, and promoting online content. We can only hope that the future is just as bright!
Read more: Yoast & WordPress »
The post WordPress at 20: The CMS that revolutionized the web! appeared first on Yoast.
WordPress’ Performance Team has published a summary of a core performance analysis they completed in order to identify and prioritize areas for improvement. As part of this process, contributors created a methodology with a standard set of tools that can be used to collect and share profiling data for various components of the application.
The team tested a classic theme (Twenty Twenty-One) and a block theme (Twenty Twenty-Three) configured with the Theme Unit Test data. They tested out of the box functionality, in addition to different scenarios such as a homepage displaying the latest posts, a basic text-only page, a page with a large set of images and default blocks, and a homepage and a basic page with translation.
These tests uncovered numerous performance issues which the team has documented with related trac tickets and detailed in the summary of the findings. The first priority identified for improvement is template loading for classic themes.
Although WordPress contributors are blazing forward on the project’s roadmap for the block editor, with most of the headline release features focused on site editing, block theme adoption is not where one might expect it to be more than four years after Gutenberg landed in core.
“A majority of websites still use the classic theme architecture, so improvements made here could have the largest horizontal impact,” 10-up sponsored WordPress Core Committer Joe McGill said in the summary.
McGill referenced data collected in April 2023 for the HTTPArchive which uses a query based on a new HTTP Archive custom metric to detect block theme adoption. Based on this information, improving template loading and rendering for classic themes should remain a high priority. Most of the WordPress-powered web is still running on classic themes.
The summary highlights the improvements for template loading that would make the most impact:
In the classic theme tested, the most expensive process is related to locating and rendering template parts. This starts with get_template_part(), includes the process of locating the template part files with locate_template(), and rendering the content for each template part. This whole process accounted for approximately 30–60% of the entire server response in the test results, with much of that time spent handling filesystem checks (e.g., file_exists() is responsible for 4–9% of all time measured and can likely be optimized with a cache), rendering widget blocks, etc. Given many of these filesystem checks aren’t likely to produce different outcomes often between requests, there are likely opportunities to find substantial improvements here.
These improvements are the first of five priorities the Performance Team identified as the result of analysis. The second recommendation is to improve translation loading, as more than 56% of all WordPress websites are using translations.
The other three priorities include improvements for block-powered sites, with the first two ringing up as the most costly operations in terms of performance:
“These efforts will likely require additional research and architectural design before engineering begins,” McGill said. “All other items identified could be worked on directly through individual Trac tickets as capacity allows.”
The Performance Team is considering making the tooling for performance profiling more broadly available so other contributors can extend their work. In the future, they may also consider contacting hosting companies to get them to run analysis on their infrastructure and examine additional use cases, such as PHP versions, Object Caching configuration, and more. Once the methodology used for this analysis is nailed down, future efforts to improve performance may become more frequent and easier to produce.
There are plenty of niche-specific WordPress themes out there. You can easily find themes dedicated to specific topics like education, travel, and more if needed. But what if you want something a little more flexible? That’s where knowing and finding the best multipurpose WordPress themes come in.
You can use multipurpose themes across a vast array of verticals. That means you can invest in one single multipurpose theme and use it over a variety of personal or client projects.
But nowadays, everyone and their mother are calling their themes multipurpose. So how can you separate the wheat from the chaff? Easy – with this list of the best multipurpose WordPress themes.
While choosing what I think are the best multipurpose WordPress themes, I focused on a few critical criteria:
Now that you know what we considered while going through the different themes, let’s dig into the list!
Are you an Elegant Themes member? If so, you’ve already got access to a great multipurpose theme. It’s called Divi, and you might have already heard of it. Divi is flexible enough to create any website you throw at it. You’ll also get neat features like Divi Leads for A/B testing and the Divi Role Editor, which go far beyond what’s baked into most multipurpose themes. With Divi, the possibilities for the type of sites you can build are endless. If you want a one-page website, you can build that. If you want to launch a blog or your online portfolio, Divi can also help you imagine that.
