Find the most awesome and best WooCommerce themes of 2020!
Whether you like WordPress, Shopify, or any other place to host your website, having an online presence is mandatory in this age. This article will cover the best WooCommerce themes for 2021! Although tastes matter from person to person – this is my personal list which I thought about sharing with everyone.
However, to have a successful online presence, you need to invest in great themes, designs, and settings that would capture the true essence of your business. Because of this, we have made a list featuring the feature-rich and best-looking WooCommerce themes for WordPress.
That WordPress 5.4 “Adderley” has been released on March 31st, 2020 is a piece of great news for every WordPress enthusiast. Most importantly, it is now available to download it from the WordPress.org officially. But what’s new inside the brand new version?
In this article, we will look into the new features and changes that are brought about for WordPress 5.4 “Adderley”. So, let’s move forward and see what the changes are.
The New Features and Changes in WordPress 5.4 “Adderley”
With the release of WordPress 5.0, the Gutenberg editor was attached to the core. After that, numerous Gutenberg block add-ons had been rolled out to the market.
Interestingly, with this very release of WordPress 5.4, a considerable number of Gutenberg plugins have been merged into the core. As a result, it will affect the functionalities, User Interface and the overall editing experience as a whole.
In addition to the block editor’s feature enhancements, the new version has introduced some interesting improvements in the Site Health Tool and the Rest API. Although some of the feature improvement has been postponed until the next release of WordPress version 5.5
So, What’s New in the Block Editor with WordPress 5.4?
A considerable number of the Gutenberg plugin versions have been merged into the core, from 6.6 to 7.5. So, if you aren’t using the Gutenberg plugin, you’ll find tons of new features, enhancements, and bug fixes in the block editor when upgrading to WordPress 5.4.
As I said, you will find a considerable number of new features, enhancements, and bug fixes in the new Gutenberg block editor. Besides this, you are going to get a significant 14% loading time reduction and a 51% time-to-type reduction for a post (~36,000 words, ~1,000 blocks) as an upgrade in WordPress version 5.4
New Block Editor Features and Enhancements
Though WordPress 5.4 has the brand new Gutenberg editor, it is a fact that the editor is still under development. However, here are the quick list of the new block editor’s features and improvements in a flash:
A Welcome Guide Modal
New Social Icons Block
New Buttons Block
New Tiktok Embed block
Fullscreen Mode Enabled by Default
Inline Text Color Support in RichText Blocks
Additional Color Options for Several Blocks
Featured Images in the Latest Posts Block
A New Breadcrumb Bar for Block Navigation
A Welcome Guide Modal
Out of the box, when you update to the WordPress 5.4, you will get a nice welcome guide modal that will help you go through the basic information on the brand new block editor. You will also get a link to the online documentation from the editor.
The Welcome guide slideshow is visible only once immediately after the update. However, you can trigger the same slideshow from the More Tools & Options.
New Social Icons Block
Initially, this feature was released as experimental usage in Gutenberg 6,5 and now it is stable since Gutenberg 7.5. You can swiftly add social profiles by using the new Social Icons Block, formerly known as Social Links. The new version provides a good number of social icon child blocks to use for in your posts or pages.
The Social Icons block can be customized with three predefined visual styles:
Default,
Logos only, and
Pill shape.
Bonus tips on Social Icon blocks:
Since Social Icons had been released in Gutenberg 6.5, they may not work properly in Gutenberg 7.5 in case you are using the old Gutenberg editor. In order to get rid of this issue, you can do the followings according to Jorge Costa:
Manually Update All Contents: First off, update to WordPress 5.4 and then manually load your content in the Gutenberg block editor and save it. This way you can migrate the social icons to the new version.
When updating to WordPress 5.4, keep the Gutenberg Plugin Installed:
Dedicated Tool to Select a Block Easily
While you are working on nested blocks like a group or columns, you may got in trouble in selecting a block easily. Fortunately, the WordPress 5.4 has addresssed this issue with a dedicated select tool you want to change.
The TikTok Embed Block
WordPress 5.4 has been released considering the tiktok superstars. Yes, you heard it right! Fron now we can embed Tiktok videos along with YouTube or Dailymotion videos i any post or pages.
New Buttons Block
This new button block works like a page builder element. This means, unlike adding a single button, you can now add multiple buttons within a same block container. The multiple buttons are completely new features in Gutenberg version 7.2.
You can also customize the buttons with the predefined styles like changing the color properties and changing the border radii as usual:
Drag and Drop to Upload Featured Image
Surely, you are going to love this feature, because it will save your time when you are uploading the featured images without selecting the upload option. The WordPress 5.4 will allow you to simply drag and drop an image to the featured image section from your local storage.
Fullscreen Mode Enabled by Default
Upon upgrading to WordPress version 5.4, the Gutenberg editor will open up in fullscreen mode by default. But you can change the mode anytime from the More Tools & Options:
Inline Text Color Support in RichText Blocks
If you want to change the color of a single word or strings you no longer need to hardcode anymore. Yes, you heard it right! With the release of WordPress 5.4, you can now style your text with the inline text color support with rich text blocks. It will be pretty helpful if you are writing long-form articles.
Starting with WordPress 5.4, we can select words and sub-strings in RichText blocks and quickly change their colors using the built-in color picker.
Additional Color Options for Several Blocks
The new WordPress 5.4 does not limit the color options to the features and enhancements. What that means is that you will now be able to use gradient backgrounds along with a list of predefined gradient styles.
Here are a few new features and enhancements to look at:
If you are using Group blocks, you will get the text color support for it (Gutenberg 7.4 and 7.5). In addition, nested blocks will inherit the text color from their respective parent group block.
Text and background color support for Columns block (Gutenberg 7.4 and 7.5).
Featured Images option in the Latest Posts Block
From now on, with the advent of Gutenberg 7.5, you can effortlessly add featured images in the Latest Post Block.
This option makes the Latest Posts Block more advanced and dynamic making them global blocks.
Please note that you can pull post from a specific category but you can not build more advanced queries according to tag/category/post type and or include / exclude single posts.
We hope to see further enhancements with this block in the future.
Caption Below Table
From now on, you can not only add tables but also can add caption from underneath the table block:
Fixed Block Toolbar on Mobile
Great news for editing posts or pages on the go! It means you can now edit in a more convenient way from your smartphone. Previously, the toolbar was floating around the block you edited. But now WordPress 5.4 has fixed this bug by adding a floating toolbar.
A New Breadcrumb Bar for Block Navigation
Available to Gutenberg users since version 6.7, and now merged into the Core, the new breadcrumb bar aims to simplify nested block navigation.
Although the Breadcrumb Bar was available since the Gutenberg version 6.7, it is now merged into the core. The purpose of the Breadcrumb bar is to simplify the nested block navigation.
Here is a breadcrumb bar at the end of the image marked by red rectangle:
Wait, That’s Not the End!
Here are a number of additional changes to make note of:
Easier image sizing in the Gallery block.
Drag-and-drop images into the featured-image box.
Several new APIs.
Friendlier offline error messages on REST API request failures.
You can now color just parts of the text in any RichText block.
For Theme and Block Developers
With the release of the WordPress version 5.4 a significant changes are made to the core that the theme and block developers must know. Here are the changes that are brought about:
Block Editor Keyboard Shortcuts
Gradient Theme APIs
Markup and Style Changes on the Block Editor
Block Scaffolding
Block Collections
Block Variations
For Developers
5.4 also contains a bunch of developer focused changes.
Updated Calendar Widget
According to the HTML 5.1 a <tfoot> tag must follow <tbody> tag. It was not followed before the WordPress 5.4. Which means with the version 5.4, in order to produce valid HTML, the navigation links are moved to a <nav> HTML element immediately afte the <table> element.
apply_shortcodes() as an alias for do_shortcode()
Don’t worry! The do_shortcode() has not been deprecated. But to deliver better semantics the apply_shortcodes() function will be utilized in leau of the do_shortcode() function.
Better favicon handling
Administrators can now get more flexibility in that they can get a favicon in the Customizer by uploading a /favicon.icon file. And as usual, to use in the emergency time you will always get the WordPress logo as a fallback.
Other changes for developers
Here are the other changes according to the WordPress.org:
Clearer information about errors in wp_login_failed.
Site ID has been added to the newblog_notify_siteadmin filter for multisite installs.
Support has been added for the required WordPress and PHP version headers in themes.