Additionally, we have more than 300 full website layout packs for various sectors and businesses. Non-profits, blue-collar businesses, or even web design agencies can all use Divi to build fully featured websites without using code. Powered by more than 2,000 individual page layouts and counting, no matter what the purpose of your website is, Divi has a place in your web design toolkit.
Other features include:
Pricing: Paid plans start at $89 per year
X Theme is one of the all-time best sellers at ThemeForest, coming in with over 200,000 sales and a 4.8-star rating.
It comes with the Cornerstone page builder and tons of standard and expanded website demos across various verticals, such as churches, restaurants, and spas. No matter the industry you’re in, X Theme has a website demo that you can install, modify and use on your site, without having to learn a line of code.
X Theme also uses the WordPress customizer for easy real-time editing. Additionally, you’ll also get custom shortcodes and various header/menu layouts.
Other features include:
Pricing: $138 per year
Bridge is one of the best multipurpose WordPress themes for those who love using the WP Bakery page builder. Deeply integrated with this builder, you have over 200 elements to build your pages and posts. Bridge has over 600 demos, so you can quickly build a website for any sector.
In addition to its vast library of demos, Bridge also has native plugins to help you enhance your site. It has a music module to connect with popular music platforms like Spotify and Soundcloud. Its native LMS module brings online learning to your website without an additional plugin needed. As a multipurpose WordPress theme, Bridge takes you further than most.
Other features include:
Pricing: $138 per year
Proclaimed as the most downloaded and popular WordPress theme of all time, Astra balances its free and pro feature set very well. Astra has over 200 website templates available for a variety of sectors. Designers, bloggers, small businesses, and others can easily find a free – or premium – Astra website template to begin building their website.
Astra is performance-focused, so your site will perform well for visitors and search engines. You can build custom headers, footers, page templates, and more with its native builder. Alternatively, you can use page builder plugins like Elementor and Beaver Builder to build your website.
Other features include:
Pricing: Free, Paid plans start at $59 per year
With a focus on performance and an excellent working relationship with the Block Editor, GeneratePress is the best multipurpose WordPress theme for those who want to build a supercharged website. While it may not have many fancy modules, it emphasizes accessibility, clean code, and usability. GeneratePress has a site library where you can find several professionally designed starter sites. Whether you’re looking to build a business website, blog, or online store, GeneratePress can help you build all of the above.
Other features include:
Pricing: Free, Paid plans start at $59 per year
Another theme that leans into the Block Editor is Genesis Pro. This multipurpose theme makes it simple to create and use content quickly. Equipped with prebuilt sections, custom page layouts, and more, you can build any website with the Block Editor and Genesis Pro. While it does have a free version, the Genesis framework, Genesis Pro, gives you more power and guidance. It’s an enhancement to WordPress’ Block Editor, allowing you to speed up your design workflow while adhering to clean coding standards. If these aspects of web design are essential to you and your business, Genesis Pro is one of the best multipurpose WordPress themes for you.
Key Features:
Pricing: $360 per year
Hello Elementor is a free multipurpose WordPress theme that works perfectly with the page builder Elementor. If you’re looking to keep costs low for your next WordPress project, you can use Hello Elementor with the free version of the page builder and still build a unique and feature-rich website for your needs. Powered by Elementor, out of the box, you receive more than 100 widgets that you can use on your pages and posts. It is also a lightweight WordPress theme, so you don’t need to worry about page speeds as you build your site. By upgrading, you’ll get access to Elementor’s kit library, which has more than 100 ready-made designs for any business, project, or site you’d like to create.
Other features include:
Pricing: Free, Paid plans start at $59 per year
Themify’s Ultra is a powerful multipurpose theme that makes it easy to customize every aspect of your site. It ships with several “skins” that help you quickly create a website for niches like restaurants, weddings, fitness, lawyers, and more. Ultra comes with preset typography that you can use for your site. Alternatively, you can also choose from over 600 Google Fonts. You can create your own color palette that can then be used globally throughout your site. Regardless of your industry, website requirements, or branding, you can use Ultra to build the site of your dreams easily and efficiently.