Embed support has been added for TikTok.
Wrapping up
This is a quick glimpse of the new WordPress 5.4. We tried to shed light on the most important aspects here. We hope that this article will help you get a quick grasp of the newly released version WordPress 5.4.
Not to mention, though the classic editor has reigned for decades, the Gutenberg editor has going to be more advanced and user-friendly with its more and more new features and enhancements. So, we think it’s time to ditch the outdated classic editor for every WordPress user.
If you do know anything else about WordPress 5.4, please let us know in the comment section below. We will update the content as soon as possible.
If you are looking for an easy way to send a newsletter and that too from your WordPress dashboard, then you have to rely on an email newsletter plugin.
Today, more than 34% people use email. That’s about 2.5 billion people.
Therefore in 2021, there is no denying the fact that email marketing is more important and effective than ever. It is a personal way to reach your targeted customers. It is more effective than social media, it’s economic and cost-effective, customizable, measurable, action-oriented, and more.
However, without an efficient email marketing solution, these are not possible. So, if you are still confused about whether or not to choose an email marketing solution, today we are going to do an in-depth MailPoet review, a popular email newsletter plugin for WordPress.
We are going to cover all the features, pros and cons, compare it with another popular email newsletter plugin so that you have all the right idea whether to choose an email marketing solution and that too MailPoet.
Role of An Email Newsletter Plugin & Features You Should Look For into It
Before jumping onto the MailPoet review, we will first talk about the role of an email newsletter plugin plays, along with what features you should look for before choosing a newsletter plugin.
Basically the main role of an email newsletter plugin is to help you collect email addresses from website visitors. You can create attractive sign-up forms that connect directly to your email marketing service. Also, this plugin helps you create email marketing campaigns through your WordPress site.
Now, there are many email marketing plugins out there. So, before choosing any of them you have to know what features these plugins should have in order to get the best service.
Any email marketing plugin should have,
Drag n Drop editor
Form customization
Attractive built-in email templates
Segmentation
Managing subscriber’s list
Detailed Reports and Analysis
Reliability
Integrations.
So, when you are choosing an email newsletter plugin, make sure your solution has all these features.
Basic Features & Functionalities of MailPoet
Now, let’s discuss the basic functionalities and features of MailPoet in this part of the MailPoet review article.
This email newsletter plugin lets you create and send an email newsletter right from your WordPress dashboard. The process is very simple and straightforward. As you are already using WordPress so you are already familiar with the interface. That’s not all, it has other features. Like,
Beautiful Email Templates
With MailPoet you can create professional-looking emails in minutes. All you have to do is select the email type, choose the right template, customize to your liking, and send. That’s it.
MailPoet is fully customizable, so you can add your colors, backgrounds, and add your logo. And if you don’t want to use the template, you can create an email from scratch.
Built-in Signup Form Builder
The technique that most email marketers use to collect subscribers is signup forms. They put attractive yet simple signup forms to encourage customers to signup to their email newsletter.
MailPoet gives you the opportunity to create signup forms and you can put them anywhere in the website. Although, the forms might not be as complex like other form builders. But they are simple yet effective.
You can easily use CSS to customize the forms if you have design skills.
Subscriber List Segmentation
List segmentation is a crucial part of email marketing. You can categorize your subscribers into different groups based on their interests and behaviors. Then send them personalized emails.
With MailPoet, segmentation is easy. You can easily track the subscribed, unsubscribed, and bounced subscribers. You can also import and export subscribers in both CSV and Excel formats to make moving from your current email outreach provider a breeze.
Google Analytics Integration
We all know about the importance of Google Analytics to track the performance of a website. MailPoet uses this feature to help you gain deep insights into your subscribers so you can leverage data to get better results with every email.
You can view your analytics by going to the ‘Emails’ section of MailPoet.
You can analyze your email campaigns’ performance and learn more about your subscribers.
You can track opens, clicks, and unsubscribers. You will also get an idea of how your newsletter is performing. That way you can rectify your mistakes and optimize them for better engagement.
WooCommerce Integration
MailPoet directly works with WooCommerce. You can do things like segmentation, automation, abandoned cart notifications. You can also check click rates, along with which customers opened your email, and even track invoices.