Other features include:
Pricing: Free, Paid plans start at $59
With over 880,000 sales, Avada is the #1 selling theme of all time on ThemeForest (among all themes, not just multipurpose themes). It ships with many demos, making it a “Swiss army knife” of WordPress themes. Avada comes with several builders for various site functions. There is the Header and Footer Builder, which is self-explanatory. It also has a native popup and form builder, eliminating the need to add additional plugins to your site. Having these tools integrated into your WordPress theme makes Avada one of the best multipurpose themes available on the ThemeForest marketplace for people who want more control and customization in their WordPress theme.
Other features include:
Pricing: $138 per year
Flatsome is one of the best multipurpose WordPress themes for eCommerce. While many of the themes on our list are integrated with WooCommerce, Flatsome focuses on online selling. Yet, you can build a capable website without a store with this theme. Flatsome is mobile and speed optimized, so your WooCommerce store will perform well for your users and search engines. Flatsomes UX Builder is 100% compatible with the Block Editor. It is a live page builder with an extensive element library. You can build any online store with Flatsome, but you can also build any site with this theme.
Other features include:
Pricing: $118 per year
Trusted by more than 280,000 users, the7 may be the last on our list, but it is certainly a contender as one of the best multipurpose WordPress themes available today. It integrates deeply with Elementor, extending its widget library, theme builder, and WooCommerce editor. This gives you greater control over all aspects of your site. The7 also has an extensive library of demo sites, so you can quickly and efficiently build any site you need. This theme has also created several custom post types like testimonials, portfolios, teams, etc., and has corresponding widgets to showcase them on your site. If you want to amp up the power of the Elementor page builder plugin, The7 is a great theme to use.
Other features include:
Pricing: $78 per year
Here is a brief overview of the rank and price of each theme to help make your decision
| Themes | Price | Free Option | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | Divi | $89/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 🥈 | X | The Theme | $138/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 🥉 | Bridge | $138/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 4 | Astra | $59/year | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| 5 | GeneratePress | $59/year | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| 6 | Genesis Pro | $360/year | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| 7 | Hello Elementor | $59/year | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| 8 | Ultra | $59/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 9 | Avada | $138/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 10 | Flatsome | $118/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 11 | The7 | $78/year | ⌠| Visit |
Without question, our Divi theme gives you tons of flexibility for creating multipurpose designs! And it is a great choice for newbies and professionals alike. For another epic live building experience, you can count on X The Theme to make building your new site easy. Finally, consider Bridge if you’re a fan of WP Bakery and want an extensive library of demo sites to lean on.
We hope you enjoyed the list of the best multipurpose WordPress themes! As mentioned earlier, there are heaps of multipurpose themes out there nowadays, so we hope we helped you filter down the field to only the most popular and best-reviewed.
Article thumbnail image by olesia_g / shutterstock.comÂ
The post 11 Best Multipurpose WordPress Themes in 2023 (Ranked) appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.
Tammie Lister is our guest on the latest Hostinger Academy podcast. As a product creator, open-source designer, and core contributor involved in WordPress releases, we discuss how Gutenberg evolves and empowers its users.
WordPress is almost synonymous with websites. After all, the CMS makes up 45% of websites on the internet, and over 70% of Hostinger clients use it to build their websites. As WordPress keeps evolving and growing its user base, we talked to Tammie Lister to find out how the core contributors are working to improve WordPress and bring more value to its users.
Tammie has been involved with WordPress since the project’s early days. She started using WordPress for blogging after someone introduced it to her as a solution for a customizable CMS, and she never looked back.
After attending WordCamp in Portsmouth, she started contributing to WordPress herself. She described her WordPress contribution journey as a beautiful spiral as she became increasingly involved until she eventually became a full-time core contributor.