The best feature, however, is having all this built-in to WordPress. You don’t have to go back and forth between apps and worry about missing something because everything is under one dashboard.
These are the main features of MailPoet. However, it also has some basic features as well,
Simple database import from spreadsheet or direct from MailChimp
Database export as a CSV file or Excel file
Easy-to-manage subscriber database
Ability to manage multiple lists on one site
Template import
Drag-and-drop editor.
Advantages of Using MailPoet WordPress Plugin (Pros)
If you are looking for an easy way to manage email newsletters and basic email outreach, then you can benefit from using MailPoet. That’s why it’s such a popular and highly-rated plugin.
However, if you still want to know why you should choose MailPoet over other email marketing solutions, here are some advantages of using this plugin.
You can easily manage email marketing campaigns from start to finish, including analytics, within your WordPress dashboard
High-quality design tools for signup forms and emails
Pop-up and slide-in functionality for signup forms
There is no software without glitch or issues in the world. MailPoet is no different. It has also some issues that you may face while using. These issues may put off many email marketers from using MailPoet. Here are the issues,
MailPoet lacks advance functionality
Forms are very basic
No split testing
Only does basic automation
UI could use an update
Limited scheduling functionality.
How Does MailPoet Actually Perform?
It’s one thing to know about a plugin’s features, advantages, and disadvantages. But it’s whole another thing to know how the plugin will affect the site. That’s why it is important to know the technical features of a plugin.
Otherwise, you will end up choosing a plugin that will lower the performance of your site. Although it has great features. Luckily, WP Hive does the trick.
WP Hive has multiple parts. One of them is a very powerful crawler. The crawler crawls all the plugin from WordPress.org, blindly activates it, and logs many crucial data such as page speed, memory usage, JavaScript issues, activations issues and more.
So, we are going to put MailPoet through WP Hive and see how it actually performs.
Initial Test
Now, if we see the initial results, you can see the plugin passes all the tests with flying colors. There is no PHP errors or JavaScript issues.
Memory Usage & Page Speed
If we see the use of memory for MailPoet, it is relatively high. It stands at 3430.56KB. That is more than almost 99% of the plugins. However, the page speed is much faster than 99% of the plugins.
Download & Other Stats
You can also view all the stats for MailPoet from the beginning of it’s release almost 4 years ago.
MailPoet Vs MailChimp: Head To Head Comparison
Mailchimp is one of the earliest email marketing solutions. So, you can easily understand the depth of its popularity. Mailchimp offers a lot of useful email marketing features, such as segmentation, social media integration, and eCommerce features (such as an abandoned cart, product recommendation, and order notification emails).
However, MailPoet holds it’s own for it’s unique features as well. That is why people have been calling it an alternative to Mailchimp in some level. But is it true?
Why don’t you see the below comparison and decide for yourself.
Comparison
Mailchimp
MailPoet
Learning Curve
You have to go through a whole lot of configuration while setting up Mailchimp for the first time. For beginners it is a daunting task.
MailPoet installation is as simple as installing a WordPress plugin. You just need to decide on your email delivery partner.
Analytics
Mailchimp analytics provides insight like receives email, Open rate and bounce rate of your email campaign
MailPoet provides you only insights like open rate and click rate in its free plan. For a detailed analytic feature, you will have to pay for the analytic plugin.
Post Notification Emails
Mailchimp sends post notification emails by splitting the RSS feed of your WordPress site. However, there is an option available in which you can send only the post summary instead of the whole content.
MailPoet allows fetching the post information directly from the database of the WordPress. Which ultimately offers a myriad of customization options in its Automatic latest content module.
WooCommerce
Mailchimp allows a user to integrate WooCommerce through their plug-in. However the reviews of that plugin are sub-par, so there is an issue of reliability on that WooCommerce plug-in.
MailPoet have created Woo-commerce features to add in the MailPoet which facilitates online store owners to ease their email marketing.
A/B Testing
You can experiment with subject line design and link placement.
There is no provision for A/B testing in MailPoet.
Pricing
Mailchimp is free up to 2000 subscribers and 12,000 mail per month. But you will have to pay for selecting a plan other than the free plan.
MailPoet offers unlimited emails a month to 1000 subscribers.