Fast-forward to today, Tammie is contributing as a hobby and working between design and development, as she is interested in the product side of things.
In this podcast episode, Hostinger’s Head of Content, Emma Young, sits down with Tammie to discuss how the core contributors are working to improve WordPress to bring more value to its users. Tammie also shared some insights into the future of WordPress and Gutenberg.
Watch the full podcast on the Hostinger Academy YouTube channel.
Experimentation is at the heart of Gutenberg. After all, the tool exists because people with different visions and ideas experimented for five to six years before the project officially began.
Tammie uses the old parable to describe the process:
“The whole process resembled the story of the blind men and the elephant. The men are all trying to describe what an elephant looks like without being able to see one in the flesh. Someone probably got the trunk right, and someone figured out the leg, but they all had to work together to piece out the complete elephantâ€, she explains. That’s what happened with Gutenberg – the project combined input from various contributors together to bring us the final result.
Experimentation will also be an important part of the upcoming Gutenberg development phase. After all, experiments could help develop game-changing features or uncover technical roadblocks that need to be fixed.
Or, as Tammie explains: “Someone could come up with an incredible experiment that completely pivots our plans.†In order to create the best possible tool out there, experiments, together with community input and feedback, have become a staple with Gutenberg and WordPress core updates.
For the project to be successful, it needs to cater to different users – from agencies and product people to multilingual users, and so on. Initially, it was difficult to get feedback on new developments, as the team didn’t organize calls for testing. Organizing in-depth feedback sessions can be time-consuming, but the team agrees that the benefits outweigh the hassle. Now, they are trying to make testing calls a habit.
“So we’ve had testing tables and tried to get different people to participate. Ideally, the people who are developing certain features would also attend to hear what users think first-hand. I did some user interviews in Japan. That was amazing,†Tammie shares her experience in gathering feedback. She agrees that it’s all about getting into the habit of collecting feedback rather than just expecting someone to report an issue or share their two cents with you.
And thanks to that habit, the project now has initiatives focused on user feedback. Full Site Editing (FSE) calls for testing are a prime example of this. People can run a user test at home, do tasks on WordPress, such as building a front page, and send feedback. This feedback is powerful because it can come from anyone, not just the contributors. “You don’t create the next evolution of WP just by listening to the people who are full-time contributorsâ€, Tammie says.
Testing and sending feedback are also great ways to contribute to WordPress. Contribution is often tied to a specific WordPress team, like core or design. But in Tammie’s mind, contributing means you move the project on in some way or another.
Tammie sees Gutenberg as a toolkit that should provide the bare minimum to help you achieve what you want. Ideally, the tool should have all the features for site editing, from beginners to pros and beyond.
Tammie’s main advice for WordPress users is to not go against the Site Editor, as it’s more of a sliding scale. Users don’t have to do everything with it – they can use it just to colorize the text or use theme.json for development. Ultimately, it’s in the user’s hands to choose their own adventures.
Beginners don’t have to learn everything either to get started. Tammie recommends using a default theme and core blocks, and getting to know how they work by using them. There’s also the Create Block Theme plugin that helps you create a child theme. If you feel brave, you could just start editing the theme itself, making it your own. It’s the easiest way to learn how to edit a theme without learning to code.
The Gutenberg and block themes have also grown, with more theme options available in the WordPress repository.
“Look at the themes that are out there and look at people who are building on top of them to start building one yourself,†Tammie says. Browsing for themes can open up more design options for you, and seeing how people build a website based on one can inspire your build, too.
Keeping your website light from the beginning is also important. “Don’t load too many blocks to start off with. Know the core blocks,†Tammie advises. While there are plenty of great block library plugins, it’s highly advisable not to install them before knowing what you can already do with the core blocks. Determine what you need first, and see if the core blocks fit them.
WordPress is celebrating its 20th anniversary on May 27, 2023, and Tammie shared her hopes for WordPress for the next 10-20 years with us.
Ideally, Tammie would have more diverse groups of people involved with WordPress. This way, younger people could also share their views and perspectives on the project. It’s clear that involving a wider range of people is key to developing WordPress further. “I want most of the things I’ve put into WordPress to not exist anymore – because then that means other voices have become part of WordPress,†explains Tammie.
Welcoming more investment in the WordPress ecosystem in the future is also a great way to bring in diversity. This also allows people who need a job or who want to pivot their career to find it in the WordPress community.
Tammie also expects more frequent changes in interfaces. In Tammie’s opinion, we tend to be tied to the interfaces, which can be a problem in terms of usability.
If we stick closely to an iteration of an interface, its extensibility will be limited. One size doesn’t fit all when considering accessibility and usability, especially with both aging and younger users coexisting in the WordPress ecosystem.
Tammie will attend the WordCamp Europe 2023 in Athens, Greece. She’s looking forward to hearing some thoughts from other visitors and will also participate in the Contributor Day. She wants to be involved in many different teams, as more interesting discussions happen when you get multiple teams together and start talking together.
If you’re coming to WordCamp Europe, it’s your chance to talk with Tammie face-to-face. She will also be a part of the WordPress 6.3 Release Squad, so if you have any feedback or ideas for the upcoming updates, you can share them with Tammie.
Hostinger will also be in WordCamp Europe as a Super Admin sponsor. Be sure to visit our booth – we love to talk about all things WordPress and web hosting.
The post Podcast With Tammie Lister: How Gutenberg Evolves and the Future of WordPress appeared first on Hostinger Blog.
The potential value of a creative professional’s portfolio is beyond doubt. For that value to be realized, however, it’s vitally important that your portfolio displays your work beautifully and stands out as an extraordinary project in and of itself. Fortunately, many WordPress themes are available to help you build the perfect portfolio. This article will look at the best portfolio WordPress themes for creative professionals.
Creativity is, of course, highly subjective. In turn, themes that appeal to one set of creative professionals might not appeal to others. This list offers various top-rated themes to cater to a broad spectrum of creative portfolio needs. Some have been included because of their built-in aesthetics, whereas others have made the list due to their high customizability or superior design features.
Although we’ve presented our list below, the examples below are not in any particular order. Our advice is to check out each theme in turn – among them, you may find the perfect one for you.
Bridge is a multipurpose WordPress that works well with Gutenberg, Elementor, and WP Bakery. The theme is one of the best-selling portfolio WordPress themes on the ThemeForest marketplace. Built with the designer in mind, Bridge allows you to build a unique portfolio website on WordPress. From interactive elements to over 600 demos you can import, designing your portfolio with Bridge is the clear choice for those who want a website that stands out.
Key Features:
Pricing: $138 per year
Divi – our popular and versatile theme – has everything you need to display your work in the best possible light. The drag-and-drop Divi Builder is simple and intuitive, enabling you to create beautiful custom portfolio layouts without code.
Divi includes a dedicated Portfolio Module for displaying portfolio items in stunning grid layouts and a Filterable Portfolio Module that allows users to filter portfolio items by category without reloading the page.
You can even use the Portfolio Carousel Module to display items in a carousel slider. If you want to take Divi portfolios to the next level, you can use premium modules like Portfolio Grid, Packery Image Gallery, and Elastic Gallery to add impressive hover effects and fluid grid layouts.
Portfolio items are pulled from Divi’s built-in custom post type called Projects, which is a convenient feature for those wanting to separate their portfolio from their blog posts.
To jump-start the design process, you have access to 2000+ premade layouts from within the Divi Builder, with tons of stunning portfolio layouts that are only a click away. We even have complete layout packs suited to portfolio sites, including Portfolio, Art Gallery, Photography Studio, and many more. If that’s not enough, there are hundreds of premium premade layouts for Divi’s portfolio and carousel modules available with Divi Portfolio Module Pack and Divi Portfolio Carousel Module Layouts.