Mailchimp has more advanced analytics and eCommerce based features in compare to MailPoet. What Mailchimp offers in its free plan, MailPoet offers in its premium plans. However, if you are looking for value for money then MailPoet is the right choice.
Mailchimp has inflexible pricing plans. MailPoet’s free plan supports sending more than 12,000 emails per month (which is Mailchimp’s limit). However, Mailchimp offers more pre-built templates and a more rewarding design interface.
So, we can say MailPoet can be a serious alternative to Mailchimp if you care about email deliverability. But if you had to pick one, then it’s up to you and your requirements. You need to keep in mind the budget as well.
Final Words
Thus we end our MailPoet review. We have tried to cover all the essential details and hopefully give you the necessary information regarding the MailPoet plugin.
So, if you are looking to start using a new email newsletter plugin, we hope this MailPoet review article will help you make the right choice.
WordPress vs Wix – Which one is better for your first website?
“Why do I need a website” – You can ask yourself million times and come up with more than one valid answers. Whatever your goals are, chances are, you will choose some easy website creating tools such as WordPress or Wix. You need to know the basic differences and advantages of WordPress vs Wix to make an informed decision. Both of them serves one purpose – offering you the tools and support you need to create a basic website. Without further ado, let’s compare WordPress vs Wix in 2021.
Note: This article will compare WordPress, the self-hosted blogging software [not WordPress.com] and Wix.com.
WordPress vs Squarespace – Which one is better? [2019]. Pros and cons!
WordPress vs Squarespace has long been a debatable topic in both WordPress and Squarespace community. There maybe some things that Squarespace does better than WordPress, however here are 7 reasons where WordPress crushes Squarespace.
Secure your WordPress website against scripts injections, hacking attempts, and other vulnerabilities. The ultimate WordPress Security Guide [2019]
Looking for WordPress security tips and the ultimate WordPress Security Guide? Keep reading.
Why Do I Need to Worry About WordPress Security?
WordPress Security is one of the major concerns for everyone right now. Each year thousands of WordPress built websites get hacked, lose data, lose access to the website.
Let’s face it. There is no 100% secured system in the world. That is why you need a WordPress Security Guide!
There will always be some risks in your system. However, you must take preventive actions, mitigate risks to make sure your website is not vulnerable to attacks.
A handpicked list of some of the best WordPress themes for bloggers that focus on content more.
Looking for the best WordPress themes for bloggers? Well, you have come to the correct place!
You may wonder why you need to look for the best WordPress themes for bloggers. Well, themes play a vital role to make your blogging experience neat and clean. The audience loves a fresh, colorful, modern, and aesthetically pleasing website. The theme you are using in your WordPress site controls your contents and actuates the look of your site. Before going further into themes let us have an overview of WordPress and why would you need the best WordPress theme for bloggers.
The ultimate handpicked list of the best WordPress plugins in 2019
We are covering some of the best free (and paid in some cases) WordPress plugins. WordPress has the highest market share among CMSs around the globe. It would not have been possible without the help of plugins.
WordPress has been beating competitors like Wix and Squarespace for the last several years. WordPress is equally loved by both developers and users alike.
The growth rate of WordPress is phenomenal in the last few years. It has also become hard to secure WordPress without a proper WordPress Security Guide as hackers are always targeting WordPress.
Best WordPress Blogs you can follow to keep yourself always up to date regarding WordPress.
Learning is a lifetime journey. We can’t just stop learning at any level of our life. When we talk about technology today, it’s a must to keep learning. In the same way, you should follow the best WordPress blogs to keep yourself updated.
Either you are making Blogs or business websites WordPress is the best platform to build your website with. Big brands around the world today also rely on WordPress for their online presence.
Best Contact Form Plugins compared [2019]. Which one is better?
Contact Form plugins are essential. Whether if you want to use it for just a simple contact form, or you want to collect responses to use them later – Contact Form plugins are always crucial for everyone. In 2019, the relevancy of contact form plugin have increased only.
If you have already made your website, created categories, and pages, and want to have the best contact form plugin to let your audience contact with you, you have come to the right place.
Customers can send a quick email from frontend without spending too much time using a well-built contact form. As a site owner, you will instantly get the email at your destination email and will also be able to reply to them. This allows you to expand the way you interact with your customers.
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