Key Features:
Pricing: Paid plans start at $89
If you want to build your portfolio website on a budget, consider Hestia. The theme works with the most popular page builders, including Divi, Beaver Builder, Thrive Themes, and more. With a slick material design, you can fully customize your site with WordPress’ Customizer. Hestia has enhanced WooCommerce features, so an upgrade may be needed if you want to sell products on your site. Switching to the pro version of Hestia is a good idea, as it comes with four portfolio-focused starter sites that can help you build your website faster.
Key Features:
Pricing: Free, Paid plans start at $99 per year
PILE is specifically designed to create beautiful portfolio websites. This is one of the best portfolio WordPress themes for the creative who wants true creative control with their website. Its sophisticated, minimalist structure results in a sleek modern design. This simple and intuitive theme is a good option for beginner WordPress users looking to create a visually impactful portfolio.
Key Features:
Pricing: Paid plans start at $225 per year
LENS is a theme dedicated to helping photographers showcase their work in extraordinary ways. The minimal flat design offers a variety of visually appealing options, such as full-screen slideshows and galleries. The fast and smooth animated page transitions for a seamless viewer experience is a central feature that sets this theme apart. Also, it’s one of the best portfolio WordPress themes on our list, with a unique grid homepage layout.
Key Features:
Price: Paid plans start at $75 per year
For SEO and performance-focused creatives, Sydney is the best portfolio WordPress theme. It has lightning-fast loading speeds, which are great for ranking in search engines, helping you find your work. Sydney has five starter sites that can help you quickly get your portfolio online. As a bonus, you have extra WooCommerce customization features, extra slider options, and more when upgrading to the theme’s pro version.
Key Features:
Pricing: Free, Paid plans start at $69 per year
Astra is a well-known free theme that powers over one million WordPress websites online. With both a free and pro version, the power of this portfolio theme shines with the pro version. Build custom headers, footers, blog layouts, and more for your next portfolio website. There are also global design options that make it easy to style and brand your site quickly. Astra is WooCommerce-ready, schema-integrated, and SEO optimized, making it one of our list’s best free portfolio WordPress themes.
Key Features:
Pricing:Â Free, Paid themes start at $59 per year
Kalium is a clean and crisp portfolio theme that offers many options, including over 30 portfolio item types and multiple grid listing choices. It has many other built-in elements, such as Google Maps and pricing tables.
Key Features:
Pricing: $138 per year
Uncode is another flexible theme that comes with a variety of portfolio options. Its clean and modern layout is easy to use and offers near-endless customization. The advanced grid system is beautiful for anyone creating masonry and grid-style sites.
Key Features:
Price: $118 per year
Oshine has been designed to combine a clean, modern design with excellent features. Although this is a multipurpose theme, it is geared toward portfolio layouts. Functionality such as sliders, parallax effects, and overlays can assist you in getting truly creative with your portfolio.
Key Features:
Price: $138 per year
| Themes | Price | Free Version | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | Bridge | $138/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 🥈 | Divi | $89/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 🥉 | Hestia | $99/yea | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| 4 | PILE | $225/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 5 | LENS | $75/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 6 | Sydney | $69/year | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| 7 | Astra | $59/year | âœ”ï¸ | Visit |
| 8 | Kalium | $138/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 9 | Uncode | $118/year | ⌠| Visit |
| 10 | Oshine | $138/year | ⌠| Visit |
These WordPress themes have what it takes to produce a beautiful portfolio website. With Divi, you have the power to build a bespoke portfolio website with the sky as your limit. Bridge allows you to build your portfolio with a selection of page builders and starts you off with many layouts to get your portfolio off the ground. Finally, Hestia packs a clean, modern design into its free version, helping you build a nice portfolio on a budget.
Whether you want to display your beautiful photography or show off your creative coding skills, one of these themes will fit your needs. Which theme will you try for your next portfolio project and why? Let us know in the comments section below!
Article thumbnail image by vasabii / shutterstock.com
The post 11 Best Portfolio WordPress Themes in 2023 (Reviewed) appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.
